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Google Collects Android Users' Locations Even When Location Services Are Disabled (qz.com)
Google has been collecting Android phones' locations even when location services are turned off, and even when there is no carrier SIM card installed on the device, an investigation has found. Keith Collins, reporting for Quartz: Since the beginning of 2017, Android phones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers -- even when location services are disabled -- and sending that data back to Google. The result is that Google, the unit of Alphabet behind Android, has access to data about individuals' locations and their movements that go far beyond a reasonable consumer expectation of privacy. Quartz observed the data collection occur and contacted Google, which confirmed the practice. The cell tower addresses have been included in information sent to the system Google uses to manage push notifications and messages on Android phones for the past 11 months, according to a Google spokesperson. They were never used or stored, the spokesperson said, and the company is now taking steps to end the practice after being contacted by Quartz. By the end of November, the company said, Android phones will no longer send cell-tower location data to Google, at least as part of this particular service, which consumers cannot disable.
When I first started reading Slashdot about 20 years ago, I was impressed by the wonderfully liberal ideas that abound in the comments section of the site, for example,
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Benjamin Franklin)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." (Evelyn Beatrice Hall)
They gave me character, and shaped my world view.
Fast forward 20 years, and I find this generation to be more than willing to give up their freedom for a little convenience, or to be with the trendy in Silicon Valley, or simply because they can't stand a certain politician.
> Apple is releasing ... defective hardware because they can't be bothered to spend their pile of cash on QA
Do you actually believe that rubbish?
Overpriced is a matter of opinion, and if you need a 3.5mm headphone jack yet are incapable of using the included 3.5mm to Lightning adaptor then you belong to a very specific subset of the population, but my and no doubt most iPhone Xs are solid and working flawlessly.
LOL, sure it does. Because you're going to flip that switch and it'll tell you that it switched those services off. You'll never know if it really did because you'll never go to the effort of actually auditing the code base to verify that there's no chance that those are merely soft switches that get polled for state changes once a second, and meanwhile the services are actually controlled by code and could be re-started at any time. And even if you did, there's no chance you'd ever compile the system and verify the compiled code exactly matches the firmware in your device. And don't believe that everything will be open source -- you're going to have some proprietary driver or other closed-source blob that won't be auditable and could do anything.
But hey, don't let me discourage you, you've got a touchy-feely rah-rah web page to reassure you. There's no chance that a company that proclaims it's all about privacy could ever fail to deliver, right? "The more he spoke of his honor..."
Just junk food for thought...