Our Approach to Privacy • Hacker News Board

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#41

Post by userbinator » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #33

userbinator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent is talking about the lesser-known (for obvious reasons) VPNs, not the well-known ones which are pretty much useless in China for "jumping over the wall".

Do Chinese authorities block OpenVPN based on traffic characteristics? Because you can use this app to connect to any OpenVPN server you choose, including your own. Same with Tor. You can use an unlisted bridge to get on the network.

They do deep packet inspection. This item, especially the top comment, is well worth reading:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101469

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#42

Post by ben1040 » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

petepete wrote: post #24

maxpert wrote: post #19

At least one company is "trying" keep my photos private. The other day Google Photo told my wife it had prepared an album for our trip to SFO. We were surprised because she already disabled Geo-tagging but whataya know... Google still figured it out!

If you have location enabled on your phone, Google appears to cross reference your location with your photo timestamps to work out where you were. I know this because when I import my DSLR images to Google Photos it estimates the location, usually very accurately.

I've also seen it geotag things based upon the content of the image alone.

I went to the photo store not long ago and had dozens of rolls of negatives scanned, from a vacation to Europe 20 years ago. I uploaded them into Google Photos and it geotagged many of them automatically.

They have a public API that does the same, it detects landmarks in images and can give you a lat/long position for it as well as a confidence score.

https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/detecting-landmarks

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#43

Post by pramodliv1 » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 3:54 PM UTC

maxpert wrote: post #19

At least one company is "trying" keep my photos private. The other day Google Photo told my wife it had prepared an album for our trip to SFO. We were surprised because she already disabled Geo-tagging but whataya know... Google still figured it out!

Google Photos uses ML to tag photos and this feature released amidst much fanfare at Google I/O a couple of years ago. They don't need location data to geotag photos anymore.

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#44

Post by GeekyBear » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

jafingi wrote: post #20

phoe-krk wrote: post #2

So a cop can put your phone in front of your face while you're tied up and unable to do a thing. Boom, phone unlocked. Marvelous.

And they would also have access to your fingerprint then. What difference would it make??

In either case, they would have to get a warrant first.

Once they have that warrant, it doesn't matter what biometric locking method you use.

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#45

Post by X86BSD » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #35

X86BSD wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, to me it's not Apple that is stupid, it's your license that is stupid. It's keeping your app out of the App Store, it's keeping ZFS and Dtrace from the Linux kernel, the amount of developer energy and time wasted on GPL enforcement and arguing about what it actually says and means is appalling. Why you would saddle yourself to a license with so much dead weight and so many problems I can't understand.

And yet, the GPL has been absolutely critical in establishing free software as a credible player, so I'd disagree with you on the license being stupid.

No more so than the BSD/MIT/Apache licenses. The BSD license predates the GPL. And has none of the dead weight or baggage.

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#46

Post by captn3m0 » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #37

X86BSD wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, to me it's not Apple that is stupid, it's your license that is stupid. It's keeping your app out of the App Store, it's keeping ZFS and Dtrace from the Linux kernel, the amount of developer energy and time wasted on GPL enforcement and arguing about what it actually says and means is appalling. Why you would saddle yourself to a license with so much dead weight and so many problems I can't understand.

Do they just block the GPLs or any FLOSS license?

Just GPLv3

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#47

Post by nnutter » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #21

Apple does so many things well, actually. I would return to them for some things and even recommend them (versus exclusively GNU/Linux and LineageOS) if they'd only change the stupid iOS terms that prohibit GPL software.

Isn't the issue that the App Store doesn't have a mechanism to redistribute the source in a way that is compliant with the GPL? Is it fair to say Apple prohibits the GPL? Anyway that tried to sell GPL licensed software on the App Store is "breaking the law" so Apple prohibits it? Or is there more to it?

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#48

Post by jvican » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 4:10 PM UTC

After reading this, I have two questions:

1. Are there any statistics showing the ratio of security issues between Android and iOS?

2. What's the most common phone among security researchers?

To be honest, I'm wary of believing this, but I own a Nexus and if I had to give the benefit of the doubt to either Google or Apple, it would most certainly be Apple because they don't make business out of my data (or, not as much as Google, at least).

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#49

Post by nnutter » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 4:10 PM UTC

pramodliv1 wrote: post #43

maxpert wrote: post #19

At least one company is "trying" keep my photos private. The other day Google Photo told my wife it had prepared an album for our trip to SFO. We were surprised because she already disabled Geo-tagging but whataya know... Google still figured it out!

Google Photos uses ML to tag photos and this feature released amidst much fanfare at Google I/O a couple of years ago. They don't need location data to geotag photos anymore.

Thanks for explaining one possible method. It could still mean Google is tracking location "without consent". I suppose it depends on whether they use that location data for anything other than Google Photos.

Re: Our Approach to Privacy

#50

Post by CaptSpify » Sun, Sep 17, 2017, 4:12 PM UTC

nnutter wrote: post #47

quadrangle wrote: post #21

Apple does so many things well, actually. I would return to them for some things and even recommend them (versus exclusively GNU/Linux and LineageOS) if they'd only change the stupid iOS terms that prohibit GPL software.

Isn't the issue that the App Store doesn't have a mechanism to redistribute the source in a way that is compliant with the GPL? Is it fair to say Apple prohibits the GPL? Anyway that tried to sell GPL licensed software on the App Store is "breaking the law" so Apple prohibits it? Or is there more to it?

> Isn't the issue that the App Store doesn't have a mechanism to redistribute the source in a way that is compliant with the GPL?

Is it? I know nothing of this subject and am speaking out of my ass, but that seems.... trivial to do. I'm curious as to why that is hard for them to do?