231–240 of 371 posts
With all the anti-trust stuff going on against Apple I wonder if this strong stance against cross app/site tracking gets overturned after some sort of legislation.
As an Android user, is there anything I can do other than use Firefox with uBlock installed to improve privacy?
As an Android user, is there anything I can do other than use Firefox with uBlock installed to improve privacy?
1. Intercept DNS requests to filter out requests to certain domains
2. Provide an ad and tracking blocking VPN service.
Both of these approaches can work device-wide and do not require root access to your device.
Blokada: https://blokada.org/ AdGuard: https://adguard.com/en/adguard-android/overview.html
BTW I'm listing these apps as examples but I don't know them well enough to specifically recommend either of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except it wasn’t hastily built, and the tracking isn’t controlled by a gov agency in the nefarious way that you’re implying.
I've seen all sorts of solutions put together by municipalities big and small from counties to states to countries and everything in between during this whole Covid thing and the thing that struck me is how easy it was for them to essentially track you with perfect precision and tie it back to a phone number. > Except it wasn’t hastily built They were built very hastily with little oversight with iterative beta cycle…
As an Android user, is there anything I can do other than use Firefox with uBlock installed to improve privacy?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except it wasn’t hastily built, and the tracking isn’t controlled by a gov agency in the nefarious way that you’re implying.
I've seen all sorts of solutions put together by municipalities big and small from counties to states to countries and everything in between during this whole Covid thing and the thing that struck me is how easy it was for them to essentially track you with perfect precision and tie it back to a phone number. > Except it wasn’t hastily built They were built very hastily with little oversight with iterative beta cycle…
There were many locations who built their own apps that did not follow this privacy model, or used it incorrectly, but for most cases "your location data being put into some database" is not accurate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen all sorts of solutions put together by municipalities big and small from counties to states to countries and everything in between during this whole Covid thing and the thing that struck me is how easy it was for them to essentially track you with perfect precision and tie it back to a phone number. > Except it wasn’t hastily built They were built very hastily with little oversight with iterative beta cycle…
When you say Apple or Google installed, I assume you’re talking about exposure notifications that they built. I work at Apple and witnessed it. Nothing about it was slapdash and privacy was #1. In this system, it’s not easy at all for government agencies to track you. That was very explicitly part of the design, as is shown in all the public docs. It’s not like how it works is a secret [1]. Your location isn’t being…
No idea if it's using the official API or what.
I honestly just don't believe that it can work well enough in some places. Especially here in Hawaii where gatherings are on a beach and people leave their cellphones in their car or backpacks or whatever. I was even recently at a camp where people were sharing a blunt and there wasn't a single phone in sight cause it was out of signal range. Could have easily been a super spreader event and the tech solution would have failed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen all sorts of solutions put together by municipalities big and small from counties to states to countries and everything in between during this whole Covid thing and the thing that struck me is how easy it was for them to essentially track you with perfect precision and tie it back to a phone number. > Except it wasn’t hastily built They were built very hastily with little oversight with iterative beta cycle…
Your choice to be ignorant about the contact tracing frameworks is your own, but please stop spreading misinformation: https://www.google.com/covid19/exposurenotifications/#exposu... There were many locations who built their own apps that did not follow this privacy model, or used it incorrectly, but for most cases "your location data being put into some database" is not accurate.
We agree then.
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Not a huge fan of Google, but have to defend them here. They have a pretty huge privacy section in android settings where you can see exactly what data they have on you and how to opt out and/or delete existing data. When you set up android, it ask you if your want in or out. You can even set up a new android device without a Gmail account and disable all Google services including Gmail and search. I don't belive you…
You can set up an iPhone without an Apple account.