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Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

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Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#251

Post by Shared404 »

eclipxe wrote: post #247
Shared404 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the "invasive" data mentioned in the post doesn't seem particularly invasive to me[.] Attempting to get the subnet IP address? That seems pretty invasive. From the article: > Attempt to get the IP address on the local network (a 10. address, which was incorrect for me)

What, exactly, will that do for them?

That's my point. The data is both A) Invasive and B) Pointless, unless trying to do things they shouldn't on your network. But they still collect it for some reason.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#252

Post by jjcon »

enchiridion wrote: post #160
jjcon wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also costs more than an iPad and has terrible response times

Yep, pretty consistent for e-ink. Still, I think it has the best value proposition for an e-ink tablet at the moment, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Probably true - I’ll snatch it up the moment color e-ink is a thing, color is vital for most of the papers I work with and for books I prefer a smaller form factor so from my perspective it sits in kinda an odd part of the market.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#254

Post by gavreh »

falcolas wrote: post #202
breakfastduck wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As many people here have echoed - this boils down to the fact the data is being captured without an opt out. I don't doubt the developers are using it for 'morally acceptable' purposes, but I don't trust Amazon not to abuse that data later down the line! I really don't feel that anyone needs to know precisely what pages I have viewed in a specific book.

The kindle e-readers do offer an opt-out from the metrics collection. It can be triggered from the website or the device itself. That it's an opt-out and not opt-in is not a good thing, but it can be opted out of on the e-readers.

What are the steps to do this?

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#255

Post by Shared404 »

eclipxe wrote: post #248
Shared404 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest difference in my mind is that the Kindle is hardware you purchase. It has no need to be sending that much data, including attempting to find out the local IP. The article stated that a few seconds of usage sent 100 requests to Amazon servers. I'm fairly certain that most websites don't make quite as many requests as the tablet did.

Who cares if your local IP is sent somewhere?!??

Okay lets rephrase it as:

"Large corporation collects massive amounts of data, including data that could only be useful if trying to do something malicious on someone else's network."

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#256

Post by pwinnski »

ghkklj wrote: post #205
pwinnski wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also owned three generations of Kindle! Like you, I've never taken any of them online. Never supply a wifi connection during setup, and instead immediately engage airplane mode. USB transfer is easy with something like Calibre, which also handily converts ePub to Mobi for Kindle use. It used to be that you could buy Kindle books and download them to your computer for transfer to the Kindle via USB, but they se…

I tried to do this with a recent paperwhite but some features seemed to require registration - the main one I cared about being "collections". Had to make a fresh amazon account, register it, then put it into aeroplane mode never to be reconnected.

Hmm, maybe that's why collections doesn't work for me. I might enable wifi for a bit if that will help.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#257

Post by pseudalopex »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #203
moksha256 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I came here to say the same. I'm about as tin-foil-paranoid-privacy-all-the-things as they come, but the "invasive" data mentioned in the post don't seem particularly invasive to me, and collecting that data seems perfectly appropriate for the purposes you mentioned. With all that said, I do dream of a PINE64 E Ink device (or something that's open and hackable).

Yea analytics like this are really what I find to be so important, as a developer. How much time and frustration do I potentially waste on something that no one ends up using? Things like this are very useful and it's strange to me that people aren't sympathetic to that perspective.

It's strange to you people care more about their autonomy than your convenience?

Telemetry can tell you what users are doing. It doesn't tell you why.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#258

Post by parksy »

I tried to read the first link in the article, the link in the sentence

"There have been cases of Amazon removing specific books from customer accounts (and kindles)."

It redirected me from:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-th...

to

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from...

So it seems I am not allowed to read up about this reference.

Or some underpaid developer messed up the redirects.

Either way this issue about data collection is interesting in its own right, but this other issue of global redirects also feels important, but I only say that as someone who tried to follow the news here.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#259

Post by jjcon »

ihm wrote: post #191
jjcon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you like it or not this collection does lead to better products - that is why you think every company does it because those that don’t usually die out. Understanding your users is vitally important. Privacy LARPers are a tiny segment of the market, the average person doesn’t really care if their ‘usage of the highlighter function is tracked’

This comment is such cowed boot-licking of a giant corporation. Completely antithetical to the hacker ethos.

One can partake in the hacker ethos while not being a conspiracy nut - albeit I admit those sometimes go together.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#260

Post by soledades »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #96
BEEdwards wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why buy a kindle at all then? Any cheap budget tablet can read ebooks and stay off the internet.

Any cheap budget table isn't e-ink, which matters for battery life and, at least for some people, reading pleasure. Also, I mainly use my Kindle for reading research papers in academia, into the hundreds of publications each year. So, after years of using these devices its UI (which I find admirably simple and straightforward) is burned into my muscle memory. So, switching to another series of devices would mean havi…

Do you have any tips for reading papers on Kindle? My experience with pdfs is they get pretty shrunk up.
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