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Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

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Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you give up, because other people know more about you, than you thought? Maybe giving up on the "nobody must ever know", but maybe not in general? There are still quite some steps from here to 1984, despite people dramatizing.

Maybe but the direction is towards 1984 not away from it.

Yup. But the more people believe we are already there and give up, the faster we accelerate.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#182
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always deactivate geolocation and I assume and hope it doesn't phone home to Google in that case. I still deactivate network if I don't need it. Android devices cannot really be trusted and it seems to be getting worse. Of course I am not using contact tracing either in this case, but I certainly won't allow Google to trace my location.

Even if you disable geolocation, Google can learn your location via Wifi/Access points nearby easily. It should be easy to cross references you (geolocation disabled) and others (one of them enabled geolocation) in the same network for Google. > Google retains a detailed map of known Wi-Fi networks and access points. By knowing the exact location of these networks, and your proximity to them, its location services ca…

It should be noted that by using WiFi (or Bluetooth) triangulation you can actually get much higher location accuracy, like a foot or two

30 feet sounds like cell tower triangulation.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#183
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always deactivate geolocation and I assume and hope it doesn't phone home to Google in that case. I still deactivate network if I don't need it. Android devices cannot really be trusted and it seems to be getting worse. Of course I am not using contact tracing either in this case, but I certainly won't allow Google to trace my location.

Even if you disable geolocation, Google can learn your location via Wifi/Access points nearby easily. It should be easy to cross references you (geolocation disabled) and others (one of them enabled geolocation) in the same network for Google. > Google retains a detailed map of known Wi-Fi networks and access points. By knowing the exact location of these networks, and your proximity to them, its location services ca…

They could have surrendered that info, and helped tracing covid infected persons, but that would risk there monopoly for lives, so bad business strategy.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#184
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you disable geolocation, Google can learn your location via Wifi/Access points nearby easily. It should be easy to cross references you (geolocation disabled) and others (one of them enabled geolocation) in the same network for Google. > Google retains a detailed map of known Wi-Fi networks and access points. By knowing the exact location of these networks, and your proximity to them, its location services ca…

It should be noted that by using WiFi (or Bluetooth) triangulation you can actually get much higher location accuracy, like a foot or two 30 feet sounds like cell tower triangulation.

Using cell tower and wifi location actually made my location much less accurate when I was living in SF. Rideshares would pull up to the wrong side of the street where the cell tower was, and immediately get kicked out and ditch me because it was a high use bus stop. When driving myself I would pop several streets over every time a new office tower came into line of sight. When near the beach, my location would fix to some cafe half a mile away with its wifi power up too high.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#185
I was debugging some android battery issue in 2015, found that Google pushed new background service for upcoming Wear/Watch OS product. They literally pushed a scanning service to billions of devices through "Play Services" for a product which was barely available. Sold my android phone and switched to iOS.

All these smart people they hire and amount of shit code in android is staggering. They never commit to fundamentally fix/rebuild basics, it's just library on top of library which need to distributed with every app to use basic stuff. (Why the hell is support library even a thing?, if they can push spying shit through google play services, they can push support libs too, and not have every app include it their builds). Kotlin because they screwed up with Java license, instead of building something ground up they take these ugly routes. Look at what Apple is doing x86-Arm, Swift in last 5/6 years?. Google is still hacking around on top of Java language/VM's after over 10 years.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#186

One of the most disappointing changes in Android recently is that any network-assisted geolocation plugins must now be installed as a system app, not a user app. That means that even if you use LineageOS where most Google stuff has been stripped out, getting a GPS fix through network assistance still sends data to Google servers. Only a tiny minority of users are comfortable working with the command line and will ins…

Private DNS (DNS over TLS) also sends metrics to a Google endpoint on every network change, as a way to detect connectivity. AOSP is truly a surveillance software.

Chrome used to have this neat little "helper" hidden in src/net/dns/host_resolver_impl.cc that would just by coincidence call hardcoded 8.8.8.8 every time DNS reply didnt contain A record, all behind the guise of "helping resolve navigation errors". Propagated to all other browsers using same codebase.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vivaldibrowser/comments/a23071/how_...

Looking it up now they rewrote this part of the browser, and either moved it somewhere else or obfuscated it better.

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a setting hidden away in android allowing apps to scan local wifi/bluetooth networks even when wifi is turned " off ". Enabled by default of course.

What settings is that?

Settings > Location > Improve Accuracy

2 settings, one for Wi-Fi scanning and one for Bluetooth

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#188
A really good reason for government regulation.

If Google and its apps have become an almost essential utility, and if government authorities can request information just like that, seems like a good argument to be made that it's both a monopoly and a utility.

Not sure how possible this will be with so much interplay between the DNC and Silicon Valley?

Re: Google knows where we are, and so do advertisers

#189
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview WTF? This makes me extremely uncomfortable for some reason. There was some hope in mind that Snowden was exaggerating but this is just insane. It feels like liberty has failed. There's no other option but to give in and accept. I submit to the overlords, but I'm not happy about this.

Liberty is not free. If you value it, then you're going to have to fight for it. Submission now leads to your descendants living in an oppressive dystopia.

The pressure should be on our governments to regulate the powerful (Google). Meanwhile we're happily electing people who have direct ties to Silicon Valley big tech and calling ourselves Resistance. It cuts both ways!

Without government help, the only way to fight the oppressive dystopia you talked about is by becoming Richard Stallman. And I value not living in a university office and having to use Lynx and pine.

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