Thanks. Just for the record, don't be thinking I agree with that statement. I consider it among the creepier quotes Schmidt has produced, and he has a great selection to choose from.
Apply that logic to passwords, which are being sent in plain text here. By his logic, you should have no password protected data, lest anyone know about it.
Strictly he's correct: it's stupid to assume anything will remain secret, particularly if you don't keep it to yourself. Schmidt, motorola, google, public wifi, can they keep secrets?
Yes he said that, but it was immediately followed by his actual point which was that in the United States your communications are not secure.
"But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we're all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."
Wow. Here are some highlights (these are from Mark, the moderator/Moto employee:
>I take privacy quite seriously. You notice that we use HTTPS on the site because we feel your privacy is important.
>Lastly, I'm saddened by the fact that you didn't abide by the Motorola Feedback Network Non Disclosure agreement you agreed to upon joining the Motorola Feedback Network. Discussing MFN activities outside designated areas is strictly prohibited. Provided this thread excludes MFN related activities here on out it will remain open. Further violation of the NDA will result in closure of this thread. If you(cythrawl) would like to discuss MFN activities further please email me at supportforums@motorola.com.
What! You revealed that we spy on you? That's under NDA!
The business with the reset count tracking isn't necessarily as creepy as the shovelware/adware apks in the default image, or the serious information leak in activesync in the other Motorola thread.
I'm guessing the firmware update downloader sends some sort of hardware identifier, plus a firmware flash counter, to the update server. This would be the obvious way to prevent re-updating a device that reset itself or was manually reset after a firmware update hosed the system, which would trap the user in a loop. A (device id,firmware revision,reset count) table somewhere in the motosphere isn't exactly PRISM.
Outside a tiny number of hardcore custom ROM tweakers, 21 resets almost certainly indicates some sort of problem.
Resets also often change the android ID that much software uses to identify phones. So resetting may mean you have to opt-in to the beta testing again since it appears you have a different phone from some methods. It's pretty nuts this guy expects everything to work as normal when he reset the thing 21 times over. Resetting even once is a rare thing that many services won't be tested with.
Something not working because he reset actually proves why it is useful for custom support to have data on resets. Not that I would expect any hardware use data to be protected if I opted into a beta testing program. The whole point of that is to see how the hardware handles beta software.
Often with these programs the updates are just sent out at a certain time, so it's entirely possible to just miss the update period. Heck, I've seen that done with production updates, let alone beta ones. A friend with a Droid from Google IO didn't turn it on for a couple years, missed an update which was no longer available, and missed the termination of the free service to boot.
>Upon turning on the phone and registering it on the network you must agree to the EULA. The only difference between your phone and a MOTOBLUR device is that you don't have a user created login. A random login is created for you to optimize the setup experience. If you don't connect any social networking applications your phone doesn't connect with our servers.
It involves a hardware ID, and a profile that is created when the device is initially synced. It may also send a "firmware flash counter" but it wouldn't be necessary.
"IT IS YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION... Look at the permissions, they could read pretty much EVERYTHING you do with the phone and track WHERE you was when you did it, and WHO you did it with.. There is NO REASON why its in there, none at all. And last I checked Motorola Corporation was NOT a Government entity, and if it WAS a Government trying to do this very thing the outrage would be extensive (unless you lived in a Country like North Korea)."
The scariest part of this thread is the responses from the user 'Poko' a little bit further down. Go ahead an read them — I'm still not sure if that's an astroturf account or not.
20 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 54.8 ms ] threadhttp://www.stateofsearch.com/top-15-of-eric-schmidts-remarka...
"Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line.[1]
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/google...
It's also funny how upset he feels when the shoe is on the other foot, as lampooned by this slashdot poster: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3645419&cid=4344175...
"But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we're all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/07/google-ceo-on-priva...
>I take privacy quite seriously. You notice that we use HTTPS on the site because we feel your privacy is important.
>Lastly, I'm saddened by the fact that you didn't abide by the Motorola Feedback Network Non Disclosure agreement you agreed to upon joining the Motorola Feedback Network. Discussing MFN activities outside designated areas is strictly prohibited. Provided this thread excludes MFN related activities here on out it will remain open. Further violation of the NDA will result in closure of this thread. If you(cythrawl) would like to discuss MFN activities further please email me at supportforums@motorola.com.
What! You revealed that we spy on you? That's under NDA!
I'm guessing the firmware update downloader sends some sort of hardware identifier, plus a firmware flash counter, to the update server. This would be the obvious way to prevent re-updating a device that reset itself or was manually reset after a firmware update hosed the system, which would trap the user in a loop. A (device id,firmware revision,reset count) table somewhere in the motosphere isn't exactly PRISM.
Outside a tiny number of hardcore custom ROM tweakers, 21 resets almost certainly indicates some sort of problem.
Something not working because he reset actually proves why it is useful for custom support to have data on resets. Not that I would expect any hardware use data to be protected if I opted into a beta testing program. The whole point of that is to see how the hardware handles beta software.
Often with these programs the updates are just sent out at a certain time, so it's entirely possible to just miss the update period. Heck, I've seen that done with production updates, let alone beta ones. A friend with a Droid from Google IO didn't turn it on for a couple years, missed an update which was no longer available, and missed the termination of the free service to boot.
>Upon turning on the phone and registering it on the network you must agree to the EULA. The only difference between your phone and a MOTOBLUR device is that you don't have a user created login. A random login is created for you to optimize the setup experience. If you don't connect any social networking applications your phone doesn't connect with our servers.
It involves a hardware ID, and a profile that is created when the device is initially synced. It may also send a "firmware flash counter" but it wouldn't be necessary.
Edit: Oops. Never mind, you meant a user on Motorola's website. Please disregard this comment everyone.
*Time to come clean, Motorola