Ship of Fools: Are you naughty? nice? God, Google, Santa & Apple all have Windows into your soul

Thread: Are you naughty? nice? God, Google, Santa & Apple all have Windows into your soul Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=020394

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

The makers of apps all put trackers into the apps you and I have put into your phone, and they even track you if you have turned location services off.

CBC's Spark discussed this today, link "Gillette knows whether you shave because Tinder told it about you".

Yale Univ's "privacy lab" has a paper which states the extent of the problem.

Essentially, if your phone is at a location between perhaps 1 and 4 in the morning, this is recorded at your home. Your location on weekday hours is your work. When you go to a store, the tracking is good enough to know what isles and locations in the store you lingered over. This is all correlated with your online web browsing, because you access Facebook, Instagram, whatever app from your computer too, or email from phone and computer. Even when your phone has location services turned off.

For those interested, here's a link to how to put Google's trackers into an app. Which is only one source of trackers.

Of course if you wire up your home with wifi devices: TV, music, thermostat, computer, shopping etc. How about your car? They know when you get fuel, how often, and where you go. All of this is included in what God and Big Brother know of you.

Does anyone care? I had a thought that new Ship, it is an app, could add a tracker and it'd be child's play to see how many of us go to church, and what church. Should be able to establish who is doing the sermon/homily and how long it is, who texted during it, and probably via the physical body tracking apps, who drifted off in the congregation and whose heart beat a little quicker.

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

As Miranda says, in The Tempest :

quote:
Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in 't!

Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :

We've all volunteered to give up the essential elements of our privacy. We're even paying - through our mobile phones - to be tracked and analyzed. Kyrie eleison.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

Indeed. I'm hoping to be dead when the shit really hits the fan.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

[Smile]

I do not have any smart phone things, but I expect when I use my mobile - about once a week! - I might register somewhere. However, anyone monitoring my movements would soon become very bored!! On the whole, though, I expect the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

If you want to be really scared, take a look at everything you've said that Google's recorded.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

One positive is if someone has gone missing or has had an accident somewhere, it becomes simple to find and help them if they are in trouble.

No use with my son, he still uses the Nokia 3310 he had when he was 16. No smart phone.

Anyone tracking my phone would find no pattern whatsoever. Every day is different and I only go in shops to train the puppy, so it’s a different place every time.

Seeing who was texting during the sermo? I like that 😂🤣

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

I don't think it's as big a problem as some people make out.

Stores will know what I usually buy? Great - that means I will get offers and adverts that are for things I might want rather than wasting everyone's time pushing shit I'd never consider buying at me. It's not like they're forcing me to buy it.

My phone knows where my home and workplace are? That makes it a lot easier to set up directions on the satnav. I'm not worried about the phone company knowing where I live for the excellent reason that they already do - it's the same place they send the bills.

I can link my new car to my phone and get a marker in the maps app to show exactly where I parked it. Very useful in big car parks!

There are definite advantages to knowing where someone is, as Boogie pointed out. And if I genuinely wanted to disappear for any reason then I could just leave my phone at home. Or better still, put it in a box and post it in the other direction so that the search focused on a place far away from where I'd be.

People keep talking about "serious implications" and "Big Brother", but there are very few specifics being offered. Big Brother knowing where everyone was and what they were doing was bad because The Party also had a ruthless secret police force and the will to use it to suppress any hint of dissent against its rule. Google are just trying to make a profit by showing us adverts that we're more likely to click on - hardly in the same league.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
If you want to be really scared, take a look at everything you've said that Google's recorded.

I clicked on that link, and the page said 'no activity'.

I have a smart phone because with my hearing problems, I need to text. I communicate mostly by e-mail; I use my phone only when I'm not at home. It is especially useful if I'm planning to meet someone somewhere.

Moo

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

People keep talking about "serious implications" and "Big Brother", but there are very few specifics being offered. Big Brother knowing where everyone was and what they were doing was bad because The Party also had a ruthless secret police force and the will to use it to suppress any hint of dissent against its rule.

The point is that this isn't something that 'just' happens in the 'present tense'. This information is stored in databases which are archived, kept indefinitely, much more intrusive than what you describe (they also build up a very clear picture of who else you associate with even if you never use social media yourself), and available should the day come when some party has a ruthless secret police force.

Furthermore the point that they are rarely complete, comprehensive and correct leads to them containing enough duff information to smear a large percentage of people.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
If you want to be really scared, take a look at everything you've said that Google's recorded.

I got audio of what was on TV when I was searching Google but not using audio search.

Google something and Google will record the room. Nice to know, I could use that.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
and available should the day come when some party has a ruthless secret police force.

Do you seriously think that's likely?

I'm not saying there's no risk, I'm saying the risk is so small that it's massively outweighed by the benefits.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
and available should the day come when some party has a ruthless secret police force.
Do you seriously think that's likely?

I'm not saying there's no risk, I'm saying the risk is so small that it's massively outweighed by the benefits.

If the secret police force is secret, how do you know they do not have one already? [Paranoid]

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

I'm pretty clear that my president would love one. Now I don't think he has any chance of getting a secret police force that can threaten me, but maybe one that will be used to threaten people of color? Say a faux immigration task force that uses its secrecy to not bother to ask for papers? Honestly that sounds pretty close to what we already have.

So yes I think it's possible enough that I better take the possibility seriously.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
No use with my son, he still uses the Nokia 3310 he had when he was 16. No smart phone.

location is still able to be tracked by the towers the mobile talks to. If one sits still long enough, triangulation from them can be almost as good as from satellite.

[ 11. December 2017, 13:42: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Which means they still have a location profile for him. If he goes into a store they will know, and can correlated the meta-data on transactions, determining what it is likely that he bought. If he used a loyalty card (e.g., to get a free coffee after buying 10), or a debit or credit card, they'll have that too. They most likely have figured out that Boogie is his parent, and they've referenced this with other family members and friends, and will still be able to predict a personality and attitudes type of profile for him.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

Welcome to the world of Big Data.

1. You are probably not important enough for somebody to single you out to be tracked.

2. This is here. The answer is not to go all Luddite but to consider all the ethical implications responsibly and act a) as a responsible and aware user b) to ensure the best possible governance.

I can't disclose details of my translation jobs, but I can tell you the French Data Protection Agency is in a position to slap big fines on companies that fail to comply with legislation on this sort of thing, and that they carry out surprise inspections in-company.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
and available should the day come when some party has a ruthless secret police force.
Do you seriously think that's likely?

I'm not saying there's no risk, I'm saying the risk is so small that it's massively outweighed by the benefits.

In general I think history rarely repeats itself, because it tends to be path dependent, we know what happened, so whatever happens will be a novel twist on familiar themes at least.

That said, when one side wants to label dissenters 'Saboteurs' and 'Traitors' I'm not sure I'd be all that sanguine.

Eventually, power itself corrupts, and these vast datastores will be used for ill - I'm not sure what form it'll take exactly, but perhaps we see a small echo of it in the various companies offering 'social media' services to HR departments wanting to investigate potential hires - which are often error-prone, presumptuous and offer no means of recourse or reply. Or the various scams that use publicly traded databases to target weak and vulnerable. Don't under-estimate people's willingness to pollute the social sphere for a quick buck.

Generally once information is available, people request it or want to search through it. When I was last job hunting, one of the outsourced background checking agencies wanted a copy of my first and last payslip from every job I had ever had - I'm mildly OCD so it was easy enough to fulfill - others may not have found it so easy though. On a note close to the original topic - there have been cases in the US where people have been asked for social media passwords as part of the background check.

[ 11. December 2017, 16:11: Message edited by: chris stiles ]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
If the secret police force is secret, how do you know they do not have one already?

Secret in the sense that you never know who is one of them, rather than in the sense of not knowing they exist.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

Is a Bloomberg writer reading the Ship? Article out today on Alexa listening to everything you say, and what it might (and might not) mean.

Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :

I wouldn't give Alexa or her siblings houseroom. I don't have a camera or a microphone on my computer, by design. But there's a limit to how much data we can keep to ourselves - and I do believe that if something can be used for ill, it eventually will be.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0