former Twitter engineer disclosing some shady business

Yeah, it does matter.
Apple doesnt allow this, once you close the app its closed as best I understand it (unless you "opt in") and why companies like Facebook have been hammered in lost advertising revenue which even Facebook admitted lost up to 10 billion in revenue because of Apples new policies. (think about that, 10 BILLION in lost revenue and that is just one company, now add in all the others and I think its 10 billion every six months for the big guys alone)

The apps on your Android phone can crosstrack even when you are not using the app. Android in not a problem for these companies, Apple is.

Telcos install their own proprietary daemons to run in the background. This telco was not asking Twitter to amend their app; they were asking for the technology to be developed for inclusion on the phone.

A reasonable parallel might be a little button I am looking at on my wife's school board-issued laptop. It appears to be a Lenovo-specific button that calls up a low-level Lenovo support application, pre-installed and immutable, which communicates the device's manufacturing and technological information to the support provider.
 
The scary part was when the telco exec said "all the other companies give us more than what we're asking for now"!
One thought when I read that was the exec was bluffing or exaggerating. He/she probably wasn't though....
 
Well, this just in today:

Still better than Google though I'm sure. But just reiterates that they all do it to some extent.


"It’s possible that Apple processes DSID data to shelter personally identifying details when the company receives the information, separating your personal information from other data. But there’s no way to know because so far Apple seems unwilling to explain its practices. The company may not use the data if you turn the related privacy settings off, despite still receiving it, but that’s not how the company explains what the settings do in its privacy policy."
 
This is why new front ends are being developed against giant tech by the privacy community these are only available through a web browser however i would never download an APP version of twitter,or youtube.Theres nitter for twitter,piped for youtube,the list goes on for other websites.There open source projects anyone can host on there own server,think of it as a VPN but it isolates you from there giant tech's algorithoms,and fingerprinting.

Hiding your IP address is only a small fraction of importance to identify you with these companies,they use web browser fingerprinting which they have a bunch of methods at there disposal one being canvas fingerprinting which makes your computer draw complex shapes and these shapes are unique to each machine.For example imagine if there was 3 people sitting in a room with the task of drawing a stick figure person,each persons drawing would be different and if i stored there drawing with a picture of there face i can identify them from just them drawing a stick figure.
The same applies to computers maybe slightly less different drawings with computers,this is just one of many techniques they can use, they can also check what fonts you have installed to identify you.Check out browserleaks.com they show how your browser is fingerprinting you and other techniques.

This is were the front ends come into play they go to twitter.com for example grab the content you want removes any tracking data,it also fools twitter fingerprinting since your browser is never accessing twitter.com only the server is.The only drawback is you cant post to twitter for example the front ends are currently only for viewing,however they are working to make it so you can use your (twitter,google,etc) account with them.Reliability is about 90% of the time i dont have a issue with watching a video,or tweet.The links show the original tweet posted in this thread but on a nitter instance.

Twitter
https://nitter.net/user/status/1589700721121058817
https://nitter.sethforprivacy.com/user/status/1589700721121058817

Youtube
https://piped.kavin.rocks/
https://piped.privacydev.net/
 
Living in Silicon Valley all these years, I have long had the sense that powerful people have the top secret software in the top drawer, under lock and key. It's for special occasions.
 
Data gathering is as old as the first internet user, why are people surprised?

I can only speak for me. You are correct for sure. For me, I contrast modern data mining with the Nazi propaganda machine. Look at what they were able to do. Modern tech blows thst away. Very scary when you truly analyze what can be done with this data…and I’m not talking advertising.
 
I can only speak for me. You are correct for sure. For me, I contrast modern data mining with the Nazi propaganda machine. Look at what they were able to do. Modern tech blows thst away. Very scary when you truly analyze what can be done with this data…and I’m not talking advertising.
Can you elaborate on what can be done with the data? I'm not doubting you, I'm curious.
 
Can you elaborate on what can be done with the data? I'm not doubting you, I'm curious.
Absolutely everything is tracked about you - where you are, what you do, what you say, what you buy, who you are with, etc. And it doesn't matter if you have VPN or not, whether you are on different wifi networks, or have GPS "turned off".

What can be done with those data is only limited by imagination. The most benign is shaping your buying habits and opinions about things through customized presentation of content. Plain old ads are the most benign form because you can recognize them.
 
Can you elaborate on what can be done with the data? I'm not doubting you, I'm curious.

The influence on your opinion can be fine tuned to you, not just general population.

In a totalitarian state like China, it’s used to directly control people, not just influence their opinions.

Here is Canadian police harassing a women over a Facebook post. The possibilities are endless.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...an-slams-cop-hounding-home-Facebook-post.html
 
Can you elaborate on what can be done with the data? I'm not doubting you, I'm curious.

Simply stating a complex matter; metadata is collected from your digital footprint and can readily be pieced together to paint an eerily accurate picture of, well YOU. For an example of government use/abuse google former CIA Director (Can't remember if it was Hayden or Brennan) testifies that the CIA used metadata to aid justification of human target eradication. That was in 2012 or 14 so imagine where it stands now. Tech moves pretty fast.
 
Absolutely you can do a lot to minimize tracking and privacy invasion, companies know most dont bother. All the social networking apps know this, at least Apple limits their invasion when you close the app and denies cross app tracking. Apple also will hide your IP address for you.
and ... on top of it all, their privacy controls make it very easy to take that to the next level.

Nothing to the best of my knowledge does that on Android which I still see as the Wild West.
 
Some pretty shady things going on now too.
I know someone who was is in the business, very high paid employee, like ridiculous pay. Perfectly legal, he is a data engineer.
They package all this personal information cultivated from a whole range of sources, put them in a nice neat package and much like mortgage companies package mortgages sell the packages to the highest bidders.
People agree to the "terms and conditions" of almost everything they download and buy.
It's kind of why I am a bit crazy about my posts in this forum with privacy.
It's really crazy and this is big money, just think about it. Let's say the loss Facebook faced of up to TEN BILLION dollars a year in revenue just by Apple tweaking a privacy setting not allowing cross site tracking among apps and tracking once the app is closed. (this is jsut an example of how much money is in the business with just one company in the whole world)
 
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