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If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

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Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#91

Post by DavideNL »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #63
ac29 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the most important to me. On Android, this is only the second app that is likely to have a large userbase and e2e encryption for chats. The fact that its opt-in is a non issue to me. Didn't know WhatsApp had default e2e encryption. Might install it and check it out. I imagine it sends some sort of personal information back to the facebook mothership, though.

WhatsApp doesn't just have e2e encryption by default; they actually hired (or just contracted?) Moxie to implement the signal protocol: Over the past year, we've been progressively rolling out Signal Protocol support for all WhatsApp communication across all WhatsApp clients. This includes chats, group chats, attachments, voice notes, and voice calls across Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Nokia S40, Nokia S60, Blackb…

e2e encryption, meaning all data is "safe while transferred".

The client (Whatsapp) can obviously read the data on both sides - and perhaps sent it to Whatsapp servers with e2e as well, so the data is transferred safely to Whatsapp/Facebook, without other eavesdroppers being able to see it :-)

My point is, if you don't trust the company that created it, it doesn't matter what technology is uses.

So who trusts Whatsapp/Facebook with their private data...?

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#92

Post by jdmichal »

webkike wrote: post #41
eevilspock wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People, he's being facetious. But also specious.

There's nothing here to indicate that; not retroactive commentary at the end, nothing. If (s)he's trying to make a joke to make a point, (s)he's doing neither.

I'd hate to have seen your high school essays on Swift's A Modest Proposal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#93

Post by billiam »

oceanswave wrote: post #17

I pay cash for all my transactions. I don't own a car because I fear that the registration systems for licensing and taxes will gather information about me and we know that those government data systems are most vulnerable to attack. When I travel, it's by bus only - requiring a form of identification at the airport is a front to government spying. Unfortunately, the bus systems are starting to require too much infor…

I'm sorry, but the obvious sarcasm expressed here is all too common among the slightly younger engineers and related tech company people I work with. They believe that trading traditional notions of privacy for the shiny, novel conveniences of Uber and Google Now is totally worth it, and they see no downside. There are a lot of reasons, I think. The biggest is that for most, there really isn't a downside, yet. How many people are now identifiably being turned down for jobs, apartments, dates, and airplane tickets based what the four or five companies that define our identities online record, store, calculate, and sell? But does anyone doubt that the private civic space in the real world is being slowly paved over by digital identity robber barons? All these friends of mine care about is getting into Google IO to help that company build Larry's libertarian island (look it up), without wondering why they might have been turned down for a ticket.

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#94

Post by yellow_postit »

drdaeman wrote: post #35
maxerickson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the data. If you are in New York and chat "Where should we eat?", the phone has to either have a massive amount of data on hand or request some data to make local suggestions. Then you have to balance how current the data is and storage and so on against the elaborate privacy protection. Google knowing that some person is near some intersection probably isn't much different than Google knowing some person is in…

Well, analyzing locally and sending a query to Google Maps/OSM/whatever that basically says "food + New York" is one thing. For extra privacy, there can be even a nice opt-in that actually works with AI breaking into conversation with a "Hey, want me to suggest a good restaurant? Just tap here and I will look up some!" I just wonder if today phones are powerful enough to process texts locally and not disclose the raw…

It is likely less an issue of processing locally but a need to build a collection of data to train future versions of the service. To do that you need to see how users are trying to use the "bot", what it doesn't handle well, etc. That lets them improve the models doing the NLP.

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#95

Post by nacs »

PaulHoule wrote: post #81

I am not so worried about it. I think Google Allo will get about as many users as Google Plus.

I think you're underestimating the amount of "integration" Google will do with this product to make it the default everywhere.

Google Plus started being integrated into the search results, Picasa, Youtube comments, Android app reviews, and every other place they could think of, basically making it the default Google authentication.

They eventually de-integrated Plus after tons of user complaints (and possibly seeing how horrible the product itself was).

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#96

Post by vthallam »

visarga wrote: post #87
fixermark wrote: post #52

"Let that sink in for a moment: The selling point of this app is that Google will read your messages, for your convenience." If that's the author's objection, it's like the author never heard of Gmail. https://developers.google.com/schemas/tutorials/google-now-c...

Gmail? What about Google Search? It knows more about a man than his wife, doctor and lawyer combined. But Google convinced us to happily give up our privacy, for the amazing advantage (no sarcasm) of searching the internet. Maybe it was worth it, but Alo doesn't offer any ground breaking service.

The demo showed only some use cases which mostly look like first world problems, but i personally see a huge need for this. I mean there are millions of people who plan things over chat and Google showing search results for movies, restaurants, flight ticket prices etc in the chat which can be viewed by all the users is very huge IMO. Also, if they open up the platform for other bots like Google, basically we are seeing a FB messenger bot like platform. I will just open the incognito mode they are offering if and when needed.

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#97

Post by freshhawk »

darkerside wrote: post #38

What bothers me more than the lack of privacy or encryption is the idea that we are giving our voice to machines. We are moving to a society where we let technology speak to our friends and loved ones as if they were us. Something essentially human is being lost in that process.

On the bright side maybe we'll get to the point where the bullshit social media conversations are all done by bots. Then we can devalue and ignore them and only have to actually participate in actual conversations.

My bot can just continuously post variations on "Here is a belief, validate it!", "Accept this high status social posturing as true!", "My worldview has been questioned. Outrage! Let us form a mob and bully the outsider into silence!", "I have performed a meaningless I-am-a-good-person ritual, please reassure me that although my employment is based on doing harm to people I am still a good person". And other bots can respond with messages of vague support/retweets/likes/whatever.

Since we seem determined to allow others to control and influence our private conversations let's at least get something out of it.

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#98

Post by vthallam »

pacala wrote: post #14
incepted wrote: post #7

This is the usual privacy hysteria knee-jerk reaction: "Watch out, the big companies are going to get data on you!". And people are going to react exactly like they've done before: if the service is worth it, they'll be happy to trade a few bits of privacy about themselves in exchange for the benefits. Also, I'm not sure the author of this piece understands what encryption is about since he laments that most people d…

Of course you have to send Google search queries. Of course it would be a whole lot more elegant on their part to have a simple SLA: "We use the search queries for the express purpose of answering your queries. We do not hold on your personal information for more than XX minutes, neither in personalized nor in aggregated form." It's not that hard, a 30 people organization can pull it off, https://duckduckgo.com/about…

And in this case, what do you think would be the motivation of companies like Google who uses data to monetize for any innovation and provide better service? Companies have to sustain and the only way to be sustainable at that scale as Google is to monetize using the data. You can always go incognito.

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#99

Post by vthallam »

freshhawk wrote: post #97
darkerside wrote: post #38

What bothers me more than the lack of privacy or encryption is the idea that we are giving our voice to machines. We are moving to a society where we let technology speak to our friends and loved ones as if they were us. Something essentially human is being lost in that process.

On the bright side maybe we'll get to the point where the bullshit social media conversations are all done by bots. Then we can devalue and ignore them and only have to actually participate in actual conversations. My bot can just continuously post variations on "Here is a belief, validate it!", "Accept this high status social posturing as true!", "My worldview has been questioned. Outrage! Let us form a mob and bull…

Exactly! This is how we should we look at it. You don't have to type the obligatory "How Cute" kinda messages and rather spend time on other important things:)

Re: If you care about privacy, you should not use Google Allo

#100

Post by LeeHarveysGrave »

colbyh wrote: post #48
incepted wrote: post #7

This is the usual privacy hysteria knee-jerk reaction: "Watch out, the big companies are going to get data on you!". And people are going to react exactly like they've done before: if the service is worth it, they'll be happy to trade a few bits of privacy about themselves in exchange for the benefits. Also, I'm not sure the author of this piece understands what encryption is about since he laments that most people d…

the author doesn't seem to know much about how the internet works, quite frankly. they assume that there's some inherent level of privacy in any chat that isn't e-to-e encrypted. for instance, with FB: "With M, you are speaking one-on-one with a bot, the bot isn’t monitoring every single thing you say to your friends." how is that even relevant in this context? you're not comparing Allo to M in isolation, you have to…

"the author doesn't understand much about the ecosystem as a whole (and considers Allo to be a market leader before launch). lazy reporting, and quite disappointing."

I've noticed over past year that internet security / privacy has become something of a clickbait topic for media outlets with no reputation for writing about it. Usually after reading one paragraph that becomes all too apparent. Sadly that doesn't prevent the headline from becoming mythological truth in internet time.

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