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Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

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131–140 of 269 posts

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#131

Caveat: I've seen a number of players state or imply that playing this game has been the first decent exercise they've had in years. Lack of exercise is a far greater threat to your well-being than having your Google account hacked, so if that's what it takes, go ahead and play the game anyway.

Pokemon Go, like most apps, is likely just a fad. In a few months, only a few thousand die hards will still be playing it. But the full access permissions will still be there.

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#132
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google no longer owns Niantic

Well then that is a strange security lapse on Google's part. A spin-off company that had internal high-level access privileges, is spun off, and can still retains those high-level access privileges? That seems like a mistake somewhere.

You can make an app that does the same thing right now.

What are you talking about?

It's developer laziness.

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#134
It's worth noting that Niantic Labs (the folks who licensed Pokemon from Nintendo and made Pokemon Go) are actually owned by Google [0]. This is Google giving itself permission to do Google things. Dollars to doughnuts they tried to use some internal-only API because things kept falling over at pokemon.com. Is this a massive UX failure? Certainly. Is giving Google permission to access Google stuff a "Huge security risk"? No more than putting your stuff in Google's hands in the first place.

Niantic are also the folks behind Ingress, if you've heard of that.

[0] Specifically, Alphabet owns a significant portion of Niantic, along with Nintendo: https://nianticlabs.com/blog/niantic-tpc-nintendo/ (they were previously wholly-owned by Google).

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#135

It's worth noting that Niantic Labs (the folks who licensed Pokemon from Nintendo and made Pokemon Go) are actually owned by Google [0]. This is Google giving itself permission to do Google things. Dollars to doughnuts they tried to use some internal-only API because things kept falling over at pokemon.com. Is this a massive UX failure? Certainly. Is giving Google permission to access Google stuff a "Huge security ri…

They were an Alphabet company, but were spun off last year: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/14/niantic-l...

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#136

It's worth noting that Niantic Labs (the folks who licensed Pokemon from Nintendo and made Pokemon Go) are actually owned by Google [0]. This is Google giving itself permission to do Google things. Dollars to doughnuts they tried to use some internal-only API because things kept falling over at pokemon.com. Is this a massive UX failure? Certainly. Is giving Google permission to access Google stuff a "Huge security ri…

[deleted]

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#137

It's worth noting that Niantic Labs (the folks who licensed Pokemon from Nintendo and made Pokemon Go) are actually owned by Google [0]. This is Google giving itself permission to do Google things. Dollars to doughnuts they tried to use some internal-only API because things kept falling over at pokemon.com. Is this a massive UX failure? Certainly. Is giving Google permission to access Google stuff a "Huge security ri…

Niantic Labs became independent from Google during the forming of Alphabet so it is to say you are still giving an independent third party access to your google account.

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#138

It's worth noting that Niantic Labs (the folks who licensed Pokemon from Nintendo and made Pokemon Go) are actually owned by Google [0]. This is Google giving itself permission to do Google things. Dollars to doughnuts they tried to use some internal-only API because things kept falling over at pokemon.com. Is this a massive UX failure? Certainly. Is giving Google permission to access Google stuff a "Huge security ri…

I saw the prototype of Pokemon Go in 2014 as an April 1st campaign by Google Maps, surely this is a very tight bond with Google. I won't worry about it either.

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#139

It's worth noting that Niantic Labs (the folks who licensed Pokemon from Nintendo and made Pokemon Go) are actually owned by Google [0]. This is Google giving itself permission to do Google things. Dollars to doughnuts they tried to use some internal-only API because things kept falling over at pokemon.com. Is this a massive UX failure? Certainly. Is giving Google permission to access Google stuff a "Huge security ri…

They were an Alphabet company, but were spun off last year: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/14/niantic-l...

They are still majority owned by Alphabet, they just spun it off so they could take VC and Nintendo money

Re: Pokemon Go is a huge security risk

#140
post #56
post #49

It's a free game everyone. When something is free to play, and involves you walking around with geo services and a camera on, you and your data are the product. This is just massive data collection disguised as a video game.

No, they make their money through IAPs. No one signed up to let Niantic read their email in exchange for free items.

Okay. They are also selling user data.
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