"Do no evil"
There was a misprint, it was :
"Do no evil?"
Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
221–230 of 422 posts
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really humbling to see what people in different living circumstances take for granted. Apparently privacy is the fundamental right only for the people who can afford a $700+ device.
I take your point, but I think it’s important to note that the iPhone SE is half that price. In India, it’s about $309 today.
For comparison, you can get an Android in India for $5.
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#223It'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.
Apple provides a black box with iOS, they have full control. Maybe the next iOS update comes with privacy intrusion because it's more lucrative. A more sensible way of dealing wirh the issue would be to use an open source Android version like AOSP or LineageOS, not run proprietary gapps, and replace its functionality with F-Droid, MicroG and Yalp-store. Your location will stay out of Apple's/Google's hands and you ca…
I don't understand people in this thread defending Apple when AOSP is clearly more open. Yes, Apple has done well so far, but at the end of the day what are you going to trust? A talking head, or the actual code running on your device? It smells of rationalization for anyone to say that it would not be in Apple's interest to collect personal information.
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
"But this is all just marketing, whereas the reality is that Apple could also be hoovering up location data and you may never know." It isn't just marketing. This is how the alignment of incentives works. A company's incentives are aligned with the people who pay them. Apple's are aligned with those that buy phones. Google and Facebook's are aligned with those that buy ads.
> It isn't just marketing. What makes you so confident? How do you know Apple thinks of itself as a hardware company whose incentives are aligned with those that buy phones? Their marketing certainly has made a lot of people think that, but, well that's just marketing. Apple hasn't exactly always stuck with one identity. In 2007 one could have easily said that Apple is "a computer company" and not "a phone company" l…
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Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have configured all of my browsers to clear cookies and storage upon closing. Dumb question, but how often do you close your browser though? Mine stays running in the background so it's not often that it gets completely closed.
I close my browser (and all tabs, windows, and any instances of the same process) very frequently, and immediately after I'm done actively interacting with the page. My point is, I highly doubt my browser usage pattern reflects the way the median user browses the web, and yet even my careful usage wasn't enough to keep Google from correlating enough data about my browsing's attributes (IP, sites visited, location inf…
Do you manually kill all browser processes? It's certainly plausible that there's a zombie process around so any singleton-thing that does cleanup on last process exit never got a chance to run.
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#226It'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.
Unfortunately iPhones are way too expensive for most people [1].
[1] http://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househol...
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ever tried using an old iPhone?
Ever tried using one of those dirt-cheap Android phones?
Yes, MotoG3 2015. Best phone I've had so far, all around. $200 is not exactly dirt cheap, but it comes out to $100 a year so far. There is no way an iPhone is going to last me 10 years to match that cost per unit time.
The pisser about it, is Motorola, like so many other companies, abandoned it for major updates. It does ostensibly still get major security updates, but...
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#228This would seem to be a fairly monumental breach of the duty Google owes consumers.
edited summary: The 'duty' is owed to shareholders, not to you. That duty is to generate profits and protect shareholders' investment. That's not how commerce works(anymore). You are technically a consumer...and you are fundamentally the "product". Companies buying advertising are the actual consumer - to which you(ie your data) are for sale. If you cannot look at it that way, modern corporate America/Elsewhere will…
Is running their brand name into the ground fulfilling their duty to share holders?
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google can use user prediction to guess which account you are with your browser, ip, ism, mac address, and other persistant metadata. Its how their whole 'you signed in from a new location' security scheme works.
'you signed in from a new location' uses a cookie that remains after signout. Clear cookies, and you'll see it again. In Chrome, it also uses the TLS Client Channel ID, which is a persistent unique identifier established between a browser and a server which (on capable platforms) is derived from a key stored in a hardware security module, making it hard to steal. Ie. if you clone the hard drive of a computer, when yo…
Thanks for the heads-up re: TLS Client Channel ID.
Sounds like another reason to limit my personal use of Google's Chrome browser.
Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled
#230I am using Android without Google Play Services. Some apps don't give me notifications, but most of them work without an issue. Also, I'm using Firefox with uBlock on this phone. Couldn't be happier with that setup and my phone's battery life.
Are you using a custom ROM?
At the moment yes, but some phones let you disable Google apps through settings and I had this setup before. Another option is getting root access and uninstalling Google apps this way.