Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#71

Post by lultimouomo » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

conesus wrote: post #45

lultimouomo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! You might be interested to know that the Turn Touch homepage starts playing audio as soon as it is opened. This was enough for me to close it and never come back, and I think this sentiment is reasonably widespread. I'm genuinely curios about the reason some people decide to add audio (or video for that matter, but audio is way worse) on autoplay. Do you enjoy when web pages you visit do it? Did you see from some…

Yikes! It's part of a hidden video that shouldn't play until you explicitly open it. What's your browser/OS? I tested on Chrome, Safari, and FF on mac as well as iOS. I also just added a muted attribute to the `video` tag so it should no longer do that even if I messed up the JS for some browser somewhere. I encourage you to try it once again to confirm.

FF 64 on Linux. I tried again and now there is no autoplaying audio. Not sure how to check whether the hidden video has started though.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#72

Post by bunderbunder » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

ryanbrunner wrote: post #29

lazyjones wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like lawmakers need to enforce warnings labels on such products: „works only with sensitive data collection“ or similar.

This is worse, in a way - from what I can tell at the point of purchase the system didn't have the problematic data collection - that was added later in an update. Even a savvy consumer who researched which product to buy would be screwed in this circumstance. It does seem to me that once a product is purchased, it ought to remain usable and supported under the terms it was purchased under, but that seems a long way…

The law could include a ban on firmware updates that subsequently introduce and require sensitive data collection post-purchase.

That said, I'm not sure you can really pin this down. It's probably better to just assume that any device that requires a wi-fi connection to work is phoning home until proven otherwise.

And you have to assume that any device that phones home is collecting data. It's not even a secret that this is the case. Pretty much every time I go to a lunch-and-learn for a data product, the major premise of the obligatory client case study is, "We sell this consumer product that does X, but our most exciting product is actually all the data we can harvest from it and then resell."

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#73

Post by pintxo » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #61

cr1895 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the EU approach where the collection and use of personal data is regulated, not merely "be warned."

What difference does it make in practice? Sonos sells their products in the EU as well, do they behave differently there?

They don‘t.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#74

Post by maxxxxx » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

ryanbrunner wrote: post #43

maxxxxx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there should be much finer detail in permissions.

Would it have helped in this case? Permissions should convey the privacy risk to the user, not just the technical details of what's happening. To a non-technical user, "Access nearby Wifi signals" (or something similar) sounds totally innocuous. Most people would approve that assuming that the app just wants to connect to the internet. You could get more detailed and say "Access nearby Wifi signals, which could revea…

I agree that the technical details may be difficult to understand but that shouldn’t be a reason to make permissions so broad. I bet if it served ad selling then the permissions would be narrower.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#75

Post by ajmurmann » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

derriz wrote: post #13

At least they acknowledged it, responded to the feedback and fixed it. Unfortunately I have a Sonos system which became effectively bricked unless I signed a new user agreement allowing the collection of data. There are no physical controls on Sonos so the system becomes useless without accepting. They used to sell dedicated controllers/remotes years ago but these were also bricked as part of an upgrade about a year…

Come to think of it, this is the real work rivaled of an API breaking change. It seems entirely reasonable to that we should have regulation that prohibits this kind of change after you've already purchased the product. But then again, in a sane system, you should either need to sign the user agreement for anything at purchase time or be allowed to return a device whenever you encounter a the (new) user agreement. Currently you might buy something that you cannot return and only then at the user agreement. The user aren't should be seen as pay of the purchase contract and the purchase shouldn't be valid without it being signed.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#76

Post by lazyjones » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #72

ryanbrunner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is worse, in a way - from what I can tell at the point of purchase the system didn't have the problematic data collection - that was added later in an update. Even a savvy consumer who researched which product to buy would be screwed in this circumstance. It does seem to me that once a product is purchased, it ought to remain usable and supported under the terms it was purchased under, but that seems a long way…

The law could include a ban on firmware updates that subsequently introduce and require sensitive data collection post-purchase. That said, I'm not sure you can really pin this down. It's probably better to just assume that any device that requires a wi-fi connection to work is phoning home until proven otherwise. And you have to assume that any device that phones home is collecting data. It's not even a secret that…

> The law could include a ban on firmware updates that subsequently introduce and require sensitive data collection post-purchase.

This is IMHO a broader issue with products that receive firmware or OTA updates, it's probably legally a breach of contract already to modify products after sale and change functionality to the disadvantage of the consumer.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#77

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #72

ryanbrunner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is worse, in a way - from what I can tell at the point of purchase the system didn't have the problematic data collection - that was added later in an update. Even a savvy consumer who researched which product to buy would be screwed in this circumstance. It does seem to me that once a product is purchased, it ought to remain usable and supported under the terms it was purchased under, but that seems a long way…

The law could include a ban on firmware updates that subsequently introduce and require sensitive data collection post-purchase. That said, I'm not sure you can really pin this down. It's probably better to just assume that any device that requires a wi-fi connection to work is phoning home until proven otherwise. And you have to assume that any device that phones home is collecting data. It's not even a secret that…

> any device that requires a wi-fi connection to work is phoning home until proven otherwise.

It's really beyond me why people are buying these devices in case the wifi functionality is completely superfluous and has nothing to do with the main function of the device. It's like asking "hello strangers, tap me and track what I'm doing". This crap needs to stop.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#78

Post by hedora » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

derriz wrote: post #13

At least they acknowledged it, responded to the feedback and fixed it. Unfortunately I have a Sonos system which became effectively bricked unless I signed a new user agreement allowing the collection of data. There are no physical controls on Sonos so the system becomes useless without accepting. They used to sell dedicated controllers/remotes years ago but these were also bricked as part of an upgrade about a year…

Does anyone know of a good (from a privacy and usability perspective) alternative to Sonos?

I plan to buy 5-6 of them sometime later this year, and for what that costs, they have no excuse to data-harvest me.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#79

Post by TuringNYC » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

avh02 wrote: post #70

CyberDildonics wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how situations like this aren't anything but a bait and switch. You buy something, it changes out from under you.

This is why I'm getting sick of cloud services like Dropbox and I'm trying to bring it all back under my roof Example: Dropbox's $99 plan used to be able to share a link with password protection, that's been conveniently moved to their $199 plan. This simply can't happen with self hosted/controlled alternatives that you control updates to.

I've found Dropbox to be notorious with this. Their business plan used to be only $150/yr (Fine Print: you pay minimum 3 seats.) That magically changed to five seats at some point and now the $150/yr suddenly shows up as $750/yr auto-renewed and almost impossible to cancel.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#80

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

avh02 wrote: post #70

CyberDildonics wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how situations like this aren't anything but a bait and switch. You buy something, it changes out from under you.

This is why I'm getting sick of cloud services like Dropbox and I'm trying to bring it all back under my roof Example: Dropbox's $99 plan used to be able to share a link with password protection, that's been conveniently moved to their $199 plan. This simply can't happen with self hosted/controlled alternatives that you control updates to.

That's the issue with using cloud services... what used to be your data is now their data.