My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants • Hacker News Board

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#101

Post by Gunax » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #34

bjarneh wrote: post #13

> “I agree,” I pressed. We had now made a binding agreement, the app and I. I hate this whole premise. We have to agree to an incomprehensible text wall of vague legal nonsense, that very often violate our own laws (as in this case), in order to install an app. These illegal contracts are completely void of any meaning, and it should not matter that you "agreed" to be screwed over like that. Being screwed over like t…

As people, we like to think categorically... especially "contracting" in the philosophical and legal sense. Whether its a medieval oath or a standard employment contract, the concept of "binding agreement" sorts out moral issues of consent and creates a platform for further relations. Reality is generally less fussy about categorical boundaries. It likes spectrum. Linnaean classification is an approximation. Biology…

I have thought in a similar vein about capitalism and markets. Why, if everyone is clamoring for fair contracts, are not businesses offering them?

Partly it's because consumers cannot tell a good from a bad contract.

And partly I think it's that a lot of people say the right signals ('I care deeply about privacy!') As it's the cause de celebre, but don't actually care.

Sometimes they just want to watch Hulu without going on a stallman esque campaign.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#102

Post by danarmak » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

alisonkisk wrote: post #80

davvolun wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the thing though. > Signer agrees to become contract murderer unless pre-empted by local laws and regulations. I'm over-exaggerating, and I get the value when it's prohibitively expensive to write a TOS when it's essentially impossible to pre-emptively vet the legality of all possible clauses internationally as laws constantly change. But if the clause I wrote is technically valid, then what's the poin…

The TOS is about what you can do, not what the company can do.

"We'll do whatever we like, and you're not allowed to do anything, except as required by applicable law".

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#103

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #89

tclancy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why? I'm not clear on the implications but am definitely interested.

Battery life, but mostly the topic of the article: apps use it to track you [1]. I always ask myself: why does this app need to communicate with a server if I didn't open the app? For the majority of apps there is no need to do anything while they're asleep. [1] https://www.macobserver.com/news/background-app-refresh-data...

Do iPhones do this if I enable location with "when I use the app" as opposed to "always"?

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#104

Post by hedora » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #64

diarrhea wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tracking is extremly intrusive. With GPS turned off, accuracy is diminished, but locating the device is still possible via WiFi SSIDs and cell towers the phone is logged into. Maybe Bluetooth also plays a role. In the background, the phone uses its gyro sensors so it can tell what you are doing: walking, running, getting into a car/sitting down, getting out/up, ... The unsettling part is that location logging con…

If you actually turn off location services in the OS none of this tracking occurs. About the only remaining source would be the mag of apps implement their own harvesting of the Earth’s magnetic field. Such things are extremely technically difficult to do well (you’d need to map the mag signals across the world) and the accuracy isn’t great (somewhere between wifi and coarse cellular if I recall correctly). If at any…

You also need to turn off the Bluetooth, cell, and wifi modems, and keep them off.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-acces...

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if baseband processors eventually start logging and asynchronously sending gps data to the cell carriers behind the operating system’s back, so you should also keep it in a mylar sack.

Similarly the accelerometer can gather all sorts of information (passwords, text typed on the keyboard, are you driving, flying, walking, etc), so you’ll probably eventually need to keep the phone in a drawer to avoid leaking that information. Similarly for the microphone (some surveillance libraries already snoop sounds in various primitive ways).

To recap: keep it off the network in a stationary, electromagnetically shielded, sound proof box. That’s simple enough, and from there you can use it as normal.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#105

Post by ska » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

bigwavedave wrote: post #73

Moru wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually there is a few lines at the end stating that wherever this is illegal, these parts are not binding. (Or something more legalese ofcourse)

> Usually there is a few lines at the end stating that wherever this is illegal, these parts are not binding Personally, this is what I detest the most. There's always a bit in the boilerplate that's akin to "you agree to everything here, even the unenforceable bits. If we're ever challenged on the unenforceable parts after the fact, you still agree to be bound by everything else here." IA[very_much]NAL, but to me th…

severability is actually a really important and broad legal concept (IANAL). I can where you get to [the view you espouse above] but if you think a bit about it you'll realize that contract law would become pretty unworkable without it. If every clause and statement has to be perfect or the whole thing evaporates, it would be hard to get anything done. And even if it were ok today, legislative changes tomorrow could inadvertently nuke a bunch of contracts.

This is separable from the abusive nature of ToS of course.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#106

Post by Hamuko » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #98

Hamuko wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were true I feel confident that information would have leaked by now. Yeah, there's no way for Facebook to be actively listening to conversations on millions of phones connected to private home networks without someone noticing. And that's not even addressing that someone currently or formerly working at Facebook would just blow the whistle at some point. The problem with this conspiracy theory is that people…

But this definitely _does_ happen, and most people, even non-tech people are aware of it. There's just some people who refuse to believe it.

You mean that Facebook is definitely tapping your phone's microphone 24/7?

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#107

Post by martamorena9182 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #94

martamorena9182 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I legitimately have no clue what you are trying to say. But it sounds very educated, so that's good I guess?

What isn't understandable?

Being able to read the words doesn't mean the comment makes sense. Reading it over and over again, yeah sure I can understand it, but I don't see any "point" or relation to the original comment.

Some people just seem to feel "smart" by wording things as convoluted as possible, using fancy words and references. The truth is, it is much harder to express thoughts clearly with simple, yet elegant words. Mostly because that makes everyone understand it, and everyone able to see through the facade. Meaning that whatever you say will need to hold up to much more scrutiny and you can't hide behind a facade of "fancyness" that scares off readers.

It's similar to coding. Writing simple code for complex programs is much much harder than writing complex code for complex problems, or even worse complex code for simple problems, which many people like to do.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#108

Post by distances » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #98

Hamuko wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were true I feel confident that information would have leaked by now. Yeah, there's no way for Facebook to be actively listening to conversations on millions of phones connected to private home networks without someone noticing. And that's not even addressing that someone currently or formerly working at Facebook would just blow the whistle at some point. The problem with this conspiracy theory is that people…

But this definitely _does_ happen, and most people, even non-tech people are aware of it. There's just some people who refuse to believe it.

If you mean the conspiracy theory, then some proof would be in order. That happening, and most people believing that to happen, are both outlandish claims.

Spoiler: it actually does not happen. As the other person commented, snooping like this in scale would leak.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#109

Post by swiley » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

loa_in_ wrote: post #54

bjarneh wrote: post #13

> “I agree,” I pressed. We had now made a binding agreement, the app and I. I hate this whole premise. We have to agree to an incomprehensible text wall of vague legal nonsense, that very often violate our own laws (as in this case), in order to install an app. These illegal contracts are completely void of any meaning, and it should not matter that you "agreed" to be screwed over like that. Being screwed over like t…

You as a user can choose to uninstall it immediately and try alternatives until successful. Most people of course, akin to how paying with card makes you overspend because you don't see the money, agree to anything because it's just a button on the screen not a potentially predatory human person.

You know full well there are plenty of situations where that's not an option and that almost no one fully appreciates what happens when they press agree.

The whole culture around closed smart phone apps is completely rotten.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#110

Post by PeterStuer » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #37

lode wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much more readable in Thread reader form: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1334465877153095680.html

So we have a very successful short messages app, that now resulted in another service to be successful, which combines the short messages into a long format. Innovation and evolution aren't always straightforward I guess!

Or you can just read the article on the website https://nrkbeta.no/2020/12/03/my-phone-was-spying-on-me-so-i...