privacy and Android [wsa Re: Debugging droid mta]

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: R. Russell Reiter <rreiter91-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| <grain of salt>I take the right to personal privacy very seriously. In 
| my mind this is a top security issue in the mobile environment. I 
| abandoned MS fifteen years ago because I didn't want bill gates in my 
| head. I sure didn't expect to trade him for google or any other of the 
| other wannabe Illuminati skull and bonesers.<\grain of salt>

I don't know how to interpret <grain of salt>, so I'll ignore it.

I would like the right to privacy too.  But on the other had, I reveal
all sorts of stuff voluntarily (eg. postings to this list).

The scary things I object to include:

- involuntary loss of privacy.  I include losses with pro forma
  submission.  For example, when the entity can essentially force you
  to agree to get a necessary service (government, utilities, ...)

- undisclosed loss of privacy.  I include misuse of collected data.
  Example: Rogers knows what TV stations you are watching and when if
  you are using their Set Top Boxes.  Have they ever admitted that?  Or
  disclosed how they use the data or how they retain it?

Now, on to cell phones in general and Android in particular.

- the cell phone system knows where your phone is whenever it is in
  service.  This is disclosed (at least) to government entities under
  certain protocols.  It may well be disclosed other ways.
  Interestingly, this was justified for 911 purposes but the
  legislation requires it to be always-on, not just when 911 is
  dialled.

- smart phones are moving towards location-aware services.  That
  certainly involves location disclosure.  You can often opt-out.
  Cynically, I wonder if that is provided because the effects of
  disclosure are visible to the suspect (local ads, etc.).

- smart phones may well be bugged by the suppliers.  For example:
  <http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-rootkit-of-all-evil-ciq/>

All the things that got said a decade or more ago about us living in
Bentham's Panopticon seem to slowly becoming true.  Consider, for
example,
<http://www.privacylives.com/washington-post-eyes-turn-to-license-plate-readers/2011/11/21/>

Consider how the TTC is likely going to switch to smart cards -- way
more traceable than tokens.

Consider how much information charge card systems have about you
compared with our old fashioned cash system.  Notice how cash is
being deprecated (try to rent a car or hotel room with cash).

Consider what the banks are forced to report to the government under
the rubric of fighting terrorism and organised crime.

The ways we lose privacy are manifold but not manifest.  Our
understandings of privacy cannot encompass the complexity of the
current and developing systems.
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