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

theguardian.com

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

#261
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my circles, this is often the first time legislation (often not even that - often executive action, sometimes by unelected folks!) has had such an immediate, clear impact on people’s lives. Many of my friends and family have had their closest interaction with the government be taxes & vehicle registration at the DMV - inconveniences, but not much more. What you list are indeed spectacular failures, but they happen…

That doesn't make any sense. There are so many government laws and regulations that affect our day-to-day lives, it would be impossible to list them all. You have to get a driver's license to drive a car and wear a seat belt while you're driving it, you can't drive if you've been drinking alcohol, you can't buy alcohol unless you're 21 and you can't do it between the hours of 12am and 8am or on Sundays, you must vacc…

Public school has its influence. The asymmetrical power to focus large resources on ideological targets is a part of modern warfare that most high-school graduates are not going to grasp intuitively.

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

#262
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my circles, this is often the first time legislation (often not even that - often executive action, sometimes by unelected folks!) has had such an immediate, clear impact on people’s lives. Many of my friends and family have had their closest interaction with the government be taxes & vehicle registration at the DMV - inconveniences, but not much more. What you list are indeed spectacular failures, but they happen…

That doesn't make any sense. There are so many government laws and regulations that affect our day-to-day lives, it would be impossible to list them all. You have to get a driver's license to drive a car and wear a seat belt while you're driving it, you can't drive if you've been drinking alcohol, you can't buy alcohol unless you're 21 and you can't do it between the hours of 12am and 8am or on Sundays, you must vacc…

Maybe it depends on age? For a lot of these activities it feels like it's always been that way (maybe not true if you're older?), so even if excessive you've had your whole life to get used to it. All of this covid stuff is new. I agree with mwint, don't have a home, not remodeling, no kids, and no business.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and I think OP (or at least myself) agrees with the points you've made, which is why they seem to be trying strike a balance between gaining the advantages of Location History, but keeping that data to themselves and outside the Google umbrella, and thus want to understand how to do it. I view it similarly as others looking at methods to self-host their photo backup with timeline indexing and searching, etc.

Ten years ago, in 2011, Pete Warden discovered that the iPhone was tracking peoples' locations. It was considered to be a bug at the time, because it was only intended to be stored for up to a week, for knowing which phone transmitter to use. https://petewarden.github.io/iPhoneTracker/ "the advantages of Location History" I thought that this data would be useful to help geotag the photos in my iPhoto library. So I wr…

Just wondering what type of thing were you doing that would make you self conscious about your location? Please don't read anything much into this, just interested in what type of things people feel uncomfortable about having recoded.

For me the most uncomfortable thing I ever did was itemise how much money I had spent at different outlets. I discovered that I'd spent an incredible amount of money scuba diving over a 12 month period. Not something that I wanted to share with my partner.

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

#264

I remember that story about Zachary McCoy. This whole thing continues to get worse quick and will continue to get worse. I know people say we need legislation and regulation on data privacy and tech companies which we do. But before that gets taken seriously (at least in the US) it's going to take something real scandalous done by tech companies and actually affect the common folk where they actually start to care. R…

Privacy and security regulation, nor antitrust regulation, are viable means to stop tech companies from creating problems. The way to stop them is to regulate online advertising. Tech companies have no other way to make money. Ignoring this is like trying to fight a war without ever trying to interfere with the enemy's supply chains. The constant focus on the majority of web users, i.e., "the average user", is mispla…

When both the government and the advertising companies have an aligned incentive to spy on us all, Why would the government pass either privacy or advertising laws?

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

#265
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my circles, this is often the first time legislation (often not even that - often executive action, sometimes by unelected folks!) has had such an immediate, clear impact on people’s lives. Many of my friends and family have had their closest interaction with the government be taxes & vehicle registration at the DMV - inconveniences, but not much more. What you list are indeed spectacular failures, but they happen…

That's really interesting, I feel like I've experienced the opposite, most people I know have had some kind of interaction with the "hand of government" in some way, if not themselves then second hand. At least in the US with our incarceration rates, statistically it's still more likely that any given person knows someone who is in prison than knowing someone who has died from COVID-19. And COVID-19 has killed a lot…

>it's not the government that was doing those things, it's the virus that was making it so they can’t buy something, they they have to wear a mask, they have to inject something in their body, they can’t go to a concert, etc.

The difference between my government's response to the virus and the Swedish government's response was not determined by covid's preferences. Humans made these policies.

>The government can only enforce the will of the people...

The government is enforcing the will of the medical establishment. We didn't get polled on "6' vs 8' social distancing" or "should cloth masks be required or is a bandana acceptable?".

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What fundamental problem do you have with cops using tech to catch criminals? Not talking about the abuse of innocents here, or warrantless intrusions into your data, just the core of what you're saying.

I'll bite. The problem is asymmetry of information, and that the protections haven't advanced alongside the ease of collecting information. For example, imaging you have a suspect and want to trail them. The courts have established that you have no expectation of privacy when in a public area, so an officer can trail your car and watch where you go. You only have so many officers, and so there are implicit limits on…

Get the cops to high crime areas.

There is no need for the amount of law enforcement I have in my county of Marin.

They would then have more time to put GPS's on vechicles, and less time for Revenue Collection.

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

#268
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure thr police cannot put a GPS tracker on your car without a warrant.

You'd be wrong in the USA. Anybody who parks in any public space or outdoors can have a unit placed on their vehicle by anybody.

It's still illegal. I could go around keying people's car for potentially a lifetime without getting caught but it's still illegal and that's what we were talking about in the thread.

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is pretty out of touch I think. When I talk to non HN crowd. * Apple's efforts around blocking CASM are applauded * Folks are GLAD that cops are using tech to catch criminals * Folks don't have a ton of trust that the regulations will help their lives, or block govt from doing things, but do imagine they will be annoying (more permission banners / cookies popups etc). It would be interesting to look at other count…

I dunno, I mostly agree with you, but I think lately, at least with my family and friends, the coronavirus political response has made many more people much more skeptical about centralized authority figures. The narrative that is commonly recounted is that it's obvious that the people in authority are either incredibly incompetent or crazily power-hungry, and both are leading many of my family and friends to questio…

I think post-Trump it's tougher for anyone in the US to believe totally in the institutions that got us here, despite the different reasons on each side of the aisle.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What fundamental problem do you have with cops using tech to catch criminals? Not talking about the abuse of innocents here, or warrantless intrusions into your data, just the core of what you're saying.

I personally don't. I suspect plenty of folks agree with me. My point is, the HN outrage at things like tech to solve crimes (because of privacy etc issues) is in many cases not shared more broadly.

I agree with your claim. I still think the Apple security boondoggle got the right treatment, and I hope they've backed off forever, but I have my doubts.
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