Surveillance and Tracking Matters

[Irrev-Black]

Tik bloody tok.


https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nation ... 5etq0.html

[stylofone]

Tik bloody tok.


https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nation ... 5etq0.html

"tech giants can use a tracking tool, known as a pixel". Such a grasp of the concepts! I've even heard they put them in cameras too, millions of them!

I wonder if google, facebook and the rest are worried that the anti-China sentiment at the centre of this will have bad effects on them too. The polliticians seem well-trained to leave the big surveillance overlords to their own devices. I'm pretty sure the teals don't have the guts to take them on either.

[pipbarber]

I'm sure that, if this was a thing, I'd get a few SWAT teams surrounding the house every time I stood on a sharp, half-eaten dog kibble before I'd gotten my coffee.

But Monash University researchers found the potential solution was also loaded with ethical considerations and could put the onus of responsibility on victims, produce too many false positives and negatives, and remove pressure from the government to address the causes of domestic violence.

The findings, in a report called Should We Embrace Big Sister, comes weeks after a woman was killed by her long-time partner in Brisbane, bringing the number of women killed in 2023 to 59, according to Destroy the Joint.

The study, published in the Ethics and Information Technology Journal, noted one in four Australian homes used smart speakers like those produced by Amazon, Google and Apple.

It found companies including Google had already raised the possibility of using a speaker’s sensors to detect the “emotional state” of those near it, while US university researchers had started work on artificially intelligent systems for detecting “screaming, siren, explosion, gunshot and glass-breaking” data.

“Smart technologies for detecting (intimate partner violence) are already being developed – we suspect it is inevitable that more will be proposed in the years to come,” the study noted.

“The widespread presence of smart speakers in domestic spaces offers an unprecedented opportunity, both rhetorical and real, to enlist Big Sister in the cause of combating (intimate partner violence).”

https://inqld.com.au/crime/2023/12/18/h ... -violence/

Far be it for me to criticize something that may help women in a DV scenario, but Apple, Amazon and Google? Are we sure that rather than alerting an appropriate law enforcement agency they wouldn't start sending adverts for self-defense courses for her and the latest Jordon Peterson video for him, along with multiple 'discounted' subscriptions...and travel vouches perhaps, divorce lawyer adverts?

Google are going to save you? That'd be the same google that vomits up any number of misogynist bigot vloggers, if you happen to leave the 'play next' option on youtube and walk away for 30 minutes. Those people are going to save women from DV? The same company that platformed Andrew Tate to popularity?

Too cynical perhaps. I'm just not sure Apple, Amazon and Google have the capacity to do anything but extract money and exploit people.

[Irrev-Black]

Looks good on the surface, but scary shit is in the comments:

Google Maps now stores location data locally on your device, meaning that Google no longer has that data to turn over to the police.

But...

The small print: Google no longer needs to collect and store the data from maps on their servers because they have been working with the NSA for a few years now on “how to ID any location on the planet without a geolocation reference attached to the image”.

It's all here.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/ ... -maps.html

[Irrev-Black]

Google, friend of burglars? What started as a shithouse joke ended revealing a security exploit.

What clicked in Will’s mind is that he had inadvertently created a public tracker of when people were in his share house — almost certainly without their knowledge. Will quickly voluntarily “closed” his business on Google but the listing remained up afterwards.

After being informed of the exploit by Crikey, founder of Australian information security company DVULN Jamieson O’Reilly said that his review of Google’s technical material corroborated Will’s understanding of the situation.

“My gut tells me you could list any place as a business then if the residents had opted in to location services you could totally use it to measure someone’s patterns,” he said.

Being able to track people without their consent is a significant privacy and safety issue. Vulnerable groups like domestic and intimate partner abuse victims already have to contend with technology-enabled coercive control through devices like Apple AirTags or access to their digital accounts. This Google Maps misuse potentially allows someone to monitor another person’s whereabouts even without access to their devices and without arousing suspicion.

O’Reilly also raised how criminals have used information gleaned via social media to assist in crimes, like check-in locations or travel plans to know when a house might be empty. He said Google should enhance its verification processes but users also needed to be aware of what information they might be sharing with the world.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/01/17/go ... locations/

[stylofone]

Microsoft follows the money, moving further from selling software and closer to the google/faebook model of monetising the data from surveillance on its cutomers.

The quote and link below are marketing for the privacy product Proton. It's a shame it even needs to exist.

In a 2022 interview with Business Insider, Rob Wilk, Microsoft’s head of advertising, talked of opportunities with properties like Xbox, which includes a console business as well as logged-in accounts – “just one of the areas we’re going to play in,” he said.

“Imagine a world, not too far off, where all of these pieces are stitched together to make a cleaner, clearer offering for our advertisers,” Wilk said. “And, don’t forget, we’ve also got browsing information and data across gaming and the Microsoft Windows business with billions of users – this gives us a unique advantage to understand intent.”

Wilk dubbed Microsoft’s advertising push a “newfound religion.”

https://proton.me/blog/outlook-is-micro ... on-service

[stylofone]

Cars are the new frontier for surveillance capitalism. Kia is unusual in that it admits in plain language that it will find and use information about your "sex life and sexual orientation". Usually these documents are incredibly long walls of legalese with the most important information buried. Kia is conventional in that it falsely calls this surveillance policy a "privacy policy".

This category may include Social Security number, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number; account log-in, financial account, debit card, or credit card number in combination with any required security or access code, password, or credentials allowing access to an account; precise geolocation; racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs; union membership; genetic data; unique biometric information; contents of certain mail, emails, and text messages; or health, sex life or sexual orientation information.

https://www.kia.com/us/en/privacy

[stylofone]

There's a crossover with the AI thread. Google will now read all your private messages, including any old ones it can get its hands on, to train its AI. Part of it seems to be a sort of super auto-correct, where it will make up the entire message and suggest it to you instead of just suggesting the spelling of single words. But of course it will also greatly enhance the company's ability to influence your behaviour, including making you more likely to buy shit they advertise. They will be making use of sentiment, mood, vibe and relationship dynamics. They are not as honest as Kia, admitting that this will include things like sexual activity and union membership

But Bard will also analyze the private content of messages “to understand the context of your conversations, your tone, and your interests.” It will analyze the sentiment of your messages, “to tailor its responses to your mood and vibe.” And it will “analyze your message history with different contacts to understand your relationship dynamics… to personalize responses based on who you're talking to.”

And so here comes the next privacy battlefield for smartphone owners still coming to terms with app permissions, privacy labels and tracking transparency, and with all those voice AI assistant eavesdropping scandals still fresh in the memory. Google’s challenge will be convincing users that this doesn’t open the door to the same kind of privacy nightmares we’ve seen before, where user content and AI platforms meet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman ... c3715c7a94

[Irrev-Black]

SNIPPAGE OCCURRED

Google will now read all your private messages, including any old ones it can get its hands on, to train its AI. Part of it seems to be a sort of super auto-correct, where it will make up the entire message and suggest it to you instead of just suggesting the spelling of single words. But of course it will also greatly enhance the company's ability to influence your behaviour, including making you more likely to buy shit they advertise. They will be making use of sentiment, mood, vibe and relationship dynamics. They are not as honest as Kia, admitting that this will include things like sexual activity and union membership

Ah, that I had the time to create a few bots which would carry on a relentless to-and-fro of necro mecha scat furry fantasies.

Imagine a myriad such instances, and the resultant LLM that would spring forth.

[Irrev-Black]

Oh, what a feeling... yeah, like an unexpected cavity search.

Consumer group Choice has knocked Toyota over its data-collecting policy and the sharing of information with third parties like debt collectors and insurance companies, while calling for stronger safeguards on personal data.

Rafi Alam, Choice senior campaigns and policy adviser, said Toyota’s connected services policy means if you do not opt out it will collect and use personal and vehicle data for research, product development and data analysis.

“It may also share the data with third parties, such as debt collectors or insurance companies,” he said.

“Toyota says it needs consent to share your information in some cases, but Toyota’s policies are incredibly vague about what actually counts as consent.”

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/ ... collection