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

#21

Post by superkuh » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:20 AM UTC

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #19

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.

Nope. Just chose to not use services that suck yourself. It's easy. Ok let’s test your hypothesis. Camera noise Right, I’m tagging you in this group photo and uploading it. Where’s your choice now?

I don't see the problem. It sounds like I'm in a public setting. If not and this is some friend group gathering I could just ask you not to since we're friends. My friends and family that use facebook know not to include me. But even if they do, so what? It's not like a single photo of me uploaded by a friend impacts my privacy.

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

#22

Post by imgabe » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:20 AM UTC

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #19

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.

Nope. Just chose to not use services that suck yourself. It's easy. Ok let’s test your hypothesis. Camera noise Right, I’m tagging you in this group photo and uploading it. Where’s your choice now?

You can't tag someone in a photo if they're not on Facebook.

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

#23

Post by xena » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #17

pdxww wrote: post #13

This is smart. Unethical, but smart.

Indeed. I'm wishing for a "dumb" social networking company, where the people who run it are idiots and I don't have to worry about this kind of invasive engineering (I long ago deleted my Facebook). There's always twitter, I suppose.

Mastodon seems to be the balance I've been liking.

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

#24

Post by barrkel » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #14

api wrote: post #7

I've come to believe that privacy "by design" is impossible in the hyper-connected age. There are too many vectors for tracking, linking, and de-anonymization and software in general is too insecure. The only solution to the privacy problem is legislation. My favorite idea is HIPAA type regulations for intimate personal data like audio, location, etc. Leak location data? That will be $10,000 per incident where an inc…

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?

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

#25

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #19

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.

Nope. Just chose to not use services that suck yourself. It's easy. Ok let’s test your hypothesis. Camera noise Right, I’m tagging you in this group photo and uploading it. Where’s your choice now?

[deleted]

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

#26

Post by lucideer » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

vuln wrote: post #5

jnnnthnn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it possible for it to work better if it is the case that more dense scrubbing patterns are complex enough to differentiate one camera from the other, and that such an algorithm can pick up on that?

I agree. It seems to me that everyone's scrubbing would be different thus pretty unique.

I thought the point was more about variance over time. Surely a camera would need to have consistent patterns over time for this to work?

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

#27

Post by paulryanrogers » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:23 AM UTC

nixpulvis wrote: post #20

anonytrary wrote: post #18

Jokes on them, I have electrical tape on my camera lens. Something I learned from Facebook's CEO, ironically.

I'd love to see people spending >$1,000 on a new iPhone "for the camera", only to cover it with electrical tape. This sounds like something out of Silicon Valley.

It is rather amazing that smartphone cameras are so feature packed, yet still lack a lens cover. Something as old as cameras themselves.

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

#28

Post by macintux » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:24 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #14

api wrote: post #7

I've come to believe that privacy "by design" is impossible in the hyper-connected age. There are too many vectors for tracking, linking, and de-anonymization and software in general is too insecure. The only solution to the privacy problem is legislation. My favorite idea is HIPAA type regulations for intimate personal data like audio, location, etc. Leak location data? That will be $10,000 per incident where an inc…

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.

As toufiqbarhamov points out, your privacy is being compromised by other people all the time on the social networks you avoid. Facebook, e.g., keeps a shadow profile on you.

When I finally caved and joined (something I hope to undo shortly) I was immediately informed of all the people I know who are already on the network, not from the contacts I explicitly didn’t share with them, but from the people who searched for me before I made an account. I’ve never given FB my phone number, but I’m sure they have it in a database somewhere. They probably knew my face before I ever signed up.

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

#29

Post by barrkel » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:24 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #21

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Just chose to not use services that suck yourself. It's easy. Ok let’s test your hypothesis. Camera noise Right, I’m tagging you in this group photo and uploading it. Where’s your choice now?

I don't see the problem. It sounds like I'm in a public setting. If not and this is some friend group gathering I could just ask you not to since we're friends. My friends and family that use facebook know not to include me. But even if they do, so what? It's not like a single photo of me uploaded by a friend impacts my privacy.

It sounds like I'm in a public setting

There's a difference between being a random bystander in an individual's photo and mass surveillance of the public space through millions of photos. Just like lots of photos become something else - movies - lots of photos of public spaces become something else - a surveillance state.

You're sitting on one principle and riding it to the point of absurdity. There are lots of other principles, like the right to live in a free society. Sometimes freedom requires lack of freedom - sometimes we have to apprehend criminals. You can't ride this principle all the way without taking off your blindfold.

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

#30

Post by nixpulvis » Sun, Jan 06, 2019, 2:27 AM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #27

nixpulvis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see people spending >$1,000 on a new iPhone "for the camera", only to cover it with electrical tape. This sounds like something out of Silicon Valley.

It is rather amazing that smartphone cameras are so feature packed, yet still lack a lens cover. Something as old as cameras themselves.

Old cameras didn't exactly fit in your pocket, and didn't have sapphire glass...

Though I do think it would be nice to have a hardware (iris?) way to close off the camera. Some laptops have this, though I'm sad mine doesn't.