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How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

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Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#71

Post by acangiano »

reitanqild wrote: post #44
amirmc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "... it is their own responsibility to read the T&Cs of those services." While some people may believe/feel this is reasonable, it has rapidly become impractical. Have you read the T&CS for all the services you use? Any idea how many pages of text that comes to? Did you also know that the reading level of most T&Cs requires college-level education (just to comprehend)? My point is that it is already impractical (&…

I used to read them, then sift through them. Then I gave up. My defence would go along the lines of: you don't seriously think that any end user would read that, would you? (Exceptions for APIs etc.) Same goes for legal disclaimers in email footers, cookie warnings, warning stickers etc. Why are we allowing this to happen? (My solution: "Yes, you can sue them because the coffee was hot (etc) and there was no sticker…

As an aside, the "coffee was hot" lawsuit wasn't as frivolous as people make it sound. See Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants for details.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#72

Post by acangiano »

minimaxir wrote: post #54
smackfu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH, if their sample size is the same as the population size, their data is by definition statistically significant.

Not even that. If the sample size in general is extremely large (irrespective of its proportion to the population size), than the results are statistically significant. A sample size in the thousands counts as "extremely large."

I think that most people greatly overestimate the sample size needed to achieve statistical significance.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#73

Post by drzaiusapelord »

antr wrote: post #18

The fact that Jawbone has this information on their users (yes, I know they say it's aggregated and "anonymised" data) is pretty scary to me. In my opinion, this data should only be visible to each user, and no one else. I really doubt Jawbone users are aware that their UP devices are sending data to third-parties... it feels like 21st century shackles.

Comments like these make me think that the pro-privacy crowd is officially a cult. I just don't see the argument about anonymized data that you can opt-out of being such a threat to the end user. I love these types of analysis, especially the ones about dating from OK Cupid. Tivo used to reveal all sorts of interesting things about viewership that was very enlightening. I'd hate to lose this data just because a minority think its a threat to their civil rights. There's a reason why no one outside of reddit and HN knows what the EFF is or cares about their mission. It doesn't fit in with most people's politics.

I really think the privacy advocates are holding us back at this point. They refuse to make reasonable concessions and while they think they're fighting the good fight, they've just marginalized themselves to the point where only a tiny extremist minority is engaged because moderate voices are shouted down as "selling out to the man" or the NSA or whoever the villain of the day is.

Its also sad to see a arguably progressive community like HN fall for this stuff. Not only are we doing this stuff all the time, the current fad of health devices, smart watches, etc are going to make this a lot more common. We're like cavemen throwing spears at an enemy with machine guns. Its a fight we've long lost. I think its better for us to focus on privacy issues that are legitimately victimizing instead of railing against anything and everything that kinda sorta rubs us the wrong way.

If anything, the cult of privacy is hurting us because its created a "boy who cried wolf" situation which is now a political liability. How am I supposed to tell Joe Midwest Voter that X is harmful when he keeps hearing about how tracking cookies or Tivo stats or iPhone policies are harmful and didn't give two shits about those either.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#74

Post by sumeno »

MadManE wrote: post #60
TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creepy is the new luddism, I think. Seriously, what the hell is so "creepy" about someone knowing your sleep pattern?

Nobody is saying that the technology is creepy. It's the fact that it's not at all private that's creepy. As Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes responsibility." It's an awesome thing to have the power of "big data" to analyze your life and make better decisions. But "big data" needs to be responsible in how they handle that data (and their users' trust).

Which individuals data was compromised in making this chart?

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#75

Post by maxerickson »

amirmc wrote: post #41
TomAnthony wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Jawbone UP user and I have absolutely no problem with this anonymised data being used like this. It can make not only the product better but could also lead to useful research around sleep and health. If I want out then Jawbone has a handy 'remove all my data' option. People share all sorts of data in all sorts of places (as others have pointed out in this thread), and it is their own responsibility to read the…

> "... it is their own responsibility to read the T&Cs of those services." While some people may believe/feel this is reasonable, it has rapidly become impractical. Have you read the T&CS for all the services you use? Any idea how many pages of text that comes to? Did you also know that the reading level of most T&Cs requires college-level education (just to comprehend)? My point is that it is already impractical (&…

Their privacy statement is short and clear:

https://jawbone.com/legal/privacy

~1400 words.

I liked this section:

When you use the Jawbone Companion app we connect with and upload to our servers the address book and calendar on your device along with other data that we normally collect through our mobile apps described in the app usage data section below.

I wonder how calendars are used.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#76

Post by Lewisham »

gmu3 wrote: post #65
venus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Apparently everyone in Santa Cruz goes to bed early and gets up early. Probably some selection bias at work here. It's possible the type of person who's buying and wearing personal fitness monitors is also the type of person who gets up early. > Maybe I'm the only one that sets my alarm on the hour Probably my OCD coming out but I only set my alarm with minutes beginning 0-4 and ending with 8. I'm sure everyone…

If it was selection bias like that, the same would apply to people in other cities, so it wouldn't explain the difference in the graph. My guess is people in Santa Cruz on average have a longer commute.

It's going to be a selection bias of:

1. People who are fit (or want to be)

2. People who are technical (or are interested in quantified life in general)

Technical people who commute from SC to Silicon Valley have far less bus options and routes than SF (SC has three each way for Google which ends at 9:25). That forces a lot of the number 2 people awake earlier than they otherwise would be.

I think SC is probably the same, if not average getting up later than other Bay Area places, due to the large student population and short walk/bike commute for those who work in the town.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#77

Post by wdr1 »

antr wrote: post #18

The fact that Jawbone has this information on their users (yes, I know they say it's aggregated and "anonymised" data) is pretty scary to me. In my opinion, this data should only be visible to each user, and no one else. I really doubt Jawbone users are aware that their UP devices are sending data to third-parties... it feels like 21st century shackles.

To me, there's a world of difference between sharing my personal commute between home & work, and using my drive to show traffic patterns.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#78

Post by xanderstrike »

dredmorbius wrote: post #36
lfx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is not simple image. This is interactive chart. You can hover lines and get some info via tool tip. Apparently you are using quite old browser, if you don't mind asking you? Since D3js, the lib used to generate SVG, supports majority of browsers[1]. [1] https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki#browser--platform-suppor...

You are correct. I am using an old browser. It does date from the present decade, however. It's not that old. I'm somewhat amused by the number of sites which fail to work properly (some at all) with it. Imgur is entirely dead. Reddit I can read, but moderation and reply buttons don't work. I hit the beta rollout of a news site last night (apparently part of their A/B test) and found that among the features which fai…

Why are you complaining? Web developers are not obligated to support people who chose to browse the web through a broken interface.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#79

Post by declan »

antr wrote: post #18

The fact that Jawbone has this information on their users (yes, I know they say it's aggregated and "anonymised" data) is pretty scary to me. In my opinion, this data should only be visible to each user, and no one else. I really doubt Jawbone users are aware that their UP devices are sending data to third-parties... it feels like 21st century shackles.

I look forward to NSA serving an FAA 702 order on Jawbone to track a non-U.S. user.

It would require that Jawbone perform a live intercept so FedGov agents can plant physical bugs or insert TURBINE-derived malware or attach a keystroke logger. The order would use existing legal authority to compel Jawbone to provide real-time data on the user’s precise geographical location and whether he or she is awake. Obviously if the target is at home and awake, the Feds would abort the black bag job.

The Google Play store listing shows that the Up app wants access to precise (GPS) and approximate (network) location, so the lat/long available for NSA perusal with compulsory process is likely pretty detailed. And the marketing literature on the Jawbone site uses “always-connected” and “real-time” language, which is perfect if you're in the real-time surveillance business.

The non-U.S. user targeted by FedGov may think he’s escaping surveillance because he’s using only local phone providers and local email providers. He’d be wrong; Jawbone is based in SF and subject to U.S. law… Another interesting use would be tracking physical movements of non-U.S. users and correlating them to see who’s meeting with whom; does Jawbone force SSL for its API usage? (The API web page only says “communication should be done over a secure channel,” not “must.”)

I’m joking above, of course, and I have no reason to believe the NSA has done this for a non-U.S. citizen or the FBI has for domestic surveillance. My point is to suggest that folks here at startups think in advance about how to respond to legal process, how to encrypt data in transit, and how to store user data in a way that minimizes your legal exposure and protects your users’ privacy.

Better to think about this early vs. after you get an early morning knock on the door with a very serious plainclothes guy with a badge serving you with some very serious papers demanding info. That happened to me in a different context years ago, but that’s a story for another time.

Re: How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleepers

#80

Post by dohertyjf »

wwwwwwwwww wrote: post #67
dohertyjf wrote: post #64

In response to antr and others talking about how this is "private" data, a few things: 1) Jawbone is a data company. You get what you want from them by giving them your data. Giving them your data is your choice, so if you are uncomfortable with it then you should not have a Jawbone. 2) What's interesting about this article is that it's in aggregate, across a statistically significant (so they say) number of people i…

> If you don't like your data being stored somewhere, why are you even on HackerNews? having my sleeping records and a table of what times during the day that I shit is a lot more sensitive information than the trash I post on hacker news

Once again, if they have your sleeping records it's because you have chosen to give them that data. It's your problem then, not theirs.

Also, if you think others care about what time of day you take a shit, you have way too high of a view of yourself.

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