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Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

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Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a blank homepage be exactly what you expect if you had no tracking enabled? The algorithm that generates the homepage is probably totally stunted with only empty logs to draw on.

You could make a list of demographic fitted choices based on info on the user. One wonders if you couldn't whip up something that would whip up a list of choices by operating locally only on the users history returning just a list of things to show on the page and forgetting it when the user closed the tab.

> operating locally only on the users history

Most users won't understand how that works. As far as they're concerned "youtube watches what I do", and any explanations about how the algorithm runs locally but google can still see what you watch if they look at IP logs will be far beyond a typical users desire to understand.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#272
Sorry, but this title sounds overly click-baity to me. Google definitely can’t read or write my WhatsApp messages. Because I’m not using an Android/Google phone with WhatsApp on it. Although I am using both Gemini and WhatsApp, the whole article doesn’t apply to me, and surely I’m not unique in this.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -- I will say, I imagine a lot of the hold-up is because they realized how dangerous it is to start trusting AI with the sensitive data on your phone. It was probably Apple being incompetent with their AI approach rather than being careful

Precisely. Its incredible that people think Apple is playing 4D chess with AI, when in reality the simplest answer is the most plausible - Apple has no clue wth to do with AI. Their own assistant - Siri - has been in shambles for close to a decade. Structurally Apple is in a disadvantage, in the AI race. And no amount of waiting, or polish is going to help them - unless they partner with OpenAI, Anthropic or Google.

Not to defend Apple - A lot of attempts of integrating AI are shot in the dark that lilely make no sense.

However, Apple did have a use case that would be an obvious improvement. The very thing LLMs excel at is at processing and generating natural language. Improving Siri with LLM capabilities was the obvious move, especially at a time where LLM providers are willing to burn cash to reach a wider use base. It speaks volumes of a company that is just rent seeking their position in the smartphone market at this point.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#274
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're operating in bad faith.

At first I thought the fact the advertising-and-tracking company needed access to their competitor's encrypted messenger was related to the tracking that is their core business model. But it's unfair to assume bad faith like that. Perhaps they merely need access to the encrypted messages in order to provide a better user experience, by serving more relevant and better personalised adverts?

I'm not going to argue there's any bar too low for Google to not clear, but also, it really is possible that it's just for the stupid AI feature they say it is. Just because it's something Google could feasibly do doesn't mean they will. I'm very confident they have never used Google Public DNS for advertising or tracking.

It's one thing to treat funneling data "to the cloud" with suspicion out of principle, but personally I think it's counterproductive to go a step further and just assume everything is always being maximally abused. The fact that it could be is an issue, but that doesn't mean it is.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#275
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What company will jump in the competition meat grinder between Google and Apple. Maybe if it’s state-sponsored. I don’t know how much HarmonyOS/Huawei are state-sponsored so I can’t claim there are.

> What company will jump in the competition meat grinder between Google and Apple Purism did. My Librem 5 works remarkably well given how small the company is.

How do you deal with things such as mobile banking? So many services just presume you use either an Android or IOS.

At some point I thought I really needed Android Auto, but I can probably just get a MStick only for that. There are other things that keep me jailed to Android though.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#277
post #148

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If you give users a way to compromise their own security, scammers will find a way to make users compromise themselves.

Users always have a way to compromise their own security, and short of taking away their freedom completely (e.g. putting them in a mental hospital) that's not possible to fix. Sacrificing human freedom in the name of security is a long, dark, and well-trodden path that I don't think we ought to venture down any further.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is trivial to verify. Just look at the permissions requested by the Google app like I did.

Even given all of the historical abuses of Google on Android you still believe an app permission is acting in good faith when Google has hooks elsewhere into the OS? Google has already been successfully sued this year in CA for siphoning off data from phones that are idle and the remainder of states is in process [0]. [0] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-314-million-verdict-...

That lawsuit was for using metered cell data not for "siphoning off data." You can look at the Android source code and verify that the Gemini app cannot bypass the permission system. This is unlike iOS, where Apple apps get special access.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the power & convenience that AI will bring will probably be too great to overcome What is that power? Honest question...

Assistant stuff. Like you bark "order a pepperoni pizza from Joe's Pizza" and it happens. You take a pic of your fridge and say "order stuff to stock it up to my usual levels". Or book a flight, or buy concert tickets or clothes, or get media recommendations, replan a trip while driving if you change your mind and add a stop somewhere. Ask to summarize group chat message floods. Put on some music. Control smart home…

>Assistant stuff. Like you bark "order a pepperoni pizza from Joe's Pizza" and it happens. You take a pic of your fridge and say "order stuff to stock it up to my usual levels". Or book a flight, or buy concert tickets or clothes, or get media recommendations, replan a trip while driving if you change your mind and add a stop somewhere. Ask to summarize group chat message floods. Put on some music. Control smart home gadgets.

Frankly, this sounds like a potential nightmare to me. Almost certainly, the big techCos that today use algorithmic "customer support" to randomly flag, ban and screw with users for completely opaque reasons and little recourse will try running all of the nice things you describe. It's very plausible that sooner or later it will become harder and harder to do any of those things by more conventional, atomic means, making you rely ever more on integrated connections between product/service providers and these ordering systems (it's "convenient", you see?) only to suddenly find yourself flagged, blocked, or banned for any number of idiotic, blandly brainless reasons and shut out of the most basic elements of your daily life.

That people would readily agree to sign up for such dependence on these opaque things is a mystery to me, and I hope a huge pushback against it happens at some point.

If you think I exaggerate, bear in mind how often such things already happen on a lesser scale in a world where having social media, a smartphone and accounts with services like Google's becomes necessary in some contexts. Also note how often someone or another finds themselves fucked when these existing dependencies suddenly get shut down because some bullshit algorithm supposedly said so.

It's also bad enough that payment systems and banking can be cut off to people who (having broken no law at all) hold some politically controversial, publicly activist discourse, or that banking and certain basic services can be withheld in some bizarre way because you live a life in which your residency or other life choices are outside the average. To have the same risks apply for ever more minor reasons across a huge swathe of just living your life is a monstrously insidious way of marginalizing and homogenizing social divergence.

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