Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

therecord.media

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 452 posts

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#181

Post by FearlessNebula »

davidkellis wrote: post #18

What are the best alternatives to iOS and Android? Is it reasonable to consider the hardware itself "safe", given that the software tracks and calls home about every single thing it does? What are the alternatives?

The hardware itself is insecure in 99% of modern phones because the modem has its own tiny CPU with access to the main CPU and memory. I have no evidence that anyone does use this to collect your data, but somebody totally could. Desktop processors have something similar called the Intel Management Engine or AMD Ryzen has the PSP

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#182

Post by ocdtrekkie »

alwillis wrote: post #72
svara wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but feel like having it this way is breaking one of the huge reasons that made computers so absurdly exciting and enticing in the past. The fact that there was this wide open field, where, sure, maybe you paid Microsoft for the OS, but then the rest was up to you. Trade shareware CDs, install stuff from the internet, type in code from a book or whatever, it felt like an infinite open field of possibiliti…

It’s a 15% cut for developers who makes less than $1 million and for most other developers after year 1 on the App Store.

This only happened recently after they've had lawsuits and antitrust suits and Congressional interest.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#183

Post by beastman82 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

It's called the "tu quoque" logical fallacy

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#184

Post by kuratkull »

slg wrote: post #173
kuratkull wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer I disagree. You are saying that you want to collect my personal information so you can fix your bugs. I don't see it being a valuable trade. I'll just find someone who can fix their bugs without tracking me.

>You are saying that you want to collect my personal information so you can fix your bugs. How do you define personal information? Let's use Chrome as an example. Recording what website I visit is clearly personal information. What about recording how many tabs I have open, how much RAM each tab is using, and when each tab was last viewed? Is that personal information to you? I personally don't value keeping that pri…

It's pretty easy to understand what information is technically static and could be used to track you. Number of tabs: low possible range and pretty variable, even for tab hoarders, so it's low entropy information. Amount of RAM used in each open tab: that should be statistically significant and I'm pretty sure could be used to identify people if there are enough tabs open for a long enough period. When each tab was viewed: every (not-)clicked tab is a bit of information, you don't need much to narrow down a person. Interesting reading on de-anonymizing people on seemingly anonymized data: https://www.wired.com/2007/12/why-anonymous-data-sometimes-i...

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#185

Post by npteljes »

davidkellis wrote: post #18

What are the best alternatives to iOS and Android? Is it reasonable to consider the hardware itself "safe", given that the software tracks and calls home about every single thing it does? What are the alternatives?

There's /e/ OS for one. Debatable how far you get from the Google ecosystem, since it's an AOSP fork, but I think it's a fine middle ground of functionality and practical privacy.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#186

Post by sneak »

wmichelin wrote: post #115
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

I disagree that telemetry is inherently bad. As product engineers, telemetry is often our only visibility into whether or not a system is functioning healthily. How else can you detect difficult-to-spot bugs in production?

Telemetry is inherently bad if it's not done with the informed, opt-in consent of the end user whose data it's (mis)appropriating, oftentimes silently.

There's no issue with opt-in telemetry, where the user says "yes, it's okay to track me".

Invisible, silent, always-on telemetry is actually just spyware that's been mislabeled.

Ultimately it's not the telemetry that's at issue: it's the unethical and selfish behavior of the software/device manufacturer.

No sane or reasonable person thinks that an EULA is informed consent.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#187

Post by sneak »

kuratkull wrote: post #184
slg wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You are saying that you want to collect my personal information so you can fix your bugs. How do you define personal information? Let's use Chrome as an example. Recording what website I visit is clearly personal information. What about recording how many tabs I have open, how much RAM each tab is using, and when each tab was last viewed? Is that personal information to you? I personally don't value keeping that pri…

It's pretty easy to understand what information is technically static and could be used to track you. Number of tabs: low possible range and pretty variable, even for tab hoarders, so it's low entropy information. Amount of RAM used in each open tab: that should be statistically significant and I'm pretty sure could be used to identify people if there are enough tabs open for a long enough period. When each tab was v…

Telemetry isn't okay simply because it can't be used to track someone. The number of tabs I have open isn't identifiable information, but it's still my private information, and should not leave my computer without my advance consent. Using my computer hardware to transmit my usage activity (even my unidentifiable usage activity) without my consent is a dick move.

My usage data is mine, as is my hardware and network connection.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#188

Post by babypuncher »

nitrogen wrote: post #135
mason55 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still do all those things on a computer. And now it’s so easy to put up a web app that I’d argue barriers are much, much lower than when you had to figure out how to get your physical software distributed. The goals of “keep grandpa from getting his life savings stolen by malicious software” and “allow a power user to do whatever they want” can literally never be solved by the same device. If there’s any way…

And the market for grandpas is much larger than the market for tinkerers. This kind of thing has become a meme. It's basically irrelevant. If the market of tinkerers was big enough 20 years ago, it's more than big enough now, and the GPU shortage kind of proves that. It's also an all-or-nothing fallacy -- nobody can protect all financial victims, and restricting the tech device market is probably one of the least eff…

The market for tinkerers is huge. Which is why there is a huge selection of computing products out there that cater almost exclusively to this market. The question is, why should Apple be forced to cater to them as well?

It would be understandable if Apple owned most of the computer/smartphone market, but they don't. iPhones make up less than 20% of smartphones out in the wild. Nobody who wants to avoid Apple is put in a situation where they are at a disadvantage, unlike a telephone user in the 1970's trying to avoid Bell.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#189

Post by kuratkull »

clairity wrote: post #170
kuratkull wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fair" and "free" are almost opposite values in regards to markets, what you want is not "free", you want regulation. Fairness means you got to oppress a party in favor of another party.

a fair market is one that is devoid of coercive influence by any market participant, almost diametrically opposed to oppressiveness. whereas in a "free" market, oppression is the expected steady-state, because it inherently invites manipulation to produce advantage, as with any game (in the academic sense) without rules. try playing basketball without rules and see what happens.

It seems you are making up words. "Fair market" doesn't even seem to be a thing - not surprised really.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#190

Post by xnx »

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #89
beforeolives wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more concerning thing about the car data is that the manafacturers resell it to third parties and those third parties have the right to resell it again. It's a mess. As a comparison, I don't know if much of Google's data ever leaves Google.

i'm getting the impression that iot providers have far, far lower privacy standards vs dedicated tech providers. This to me indicates that they don't take the internet capability of their kettles/cars seriously enough. It's just a gimmick. This is not a constructive way to advance iot.

Every data broker out there says a prayer every night that we (as a society) continue to focus our attention on Google (an absolute saint by comparison) and ignore what phone companies, cable companies, browser extensions, gaming apps, smart tvs, etc. etc. do with our data.
Post reply on HN