231–240 of 452 posts
Not mentioned in the headline: When the user is _not_ logged in, iOS collects "location" whereas Android does not. I am actually a little surprised that iOS would gather this information. What use would it serve?
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You don't think there was a range of views. And anyone who disagreed with your view had no skin in the game and so can be ignored. I disagree with that.
I know there was a range of views. I'm pointing out not all opinions have the same weight.
There were a range of valid opinions held by intelligent people who had "skin in the game" seems to me to be an utterly uncontroversial statement. Your unsupported list is also only one segment of one particular kind of stakeholder in that market. I think this has probably now gone past being useful to anyone if you agree I wish you the best. Otherwise enjoy the last word...
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So why does $product need to send telemetry data via google? Why can highly complex software that runs most of the worlds internet infrastructure (linux) work without telemetry? Why is telemetry not opt-in or relies on reports in situation where a bug causes an issue like firefox crash reports? I'd rather have privacy and buggy software then bug free software in exchange for no privacy at all
>So why does $product need to send telemetry data via google? Because Google is responsible for most of the software on said product. Who would be receiving that telemetry data if it wasn't Google? >Why can highly complex software that runs most of the worlds internet infrastructure (linux) work without telemetry? First, this is a false premise because it ignores the potential that telemetry could help improve this s…
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Did you read the OP article? The researchers clearly outline what apple is phoning home. They even made a nice clean table showing what apple and google are sending back to themselves.
I read the article and it's wrong. Apple does not explicitly "send" the user's IP address. It naturally is accessible on their end as a result of the TCP/IP protocol. But Apple has made quite clear that it does not use that information in any way.
Local IP isn't identifying, but it's a weird thing to include. And the paper clearly shows that being sent to Apple.
> Later during the startup process the local IP address of the handset (i.e. not of the gateway, but of the handset itself) is sent in a POST request to /lcdn-locator.apple.com: POST https://lcdn-locator.apple.com/lcdn/locate Headers User-Agent: AssetCacheLocatorService/111 CFNetwork /1128.0.1 Darwin/19.6.0 POST body {"locator-tag":"#eefc633e","local-addresses":[" 192.168.2.6"],"ranked-results":true,"locator-software":[{" build":"17G80","type":"system","name":"iPhone OS","version ":"13.6.1"},{"id":"com.apple.AssetCacheLocatorService"," executable":"AssetCacheLocatorService",
So no the article isn't wrong. I suggest you give the paper a read (or at least a skim) if you're going to try and claim they are wrong about something.
" 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…
The 30% cut was considered very good at the time. It was way better than the 50-90% cut that traditional publishers would take. A sibling comment notes that Steam charged 30% at the time (though some had better deals) but it's worth noting that Steam was not an open platform that anyone could publish on. Much like for consoles, to put a game on Steam you had to have a preexisting relationship with Valve, or try to de…
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Fragmentation and walled gardens are a false dichotomy. Steam is actually a great example of this, there are many other stores (Humble Bundle, Fanatical, GMG, whatever) that sell you Steam keys so you can keep your game library in one comfortable place.
Yes Steam are still perfectly comfortable staying at 30% as I said it's clearly a market driven level.
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>So why does $product need to send telemetry data via google? Because Google is responsible for most of the software on said product. Who would be receiving that telemetry data if it wasn't Google? >Why can highly complex software that runs most of the worlds internet infrastructure (linux) work without telemetry? First, this is a false premise because it ignores the potential that telemetry could help improve this s…
> Because Google is responsible for most of the software on said product. Who would be receiving that telemetry data if it wasn't Google? Depends, on Android maybe. On my Android Device, not really i don't use google software with the exception of the core android system without gplay services. On iOS, the HTML Based Web, or Desktop Systems, I see no need for google to exist. If you need telemetry, run your own damn…
The article is specifically about the mobile OSes and the default apps and services. I'm not sure why your general complaint about third parties using FAANG tracking is relevant here, but I have no argument against it.
>Distros may, Linux itself does not. The fact that the majority of Linux Distros work just fine without telemetry shows that large scale software developement and deployment work just fine without invading peoples privacy needlessly.
You are doing the same thing again. You are assuming a level of "work just fine" without having a comparison for what it would look like with telemetry. Ignoring the privacy issues for a second, can you say definitively that Linux would see no technical improvements from developers having access to telemetry data?
>so, if given the fair and free choice everyone will chose against telemetry? And that doesn't make you ask yourself "are we the baddies?".
Because the benefits of telemetry are widespread while the downsides are localized. The incentive for an individual user to participate is low and isn't well understood so they will default to off. Expand that to everyone and you end up with the tragedy of the commons.[1] It has nothing to do with skulls on a cap, it is basic individualized economic incentives playing out that lead to less than ideal results for the whole.
>So, wheres the problem here? Sounds EXACTLY how a good telemetry system should work. If the bugs don't bother the users there's no need to invade their privacy to fix them, if they do bother them, telemetry can be a tool to help them. There's no need to generate "valuable data" except to invade peoples privacy.
>Why is it any of your effing buisness what my workflow is like? If i need a feature i request it. This shit is only accepted because the majority of users lack a meaningful understanding of the depth of invasion by app and web developers into their privacy.
Once again you are returning to bugs. This is about more than just bugs. Very few pieces of software are published and then abandoned beyond bug fixes. Today most software needs to constantly evolve and add new features. Maybe you are the type who will request those features from a developer in official channels, but that isn't common.
Also most users will simply decline when presented with the option to submit a bug report. They just don't see the a strong enough or immediate enough connection between a bug report and the bug being fixed. I would bet any developer who has spent time informally talking to their users would have heard some complaints about their software that were never previously voiced through official channels. That is just the nature of things. A developer will get more valuable data if they don't leave the sending of this information up to the whims of the user in the moment when a bug report screen might appear in front of them.
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Not allowing Flash on the iPhone is probably the best thing Apple ever did
Destroying an open, low barrier to entry animation and application platform that was used by teenagers to develop and share interactive content? Destroying a way to deliver native-like, cross-platform applications without an app store was good? Jobs did it for control. He didn't want interop between Android and iPhone, and he didn't want any web browser with enough flexibility to do anything sophisticated.
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> our only visibility into whether or not a system is functioning healthily. Your problem here is viewing the end user's setup as part of your system. It's the user's private system -- why should you have any visibility into how it is functioning?
They said a system, not their system. Car computers report telemetry to mechanics, and given that digitization allows for economies of scale, this isn't that different.
Yes -- and they shouldn't.
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>So why does $product need to send telemetry data via google? Because Google is responsible for most of the software on said product. Who would be receiving that telemetry data if it wasn't Google? >Why can highly complex software that runs most of the worlds internet infrastructure (linux) work without telemetry? First, this is a false premise because it ignores the potential that telemetry could help improve this s…
This argument does not hold because you can compare Google to Apple (in this case and based on the article) and say that if this was the case, then Apple which gathers less data would have inferior (more bugs, slow feature development, etc.) than Google. I see the competition, which is Apple in this case, doing relatively fair without (presumably) gathering as much data, therefore I absolutely don’t buy this claim.
The argument isn't that all telemetry is good or that we should accept any level of it.
The argument is that all telemetry is not inherently bad.
As the article states, Apple does telemetry too. If you are ok with Apple and not Google, you are agreeing with me that this is a nuanced issue and the specific level of telemetry needs to be debated. If you are taking the stance that all telemetry is bad. You need to find another company to champion besides Apple.