5 ms·

It should be illegal for government agencies to do this. Perhaps, though, this will increase people's awareness that these terms and conditions are typically e

It should be illegal for government agencies to do this. Perhaps, though, this will increase people's awareness that these terms and conditions are typically extremely permissive, and that permissiveness is a real risk to them. Especially now.

java-man 2y ago
All these years (decades?) we've been warning about the dangers of wholesale surveillance, collecting and never erasing tracking, metadata, anything the government of private sector can get the hands on. The end result? The population have spoken. They don't care. It might be too late already, or maybe we have another few years left, I don't know. Everyone aware of the XX century history, I think, sees the rise of the fa^H^H danger as inevitability. It happened after the WWI, it happened after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the result is the same. We have interesting times ahead of us. This time it will be backed by a fully functional surveillance apparatus capable of finding everything about a _suspicious_ citizens in seconds. We've been warned and we failed to act.
- fsflover 2y ago
  > The population have spoken. They don't care. What are the options? Protesting? Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348
  - nunobrito 2y ago
    Protest is good, supporting alternatives is better. Two weeks ago we hosted in Coimbra the first portuguese event dedicated to NOSTR, only 15 people showed up but they travelled north/south of the country to be there. More people or less people it does not matter, we will raise attention that exist options for using the networks without this constant tracking. You can also do something too.
    - fsflover 2y ago
      How about regulations? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23090393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23090393
      - nunobrito 2y ago
        If you dive deeper into EU regulations you will soon find they have near-zero interest in user privacy. They are forced by voters to put a show, the practical result is what you see. We shouldn't wait for a government to apply technological measures for our privacy, we should instead be an active part in making sure they exist and become popular.
        fsflover 2y ago
        > If you dive deeper into EU regulations you will soon find they have near-zero interest in user privacy. I dived into it and didn't see what you suggested. Even Google added "reject all cookies" in EU recently. > we should instead be an active part in making sure they exist and become popular. Why not both? Sent from my Librem 5.
        nunobrito 2y ago
        > I dived into it and didn't see what you suggested. Even Google added "reject all cookies" in EU recently. Was a silly measure that is Too litle, too slow and too late. A proper measure could have been to request web browsers to define preferred user settings and to use that instead. Cookies are stored/retrieved from web browsers. > Why not both? Sure, go ahead. Maybe some day, something changes.
  - jmclnx 2y ago
    Options ? Do not use Smart Phones, maybe a Burner Phone would be ok
    - ranger_danger 2y ago
      you don't need a smart phone to have your location tracked
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    Using a web browser with location disabled instead of smartphone apps.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
      Most websites add incredible friction if you do not use the app. I am willing to bear it, but I can understand why many do not.
      - prmoustache 2y ago
        which brings us back to point 1: people don't care or much less than practicality.
        fsflover 2y ago
        This is not true. People just don't know what to do about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
It should be illegal for companies to do this to us. Our only option is to not use cell service? Bah. Further enhances my feel that internet connectivity should be a utility, not a for profit service at all.
- gruez 2y ago
  >It should be illegal for companies to do this to us. Our only option is to not use cell service? Bah. That's not what the article describes, though: "Locate X which uses location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on phones"
teeray 2y ago
> these terms and conditions are typically extremely permissive T&C are dark, twisty forests of legalese that can shift, seemingly at any time. As a consumer, if you want to do something as simple as pay to park your car, you need to sign the T&C in blood or you get towed. Is it really an agreement if you must agree to it for basic necessities?
- JohnFen 2y ago
  Yes, I totally agree. The T&C situation is dire and need to be addressed. For instance, the idea that you engaged in anything remotely like "consent" because of vague generalities in T&C documents is laughable on its face. That said, it's the legal framework we have to deal with in the now.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    How do you propose to address it such that end result is a net positive, instead of net negative?
    - jerf 2y ago
      Common law nominally already has some principles built into it that can answer that in a reasonable way. Contracts that are super lopsided are already nominally invalid. Contracts that are incomprehensible and signed under duress are already nominally invalid. As you may guess from my phrasing, I am well aware that in the present environment, believing that that meant much would be a childish level of naivety. But the principles can still be used to answer your questions in a reasonable way. It really wouldn't be that hard to lay down some principles that privacy violations are an expense above and beyond, say, "parking my car". It is unreasonable for a person to think that the price of parking my car is $1.25 an hour and also arbitrary privacy violations and also you gave up your right to privacy from the government and also in six years if you sue a related entity they'll cite your parking agreement as the reason why you're not allowed to sue them (see recent Disney wrongful death case). $1.25/hour was already a fair price, give or take a couple of multiplicative factors. Taking a whole whackload of additional rights in the fine print under what can reasonably be called duress relative to the claims being made, beyond what a "reasonable person" would expect to be necessary to just complete the basic transaction, is not that hard to write some principles around. This is why judges are still human.
jmclnx 2y ago
True, but as people here know, Cell Phones are now nothing by Spy Devices. Any cell company can get your data and pass it on to anyone they chose or who pays enough.
- mrandish 2y ago
  Indeed. The crazy thing is that so many people still don't understand this. For the last few years I leave my phone's GPS perma-off unless I'm actively navigating. Of course, I also have my location permissions for apps defaulted off and locked down (except for the two apps I grant conditional access to). I realize that cell tower tracking exists and is used by my mobile provider instead but at least it's a little less accurate. As a side benefit, my battery life is much better. I've also adopted the healthy lifestyle choice of not using any social media apps on my mobile device (which is surprisingly wonderful once you make the leap). I mostly just use my phone to make and receive calls and texts (and as a remote for my home automation).
  - sgc 2y ago
    What assurances do you have that your "perma-off" setting is even minimally respected? Unless you have a physical disconnect for the chip, I would presume it is still gathering data and that data is being shipped out. There are just fewer companies that can do it.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >What assurances do you have that your "perma-off" setting is even minimally respected? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot >Unless you have a physical disconnect for the chip, I would presume it is still gathering data and that data is being shipped out. There are just fewer companies that can do it. If your paranoia level is this high, what makes you think they won't put a backup GPS receiver in the SoC or modem? They're perfect places for it, because they have tons of traces connected to them that you could piggy back off one to use as a rudimentary antenna.
Molitor5901 2y ago
Local government agencies do this all the time. They bypass warrants by just buying the data through brokers.
amluto 2y ago
> It should be illegal for government agencies to do this. I don’t understand why the law should specifically limit the government like that. I think it should be illegal for anyone to do this.
ryandvm 2y ago
Open Source software should fight back with license agreements that include poison pills for companies that distribute products that have nefarious terms in their license agreements. Most of these companies wouldn't get very far if they had to build their own products from soup to nuts.

java-man 2y ago

All these years (decades?) we've been warning about the dangers of wholesale surveillance, collecting and never erasing tracking, metadata, anything the government of private sector can get the hands on. The end result? The population have spoken. They don't care. It might be too late already, or maybe we have another few years left, I don't know. Everyone aware of the XX century history, I think, sees the rise of the fa^H^H danger as inevitability. It happened after the WWI, it happened after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the result is the same. We have interesting times ahead of us. This time it will be backed by a fully functional surveillance apparatus capable of finding everything about a _suspicious_ citizens in seconds. We've been warned and we failed to act.

fsflover 2y ago
> The population have spoken. They don't care. What are the options? Protesting? Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348
- nunobrito 2y ago
  Protest is good, supporting alternatives is better. Two weeks ago we hosted in Coimbra the first portuguese event dedicated to NOSTR, only 15 people showed up but they travelled north/south of the country to be there. More people or less people it does not matter, we will raise attention that exist options for using the networks without this constant tracking. You can also do something too.
  - fsflover 2y ago
    How about regulations? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23090393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23090393
    - nunobrito 2y ago
      If you dive deeper into EU regulations you will soon find they have near-zero interest in user privacy. They are forced by voters to put a show, the practical result is what you see. We shouldn't wait for a government to apply technological measures for our privacy, we should instead be an active part in making sure they exist and become popular.
      - fsflover 2y ago
        > If you dive deeper into EU regulations you will soon find they have near-zero interest in user privacy. I dived into it and didn't see what you suggested. Even Google added "reject all cookies" in EU recently. > we should instead be an active part in making sure they exist and become popular. Why not both? Sent from my Librem 5.
        nunobrito 2y ago
        > I dived into it and didn't see what you suggested. Even Google added "reject all cookies" in EU recently. Was a silly measure that is Too litle, too slow and too late. A proper measure could have been to request web browsers to define preferred user settings and to use that instead. Cookies are stored/retrieved from web browsers. > Why not both? Sure, go ahead. Maybe some day, something changes.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  Options ? Do not use Smart Phones, maybe a Burner Phone would be ok
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    you don't need a smart phone to have your location tracked
- prmoustache 2y ago
  Using a web browser with location disabled instead of smartphone apps.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    Most websites add incredible friction if you do not use the app. I am willing to bear it, but I can understand why many do not.
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      which brings us back to point 1: people don't care or much less than practicality.
      - fsflover 2y ago
        This is not true. People just don't know what to do about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

It should be illegal for companies to do this to us. Our only option is to not use cell service? Bah. Further enhances my feel that internet connectivity should be a utility, not a for profit service at all.

gruez 2y ago
>It should be illegal for companies to do this to us. Our only option is to not use cell service? Bah. That's not what the article describes, though: "Locate X which uses location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on phones"

teeray 2y ago

> these terms and conditions are typically extremely permissive T&C are dark, twisty forests of legalese that can shift, seemingly at any time. As a consumer, if you want to do something as simple as pay to park your car, you need to sign the T&C in blood or you get towed. Is it really an agreement if you must agree to it for basic necessities?

JohnFen 2y ago
Yes, I totally agree. The T&C situation is dire and need to be addressed. For instance, the idea that you engaged in anything remotely like "consent" because of vague generalities in T&C documents is laughable on its face. That said, it's the legal framework we have to deal with in the now.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  How do you propose to address it such that end result is a net positive, instead of net negative?
  - jerf 2y ago
    Common law nominally already has some principles built into it that can answer that in a reasonable way. Contracts that are super lopsided are already nominally invalid. Contracts that are incomprehensible and signed under duress are already nominally invalid. As you may guess from my phrasing, I am well aware that in the present environment, believing that that meant much would be a childish level of naivety. But the principles can still be used to answer your questions in a reasonable way. It really wouldn't be that hard to lay down some principles that privacy violations are an expense above and beyond, say, "parking my car". It is unreasonable for a person to think that the price of parking my car is $1.25 an hour and also arbitrary privacy violations and also you gave up your right to privacy from the government and also in six years if you sue a related entity they'll cite your parking agreement as the reason why you're not allowed to sue them (see recent Disney wrongful death case). $1.25/hour was already a fair price, give or take a couple of multiplicative factors. Taking a whole whackload of additional rights in the fine print under what can reasonably be called duress relative to the claims being made, beyond what a "reasonable person" would expect to be necessary to just complete the basic transaction, is not that hard to write some principles around. This is why judges are still human.

jmclnx 2y ago

True, but as people here know, Cell Phones are now nothing by Spy Devices. Any cell company can get your data and pass it on to anyone they chose or who pays enough.

mrandish 2y ago
Indeed. The crazy thing is that so many people still don't understand this. For the last few years I leave my phone's GPS perma-off unless I'm actively navigating. Of course, I also have my location permissions for apps defaulted off and locked down (except for the two apps I grant conditional access to). I realize that cell tower tracking exists and is used by my mobile provider instead but at least it's a little less accurate. As a side benefit, my battery life is much better. I've also adopted the healthy lifestyle choice of not using any social media apps on my mobile device (which is surprisingly wonderful once you make the leap). I mostly just use my phone to make and receive calls and texts (and as a remote for my home automation).
- sgc 2y ago
  What assurances do you have that your "perma-off" setting is even minimally respected? Unless you have a physical disconnect for the chip, I would presume it is still gathering data and that data is being shipped out. There are just fewer companies that can do it.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >What assurances do you have that your "perma-off" setting is even minimally respected? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot >Unless you have a physical disconnect for the chip, I would presume it is still gathering data and that data is being shipped out. There are just fewer companies that can do it. If your paranoia level is this high, what makes you think they won't put a backup GPS receiver in the SoC or modem? They're perfect places for it, because they have tons of traces connected to them that you could piggy back off one to use as a rudimentary antenna.

Molitor5901 2y ago

Local government agencies do this all the time. They bypass warrants by just buying the data through brokers.

amluto 2y ago

> It should be illegal for government agencies to do this. I don’t understand why the law should specifically limit the government like that. I think it should be illegal for anyone to do this.

ryandvm 2y ago

Open Source software should fight back with license agreements that include poison pills for companies that distribute products that have nefarious terms in their license agreements. Most of these companies wouldn't get very far if they had to build their own products from soup to nuts.