I just feel spied upon and completely vulnerable everywhere now by this false pervert voyeur god. Can't even get away from it in national forests.
Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
91–100 of 244 posts
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm often critical of GDPR, but stuff like this is why I think it's probably necessary to have.
GDPR is 100% necessary and fundamentally a good idea. It has a lot of problems that just show how incompetent politicians can get on a bad day, but that doesn't invalidate the core idea.
Could have been my comment.
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#93It seems absurd to me to consider data about a person to belong to that person. If I learn that Chloe is a reporter for The Inquirer, what law restricts me from telling somebody else? And if there is one, what else can I not say about her? Can I mention she is a brunette? Can I tell the story about going out for coffee, or am I violating her privacy by leaking the fact that she prefers coffee to tea? To get really ri…
Privacy laws IMO have multiple purposes, only one of which is protecting the citizen’ right to their own data.
Another big one is balance of power. If a entity — be it a state, company, individual or a group of indivdiuals — knows everything about you, they thereby create a asymmetry of powers they can leverage for their own interest. In addition to protecting the individual, privacy laws are also meant to reduce or limit that kind of asymmetry to avoid the social consequences that might be linked to it.
Not without a reason it is Germany which has one of the strongest privacy movements in the world, because many of them know first hand, what data in the hand of fascist and communist governments can do to the life of individuals.
When the Nazis marched into the Netherlands, the having the religious orientation in a central database was was made the difference to many lifes. And that is, what makes data different than somebody’s knowledge in their heads: if the Nazis march into your nation you could take the decision whether to tell on your jewish neighbour or not, while in the case of real data you can’t.
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#94I have mixed feelings this. Spam calls are very much a real problem in the US as well - I get around ten per day and it's a constant annoyance.
You don’t need to know the “contact name” of a spam caller, algorithms when reporting spam should work just on the number and so when it calls you, it should just show a Probably Spam flag, nothing about the identity unless of course the caller has given their consent to provide that info.
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#95This is great. I logged into the website to check if my number was collected. It is. So I click on "suggest a better name" in a naive attempt to erase myself from the grid. I can't because they "don't collect personal information about private individuals in the EU".
you can unlist your number here - https://www.truecaller.com/unlisting
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> is it just me or is this a mountain-out-of-a-molehill situation? It's just you. The example of the journalist is a very good example of exactly why this is such an extreme issue, but it really starts with the small things. What if you want to call someone, and not tell them your name? well, f#$£ you then, the app already told them. Don't want everyone knowing where you work? well f$%& you again, maybe somebody adde…
Let's go back to the world where there is no internet. Imagine someone spreads a rumor about you. Or a praise. People might have heard this, before they even met you. It can be illegal, harmful, or beneficial, but it's under the control of the people you interact with. If you meet someone for the first time, and the person heard from someone that you're dealing drugs, and you tell her you don't, and ask them where th…
Truecaller is one of those "it just works" apps. It is completely transparent to the user. You can use it as a dialer to make and receive calls.
A lot of people don't understand that it's silently uploading their contact lists, personal information and call behavior off to the internet.
The customer service agent in the article from truecaller is correct about the usefulness of the app. A friend of mine was able to track down the owner of a fraudulent dishwasher service center in Bangalore because of truecaller. The photo and name of the owner in the app attached to the business mobile number.
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
> is it just me or is this a mountain-out-of-a-molehill situation? It's just you. The example of the journalist is a very good example of exactly why this is such an extreme issue, but it really starts with the small things. What if you want to call someone, and not tell them your name? well, f#$£ you then, the app already told them. Don't want everyone knowing where you work? well f$%& you again, maybe somebody adde…
Let's go back to the world where there is no internet. Imagine someone spreads a rumor about you. Or a praise. People might have heard this, before they even met you. It can be illegal, harmful, or beneficial, but it's under the control of the people you interact with. If you meet someone for the first time, and the person heard from someone that you're dealing drugs, and you tell her you don't, and ask them where th…
You cannot run a global civilization on the norms of a small village.
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#98What are the limits to what one is entitled to learn or ask about a caller? I get a call from 555-1234. Is it ok for me to ask a friend, hey, recognize this number? Is it ok for me to ask twitter, hey, I got a call from this number, should I call them back?
It's okay to ask.
If the answer contains personal information, it's not okay to expose it to everybody in the world.
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#99That's the problem with security through regulation. Just leave your happy regulated place and go elsewhere - and you are helpless. Without it you would probably spend more time planning your security life, especially if you are a journalist.
Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
#100Wow, is it just me or is this a mountain-out-of-a-molehill situation? This is not fundamentally any different than “report spam” for email, or a user posting “is 800-xxx-xxxx a legit number?” online, or sending a contact card to a few million of your closest friends. I appreciate the situation that the journalist found herself in, but if she wants her number to be a secret, she needs to make sure the people she calls…
Yes, this does seem like a bit of an edge case and I think it's probably served to highlight that people who need to protect their privacy need to take extra steps to preserve their anonymity... in this case telling sources to obfuscate her identity in their phones.
The reality is that phone databases like this are an invaluable tool in the war on robo & spam callers. I think that there should be an option in these databases to be able to tag numbers as spammers without the need to have their identity preserved. I don't use TrueCaller (I'm a YouMail user) but see numbers flagged all the time as "Real estate scam" or "Probably a Canadian Pharmacy" come up without revealing a name or affiliated company.