System apps are (or can easily become) root by design, so they can do a lot of things other apps can't. This is true for ANY OEM ROM since the anals of Android - preloaded apps are signed with developer keys, so they get API and Linux system privileges.
System apps chose to perform anything they want, silently. They don't need to ask permission through UI for stuff like Runtime.exec("su"..., or access protected/secured Android API - they just do it. And even if they don't do it from factory, OEMs like Samsung can just put in place a system-level updater that force app updates (they do this actually with samsung store), and eventually turn system apps into something they originally were not.
Now, Oneplus having an app, a preloaded one at that, which enables third-party apps to have root access is effectively unusual. I am indeed surprised Google sanctioned a ROM with such a feature, because Google does not want typical users circumventing most things Google Play, which can be done with root (common examples are adblocking through hosts files, or changing device properties such as for overclocking) . But then again, this feature is nothing special from a security standpoint. You will still get prompted by the OS whenever an app requests root even after this app turns root on for third-parties.
So, what kind of exploit can be attained from this kind of app in OnePlus devices? Is there anything different than what you could with an app that is signed with dev keys and already has root access? If an actor is managing to trigger root through the EngineeringMode app automagically, he likely also can do similar stuff with system apps that do NOT allow root to thrid-party apps. They are already injecting code or input after all, they can very well go the extra mile and do it all at once. Why bother escalating another app when you're already in control of an escalated process?
So we're at quote-based Ad hominem and other falacies now. Good to know where this is going.
Full disclosure: I'm in research. I'm European. I have 0 geographical bias - I am literally in the middle of the situation. I digest everything from RT to CNN with a grain of salt, even The Guardian, especially wikileaks. But your opinion is already formed so I doubt any of this means anything - according to you, Russia cares so much for controlling outlets, it's even paying me to have an argument here. I want my paycheck.
Thanks for linking a list of hacks. Unfortunately, it's very easy to show one good source, then neglect the fact that TV and social media aren't hammering "That Russian/China/NK Threat" down your eardrums and eyeballs every single second of the day. Even all the Trump-Russia ties are getting to a point they smell like reverse psychology from the Trump social media machine (which has so many unbiased sources at this point I dont even need to link them).
I fail to see any logic when somebody makes an argument neglecting something like the grey hat community, in the same country there are multiple conventions for such types, attended publicly by: 1. penetration testers; 2. criminals (at least according to your FBI. Wannacry "hero" anyone?)
Lulz. Yeah blame it on anon. Or betetr yet - blame it on foreign states. When you get to a point even Discovery channel has weekly programming dedicated to interviewing past CIA/NSA/Pentagon contractors demeaning foreign states with vague commentary (protected by confidentiality and whatnot), you know exactly the kind of propaganda being spread. But hey, at least it's on a Science channel right?
You can call strawman on whatever you feel like, but I have the feeling that the moment you need to name the falacies, this discussion has gotten to a point we might as well agree to disagree. You consider yourself so smart that it clouds your assertiveness, and I don't keep arguments going with geometric shapes.
Just adding an observation: Marissa Meyer is using public opinion. It's how every big corp or politician responde to any committee or cour hearing that has public access. Why bother with a legal defense that you know will find fault in your work, when you can blame it on the usual suspects, and then the problem is no longer yours by default?
The US is getting hacked every day by every country. But the only ones you hear about on the news are Russia, China and NK.
It's very easy to attempt to extrapolate that all attacks are state-sponsored when you are so biased by media and politicians that only attacks from these countries actually exist. It's like something erased from the memory of all (even tech-savy) americans the fact that most Internet services and servers are based in the US, and it is an obvious honeypot for everything hack-centric.
And even if state-sponsored, how many countries, including the US, undergo sponsoring of their own hacking schemes? Has it been that long since Snowden? Or maybe he was a Russian spy since he went to Russia and all...
I agree with the first replacement, since some business ideas are definitely not new technology yet they still go the same route. About the second replacement, I think the original fits better - some things people don't even need to spend money on for monetization. Big Data has made that clear.
I don't have kids but have a 5yo sister whom I pretty much try to educate as a parent, despite "acting" the much younger brother when playing. I teach her a lot and she does learn fast, which to us "old dogs" entering the 30's, is already an amazing feat as we no longer have that spongeability to learning by inference. I believe the most important thing on children is the fact they can be apolitical while still maintaining a basic sense of morality/ethics, and that's why they surprise us so much - we can't make the same assumptions as them because we are already tainted by society. And this is probably why they learn so much - they want to have an identity to themselves, they want to know what to like and not, and thus, have more care (not caution, but affection) and openness for new facts.
Nevertheless, I believe that we, as "grown ups next to our own kids" are very biased to thinking "the kids will be allright". We see our children, we know them, we love them, so we kinda only see the good stuff, and most of all, we rarely see them in difficult situations socially. Even teachers have trouble inspecting real interaction between their students and thus not even they know how well that interaction is going until something really bad happens.
While adults, teachers, and the social environemtn towards a echnological society do manage to be solid playgrounds for most kids, you could as well say that part of education - interaction between peers - is probably the area where there is less homogeneity, since kids have all very different personalities and backgrounds, and most of all, varying opportunities to acquire knowledge on this specific field. I doubt any 5 kids in most contemporary junior-high, let alone the same class, would have a cohesive opinion on how to act or protect their web social life, which they already have been establishing the moment they got a smartphone, likely years before entering junior high.
New technology always starts out with a basic idea: What do people need? That's the embryo stage of unicorn tech companies - they go for popularity, growth, adoption, novelty.
Not long after, either the people in charge, or those that want to be in charge such as investors, start thinking about exit: what do I need people to need/want? How do I make them do it to such an extent it starts providing something I can monetize?...and this second step is where things really start getting out of hand. Thats problem no.1 of capitalist society - as it doesn't regulate until a fault is so big it has an effect, you can't really make perfect symbiosis with the user base. It's something we were expected to cope with, as the rational beings we consider ourselves, as a mild trade-off for innovation and economic growth. But in the age of information overload, we don't adapt fast enough and consequences might not be offset by the benefits.
The problem with innovation these days is that it has no sense of direction. I'll make this very, VERY basic analogy with the youtuber modus operandi: they find a weak interest group like gamers, children, compulsive consumers, extreme-left/right minds, religious types, nerds types... or a combination of the above, and then proceed to broadcast low or questonnable, definitely biased (read: sponsored) comment on whatever topic. You get low quality data on weak, influenciable people and you get a lot a disinformed community.
Fake news or trivial shares are not the problem - the problem arises when opinion is so influenced by trend that it becomes determination. Just look at the Catalunia issue: they really had no bad quality of life, nor that big a sense of identity to really make a fuss about separating from Spain (I am close, and unbiased to the issue as a Portuguese national), yet the simple fact some parties insisted on pushing the buttons over and over again, for very personal interest to acquire power for themselves, and you get populism, which is "old" english for trend.
I have seen the Facebook trend evolve - some years ago, Facebook was being used by everyone I thought was of reasonable character and technologically OK (let's put an age/social status label on that and say high-level educated millenials such as me and most of us here). facebook was getting trendy but it still managed to have actually relevant, valid information. Then it became meta-mainstream with the explosion of Android and the consequent WWW ubiquity, reaching the "septemberists" that had no idea on how to interact in an evolved community (both uneducated oldies as much as infant new generations). What do humans do when in a harsh environment? They attempt to thrive, Dunning–Kruger style: pack, gang up, and hoard the place with unfounded comment they believe as fact with the slightest argument. And this is not Facebook, this is the entire social web, today. And people, this september will last forever unless someone has a bright idea to stop it.
How you might ask? Well, I surely don't know but for starters, surely something better than FB/Twitter/Reddit must come forth and replace current use-patterns - and by better I mean it gets people to move there. With a bit of luck, whoever invents that acosystem also manages to place some core rules that prevent an idiocracy state all over again. But it might take some iterations, yet some systems such as Wikipedia made it on the first try (despite some nay-sayers, Wikipedia is still asserted by most as a decent platform, perceptibly preventing abuse by about 99% of relevant issues, and arguably with a lot more good than bad).
True, although I did say "part of", which to a point, just means he sanctioned it. Well, I just made that point for good measure, but we all know when talking about TheDonald, anything goes... So that wasn't a great example anyways.
I bet he actually does have it, yet whoever gets the job of monitoring him is well below his paycheck, so it becomes moot.
People will give up their privacy for certain benefits like money and fame. Even the US president was a part of reality TV. The real problem is a social one: we have gotten to a point where we don't value, as a community, our privacy enough. It's not very different than prostitution, only that job has been around for millenia. We have become our own whores, which consequentially, is something that really sucks.
Yet I believe the best tactic is just faking it - interviewers for mass media DO lie, even on paid interviews, and some of us also lie even in our jobs and our patterns. Not much different from kissing ass to your boss, you can also simply fake most stuff. You might even get a promotion when you fake it well enough. Learn to game the system and you're a reality winner (no, not NSA's Reality Winner).
Because whoever requests that depth map also has standard camera access and do loads more by cross-referencing photo+map, but I won't go into details before an elitist like Dog-Cow comes running saying I don't know enough of this to discuss it...:D
But I believe the original article states actual data from FaceID will be available to apps, so what you state is not entirely accurate - they do get info from the dot projection system. They should get less fidelity, but that is exactly the argument here - they will extrapolate from the rough map from the dot projection data, and that's step 1 to reverse engineer original data. Of course only time will tell what can be done.
Oh god, here comes the "stores and apps that nobody uses" argument all over again. The good thing is I know for a fact those who use that argument pretty much have an opinion formed, so no point arguing, yet are hopping someday those stores will actually gain the popularity they need to actually matter... Good luck with that. Even on such an unlikely event, those pro-whatever-I don't-even-undeestand "stores" will find a business model that screws you right up the ass just like every other company's exit strategy (sourceforge anyone?). Or do you think some Digital Jesus runs them? Oh wait, one of them is Amazon LOL!
Why can't some people take off their blindfolds and see the facts... Even bastions of user freedoms such as fucking GNU/Linux turned into proverbial and literal tools for so many companies to profit and abuse user liberties for their benefit... BUT at the same time offering ACTUAL users, and not nerds like us so much more than a self-motivated community ever will. Open-source is nice, but it will never be what this world needs it to be, precisely because it assumes a world we never will have - one without human individual goals and corporate interests (which are based on human individual goals, mind you).
Well, if companies just decide to put data on UK servers and have UK HQs, and I am predicting a brexit that will allow most companies there to do business with the rest of Europe but still not abide to the EU court, I can already imagine the loopholes most companies are gonna abuse for simply ignoring that problem. Then again, I am hoping my elected representatives in the EU parliament won't be that fool.
then all of a sudden all apps dependant on gservices will stop responding or reduce functionality to a "no play services, computer says no" dialog, and I don't mean just google but anything that uses any of their platforms from Google Accounts, drive, search or firebase/cloud messaging, to name just a few.
My country's top money "lending" platform (lending as in "hey I dont have cash Bob, give me 5 bucks and I'll wire you"... cha'ching: 10 seconds later he gets the money on his app), which is like a whatsapp for debit/credit cards and works across banks sans-transfer rates, so basically EVERYONE uses it and even MOST commercial chaiins are accepting payments with it, is just one example of an app that is pretty much essential and makes Gservices un-uninstalable to me. I have been having a discussion with an Australian around here who states he lives and will always live completely apart from the needs of gservices, and I am starting to wonder what will happen when his society decides to do like mine (and my country is very decent in most things anti-monopoly). Maybe he will move or simply stop having interactions.
Oh what a beautiful elitist world it must be on those usenet BBS forums you dwell, where nobody takes any shit but the 100% irrefutable shit and has an absolutely 0 tolerance-policy for arguments because OMNISCIENCE.
Slashdot is past mainstream phase but that doesn't mean it's back to just-for-nerds phase. The status quo is nice because the low trolling that exists, like yours and the odd spambot's is both easily identifiable and no longer really tolerated through the empathy of a once quasi-homgenous community.
Welcome to 2017. I hope the basement is starting to feel awkward enough for you to come out, get a life, and realize there are other opinions other than yours.
If "google team" and even China already can do a lot of reconstruction from machine learning, even with heavily pixelated sources such as old pics and bad IPCams, I am guessing it won't be long before the "rough map" these apps get can be used for user tagging, and even authentication. Back with fingerprint scans, all the info was at the very least kept safe on hardware and is NEVER directly accessible to apps in any form, other than a boolean stuff like "valid" or "denied" access for authentication. Getting some map, even if pre-processed to suck balls, is an open gateway for fooling FaceID, and I think Apple will be in serious trouble even if they are intentionally adding digital watermarks that attempt to prevent such hacking. I mean, even denuvo gets cracked easily these days, I highly doubt any form of encryption or anti-tampering is enough for keeping "rough data" completely fail-proof, if this data is to be of any use to apps that want to see movement.
Well, that of course assumes the rough map isn't a set of "moods" in the order of magnitude of the hundreds or less. But that pretty much renders the feature "nothing new" material.
Congrats on actually replying, it's good to see some still won't drop a good discussion out of the internet's "lost in translation" factor. (I'm giving you a straight compliment if that wasn't clear. No irony).
I read, and actually understand every single point you mention. I might have even empathized with some it. But I agree with none (!). I value my privacy in different ways - so different they don't prevent me from the perks of societal evolution. Maybe you read Darwin wrong. I won't say I agree with every "development" from the times (some actually take away some liberties we, as a global society, once fought for, and that is a solid piece of reasoning there), but I try to be plausible to them - you DO have choices, you DO have opt outs (maybe even some opt ins when companies are more decent than average), you have publicly disclosed policies and agreemens, heavy scrutiny, you have standardized policy being put in place by states, but granted, you don't have a big enough group of influent stakeholders on the "privacy first" side and for technological liberties enough, instead favoring innovation and economical progress. I've had this conversation with multiple friends recently, who share many of your immovable opinions and I tell them this: non-tech-savy and emerging generations of users aren't buying any of this anti-progress/pro-privacy crap, so we either take an assertive approach and provide example by pondered, INFORMED and semi-skeptical voluntary acceptance of new paradigms that do take away some rights, or we be the old fart and completely neglect the conjuncture around us all, pretty much doing wha nature tells us to do as individuals who reproduce for evolution (which we shouldn't, because we are humans and NOT irrational beings, we fight against some of the standards of natural selection and thats why we are king of this particular jungle called Earth). Needless to say, my friends, who actually care for my arguments, agree, but those are guys who know I don't say things lightly, and know from years experience I think about these subjects a little more than their "auto-defensive-by-default" stand. I'm analytical and I am open-minded, because logic trumps everything but only works when the scales are balanced.
So I actually don't owe you the bet - my opinion is I didn't lose that. Your reasons do not seem valid to me - they aren't choices, they are complete seclusion (is that correct here? Non-native english speaker). It's like that "I don't stick USBs" or "connect my PC to the web" kind of behavior (you actually state very much that but for phones). If we had an independent party we might be able to set that record straight, but until then, I agree we disagree. You can either do that too or attempt to contextualize my opinions and accept they are relevant to a point. If one thing I know, I am surely not right on everything but that's what argumentation exists for.
Hi cas. Maybe I didn't add context: I flash every other week. I've flashed ever since froyo times and I've lived with and without "gapps". I use f-droid for all my open-source needs.
What I'm trying to say is: I know which kind of alternatives exist and use them regularly, but not exclusively. I'm not your run of the mill commenter and what I said wasn't said lightly.
Sorry to put it so offensively, but I won't take shit arguments from someone who admitedly doesn't have apps installed for the simple fact he can't find a use for them. Common people use apps, lots of them, and that has made the world a different place to interact in some ways, most would say for the better (some worse).You are not the first person on slashdot (certainly not the last) bringing about the "I don't want my phone to do more than this" argument. It's moot. It screams "I'm old-fashioned and likely an 80's-bred engineer who no longer copes with change". I'm gonna give you one example of something you can't do because you decided to be out of that bubble: Outlook, homebanking or Netflix. They rarely work without GServices or with "tampered" devices, and Netflix at least won't work on rooted phones (mild exceptions with heavy tinkering). They made it so because it requires proprietary, DRM'd codecs that only GServices provides, so once again the Man sticking it up to us. But dude, if you don't use Netflix on your phone, my friend this is just one of the many things you're missing out because of that Play-free bubble you live in. But hey, I doubt your Desire HD would run anything on the store anyway. The last time I played around with one of those I was still working for a college group and now I'm in my 30's.
Sure, I know I was very obnoxious on the last paragraph, but let's try and find common ground: all my statements about AOSP on the 1st comment were related to the reality of our society (except China), not me or you specifically, because everyone does indeed use GServices and boy, it's not going anywhere and it's gonna affect you no matter what. It's a capitalist market, so quality cheap phones come with quality cheap software impulsed by cheap monetizing tactics like your data. Am I in favor of this? I think it's clear not. Does it make it any less true? Fuck no. So stop being all egotistical and keep the discussion generic. No "I just bought this and I always use that" crap. It's pointless, this isn't a "slashdot help" post.
Google Play services IS mandatory in the real world. It's ubiquitous. If it's not on your phone, I bet you 1000 bucks it still affects your everyday life indirectly, unless you live in a bunker. And that is not so bad, because people like you find ways around it.
This is much easier to explain through a much more common practice by the same company: the Android "Open Source" Project.
Let's get this out of the way: Android isn't open source (outside of China at least, where Google is blocked). Period. No discussion. When you have a market so flooded by Android devices shipping with a closed source module, with super user powers, that responds to remote requests, it's not open source. That's Google Play Services for you.
AMP is just another tool for Google to keep a trendy brand on the dev community, while achieving secondary goals in the process, goals usually related to keeping or stretching their core business, which as we all know, is Big Data and Ads. They want to standardize indeed - standardize your usage patterns into their technologies.
But the true question is: is that so bad? We eventually have to place our trust in a paltform. Some already live with the apples, others with the windows, yet the gogles always get the bad rep. Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about this specific company. I mean, it is heavily scrutinized already by the competition.
It kinda makes sense if the country has tpb blocked on the ISP level. If a group of users already knows tpb is blocked in their country, such as the UK which I believe has most trackers blocked, it's only common that the pagerank score gets pretty low so it shows later.
BUT, I have to admit I have noticed similar downranks for warez pages the last 4 or 5 years, especially the TPB. I usually confirm my suspicions by searching with duckduckgo using incognito and the top result there is usually a lot more related to warez than in Google's international page (which I always use).
Then there is the google DMCA policy, which in Europe is pretty common to see at the end of the search page when looking up warez directly. I get a lot of messages stating "google ahs ommitted some search results due to DMCA takedown notices" or whatever
Slashdot Mirror
Let's get some facts straight:
System apps are (or can easily become) root by design, so they can do a lot of things other apps can't. This is true for ANY OEM ROM since the anals of Android - preloaded apps are signed with developer keys, so they get API and Linux system privileges.
System apps chose to perform anything they want, silently. They don't need to ask permission through UI for stuff like Runtime.exec("su"..., or access protected/secured Android API - they just do it. And even if they don't do it from factory, OEMs like Samsung can just put in place a system-level updater that force app updates (they do this actually with samsung store), and eventually turn system apps into something they originally were not.
Now, Oneplus having an app, a preloaded one at that, which enables third-party apps to have root access is effectively unusual. I am indeed surprised Google sanctioned a ROM with such a feature, because Google does not want typical users circumventing most things Google Play, which can be done with root (common examples are adblocking through hosts files, or changing device properties such as for overclocking) . But then again, this feature is nothing special from a security standpoint. You will still get prompted by the OS whenever an app requests root even after this app turns root on for third-parties.
So, what kind of exploit can be attained from this kind of app in OnePlus devices? Is there anything different than what you could with an app that is signed with dev keys and already has root access? If an actor is managing to trigger root through the EngineeringMode app automagically, he likely also can do similar stuff with system apps that do NOT allow root to thrid-party apps. They are already injecting code or input after all, they can very well go the extra mile and do it all at once. Why bother escalating another app when you're already in control of an escalated process?
So we're at quote-based Ad hominem and other falacies now. Good to know where this is going.
Full disclosure: I'm in research. I'm European. I have 0 geographical bias - I am literally in the middle of the situation. I digest everything from RT to CNN with a grain of salt, even The Guardian, especially wikileaks. But your opinion is already formed so I doubt any of this means anything - according to you, Russia cares so much for controlling outlets, it's even paying me to have an argument here. I want my paycheck.
Thanks for linking a list of hacks. Unfortunately, it's very easy to show one good source, then neglect the fact that TV and social media aren't hammering "That Russian/China/NK Threat" down your eardrums and eyeballs every single second of the day. Even all the Trump-Russia ties are getting to a point they smell like reverse psychology from the Trump social media machine (which has so many unbiased sources at this point I dont even need to link them).
I fail to see any logic when somebody makes an argument neglecting something like the grey hat community, in the same country there are multiple conventions for such types, attended publicly by: 1. penetration testers; 2. criminals (at least according to your FBI. Wannacry "hero" anyone?)
Lulz. Yeah blame it on anon. Or betetr yet - blame it on foreign states. When you get to a point even Discovery channel has weekly programming dedicated to interviewing past CIA/NSA/Pentagon contractors demeaning foreign states with vague commentary (protected by confidentiality and whatnot), you know exactly the kind of propaganda being spread. But hey, at least it's on a Science channel right?
You can call strawman on whatever you feel like, but I have the feeling that the moment you need to name the falacies, this discussion has gotten to a point we might as well agree to disagree. You consider yourself so smart that it clouds your assertiveness, and I don't keep arguments going with geometric shapes.
Just adding an observation: Marissa Meyer is using public opinion. It's how every big corp or politician responde to any committee or cour hearing that has public access. Why bother with a legal defense that you know will find fault in your work, when you can blame it on the usual suspects, and then the problem is no longer yours by default?
The only real defense for mediocrity is contrast ©
The US is getting hacked every day by every country. But the only ones you hear about on the news are Russia, China and NK.
It's very easy to attempt to extrapolate that all attacks are state-sponsored when you are so biased by media and politicians that only attacks from these countries actually exist. It's like something erased from the memory of all (even tech-savy) americans the fact that most Internet services and servers are based in the US, and it is an obvious honeypot for everything hack-centric.
And even if state-sponsored, how many countries, including the US, undergo sponsoring of their own hacking schemes? Has it been that long since Snowden? Or maybe he was a Russian spy since he went to Russia and all...
I agree with the first replacement, since some business ideas are definitely not new technology yet they still go the same route. About the second replacement, I think the original fits better - some things people don't even need to spend money on for monetization. Big Data has made that clear.
Other than that, you're on point.
This might not be the case with every kid.
I don't have kids but have a 5yo sister whom I pretty much try to educate as a parent, despite "acting" the much younger brother when playing. I teach her a lot and she does learn fast, which to us "old dogs" entering the 30's, is already an amazing feat as we no longer have that spongeability to learning by inference. I believe the most important thing on children is the fact they can be apolitical while still maintaining a basic sense of morality/ethics, and that's why they surprise us so much - we can't make the same assumptions as them because we are already tainted by society. And this is probably why they learn so much - they want to have an identity to themselves, they want to know what to like and not, and thus, have more care (not caution, but affection) and openness for new facts.
Nevertheless, I believe that we, as "grown ups next to our own kids" are very biased to thinking "the kids will be allright". We see our children, we know them, we love them, so we kinda only see the good stuff, and most of all, we rarely see them in difficult situations socially. Even teachers have trouble inspecting real interaction between their students and thus not even they know how well that interaction is going until something really bad happens.
While adults, teachers, and the social environemtn towards a echnological society do manage to be solid playgrounds for most kids, you could as well say that part of education - interaction between peers - is probably the area where there is less homogeneity, since kids have all very different personalities and backgrounds, and most of all, varying opportunities to acquire knowledge on this specific field. I doubt any 5 kids in most contemporary junior-high, let alone the same class, would have a cohesive opinion on how to act or protect their web social life, which they already have been establishing the moment they got a smartphone, likely years before entering junior high.
New technology always starts out with a basic idea: What do people need? That's the embryo stage of unicorn tech companies - they go for popularity, growth, adoption, novelty.
Not long after, either the people in charge, or those that want to be in charge such as investors, start thinking about exit: what do I need people to need/want? How do I make them do it to such an extent it starts providing something I can monetize? ...and this second step is where things really start getting out of hand. Thats problem no.1 of capitalist society - as it doesn't regulate until a fault is so big it has an effect, you can't really make perfect symbiosis with the user base. It's something we were expected to cope with, as the rational beings we consider ourselves, as a mild trade-off for innovation and economic growth. But in the age of information overload, we don't adapt fast enough and consequences might not be offset by the benefits.
The problem with innovation these days is that it has no sense of direction. I'll make this very, VERY basic analogy with the youtuber modus operandi: they find a weak interest group like gamers, children, compulsive consumers, extreme-left/right minds, religious types, nerds types... or a combination of the above, and then proceed to broadcast low or questonnable, definitely biased (read: sponsored) comment on whatever topic. You get low quality data on weak, influenciable people and you get a lot a disinformed community.
Fake news or trivial shares are not the problem - the problem arises when opinion is so influenced by trend that it becomes determination. Just look at the Catalunia issue: they really had no bad quality of life, nor that big a sense of identity to really make a fuss about separating from Spain (I am close, and unbiased to the issue as a Portuguese national), yet the simple fact some parties insisted on pushing the buttons over and over again, for very personal interest to acquire power for themselves, and you get populism, which is "old" english for trend.
I have seen the Facebook trend evolve - some years ago, Facebook was being used by everyone I thought was of reasonable character and technologically OK (let's put an age/social status label on that and say high-level educated millenials such as me and most of us here). facebook was getting trendy but it still managed to have actually relevant, valid information. Then it became meta-mainstream with the explosion of Android and the consequent WWW ubiquity, reaching the "septemberists" that had no idea on how to interact in an evolved community (both uneducated oldies as much as infant new generations). What do humans do when in a harsh environment? They attempt to thrive, Dunning–Kruger style: pack, gang up, and hoard the place with unfounded comment they believe as fact with the slightest argument. And this is not Facebook, this is the entire social web, today. And people, this september will last forever unless someone has a bright idea to stop it.
How you might ask? Well, I surely don't know but for starters, surely something better than FB/Twitter/Reddit must come forth and replace current use-patterns - and by better I mean it gets people to move there. With a bit of luck, whoever invents that acosystem also manages to place some core rules that prevent an idiocracy state all over again. But it might take some iterations, yet some systems such as Wikipedia made it on the first try (despite some nay-sayers, Wikipedia is still asserted by most as a decent platform, perceptibly preventing abuse by about 99% of relevant issues, and arguably with a lot more good than bad).
I guess we need a law against cold war denials then, like the germans needed one for Holocaust deniers...
I love how every single US problem these days is insta-mitigated with "blame the russians".
True, although I did say "part of", which to a point, just means he sanctioned it. Well, I just made that point for good measure, but we all know when talking about TheDonald, anything goes... So that wasn't a great example anyways.
I bet he actually does have it, yet whoever gets the job of monitoring him is well below his paycheck, so it becomes moot.
People will give up their privacy for certain benefits like money and fame. Even the US president was a part of reality TV. The real problem is a social one: we have gotten to a point where we don't value, as a community, our privacy enough. It's not very different than prostitution, only that job has been around for millenia. We have become our own whores, which consequentially, is something that really sucks.
Yet I believe the best tactic is just faking it - interviewers for mass media DO lie, even on paid interviews, and some of us also lie even in our jobs and our patterns. Not much different from kissing ass to your boss, you can also simply fake most stuff. You might even get a promotion when you fake it well enough. Learn to game the system and you're a reality winner (no, not NSA's Reality Winner).
Because whoever requests that depth map also has standard camera access and do loads more by cross-referencing photo+map, but I won't go into details before an elitist like Dog-Cow comes running saying I don't know enough of this to discuss it... :D
But I believe the original article states actual data from FaceID will be available to apps, so what you state is not entirely accurate - they do get info from the dot projection system. They should get less fidelity, but that is exactly the argument here - they will extrapolate from the rough map from the dot projection data, and that's step 1 to reverse engineer original data. Of course only time will tell what can be done.
Oh god, here comes the "stores and apps that nobody uses" argument all over again. The good thing is I know for a fact those who use that argument pretty much have an opinion formed, so no point arguing, yet are hopping someday those stores will actually gain the popularity they need to actually matter... Good luck with that. Even on such an unlikely event, those pro-whatever-I don't-even-undeestand "stores" will find a business model that screws you right up the ass just like every other company's exit strategy (sourceforge anyone?). Or do you think some Digital Jesus runs them? Oh wait, one of them is Amazon LOL!
Why can't some people take off their blindfolds and see the facts... Even bastions of user freedoms such as fucking GNU/Linux turned into proverbial and literal tools for so many companies to profit and abuse user liberties for their benefit... BUT at the same time offering ACTUAL users, and not nerds like us so much more than a self-motivated community ever will. Open-source is nice, but it will never be what this world needs it to be, precisely because it assumes a world we never will have - one without human individual goals and corporate interests (which are based on human individual goals, mind you).
Well, if companies just decide to put data on UK servers and have UK HQs, and I am predicting a brexit that will allow most companies there to do business with the rest of Europe but still not abide to the EU court, I can already imagine the loopholes most companies are gonna abuse for simply ignoring that problem. Then again, I am hoping my elected representatives in the EU parliament won't be that fool.
then all of a sudden all apps dependant on gservices will stop responding or reduce functionality to a "no play services, computer says no" dialog, and I don't mean just google but anything that uses any of their platforms from Google Accounts, drive, search or firebase/cloud messaging, to name just a few.
My country's top money "lending" platform (lending as in "hey I dont have cash Bob, give me 5 bucks and I'll wire you"... cha'ching: 10 seconds later he gets the money on his app), which is like a whatsapp for debit/credit cards and works across banks sans-transfer rates, so basically EVERYONE uses it and even MOST commercial chaiins are accepting payments with it, is just one example of an app that is pretty much essential and makes Gservices un-uninstalable to me. I have been having a discussion with an Australian around here who states he lives and will always live completely apart from the needs of gservices, and I am starting to wonder what will happen when his society decides to do like mine (and my country is very decent in most things anti-monopoly). Maybe he will move or simply stop having interactions.
Oh what a beautiful elitist world it must be on those usenet BBS forums you dwell, where nobody takes any shit but the 100% irrefutable shit and has an absolutely 0 tolerance-policy for arguments because OMNISCIENCE.
Slashdot is past mainstream phase but that doesn't mean it's back to just-for-nerds phase. The status quo is nice because the low trolling that exists, like yours and the odd spambot's is both easily identifiable and no longer really tolerated through the empathy of a once quasi-homgenous community.
Welcome to 2017. I hope the basement is starting to feel awkward enough for you to come out, get a life, and realize there are other opinions other than yours.
If "google team" and even China already can do a lot of reconstruction from machine learning, even with heavily pixelated sources such as old pics and bad IPCams, I am guessing it won't be long before the "rough map" these apps get can be used for user tagging, and even authentication. Back with fingerprint scans, all the info was at the very least kept safe on hardware and is NEVER directly accessible to apps in any form, other than a boolean stuff like "valid" or "denied" access for authentication. Getting some map, even if pre-processed to suck balls, is an open gateway for fooling FaceID, and I think Apple will be in serious trouble even if they are intentionally adding digital watermarks that attempt to prevent such hacking. I mean, even denuvo gets cracked easily these days, I highly doubt any form of encryption or anti-tampering is enough for keeping "rough data" completely fail-proof, if this data is to be of any use to apps that want to see movement.
Well, that of course assumes the rough map isn't a set of "moods" in the order of magnitude of the hundreds or less. But that pretty much renders the feature "nothing new" material.
Congrats on actually replying, it's good to see some still won't drop a good discussion out of the internet's "lost in translation" factor. (I'm giving you a straight compliment if that wasn't clear. No irony).
I read, and actually understand every single point you mention. I might have even empathized with some it. But I agree with none (!). I value my privacy in different ways - so different they don't prevent me from the perks of societal evolution. Maybe you read Darwin wrong. I won't say I agree with every "development" from the times (some actually take away some liberties we, as a global society, once fought for, and that is a solid piece of reasoning there), but I try to be plausible to them - you DO have choices, you DO have opt outs (maybe even some opt ins when companies are more decent than average), you have publicly disclosed policies and agreemens, heavy scrutiny, you have standardized policy being put in place by states, but granted, you don't have a big enough group of influent stakeholders on the "privacy first" side and for technological liberties enough, instead favoring innovation and economical progress. I've had this conversation with multiple friends recently, who share many of your immovable opinions and I tell them this: non-tech-savy and emerging generations of users aren't buying any of this anti-progress/pro-privacy crap, so we either take an assertive approach and provide example by pondered, INFORMED and semi-skeptical voluntary acceptance of new paradigms that do take away some rights, or we be the old fart and completely neglect the conjuncture around us all, pretty much doing wha nature tells us to do as individuals who reproduce for evolution (which we shouldn't, because we are humans and NOT irrational beings, we fight against some of the standards of natural selection and thats why we are king of this particular jungle called Earth). Needless to say, my friends, who actually care for my arguments, agree, but those are guys who know I don't say things lightly, and know from years experience I think about these subjects a little more than their "auto-defensive-by-default" stand. I'm analytical and I am open-minded, because logic trumps everything but only works when the scales are balanced.
So I actually don't owe you the bet - my opinion is I didn't lose that. Your reasons do not seem valid to me - they aren't choices, they are complete seclusion (is that correct here? Non-native english speaker). It's like that "I don't stick USBs" or "connect my PC to the web" kind of behavior (you actually state very much that but for phones). If we had an independent party we might be able to set that record straight, but until then, I agree we disagree. You can either do that too or attempt to contextualize my opinions and accept they are relevant to a point. If one thing I know, I am surely not right on everything but that's what argumentation exists for.
Hi cas. Maybe I didn't add context: I flash every other week. I've flashed ever since froyo times and I've lived with and without "gapps". I use f-droid for all my open-source needs.
What I'm trying to say is: I know which kind of alternatives exist and use them regularly, but not exclusively. I'm not your run of the mill commenter and what I said wasn't said lightly.
Sorry to put it so offensively, but I won't take shit arguments from someone who admitedly doesn't have apps installed for the simple fact he can't find a use for them. Common people use apps, lots of them, and that has made the world a different place to interact in some ways, most would say for the better (some worse).You are not the first person on slashdot (certainly not the last) bringing about the "I don't want my phone to do more than this" argument. It's moot. It screams "I'm old-fashioned and likely an 80's-bred engineer who no longer copes with change". I'm gonna give you one example of something you can't do because you decided to be out of that bubble: Outlook, homebanking or Netflix. They rarely work without GServices or with "tampered" devices, and Netflix at least won't work on rooted phones (mild exceptions with heavy tinkering). They made it so because it requires proprietary, DRM'd codecs that only GServices provides, so once again the Man sticking it up to us. But dude, if you don't use Netflix on your phone, my friend this is just one of the many things you're missing out because of that Play-free bubble you live in. But hey, I doubt your Desire HD would run anything on the store anyway. The last time I played around with one of those I was still working for a college group and now I'm in my 30's.
Sure, I know I was very obnoxious on the last paragraph, but let's try and find common ground: all my statements about AOSP on the 1st comment were related to the reality of our society (except China), not me or you specifically, because everyone does indeed use GServices and boy, it's not going anywhere and it's gonna affect you no matter what. It's a capitalist market, so quality cheap phones come with quality cheap software impulsed by cheap monetizing tactics like your data. Am I in favor of this? I think it's clear not. Does it make it any less true? Fuck no. So stop being all egotistical and keep the discussion generic. No "I just bought this and I always use that" crap. It's pointless, this isn't a "slashdot help" post.
Google Play services IS mandatory in the real world. It's ubiquitous. If it's not on your phone, I bet you 1000 bucks it still affects your everyday life indirectly, unless you live in a bunker. And that is not so bad, because people like you find ways around it.
This is much easier to explain through a much more common practice by the same company: the Android "Open Source" Project.
Let's get this out of the way: Android isn't open source (outside of China at least, where Google is blocked). Period. No discussion. When you have a market so flooded by Android devices shipping with a closed source module, with super user powers, that responds to remote requests, it's not open source. That's Google Play Services for you.
AMP is just another tool for Google to keep a trendy brand on the dev community, while achieving secondary goals in the process, goals usually related to keeping or stretching their core business, which as we all know, is Big Data and Ads. They want to standardize indeed - standardize your usage patterns into their technologies.
But the true question is: is that so bad? We eventually have to place our trust in a paltform. Some already live with the apples, others with the windows, yet the gogles always get the bad rep. Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about this specific company. I mean, it is heavily scrutinized already by the competition.
Context is key.
It kinda makes sense if the country has tpb blocked on the ISP level. If a group of users already knows tpb is blocked in their country, such as the UK which I believe has most trackers blocked, it's only common that the pagerank score gets pretty low so it shows later.
BUT, I have to admit I have noticed similar downranks for warez pages the last 4 or 5 years, especially the TPB. I usually confirm my suspicions by searching with duckduckgo using incognito and the top result there is usually a lot more related to warez than in Google's international page (which I always use).
Then there is the google DMCA policy, which in Europe is pretty common to see at the end of the search page when looking up warez directly. I get a lot of messages stating "google ahs ommitted some search results due to DMCA takedown notices" or whatever
Wait what? "believe it or not"? That's the only OR on your sentence. What are you implying?
Let's go a bit farther back and re-read that glorious book. Say it with me: nineteen eighty four.
It's amazing how easy media manipulation is making us forget the classics. And I mean classic basic human rights
Making people WANT something is very easy when you control the prices of access to that something