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Re: Permissions

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On 7/2/2015 6:08 PM, J0HNS0N wrote:
> Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> wrote:
...
>> Some people I
>> know with iPhones are paying more than ten times that much, albeit for
>> better phones and services that I don't need.
>
> iPhones have nothing to do with it.
>
> The service cost per line is exactly the same for my wife's iPhone as
> it is for my Android phone.
>
> My *guess* would be that the super cheap plans don't offer the iPhone
> because those who go for that type of service likely couldn't or don't
> want to afford an iPhone.

That's interesting.  I haven't kept up with the times.  It used to be 
that iPhones could only be had with certain services that sold at 
premium prices.  But I guess now you can mix and match iPhone with 
whatever service you want.  Device and service are much more de-coupled 
than they used to be.
...


> But I can honestly say that I have never gotten any spam from anybody
> that I can trace back to Google in the many years I've been using
> them.
>
> That's more than I can say for many businesses I have to pay to use
> (car dealerships, hotels, theme parks etc). For those I am very happy
> to have Gmail's exceptional filter services to kill their spam.

That's a good point.  The great bulk of the spam I get is from simple 
minded crooks who it's hard to imagine dealing with Google.

The main nuisance is that, after doing a search for a product on Google, 
or clicking on an adsense ad, one sees ads for that product for many 
months after.  It's a little annoying but, in all fairness, I guess it's 
no worse than seeing random ads.

It is creepy however to realize that, when you turn on "location 
services", and even when you don't, Google will start tracking you and 
presenting ads for nearby locations.  It's like having a guy follow you 
wherever you go and make notes on every place you've been.  He doesn't 
hurt you or interfere with what you're doing, but he's always there, 
accumulating his record of your life.

I notice too that Google can be very demanding and, I would say, rather 
unscrupulous, about getting our permission to do things.  When I turn on 
location services I get a prompt asking me to allow Google to track me. 
  On my phone (LG34c Android 4.4) there's also a checkbox that says: 
"Don't ask me this again."  If I check the box and say no, I still get 
prompted every single time.  However if I say yes, I never get prompted 
again.

There are other things like that where they make it ultra easy to get 
your consent to tracking but much harder to remove that consent.  It's 
not just for Google services.  Something as simple as using Google 
authentication for a third party service can present you with a prompt 
that effectively says you have to let Google track you forever if you 
want Google to authenticate you just this one time.  The language is 
ambiguous.  It doesn't say explicitly that Google is going to track you 
forever.  But there is no language limiting what you've agreed to.

And now that we know that the NSA and Homeland Security have been 
getting this information from Google, Apple, and the others, it's 
especially freaky to know that all this info is being accumulated. 
Someone told me that, when you back up your phone to Google, your 
unencrypted WiFi passwords are part of the backup data.  When NSA gets 
them they can plug right into your WiFi router if they have a mind to 
and snoop on all of your Internet traffic.

>> However, if you think it's appropriate for Google, Apple, and Microsoft
>> to do whatever they want, including selling undisclosed parts of our
>> information to undisclosed buyers for undisclosed purposes, then surely
>> it must also be appropriate for us to exercise the same freedom in how
>> we use their services.  That includes using our own security software,
>> like firewalls, to stymie their intrusions.
>
> Amen. Knock yourself out brother!!  And good luck to you.

Thank you.  And vice versa.

> BTW do you use a charge card. Did you know they do the same thing?

I'm not sure what is included in "the same thing".  However, when push 
comes to shove, I know that we're each dealing with companies and 
institutions that are immeasurably more powerful than we are as 
individuals.  If Google and Apple, AT&T and Verizon, VISA and 
Mastercard, are well-behaved with our data, that's great, but there's 
precious little stopping them from being ill-behaved, and precious 
little transparency enabling us to find out what they're doing.  What I 
think we really need is for all Internet users to band together and 
elect congressmen and senators who will create laws protecting our 
privacy and our rights as consumers.

     Alan

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Thread

Permissions  F Murtz <haggisz@hotmail.com> - 2015-07-01 23:22 +1000
  Re: Permissions J0HNS0N <12J0HNSON1022@92300nomail.com> - 2015-07-01 15:08 -0700
  Re: Permissions Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2015-07-02 16:03 -0400
    Re: Permissions J0HNS0N <12J0HNSON1022@92300nomail.com> - 2015-07-02 15:08 -0700
      Re: Permissions Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2015-07-02 20:26 -0400
        Re: Permissions F Murtz <haggisz@hotmail.com> - 2015-07-03 11:02 +1000
          Re: Permissions J0HNS0N <12J0HNSON1022@92300nomail.com> - 2015-07-02 23:03 -0700
        Re: Permissions The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2015-07-02 18:39 -0700
        Re: Permissions J0HNS0N <12J0HNSON1022@92300nomail.com> - 2015-07-02 23:03 -0700
        Re: Permissions Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2015-07-03 19:08 +0000
  Re: Permissions F Murtz <haggisz@hotmail.com> - 2015-07-03 11:04 +1000

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