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Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

reuters.com

481–490 of 649 posts

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#481

Legitimately scary stuff but not surprising. Snowden risked everything to tell us what was going on and where things were headed yet here we are. At this point, it seems the only way to not be subject to this type of treatment by our governments is to completely unplug from the system, but of course, practically speaking, this isn’t feasible for the overwhelming majority of our society. So what are the alternatives h…

Are powerful mobile phones packed with Apps and constant notifications so necessary to a full, fun, enjoyable techy life, really?

I am legitimately surprised that more tech-heads didn't see this state-of-affairs (and all the other obvious drawbacks of The World's Most Featureful Spy Device, controlled end-to-end by a giant multinational, becoming ubiquitous in peoples back pockets) as an obvious, absolute given, right from the very start of the whole smartphone trend. Instead we all seem to have bought into it, hook-line-and-sinker.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Utah sounds like your ideal Not enough trees. Nor enough employment in my non-remoteable field. Public smoking is a concern, but the smoke will leak even if smoked inside of a home. With edibles and inhalers I don't understand why people thought it was a good idea to legalize marijuana smoking. > Nor do I see how having bodily autonomy is necessarily a tyranny of the masses. Generalizing the principle of the swingi…

Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do know that, right? I'm not detecting any humour markers...

> Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation.

You do understand that many tort suits, and outright laws, are over subjective harms, right? (trash in neighbors yards, loud sounds late at night, smells from chemical industries, etcetera) That laws such as disability protection laws exist?

https://www.chemicalsensitivityfoundation.org/index.html

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#483
post #62

Ron Ryden has been barking up this tree for a long time: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/issues/secret-law https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-colle... https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-intro... https://www.wyden.senate.gov/priorities/gps-act https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-relea...

He even inspired Snowden to expose the illegal mass surveillance programs. IIRC Snowden reached a breaking point when James Clapper, then director of national intelligence, lied under oath to Congress when pressed about domestic surveillance by senator Wyden. It's sad we don't hear more about people like this in positions of power.

His position on it has been clear for a while:

2008: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla...

The votes: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/110-2008/s168

But this is a MUCH older issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

And if you don't know about Quest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

The entire time period of the Bush admin is a microcosm for unresolved issues of today: Voting machines, government over reach and spying, security, encryption, copyright, bad behavior by corporate entities (M$ has a cohort).

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Utah sounds like your ideal Not enough trees. Nor enough employment in my non-remoteable field. Public smoking is a concern, but the smoke will leak even if smoked inside of a home. With edibles and inhalers I don't understand why people thought it was a good idea to legalize marijuana smoking. > Nor do I see how having bodily autonomy is necessarily a tyranny of the masses. Generalizing the principle of the swingi…

Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do know that, right? I'm not detecting any humour markers...

I don't agree with that. If blasting music can be a matter for legislation (nuisance laws and the like), then so can bothering people around you with the reek of smoking weed.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOSP is not a deviation from the norm. It's the thing Google ships, vendors install play services as separate apps on top, so there is nothing oddball about your device fingerprint just by not installing Google specific services like the push handler. Your traffic will look like any other android making web requests, but then those requests will only be tracked by the servers they target instead of the OS itself betr…

> NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extre... But they totally can't figure out you use a custom OS built to resist surveillance. Go figure!

But that's tracking your web requests to search engine servers. The way those requests look is dependent on your browser, not which ROM you are running. You can setup your user agent to be whatever you'd like at least on android or desktop browser.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do know that, right? I'm not detecting any humour markers...

> Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do understand that many tort suits, and outright laws, are over subjective harms, right? (trash in neighbors yards, loud sounds late at night, smells from chemical industries, etcetera) That laws such as disability protection laws exist? https://www.chemicalsensitivityfoundation.org/index.html

... None of your examples are like for like.

Lots of people love the smell of cannabis. No one loves "trash in neighbors yards, loud sounds late at night, smells from chemical industries".

Arguing in bad faith is lame dude.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do know that, right? I'm not detecting any humour markers...

I don't agree with that. If blasting music can be a matter for legislation (nuisance laws and the like), then so can bothering people around you with the reek of smoking weed.

As mentioned, there are already laws around smoking in public.

OP is complaining that he might get a whiff coming from his neighbors house.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#488
Push notifications are sent from an app server to an individual device, correct? And the device enrolls with the server for receiving push notifications.

Why isn't there key exchange happening at the time of enrollment? Why is it something apps have to manually do? We moved the web to https everywhere for a reason, why are apps behind the web in privacy?

Potentially stupid question - how is iMessage encrypted end to end if the notifications aren't?

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#489

Legitimately scary stuff but not surprising. Snowden risked everything to tell us what was going on and where things were headed yet here we are. At this point, it seems the only way to not be subject to this type of treatment by our governments is to completely unplug from the system, but of course, practically speaking, this isn’t feasible for the overwhelming majority of our society. So what are the alternatives h…

Are powerful mobile phones packed with Apps and constant notifications so necessary to a full, fun, enjoyable techy life, really? I am legitimately surprised that more tech-heads didn't see this state-of-affairs (and all the other obvious drawbacks of The World's Most Featureful Spy Device, controlled end-to-end by a giant multinational, becoming ubiquitous in peoples back pockets) as an obvious, absolute given, righ…

The really scary thing is that, forget what you said, they're starting to become more and more necessary for the bare minimum existence. We're not quite there yet, but it's becoming harder and harder to simply exist without one of these things.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do understand that many tort suits, and outright laws, are over subjective harms, right? (trash in neighbors yards, loud sounds late at night, smells from chemical industries, etcetera) That laws such as disability protection laws exist? https://www.chemicalsensitivityfoundation.org/index.html

... None of your examples are like for like. Lots of people love the smell of cannabis. No one loves "trash in neighbors yards, loud sounds late at night, smells from chemical industries". Arguing in bad faith is lame dude.

> trash in neighbors yards

There are entire messy neighborhoods.

> loud sounds late at night

People sleep at different times of the day.

> smells from chemical industries

People who lack a sense of smell don't care.

Special pleading for marijuana smoking is also lame.

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