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How does Google know where I am?

security.stackexchange.com

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Re: How does Google know where I am?

#151

Post by xapata »

kuschku wrote: post #130
KirinDave wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I down voted and left a comment. Appealing to child stalking as a way to emotionally charge your argument about radio reception is a disingenuous tactic for this conversation. What's more, people who actually work to promote and secure a safer environment for kids don't need people like you constantly exacerbating parental paranoia with a constant back chatter stranger danger. Please refrain from emotionally manipula…

Then assume I'm talking about taking a picture of every living room through the window whenever no one is there. Or anything else that's that personal. The point isn't about what is collected, but that this type of broad data collection exists in the first place. Let's recap: not eventhe government can do video surveillance of public places, streetview became opt in, the phone book is opt in. But Google collects SSID…

What do you think of high-resolution satellite imagery? Do you imagine that a satellite operator needs to get opt-in consent from anyone who happened to be looking up at the sky at the moment of the photograph?

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#152

Post by nerdponx »

KirinDave wrote: post #144
nerdponx wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a shame. Extreme/hyperbolic examples have an important place in discourse. They force you to consider your ideas to their logical ends. In this case it illustrated that a line needs to be drawn somewhere by giving an example of something we all agree is reprehensible. As far as I can tell, though, you're opposed to mentioning racial and sexual violence at all in conversation. What is the point of that kind of…

You seem to think that maintaining a polite level in discourse amounts to be censorship. Curiously, we never feel the need to make these hyperbolic examples in the highest levels of discourse (be they academic or political), and yet somehow feel incredibly strongly about allowing them on internet sites. Attempting to evoke violence, sexual assault and child abuse in discourse about something as abstract as the proper…

> Perhaps maybe the author should have compared the practice to how Germans correlate re-naturalozed jewish citizens with health care use and reporting them for it, a quiet but severe controversy for that country.

This is where we differ. If we were talking about healthcare and someone brought up that point, I'd stop and think about it for a minute. Just because it refers to something evil and terrifying doesn't make it any less of a good point.

I actually learned something in this back-and-forth about how people perceive offensiveness in public dialogue, and react to perceived that offensiveness. I hope you make an effort to learn something too, and don't just come away with a haughty sense of victory.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#153

Post by clort »

newman314 wrote: post #103
grkvlt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point about `_nomap` which I wasn't aware of until now. See this page, under 'How do I opt out?' for details: https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/1725632?hl=en&visit_...

FWIW, Microsoft has a different string and yes, order matters IIRC.

FWIW: *_optout_nomap

=> https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3g3xyu/for_wifi_ms...

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#154

Post by clort »

nerdponx wrote: post #135
dragonwriter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, a restraining order is issued when someone is performing actions that, taken individually, are legal - recording a link between an SSID and a street address, knocking on an ex-girlfriends door to ask them to talk to you, photographing a child - but when carried out systematically, constitute a pattern of behaviour that is undesirable, and by virtue of the order becomes illegal. The subset of restraining orders…

Would obsessive public surveillance not qualify as "stalking"?

In the scenario that kuschku suggested, taking a photo of each child and following them home to record the location (once) would probably not count as stalking IMO but its difficult to say. In the UK it has to happen twice, according to Wikipedia

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

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#155

Post by KirinDave »

nerdponx wrote: post #152
KirinDave wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think that maintaining a polite level in discourse amounts to be censorship. Curiously, we never feel the need to make these hyperbolic examples in the highest levels of discourse (be they academic or political), and yet somehow feel incredibly strongly about allowing them on internet sites. Attempting to evoke violence, sexual assault and child abuse in discourse about something as abstract as the proper…

> Perhaps maybe the author should have compared the practice to how Germans correlate re-naturalozed jewish citizens with health care use and reporting them for it, a quiet but severe controversy for that country. This is where we differ. If we were talking about healthcare and someone brought up that point, I'd stop and think about it for a minute. Just because it refers to something evil and terrifying doesn't make…

> If we were talking about healthcare and someone brought up that point, I'd stop and think about it for a minute.

Riiiiight, but it'd be germane to a discussion about health care (assuming it actually was and was not a cheap shot). "Stranger danger creeps outside schools with cameras because radio = light and therefore basically the same as having your phone notice SSIDs" is a complete non-sequitur.

> and don't just come away with a haughty sense of victory.

Do you think this website has ever given me any sense of value or return? I'm here because I feel obligated to be. Not because I enjoy it or relish these debates. Our conversation and your predictable downvoting were practically foretold 500 years ago during a seizure by someone who saw a comet... that's how lamentably predictable the whole thing has been.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#156

Post by KirinDave »

kuschku wrote: post #149
KirinDave wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then assume I'm talking about taking a picture of every living room through the window whenever no one is there. No. That's not my job to arbitrarily re-interpret what you said to give you a free pass for your disingenuous rhetoric. > Let's recap: not eventhe government can do video surveillance of public places, streetview became opt in, the phone book is opt in. The government CAN do video surveillance though. Bo…

> The government CAN do video surveillance though. Both our governments do it. What varies is how its deployed and who has access. But they literally can not at any point ever do it. Video surveillance of public space is a crime, even for the police, government, or security agencies, and it does not happen. > COLLECTING PII is seldom the problem. Storing it or promptly and thoroughly deleting it is the challenge. You…

> But they literally can not at any point ever do it. Video surveillance of public space is a crime, even for the police, government, or security agencies, and it does not happen.

Surveillance of public environments via the private security systems is how your government (and ours really) accomplishes this "legally."

> The law literally makes that a crime. You have to stop collection of PII, not just delete it at any later point.

The law's definition of PII in your country is woefully out of date. Same in mine.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#157

Post by klodolph »

jsjohnst wrote: post #125
klodolph wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is also the reason why GPS is so power hungry--it takes a lot of power to keep a GPS radio receiver operating.

Close enough for a quick reply, but it's not the "radio" using lots of power, it's the chip that's doing the signal processing. GPS signals are very weak (approximately -120dbm) and thus below the noise floor. It takes complex FFT operations that actually cause the power hungry nature to find the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Normally, "radio" includes the amplifiers and demodulators, even if they're digital.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#158

Post by kllrnohj »

bogomipz wrote: post #80
kllrnohj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I turn my wifi off to save the battery Sending/receiving data over wifi takes roughly ~8x less power than sending/receiving data over cell. If you want to save battery you need to turn off data entirely not turn off wifi. Turning off wifi ultimately costs you battery.

>"Sending/receiving data over wifi takes roughly ~8x less power than sending/receiving data over cell" How did you arrive at this 8x figure? I don't think this is correct at all. See: http://people.cs.umass.edu/~arun/papers/TailEnder.pdf Additionally power efficiency is related to distance from the cell tower which is generally much further away than a wifi access point.

Were you misled by the changing axis scale? From that paper:

> Our measurements (Section 3) confirm that the transmission energy consumed by WiFi is significantly smaller than both 3G and GSM, especially for large transfer sizes.

Also that's 3G, not LTE which is what most everyone is using nowadays.

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