1984 is here

Google tracks your movements, like it or not:

https://apnews.com/828aefab64d4411b...-Google-tracks-your-movements,-like-it-or-not

 

1984 was part of the "theme" in this year's DefCon. Look into DefCon if you are not familiar; it's good stuff.

 

I keep my location services off almost all the time and noticed a little while ago that it would randomly come on for a second and quickly shut off by itself. I knew this because I have a simple GPS info app that shows an icon in the clock/battery strip at the top of the phone whenever the phone is searching for satellites. Would never have known otherwise. Found out that Google Play Services app was the culprit so I denied it location permission. Now if I turn on GPS, i can still use it for whatever app I turned it on for, but I get a loud beep with an error pop up literally every 10 seconds from the Google Play Services saying that it needs location accessto function correctly. So frustrating.

 

You Gave Facebook Your Number For Security. They Used It For Ads.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/you-gave-facebook-your-number-security-they-used-it-ads

 

Honestly, once I started posting personal information on someone else's server, I know my privacy couldn't be guaranteed.

 

China-Made Smartphone Weather App Stole Data From 10 Million Global Users:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/china...ata-from-10-million-global-users_2757503.html

 

Smart TVs sending sensitive user data:

https://www.ft.com/content/23ab2f68-d957-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17

 

Dark Patterns - an admittedly long but interesting read:
Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites (arxiv.org)