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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

#241

Post by QAPereo »

cptskippy wrote: post #240
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.

Did Apple stop collecting that data? Last I heard, you had to opt out of it. http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2013/10/your-iphone-knows-whe...

Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but at least they’re not aggregating and selling it.

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

#242

Post by staked »

whyagaindavid wrote: post #233
dmd wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try googling "delete apple id"? It's pretty straightforward. Given that, what point are you trying to make?

There is a way to delete your data from Google or ms. Not Apple. BTW, there is no way to delete apple Id. Seriously try doing it. You cannot.

You can call AppleCare and have your Apple ID deleted any time you want.

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

#243

Post by dleslie »

JonFish85 wrote: post #135
lemagedurage wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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." This is true, but it's also potentially worthwhile to consider that Apple has positioned themselves as a hardware company (i.e. the majority of their money is based on selling units of hardware), whereas their main competitor here (Google) is an ad company (i.e. the majori…

Apple is a lifestyle and fashion company moreso than a software or hardware company; yes, Nike makes shoes and Ralph Lauren sells shirts, but they are not best described as shoe or clothing manufacturers first and foremost. Jobs understood this.

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

#244

Post by halflings »

QAPereo wrote: post #241
cptskippy wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Apple stop collecting that data? Last I heard, you had to opt out of it. http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2013/10/your-iphone-knows-whe...

Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but at least they’re not aggregating and selling it.

Who said they are using or selling it?

This is literally from the article:

> “In January of this year, we began looking into using Cell ID codes as an additional signal to further improve the speed and performance of message delivery,” the Google spokesperson said in an email. “However, we never incorporated Cell ID into our network sync system, so that data was immediately discarded, and we updated it to no longer request Cell ID.”

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

#245

Post by FridgeSeal »

matogato wrote: post #108
endemic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I like LineageOS but my phone (HTC 10) slowed down to the point of being unusable that I went with a different ROM.

Haven't gotten around to it yet, but I'll try and replicate the benefits of Privacy Guard using one of the privacy tools in the Xposed framework (via Magisk framework).

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

#246

Post by rightos »

username223 wrote: post #190
ams6110 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an Android phone, but I would never use it (or an iPhone for that matter) to log into my bank account.

I recently got a free Android phone, and would also never let it near anything that could extract money from me, and am conscious of the information it can disclose. Sorry, legitimate Android app developers! I would like to pay you for the things you create, but your neighborhood is too sketchy for me to visit.

That's pretty ridiculous, we're talking about credit card purchases here, which can be trivially charged back, not bitcoin private keys... if you've worked with sensitive info on a Windows box though, that's probably a much worse off environment.

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

londons_explore wrote: post #203
sarcasmic wrote: post #32

When I'm at work, I use my work computer, which has a long lived static IP, to log into my personal Google account. I have configured all of my browsers to clear cookies and storage upon closing. I never use signed-in Google Maps, but I sometimes use it from that computer, from fresh browser while logged out. A week ago, I moved from my previous home that was close to my work, to a different city about 20 miles away.…

When signed out, Google maps' initial view is entirely based on IP address. Sure, they could use cookies, but they don't. They could also use device profiling, but they don't. The IP -> location mapping is googles secret sauce, but it collects data from a lot of places, and is for most users very accurate. We're talking street level accuracy in many cases. The data you or another user feeds into it you could easily g…

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by blub »

xnx wrote: post #130

After watching Google closely for years, I'm pretty sure this was not intentional or malicious. Isn't this almost identical to what Apple was doing in 2011: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/04/how-apple-tracks-you...

After watching Google's privacy violations closely for more than a decade, I'm pretty sure this was intentional and someone got a bonus for coming up with the idea and implementing it. Google's real motto is more user data == good.

Saving location history in a local file is not the same as sending it to Google, just like cutting your finger is not the same as getting your hand blown off.

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

#249

Post by blub »

dingo_bat wrote: post #182

As I noted on reddit, I am not surprised by this at all. Google's entire incentive to maintain Android is the troves of data they collect about users. Why would they let you turn it off? It doesn't make any sense. If you're surprised as a user, you've been really naïve. Imagine this: would apple ever let you not pay for a new iPhone? Its entire incentive in making iphones is to sell them for money. So it will never a…

I agree with you about Google, but it's more than fine for the people to be surprised and/or outraged. That's how this gets fixed...

Google said they're taking steps to fix it. Surely they wouldn't lie to us.

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

#250

Post by blub »

Splines wrote: post #223
lemagedurage wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trust: the company fighting for privacy due to among other things economic incentives.

Don't trust: the company fucking privacy because of economic incentives.

Quite simple.

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