The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

Post by jjoonathan » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

flanbiscuit wrote: post #66

Syonyk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a trained neural network I keep between my ears... Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about external queries violating my various rights nearly as much as with tech companies. At this point, I think every piece of modern consumer electronics ought to be considered hostile until proven benign. I've worked with enough of them over the years, on different ends,…

I recently set my google location history to auto-delete. At first I wanted to keep it recording my location history forever because "just in case" I needed to know where I was for something that was extremely unimportant. Overall, I've looked at it only handful of times over the many years it has been running so in the end it really helps Google more than it helps me. I might even just turn it off completely. I'm sl…

Post by chrononaut » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

Syonyk wrote: post #46

dawnerd wrote: post #5

Is there a self hosted app to track your location? I use Google maps to keep granular history so I can use it later for whatever. But if I could self host that’d be better.

I use a trained neural network I keep between my ears... Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about external queries violating my various rights nearly as much as with tech companies. At this point, I think every piece of modern consumer electronics ought to be considered hostile until proven benign. I've worked with enough of them over the years, on different ends,…

Post by Syonyk » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #77

Syonyk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As it stands, true privacy is relegated to the technologically elite, the truly paranoid, or those that can pay to play. I would love for that to change, but unfortunately that's the current state of affairs. Or the broke who can't afford the devices now more and more used against us. Or those who are willing to forgo the conveniences of such devices in exchange for privacy. Or, simply for the sanity of not having…

I know someone from school who is a fairly senior manager at one of the FAANGs. He only got a cell phone in the first place because he and his wife adopted and the nanny insisted. I know he has a company-issued smartphone now. Don't know if his personal phone is a smartphone by now or if he's still using a flip phone of some sort.

Post by nbzso » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

Syonyk wrote: post #46

dawnerd wrote: post #5

Is there a self hosted app to track your location? I use Google maps to keep granular history so I can use it later for whatever. But if I could self host that’d be better.

I use a trained neural network I keep between my ears... Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about external queries violating my various rights nearly as much as with tech companies. At this point, I think every piece of modern consumer electronics ought to be considered hostile until proven benign. I've worked with enough of them over the years, on different ends,…

Post by sneak » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

Syonyk wrote: post #52

tpmx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tricky to use e.g. Google's Waze then.

So don't. Check traffic before you depart, pick a route, and leave some extra time in case you hit unexpected traffic. I know I've been going on about it lately, but for almost every "How can we possibly do this without an app tracking every bit of data it possibly can?" sort of task, people were doing that, or something functionally equivalent, before cell phones, or on cell phones that aren't actively user-hostile.