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Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

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Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#101

Post by cube2222 »

katastic wrote: post #70
cube2222 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? How does that matter? What's dangerous in them collecting my location information? I actually have location history in google maps turned on deliberately. You can't imagine how often it helped me to know where I was exactly, one and a half year ago, at a precise time. (That's how I managed to get a copy of my nexus 5x's warranty papers after it died on me) I don't really care about them collecting info about whe…

>And? How does that matter? What's dangerous in them collecting my location information? What's dangerous about them compiling your medical history? Who are you afraid of? Oh wait, that's a HIPAA violation. I wonder if they keep track of the location of every doctor's office you visit... and that abortion clinic... and that methadone clinic. Surely, nothing to lose there. The only information that isn't hackable, is…

I do think that people wanting to break into my medical history, could much easier just break into the system where my doctors hold my medical documentation, at least that's 100x easier than breaking into Google. The medical clinics have to check my ID anyways, so they have all the info about me.

As for the second one: yes, if I'd be doing something inherently illegal, having a phone with Google on it could be kind of dangerous to me. As I'm not doing anything like that, I have no reason not to use it.

Yes, with technology comes digitalization of information, and people can hack any of the places my information is, wherein Google is one of the most secure comparatively.

You could argue that digitalization is bad, but before that, you could just find info on patients in the dumpster of the clinic.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#102

Post by UncleMeat »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #41
growse wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, this is meaningless without context. Privacy from who? Security from what? What's the perceived threat we're trying to protect against? Everything is a tradeoff. To absolutely protect your privacy, you must never be seen in public or interact with any other party in any way.

Android is bad for pretty much all threat models. - Worried about Google? Android is bad. Google collects your data. - Worried about the government? Since Google must obey warrants for your data, Android is bad. - Worried about malicious third parties? Since Google has failed to patch even the Pixel line for KRACK until the December update... yeah, Android is bad. And malware through the Play Store that hits large nu…

You should be assuming that all networks are pwned anyway. KRACK was exciting, but really isn't a major threat to people.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#105

Post by akoncius »

tryingagainbro wrote: post #80
IBM wrote: post #63

It's amazing to me how many comments here excuse Google's behavior by offering the impractical "solution" of just not using a smartphone (a false dilemma) when the obvious answer is to get an iPhone. That's the advice of pretty much everyone in the infosec field and I'm sure some of them will attest to that in this thread.

Only governments can tame this beast now, way too big and too rich for any startup. I noticed several chrome instances running on "Task manager" almost all the time. Used Chrome maybe months ago. So I uninstalled. Who knows what they were doing, collecting. I trust them as much as I (would) trust a hustler on the old 42nd street

yeah. I decided to avoid chrome at all costs when noticed that when you install chrome and have firefox already installed , chrome automatically without user’s acknowledgement installs some mysterious google plugin which does not sure what. To verify it , I reproduced same scenario again and plugin was installed again. After that I uninstalled chrome and avoid google products as much as possible.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#106

Post by labster »

dawnbreez wrote: post #100
IBM wrote: post #63

It's amazing to me how many comments here excuse Google's behavior by offering the impractical "solution" of just not using a smartphone (a false dilemma) when the obvious answer is to get an iPhone. That's the advice of pretty much everyone in the infosec field and I'm sure some of them will attest to that in this thread.

>the solution is to buy a (much more expensive) phone from this specific competitor This sounds like advertising. Also, I'm fairly sure that Apple also sells data. Indeed, given current privacy laws, it's basically guaranteed that if a company has proprietary software, it is selling data from that software.

This sounds an awful lot like FUD. Care to back up any of those generalizations with evidence?

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#107

Post by keithnz »

alwaysdoit wrote: post #56

If you're concerned about this level of location tracking, don't carry a cell phone at all. Keeping track of which cell tower your phone is closest to is fundamental to cellular technology. You can't make or receive calls unless Verizon, T-Mobile, or whichever carrier you have knows which cell to communicate with you through. Regardless of whether Google is tracking this, your carrier certainly is, and with a warrant…

Googles getting more information than your carrier. Your carrier or any carrier knows about your cell phone and it's registration and hand off between towers. It doesn't know the network you are seeing. It doesn't know what competitor telcos are seeing. But your cell phone knows all that without a sim no matter what your carrier is. Law enforcement doesn't have access to this data at all.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#108

Post by matogato »

endemic wrote: post #73
iaml wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is flashing LineageOS + microG + yalp store is closest you can get.

I'm very tempted to go down this route, but it seems to fail the "easy to install and use" bit.

I am a very happy LineageOS user. The installation wasn't difficult: you only need a supported phone and like 1-2 hour of spare time for backup, reading docs, flash and restore the apps. I suggest you to give LineageOS a try!

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#109

Post by dawnbreez »

labster wrote: post #106
dawnbreez wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the solution is to buy a (much more expensive) phone from this specific competitor This sounds like advertising. Also, I'm fairly sure that Apple also sells data. Indeed, given current privacy laws, it's basically guaranteed that if a company has proprietary software, it is selling data from that software.

This sounds an awful lot like FUD. Care to back up any of those generalizations with evidence?

The trouble is that the evidence is basically "Apple says they don't". Because the source code is not open, we can't know for sure one way or the other.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#110

Post by lotso »

dawnbreez wrote: post #100
IBM wrote: post #63

It's amazing to me how many comments here excuse Google's behavior by offering the impractical "solution" of just not using a smartphone (a false dilemma) when the obvious answer is to get an iPhone. That's the advice of pretty much everyone in the infosec field and I'm sure some of them will attest to that in this thread.

>the solution is to buy a (much more expensive) phone from this specific competitor This sounds like advertising. Also, I'm fairly sure that Apple also sells data. Indeed, given current privacy laws, it's basically guaranteed that if a company has proprietary software, it is selling data from that software.

> Also, I'm fairly sure that Apple also sells data.

Can you point to a source that shows this? This sounds like a lie to me.

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