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

Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 422 posts

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#251

Post by xgbi »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #117
eknkc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tell all my friends / family to get an iPhone if they are upgrading. I used iOS and Android phones and I like both. However it makes even me nerveous to use a banking application or similar on an Android. Can’t imagine what kind of shit my dad would have running on an Android device with all the fake fishing apps, bloatware, tracking etc going around. With a non jailbroken iPhone I have a lot more peace of mind.

> With a non jailbroken iPhone I have a lot more peace of mind. Ignorance is bliss.

You seem to have something to share, could you elaborate?

From my point of view, the sandboxing and authorization model of iOS is way better than what is available on Android right now.

You could argue that newer versions of Android provide a way to ask for permissions, but suffices to target API level 22 on your app and you're off of it. And fon't get me started on full disk encryption and buggy TPM implementations on Android.

So.. what do you know that we don't?

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#252

Post by virgilp »

blub wrote: post #250
Splines wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand people in this thread defending Apple when AOSP is clearly more open. Yes, Apple has done well so far, but at the end of the day what are you going to trust? A talking head, or the actual code running on your device? It smells of rationalization for anyone to say that it would not be in Apple's interest to collect personal information.

Trust: the company fighting for privacy due to among other things economic incentives. Don't trust: the company fucking privacy because of economic incentives. Quite simple.

Add "temporarily" to both your statements, see how simple it really is. To add 2 more things that makes it even less simple:

- "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both".

- Apple is screwing over developers AS A BUSINESS MODEL (de-value your complements) - and you want me, a developer, to support them?

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#253

Post by fimdomeio »

Maybe this problem should also be viewed from a different perspective. This companies are using the internet connections we pay for, for communications we didn't really allowed. They should be forced to pay us for the unauthorized use of our internet connections, and obviously for our data. if the costs where high enough this kind of "hacking" would just stop.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#254

Post by smueller1234 »

ATsch wrote: post #191
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be available, at least in the EU, by May, if it isn’t already. I think it is a requirement of GDPR.

Similar measures have been implemented in a number of european countries for years, I think originally in France. As far as I am aware, GDPR only standardises these laws and applies them to all EU states. Plus it adds a fine large enough for companies to actually care.

The fines are indeed substantial: up to 4% of annual turnover. On top of thay they can force you to shut down the service in question until remediated. For an e-commerce company that can be even worse than the 4%.

Being fully compliant with GDPR is a mountain of work even if you thought you were doing all the right things before.

In practice, small companies/ start-ups might not be audited / reported / pursued very much but: a) you'll never know and b) at least all the big tech and e-commerce companies are smack on in the sights of several data protection and competition(!) authorities already. We're all scrambling to be compliant in time.

Source: first hand account from running the GDPR compliance project in e-commerce company.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#255

Post by kbart »

alwaysdoit wrote: post #56

If you're concerned about this level of location tracking, don't carry a cell phone at all. Keeping track of which cell tower your phone is closest to is fundamental to cellular technology. You can't make or receive calls unless Verizon, T-Mobile, or whichever carrier you have knows which cell to communicate with you through. Regardless of whether Google is tracking this, your carrier certainly is, and with a warrant…

"I can guarantee you Google protects this data more securely than your carrier does."

That's not true at all. My carrier falls under strict EU privacy laws and regulations, Google - doesn't.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#256

Post by [deleted] »

lemagedurage wrote: post #120
IBM wrote: post #63

It's amazing to me how many comments here excuse Google's behavior by offering the impractical "solution" of just not using a smartphone (a false dilemma) when the obvious answer is to get an iPhone. That's the advice of pretty much everyone in the infosec field and I'm sure some of them will attest to that in this thread.

Apple provides a black box with iOS, they have full control. Maybe the next iOS update comes with privacy intrusion because it's more lucrative. A more sensible way of dealing wirh the issue would be to use an open source Android version like AOSP or LineageOS, not run proprietary gapps, and replace its functionality with F-Droid, MicroG and Yalp-store. Your location will stay out of Apple's/Google's hands and you ca…

[deleted]

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#257

Post by blub »

virgilp wrote: post #252
blub wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust: the company fighting for privacy due to among other things economic incentives. Don't trust: the company fucking privacy because of economic incentives. Quite simple.

Add "temporarily" to both your statements, see how simple it really is. To add 2 more things that makes it even less simple: - "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both". - Apple is screwing over developers AS A BUSINESS MODEL (de-value your complements) - and you want me, a developer, to support them?

Everything is temporary and the best smartphone choice for privacy (or rather best compromise) is subject to change.

Android freedom is purely theoretical for most people, including my family and friends. iOS security and privacy support is real and practical.

P.S: Apple is not screwing developers, they're keeping them under control. Time and time again developers have proven they don't care about security or privacy and they need to be forced to obey the will of the customers through APIs which can't be easily misused.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#258

Post by ehsankia »

horsecaptin wrote: post #176
growse wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is true, but it's also potentially worthwhile to consider that Apple has positioned themselves as a hardware company (i.e. the majority of their money is based on selling units of hardware), whereas their main competitor here (Google) is an ad company (i.e. the majority of their money comes from selling their users' data). Apple has chosen to highlight their commitment to privacy partially because they feel it…

"But this is all just marketing, whereas the reality is that Apple could also be hoovering up location data and you may never know." It isn't just marketing. This is how the alignment of incentives works. A company's incentives are aligned with the people who pay them. Apple's are aligned with those that buy phones. Google and Facebook's are aligned with those that buy ads.

You missed the point.

> Apple's are aligned with those that buy phones.

For all we know, that's what they want you to believe. The fact that you are so certain this is how they are incentivized could just mean that they did a fantastic job at marketing and making their users believe this image of themselves they've worked on.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#259

Post by virgilp »

blub wrote: post #257
virgilp wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add "temporarily" to both your statements, see how simple it really is. To add 2 more things that makes it even less simple: - "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both". - Apple is screwing over developers AS A BUSINESS MODEL (de-value your complements) - and you want me, a developer, to support them?

Everything is temporary and the best smartphone choice for privacy (or rather best compromise) is subject to change. Android freedom is purely theoretical for most people, including my family and friends. iOS security and privacy support is real and practical. P.S: Apple is not screwing developers, they're keeping them under control. Time and time again developers have proven they don't care about security or privacy…

> Apple is not screwing developers, they're keeping them under control

Their entire business model is predicated on the idea that hardware is important/ worthy, and that software should be $0.99 with free updates forever. It's basically the opposite of Microsoft - what MS did to the OEMs, Apple does to the indie devs.

Also: not sure about your family, but I can choose stuff like "what keyboard to use". For me, that's a kind of freedom too.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#260

Post by bartvk »

akoncius wrote: post #105
tryingagainbro wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only governments can tame this beast now, way too big and too rich for any startup. I noticed several chrome instances running on "Task manager" almost all the time. Used Chrome maybe months ago. So I uninstalled. Who knows what they were doing, collecting. I trust them as much as I (would) trust a hustler on the old 42nd street

yeah. I decided to avoid chrome at all costs when noticed that when you install chrome and have firefox already installed , chrome automatically without user’s acknowledgement installs some mysterious google plugin which does not sure what. To verify it , I reproduced same scenario again and plugin was installed again. After that I uninstalled chrome and avoid google products as much as possible.

You better back that up with additional data, because for now it sounds unbelievable. When was this, what OS, which Chrome version, were you able to replicate on a clean install, what was the name and version of the Google plugin, and put a few screenshots on imgur too.
Post reply on HN