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Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

privacyinternational.org

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Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#41

Post by shaftway »

RikNieu wrote: post #32
duxup wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile numbers are also often the most secure (even if not secure) / only way to contact someone in parts of the world....

True, but for edgecases with no alternative means of contact, there could be other simple solutions. In the articles instance, Chloe could in the future register that sim, and then immediately tag it as Chloe Sullivan on TrueCaller(or whatever app they use in the country in question). Problem solved. Ta-da. There are solutions other than proposing regulations or limitations on apps that benefit waay more people than…

So you're suggesting that it's a user's responsibility to proactively register their number with every single third party caller ID service that exists and ever will exist? And you consider that a "simple solution"?

It does not seem unreasonable for a service like TrueCaller to notify people that user-generated information about them is being irrevocably added to a globally public repository.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#42

Post by ComodoHacker »

TrueCaller is Facebook's face recognition for phone numbers. They are building shadow profiles using some user-valuable bait feature. For TrueCaller, most of its value is in fighting spam. So, unlike Facebook, it's not only users who compromise privacy of others, it's spammers who steal our privacy. We should examine spam fighting solutions for email, IM and others, they might be involved in the same business model.

If we solve the spam problem, we can regain some privacy back.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#43

Post by sk0g »

baroffoos wrote: post #37
mwambua wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to give the app access to your contacts... at least on iOS. That's what I do. It would be impossible to communicate with friends and family otherwise. I just have to put a little more effort into figuring out who's texting or calling me. The app also still shows me people's (self assigned) nicknames in group-chats. My only gripe is that I still have to give the app access to my photos. I wish there was…

Would be nice if mobile OSs had a permission that let apps save photos but to read photos it has to make an api request which opens the system photo picker and when you select a photo the app gets given access to only the photo you selected.

I think Android does/ can do just that? There's a native photo picking intent, and the app just gets back a photo. Whether it was from the camera, the gallery, etc, who cares?

In practice, most apps would rather have their own in-app photo grid. Nothing to do with wanting to violate your privacy, I'm sure :)

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#44

Post by D-Coder »

vorticalbox wrote: post #30
sriram_malhar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no. it does not remember you delisted, so you will be added again :(

That's a badly thought out feature, it should be blocked unless you own the number wish to add it yourself.

I'm sure they consider that a feature, not a bug.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#45

Post by shakna »

visarga wrote: post #14

The title is wrong. There was no contract or agreement between the app and the journalist so there could be no betrayal.

When no contract exists, no permission has been given.

The journalist has not agreed with the company, but the company is still revealing information that they connected to her through a third party.

Yet, the contract only exists between the company and third-party, and not the journalist.

There is a failure here. The company has assumed that the third-party has a right, when they likely do not.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#46

Post by mjevans »

iliketosleep wrote: post #8

This reminds me once again that the weakest link in the privacy chain today is the mobile phone number, especially since governments in many countries have forced people to link their number to a real ID. It's essentially become a ID number by proxy. However, in the case of the article, the reporter should know to inform her sources not to enter _any_ information linking to her real-world identity into their electron…

The biggest threat to privacy, is how little (most, nearly all) other users do NOT value someone else's privacy.

Re Spam: Pre-screening, and people that actually say something useful to the (automated) screening service. Actual spammers should get fed to a blacklist (filtered for multiple confirmations), and organizations that prosecute spammers should be able to read THAT list. Everyone else has to use a more public API that's rate limited.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#47

Post by QualityReboot »

walrus01 wrote: post #3

This is kind of the same problem as people who have no FB account, keep all of their personal life off FB, then they go to a work or social group gathering and some blithely ignorant/clueless person tags their photo.\ One of the biggest sources of spam I have is non-technically-oriented persons who I know either professionally or personally, that have my name and email address in their address book, who click "yes" t…

Yeah, it's super annoying that fb knows everything about me even though I don't use their service. There's nothing I can do about it.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#48

Post by cannonedhamster »

visarga wrote: post #17
duxup wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you need a contract to fit the usage of "betrayal" here.

Well, before betrayal can take place there must be an implicit or explicit obligation or loyalty.

What about the obligation to not put people at risk of death through ignorance? If the app itself is used as a suppression too that was not previously available and one can accidentally expose someone to literal death, then yes the app has an obligation to not do that as human beings. Pretty sure not exposing people to harm is an implicit agreement with their users. Maybe I'm wrong and Indians (where the software is made) don't think like most of the rest of human society, but I'm pretty sure they do and don't want people they converse with being put on government watch lists for simply being entered into a database without their consent or knowledge.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#50

Post by abtom »

Alterlife wrote: post #39

This article focuses on the problems that truecaller poses for 'non-users". As a non-user of truecaller in India myself, I find myself in the minority. It seems I get none of the benefits (improved spam filtering, the chance to see who is calling me), and in the 'prisoners dilemma' sense, it appears I would loose nothing by installing it, because they already have my contact information. However, this is only half th…

If you're a non-user and do not wish your information to appear on the app, you can unlist your number here - https://www.truecaller.com/unlisting

Though I do not agree with the method where as a non-user I need to manually opt-out of the service, it does seem to work. My number is no longer visible on the app.

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