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Density.io

density.io

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Re: Density.io

#141

Post by nickporter »

chrisfarms wrote: post #5

Risky. MAC address tracking is definitely a legal 'grey area' at the moment. I can imagine mining/fingerprinting in this way could easily become illegal in the not-to-distant future. In the UK, City of London already banned the wifi-enabled bins that were tracking MAC addresses. It would be really easy to tie a name to MAC address (from point of purchase with a credit card), then see exactly where that person went vi…

> It would be really easy to tie a name to MAC address (from point of purchase with a credit card).

How would you do it?

Re: Density.io

#144

Post by Karunamon »

joeshaw wrote: post #123
Karunamon wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate mode: What privacy is that? Your device is broadcasting information, in the clear, to anyone who cares to receive that information. You've taken no steps to prevent anyone from receiving that information. Your device is doing the equivalent of standing on the street corner and screaming various things. You can't rightly tell someone not to listen or write down what's being said. I don't see how this…

> Your device is doing the equivalent of standing on the street corner and screaming various things. Except there's one huge difference: anyone with eyes and ears can understand what the person is screaming. I would wager that even fewer than half of HN readers realize what's being broadcasted here. What you're saying is that every human must have complete technological and implementation knowledge of any possible in…

And anyone with a smartphone (or any other reasonably general purpose device with a 802.11 radio) can "understand" (read: pick MAC addresses out of a WiFi ping). This isn't some hidden, elite, arcane black-arts knowledge as you imply, this is standard stuff.

The idea that MACs should be somehow private because someone found a novel use for them doesn't even pass the laugh test. IP addresses are not "private". Your face out in a public area is not "private". Why is this different? How is this somehow worse than the CCTV cameras in most public places anyways? How is a MAC address PII by any stretch of the word?

I'm starting to really think "privacy" has joined the heap along with "patriotism", "socialism", and "terrorist", words which are being abused so badly they've lost all meaning and and as a result mean whatever their speaker wishes them to.

>That position is not only elitist as a technophile

One shouldn't hold strong opinions about things they don't understand even on a remedial level. This hand wringing is pure and simple fear mongering.

Re: Density.io

#146

Post by aleem »

tomasien wrote: post #18

Met these this last week, they're absolutely incredible and they understand their market really well. They take privacy incredibly seriously and they've built a product that can change the industry.

Sounds like public-relations-101 speak. Same as big oil advertising green initiatives. They can counteract sentiment with PR but they can't change who they are: a company that tracks buyers without consent.

"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is." [1]

  [1] http://paulgraham.com/cornpone.html

Re: Density.io

#147

Post by parennoob »

Karunamon wrote: post #144
joeshaw wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your device is doing the equivalent of standing on the street corner and screaming various things. Except there's one huge difference: anyone with eyes and ears can understand what the person is screaming. I would wager that even fewer than half of HN readers realize what's being broadcasted here. What you're saying is that every human must have complete technological and implementation knowledge of any possible in…

And anyone with a smartphone (or any other reasonably general purpose device with a 802.11 radio) can "understand" (read: pick MAC addresses out of a WiFi ping). This isn't some hidden, elite, arcane black-arts knowledge as you imply, this is standard stuff. The idea that MACs should be somehow private because someone found a novel use for them doesn't even pass the laugh test. IP addresses are not "private". Your fa…

> The idea that MACs should be somehow private because someone found a novel use for them doesn't even pass the laugh test. IP addresses are not "private". Your face out in a public area is not "private"

I think you might be misunderstanding the part of this I have a problem with, or perhaps my language wasn't explanatory enough. I have a problem with the company linking back this info to a specific person, not the information itself.

MACs shouldn't be "somehow" private. MACs are not private. But when you use them to tie back to a specific person who is in your shop (with the credit card purchase info), you are essentially tracking a person. I think this activity should be regulated and should be an opt-in thing for users. (Enforcing this regulation could be admittedly a challenge, but it will at least be a step in the direction of strongly discouraging businesses to implement such 'features'.)

Similarly, your face out in a public place is not private. But if I have a startup that sets up CCTVs in participating businesses' premises and then track the movement of specific customers from shop to shop and generate data like "Okay -- the same face that was tracked shopping at Nordstrom then went on to have lunch at the Whole Foods next door; and from the credit card that was used, we can see that it was Mr. Karunamon", it's going to run up against major privacy concerns. I think this is very similar, but not that controversial because it is not so visible.

Re: Density.io

#148

Post by moogleii »

jamiequint wrote: post #56

Everyone here seems to be complaining about the anonymous tracking, which isn't really an issue for "normals". Its a relatively useless complaint too as that data already exists in the credit card network. The real issue with this is that most SMBs are unsophisticated when it comes to the technology stack they use. I saw this firsthand in many ways working at Swipely (swipely.com) as we figured out product market fit…

Exactly, this is basically a physical manifestation of what google already does with your online presence.

Re: Density.io

#149

Post by telecuda »

Am I correct to assume that the hardware/device piece is similar to a Pineapple (https://hakshop.myshopify.com/products/wifi-pineapple)?

As I understand it, the device is like a WiFi Router looking for nearby clients broadcasting their MAC. Since phones have the ability of turning themselves into WiFi Hotspots, could a phone/app offer this same capability, or is it missing a hardware piece that lives in Density/Pineapple?

Re: Density.io

#150

Post by dfc »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #78
chrisfarms wrote: post #5

Risky. MAC address tracking is definitely a legal 'grey area' at the moment. I can imagine mining/fingerprinting in this way could easily become illegal in the not-to-distant future. In the UK, City of London already banned the wifi-enabled bins that were tracking MAC addresses. It would be really easy to tie a name to MAC address (from point of purchase with a credit card), then see exactly where that person went vi…

City of Houston does MAC address tracking on the freeways and surface streets to power their traffic tracking measures. It's probably used in hundreds of other places you haven't thought about. If you're concerned about your privacy just turn wifi off. http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/layers/

The Houston system uses bluetooth, not 802.11.
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