Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#111

Post by Scoundreller » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 5:50 AM UTC

kuhhk wrote: post #100

gdulli wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean about making my life harder. I don't see what I have to gain by using location services outside the rare moments I need it. I'm gaining privacy by not keeping it on.

I think you’re fortunate to not need it, but I lived in an unfamiliar place for a few months and I used my map apps to identify the best routes (public transit, biking, should I walk, or should I Uber?) nearly 3-4 times a day. Turning it off/on would be difficult, but I do set most apps to only allow location services during use... but the maps I have set to always. I also don’t have the Facebook app installed

The alternative is to keep location on (while in use), but download offline maps.

No idea if the app phones home with all historical location data if you re-enable data though...

Maybe that’s why Google likes to expire it’s offline maps ?

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#112

Post by nlh » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

I was talking to a friend today who said, fairly succinctly, that Facebook's single biggest problem is that they Totally and Royally Suck(TM) at PR.

I wonder what would happen if they were just straightforward about this. "Friends you May Know is really cool! We use your phone's location data and do cross-checks on your address book to make the most intelligent suggestions. We even use some unique features of your camera to figure out if you know people!"

They don't have to give away the store, but they could certainly avoid the creepy "try and guess what ridiculously creepy stuff we're doing to suggest friends" game.

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#113

Post by a11595 » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

miguelrochefort wrote: post #89

gdulli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been floored that people leave their location services turned on by default. I have mine on for no more than a few minutes a month. I only turn it on when I'm in an unfamiliar location, don't have my bearings, and looking at the map alone isn't enough to help without GPS.

I'm sure you believe that corporations are evil and basically out to get you, but the vast majority of people doesn't. I think it's safe to assume that you're the outlier here. Have you ever tried putting yourself in the shoes of people who leave their GPS on? Can you see how much better the user experience is? Can you understand why someone who never had a negative experience involving their location data might pref…

this isn't about privacy. I literally charge my phone less, because not only does gps coming on randomly eat up battery - when it has data to collect from random apps they make a data connection and send stuff home. I could care less about going back, tracking my location history, and correlating it with other data. I have a life, and gps on, after a day of the phone sitting there on standby, eats an extra 5% of battery.

turning gps on before i launch maps is 1 extra tap on the toggle on my home screen.

I think the one with a traumatic experience here is you - one that prevents you from seeing very basic logic for the use case of GPS off.

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#114

Post by dgzl » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 5:56 AM UTC

nlh wrote: post #112

I was talking to a friend today who said, fairly succinctly, that Facebook's single biggest problem is that they Totally and Royally Suck(TM) at PR. I wonder what would happen if they were just straightforward about this. "Friends you May Know is really cool! We use your phone's location data and do cross-checks on your address book to make the most intelligent suggestions. We even use some unique features of your ca…

Being upfront would bring more press... Alternatively, how many of your friends are going to read this article?

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#115

Post by hawaiianbrah » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 6:06 AM UTC

a11595 wrote: post #113

miguelrochefort wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you believe that corporations are evil and basically out to get you, but the vast majority of people doesn't. I think it's safe to assume that you're the outlier here. Have you ever tried putting yourself in the shoes of people who leave their GPS on? Can you see how much better the user experience is? Can you understand why someone who never had a negative experience involving their location data might pref…

this isn't about privacy. I literally charge my phone less, because not only does gps coming on randomly eat up battery - when it has data to collect from random apps they make a data connection and send stuff home. I could care less about going back, tracking my location history, and correlating it with other data. I have a life, and gps on, after a day of the phone sitting there on standby, eats an extra 5% of batt…

off topic but it always irks me when people get it wrong: it’s “I couldn’t care less”

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#116

Post by dingoegret » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 6:08 AM UTC

kraftman wrote: post #62

gdulli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been floored that people leave their location services turned on by default. I have mine on for no more than a few minutes a month. I only turn it on when I'm in an unfamiliar location, don't have my bearings, and looking at the map alone isn't enough to help without GPS.

What are you gaining in exchange for making your life harder?

Imagine your life being so wired to devices that turning on and off the GPS button is making life harder.

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#117

Post by superkuh » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 6:11 AM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #24

superkuh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Just chose to not use services that suck yourself. It's easy. You can say you peer group or whatever uses them but it is still your choice. I strongly oppose your suggestion to bring in the government use of violence to impose your ideological goals on others. They have to chose for themselves.

Just chose to not use services that suck yourself You don't even know which services do that. There are lots of apps out there that use FB's API and send off details of the user's phone and app activity to FB, whether or not the user has an FB account or not. https://mashable.com/article/facebook-data-sharing-apps-priv... For example, Kayak sends flight searches to FB. So don't fly maybe?

Your unstated premise is that you have to use a smart phone for everything. Once you free yourself from that restriction and chose to do some things on a desktop computer it is much easier to control what runs on your computing device and what it communicates with.

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#118

Post by quotemstr » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 6:15 AM UTC

kraftman wrote: post #62

gdulli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been floored that people leave their location services turned on by default. I have mine on for no more than a few minutes a month. I only turn it on when I'm in an unfamiliar location, don't have my bearings, and looking at the map alone isn't enough to help without GPS.

What are you gaining in exchange for making your life harder?

What is an insurance customer getting in exchange for making himself poorer? With respect to privacy, the price of peace of mind is all over the place at this point: the tech-ization is society is recent enough that even well-informed people have big differences of opinion on the likelihood and costs of privacy-related calamities.

If you estimate privacy risk as high, then you're naturally willing to make your life harder to avoid this risk, and you naturally come to regard those with lower risk estimates as reckless. Likewise, if you're in the other camp, privacy-preserving measures look like wastes of time and money.

It's hard to say at this point who's right. We haven't actually seen a lot of privacy-related disasters, the lack of which might seem to promote the low-risk camp, but the high-risk people would reply that the breaches that do occur will only become more damaging over time as we move online.

I'm not in the high-risk camp myself, but I do think that this camp has some valid points, since information is power, and power is ultimately a corrupting force. It should be easier to live a privacy-risk-mitigating lifestyle.

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#119

Post by BigJono » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 6:22 AM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #92

ralusek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is something being created for profit scarier/worse? I'm personally far more concerned about government surveillance programs that I have no option but to participate in.

I'm always confused by comments like this. Not only is corporate surveillance always one NSL away from being used by the government, but corporations aren't democracies. As a user I can't vote on what data Facebook choses to collect. Facebook's shadow profiles also put to rest the idea that you get to choose whether or not to participate in corporate surveillance.

Ask me and the other citizens of Australia what democracy has done to save us from government mass surveiallance.

It may possibly be one of the worst guards against it. 99% of the population don't understand it and don't give a shit. Co-incidently that's the only reason Facebook and Google get away with it too, or it'd be far more profitable for them to back off and play the "we value your privacy" PR card.

Literally the only difference is that Facebook is headed by software engineers and governments are headed by a bunch of people with tons of power and no knowledge. You tell me which is more dangerous. You can't act ethically if you don't even understand the domain you're acting in.

Re: Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

#120

Post by drusepth » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 6:22 AM UTC

gdulli wrote: post #47

pxeboot wrote: post #6

by comparing the accelerometer and gyroscope readings of each phone, the data could identify when people were facing each other or walking together. More evidence we need far more privacy controls in mobile operating systems.

I've always been floored that people leave their location services turned on by default. I have mine on for no more than a few minutes a month. I only turn it on when I'm in an unfamiliar location, don't have my bearings, and looking at the map alone isn't enough to help without GPS.

On the other hand, I've had mine on 24/7 for the past 2-3 years and routinely visit my timeline on Google Maps to look back on exactly where I went on particular days.

Looks like this, and I find it extremely awesome/useful: https://i.imgur.com/jxxjg1g.jpg