281–290 of 375 posts
EVERY. SINGLE. APP. THAT. INCLUDES. THE. FACEBOOK. SDK. Even if you don't log in. The Facebook SDK sends data back. Hook your device up to an intercepting proxy and start up a few apps. 99% of them do this. I really wish Apple would put an end to this.
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Similar to how we have organizations which can certify whether produce is organic or not, we need organizations which can certify whether apps and websites are certified ad tracking free.
Ironically, those orgs have themselves been accused of being pay-to-play -- if you give them enough money they will certify you organic. Since it's industry run, there is no one checking that the organic certifiers are legit. It's turtles all the way down. The only legit solution is the government, because they are the only ones without a profit motive in the whole system (although they can be bribed, but that's a wh…
LOL. As you even parenthetically recognize, government doesn't magically solve humanity's capacity for wickedness.
The true "legit" solution is institutional legitimacy, which is fundamentally founded in a devotion to rational integrity. Genuine legitimacy can only be earned by sustained integrity, its not minted with the legislator's pen.
I agree that you're right to be concerned with the bad incentives of pay for play, but you appear to be missing the unintended consequences of imposing a regulatory monopoly.
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I never heard this before. Can you explain how it protects insurance companies?
Insurance companies have incentives to get better data than their competitors, so they can offer less expensive coverage to lower risk people and leave the competing insurance companies with all the higher risk people. Until the competitors do the same thing. Then you're all just offering less expensive coverage to most of your customers and making less money. (That also tends to cause trouble for higher risk patient…
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Zoom has a web version.
How do you use it? I had to join a Zoom meeting and tried to use the webpage first but it tried to make me install a client. After the MacOS local web server debacle I will never do that. I figured the safest thing was to use the iOS app but wasn’t thrilled at the idea. I assume if there actually is a web client the process to access it is extremely user hostile. Is it a hidden link or something? Zoom is obviously an…
Click "no" on the invite when it asks to open zoom (instant if you dont have it installed) and underneath there is a link that goes to the web version.
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It's past time for us to get serious and apply HIPAA-style protection to the storage and transmission of PII, without exemptions. Companies like Facebook will complain loudly that they won't be able to survive, but that is not our problem. If we pass legislation with teeth, they will need to change their business model. That would be the point.
They're not sending your name and address. They're sending the IDFA, device ID, of your device to Facebook. The fact that Facebook can link that device ID to your identity is on YOU. You logged into Facebook in their app to make that connection.
How is that my fault?
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How do you use it? I had to join a Zoom meeting and tried to use the webpage first but it tried to make me install a client. After the MacOS local web server debacle I will never do that. I figured the safest thing was to use the iOS app but wasn’t thrilled at the idea. I assume if there actually is a web client the process to access it is extremely user hostile. Is it a hidden link or something? Zoom is obviously an…
There is some shadow pattern where you need to refuse to install the app (or make it seems like the installation didn't work) and it will eventually give you a link to the web client. I'm not sure whether there is a reproducible way to get there.
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Zoom has a web version.
Except Zoom web version doesn't work: the incoming/outgoing audio is garbled (tested with Chrome, they do not support Firefox). This is in part because they were obviously too good for WebRTC native audio and instead gutted ffmpeg and compiled it to WebAssembly (I wish I was kidding but I'm not: https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/ ). Moreover, Zoom has a history of RCEs (leaving an active web server aft…
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It's probably used for install tracking. Apple doesn't provide a way to know how a user found your app, but Facebook does. This is why the app I work on uses the Facebook SDK. Basically, we want to know how effective our Facebook ads are at getting actual installs.
So, do you get permission from the users to send this information to Facebook? Can they decline?
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Except Zoom web version doesn't work: the incoming/outgoing audio is garbled (tested with Chrome, they do not support Firefox). This is in part because they were obviously too good for WebRTC native audio and instead gutted ffmpeg and compiled it to WebAssembly (I wish I was kidding but I'm not: https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/ ). Moreover, Zoom has a history of RCEs (leaving an active web server aft…
Sounds like this would be a good compilation for a complete story instead of individual bits.
On Android the first thing you notice when you install a firewall such as NetGuard is the amount of applications that try to access facebook servers. It's mind boggling, probably 50% are doing so. And I'm not even on facebook at all.
It could for example use the ublock lists for automated blocking of all known trackers.