Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
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Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#2Another link: http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/15/wal-mart-tell...
Interesting:
Wal-Mart has instructed store managers to tell their employees
that the app wasn't made by the company and described it as a
scheme to gather workers' personal information, according to a
document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#3Just to play devil's advocate here, this is from the article:
> The app, called WorkIt, invites users to register by providing a name, email, telephone number and ZIP Code. Users can also s hare (sic) their job title and Wal-Mart store number....
That is a bunch of personally identifying information. You can easily steal somebody's identity with those bits of information, or at least have a good idea of who they are. I see how Walmart's corporate line is at least somewhat believable upon further thought.
And there has been no disclosure on how they're storing this information. Are they storing it on AWS/GCE/Azure or Linode? Or do they have their own locked down racks that safeguard this information?
Look, I'm not saying that there's anything malicious about this, or the Walmart isn't trying to bust worker collaboration. But, in today's security conscious world, you really should ask these questions when you're requesting PII to sign up to your app.
And malice vs carelessness doesn't matter when your personal information is leaked all over the web.
Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#4> The app, released on Android phones Monday
Why Android only?
Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#5> The app, released on Android phones Monday Why Android only?
It's hard to buy an iPhone on Walmart wages.
Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#6> The app, released on Android phones Monday Why Android only?
android is more prevalent in lower income workers. More of the potential users would use android thus they develop on the predominant platform first.
Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#7Just to play devil's advocate here, this is from the article: > The app, called WorkIt, invites users to register by providing a name, email, telephone number and ZIP Code. Users can also s hare (sic) their job title and Wal-Mart store number.... That is a bunch of personally identifying information. You can easily steal somebody's identity with those bits of information, or at least have a good idea of who they are.…
"Locked down racks" is complete FUD. It's not like there's HIPAA or PCI compliance issues here. Incompetently managed bare metal servers are just as hackable, perhaps more so, than incompetently used cloud IaaS. Workers should be careful, but storage has absolutely nothing to do with this.
Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#81. Hello Streisand effect.
2. Does anyone else hope semi-anonymous apps like this will lead to a new age of unionization?
Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#91. Hello Streisand effect. 2. Does anyone else hope semi-anonymous apps like this will lead to a new age of unionization?
Yes, in particular I hope that apps enable more autonomous, directly democratic, distributed unions that are more resistant to capture by union bureaucrats and management.
Re: Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don’t Download Labor Group’s Chat App
#101. Hello Streisand effect. 2. Does anyone else hope semi-anonymous apps like this will lead to a new age of unionization?
2. More than you can imagine. Technology should be bringing an end to sharecropping, not further increasing economic inequality.