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Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

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Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#131

Post by nfoz »

autoexec wrote: post #70
neilv wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposition to that, Clipper chip, and V-chip are three of the specific examples that come to mind when I think of cultural changes among CS techies. My impression is that there used to be more awareness, concern, and forward-looking/vision about such things. (I even recall techies being shunned for doing the tiniest fraction of invasiveness/recklessness that some major companies do today, yet those companies are…

> I even recall techies being shunned for doing the tiniest fraction of invasiveness/recklessness that some major companies do today I remember uninstalling software and dismissing it as spyware for just phoning home. The very idea of a program regularly pinging some remote host to indicate the your machine was turned on and connected to the internet was offensive. Now basically every program does this, usually excus…

I agree, but even the younger generation of nerds seem to not care as much about privacy issues, Free software, and other social/societal implications of computing, the same way that we used to in the Slashdot era. Seems like a cultural shift.

But how have I formed this perspective, about a social trend? It's my own extrapolation based on... anecdotes and social media, I guess. So it's hard to know if that picture (the before, after, or how things may have changed) is accurate.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#132

Post by londons_explore »

RachelF wrote: post #123
Scoundreller wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to see a YouTube channel or blog where somebody systemically takes apart their computer and starts reflashing every serial number in flash/EEPROM with 0x00. It’s not like any of these are phoning home (I hope), or married together, so there’s nothing to kill clones.

Changing the IMEI number of a phone is illegal in many countries.

My phone required it.

When purchased, it had an IMEI of all zeroes, and came with a step by step guide to setting the IMEI from my old phone into it.

Apparently that works around phone providers who blacklist or whitelist certain manufacturers.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#133

Post by TeMPOraL »

icebraining wrote: post #120
codedokode wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The culture was different in 90s. I remember that Windows used to ask a permission to connect to Internet to search for drivers. Today they just collect whatever telemetry they want without giving an option to disable it. I guess the reason for change is that their customers were mostly power corporate users then and now it is mostly ordinary people.

I think that permission was because Internet access used to be quite slow and expensive.

It still can be, but the new breed of hot tech companies doesn't give a damn.

Windows at least lets me mark a Wi-Fi network as metered today, which is a kind of global suggestion that "unnecessary downloads literally cost me money" - but I don't even know how much software except the OS itself cares.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#134

Post by TeMPOraL »

kybernetikos wrote: post #75
deogeo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would take real creativity for things to get that bad today. It is easily as bad or worse. Those 50-200 people knew and cared for each-other, and depended on each-other, and the surveillance was bidirectional. Whereas now you are monitored by actors almost entirely beyond your reach, that will feel no remorse in crushing you, should the command be given by whoever is in control.

> by whoever is in control. Which may ultimately be a poorly tested, bias-ridden bit of AI code.

> Which may ultimately be a poorly tested, bias-ridden bit of AI code.

It already is controlled by a poorly tested, bias-ridden, strange AI system, called the market.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#135

Post by TeMPOraL »

deogeo wrote: post #80
kybernetikos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by whoever is in control. Which may ultimately be a poorly tested, bias-ridden bit of AI code.

That is why 1984 is such a positive, optimistic work - all the nightmarish oppression worked so well and without bias!

Also, and similarly to where conspiracy theories usually get the world wrong - someone was actually in control. In real life, no one is.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#136

Post by luckylion »

mieseratte wrote: post #36
luckylion wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iraq and Libya, both of which seemed moderate compared to SA (Saddam less so then Qaddafi). Neither Iraq nor Libya have, to my knowledge, ever been used as an argument for why "we" have to unconditionally support SA, though. Neither of them have been an ally before "spreading democracy", so they don't make good analogies either imho. Also, "unwavering ally" and "we'll remove their state and let the country fall into…

I believe the point is that sometimes a tyrant is worse than cutting off the head and seeing the hydra. Of course it’s possible Iraq would’ve gone different without the Coalition Provisional Authority’s early orders.

Sometimes that may be true. In these examples it certainly hasn't, and has destabilized the whole region.

Even a bad ruler is better than anomie, especially for local minorities. The yazidis may not have been happy with Assad or Saddam, but I'm pretty sure they preferred them to ISIS and similar groups.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#137

Post by CaptainZapp »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #71
binarymax wrote: post #11

I remember back in the 90's, when Intel was going to introduce a unique identifier in their processors that could be used for authentication purposes, it caused a huge uproar and Intel backed down. [0] Having a hardware embedded unique ID that can be (is) used for tracking a known persons location at all times is probably the most intrusive privacy violation we've ever had. That we willingly carry these things around…

Looking back, it was unbelievable to see how huge the storm caused by Intel's "processor serial number" in Pentium 3 was, that even forced Intel to withdrew it. Meanwhile, nobody has ever said anything about the serial numbers of hard drives, GPUs, motherboards, RAM modules, Ethernet MAC address, etc, etc, etc. Nowadays, basically everything comes with one UUID. Pretty illogical, isn't it? > We've long lost the war o…

Meanwhile, nobody has ever said anything about the serial numbers of hard drives, GPUs, motherboards, RAM modules, Ethernet MAC address

Let's not forget every single page printed by a color printer.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#138

Post by negamax »

kalleboo wrote: post #130
negamax wrote: post #54

QQ: Can we not make mobiles without IMEI? Surely in today's time WiFi is ubiquitous and that will only increase with many cities installing city wide free WiFi. A simple Internet only phone with built in Tor support can push the envelope. Most of my communication is through apps. I don't think not having a number would make a huge difference

iPod Touch?

I laughed. But you are right! Thanks. Not sure how easy would it be to Tor embed it. I will check if that's possible at all

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#139

Post by boredishBoi »

londons_explore wrote: post #132
RachelF wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing the IMEI number of a phone is illegal in many countries.

My phone required it. When purchased, it had an IMEI of all zeroes, and came with a step by step guide to setting the IMEI from my old phone into it. Apparently that works around phone providers who blacklist or whitelist certain manufacturers.

Can you please expand on your phone? What model is it? It sounds very unusual for the user to be able to change the imei.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#140

Post by kybernetikos »

deogeo wrote: post #80
kybernetikos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by whoever is in control. Which may ultimately be a poorly tested, bias-ridden bit of AI code.

That is why 1984 is such a positive, optimistic work - all the nightmarish oppression worked so well and without bias!

Yes. Miserable as oppression is, it's handy if it only hurts you in circumstances that you could predict. Incompetent oppression can get you no matter what measures you think you've taken to live a quiet life.

Rather than 1984, the future we need to worry about will probably be more like something from Kafka.

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