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[wierd]

Not really what I was saying---  Was the data collection agenda very well communicated by the app maker? If not, then the soldiers were none the wiser that they were violating OPSEC by using it.  Contrary to what many people think today, most applications simply DO NOT need to be connected to the internet 24/7, 365. No, not even for advertisements. There's this thing we did back when called a "one time payment."  Software companies just *WANT* that continuous flow of income, they dont actually *NEED* it.

I was saying that if ordinary users who are not soldiers are unaware of the data collection, then your average soldier (who is just an average person who happens to be wearing a uniform, and has more responsibilities) would likewise not know about it.

If the people use the app for some specific perk, and not for any of the marketing horse shit about how often people jog in a certain area (which is really only of interest to people who market jogging supplies, really)-- then people are using the app for that perk, not to send the company use statistics and geographical data. The **COMPANY** is the one doing this latter, not the end users.

To be compliant with government, these companies need to be fully upfront that their software collects data, and warn the user that if they are in a position where geopgraphical secrecy is required (such as the armed forces) that they should not install or use this app.  ---OR--- they should present the end user with a *******REAL******* option to disable all tracking, so that government security policies can still be enforced, while soldiers still get the actual utility they use the software for.

I am not advocating for soldiers to be held to a higher standard. I am advocating for more responsibility from corporate culture.

[Max™]

Note that they never mentioned disabling the tracking, only that there was public and private data, with the latter being excluded from their maps. That suggests there could end up with a hacking and a release of the private data as well at some point.

Unfortunately we started monetizing attention/clicks/eyes over 20 years ago so there isn't an option to "not take part in pervasive data collection" as a business anymore. Accordingly it is never going to get easier to find and disable or spoof every last tracker. Part of my post-update ritual with firefox every new version is going through and making sure none of the addresses it wants to shoot data at were reset from the https://127.0.0.1 one I replaced them with. Yeah, taking part in crash reporting and such helps out, but they fucked up and set some of those to default active without making it obvious that this was the case, now I'm gonna be a dick and kill every one of them on principle alone.

[wierd]

Not entirely true there Max.

The market moved in that direction, because it was allowed to move in that direction.  Such a statement is in the same vein as asserting "We can't just stop dumping our arsenical wallpaper making waste into the river, we started doing that 20 years ago, and now every wallpaper maker does it."

EG, yes-- if one company stopped of its own volition, it would be at a significant financial disadvantage against its competition that still does that distasteful but lucrative thing.

And, that is exactly what we have regulators for--- NOBODY is allowed to dump arsenic into the river, so EVERYONE must properly dispose of waste, and so EVERYONE eats that added price tag.

The same kind of thing needs to be applied to the rampant software economy today.  It needs to be regulated to assure consumer protections exist and will continue to exist.

Yes, that means that there wont be as much profit, because a source of low-hanging fruit will be excluded from all participant's reach. However, because all participants are equally constrained, no agency has disadvantage, so it is not a death dealing blow.

But, if you listen to industry, any regulation like that is a terrible thing, because profits uber alles. When you hear such things, imagine your local water ways look like those in China, as that is where that train ultimately derails.

[Max™]

Markets have no agency, fuck all the randian invisible hand bullshit. There were choices made which ended up with ads being everywhere online, but acting like there was some sort of pressure or force leading to that outcome is rather absurd isn't it?

I mean, no more absurd than the wallpaper thing, unless you were implying ads are a waste product of some other activity I guess. Otherwise your metaphor needs work, maybe don't even bother with one, it isn't a complex enough subject to need abstraction. There were options to make money off of the early internet, unfortunately the "GET MOAR CLIX, WE PAY U 4 CLIX" model got an early lead, then someone figured out that you can get a lot more views by studying available info on your users... but oh darn, if we just had a bit more info we could do even better!

[wierd]

No-- Early in the internet era (Since I was there, and saw the whole damn thing), there *WERE* consumer protections against the release, use, collection, viewing, or marketing of customer data without explicit consent. (Like, a signed, notarized contract type explicit consent.)

And there most certainly *WAS* a major push in software and business to move to the "Ad supported model."  Should I dig up interviews from the 90s, where everyone from janitors to executives wax philosophical on the subject?

What changed, is that a slow but steady erosion of consumer protections, coupled with ever growing power in software business markets and their lobbying dollars made slow but profound incremental changes to how those protections are enforced (or rather, who they no longer are enforced), resulting in the pollution we have today, where the average person cannot even go outside without being seen by at least one service of some kind, and having their activities monetized somehow.

It is this latter condition-- the pollution of our private lives-- that is the counterpart to the polluted water ways angle I mentioned.  The same forces of "Gotta make the most money, the cheapest, and with the least possible consequences to ourselves!!" are at work in China with their dirty water, as here with our loss of quality of life via the loss of privacy.

People understand the need for clean waterways more than they understand the need for quality privacy.

The same forces that destroy one, also destroy the other, and the fix is the same--- regulation.

Also, regulation is explicitly NOT "invisible hand" bullshit.  That is more "People will control industry with their wallets" type bullshit, which does not work, because there are no valid options for people to do so. (See the issue with lack of choice in ISP, for instance.)  Regulation is more "Big bad government upsetting the free market! *Boo hoo hoo crocodile tears* Won't somebody think of the free market!?" in how it operates.   It actually works.

Remember that growing ozone hole we had in the 90s?  The one that the world enacted a global ban on CFCs as aerosol propellants over?  Yeah--- That global ban-- A form of regulation--- It worked.

http://theconversation.com/saving-the-ozone-layer-why-the-montreal-protocol-worked-9249

Regulation works. Invisible hand bullshit does not.  Regulation is not invisible hand bullshit.

[Starver]

I mean, they released all the data collected from everyone. Odds are they just never knew going in that soldiers would use it and then not turn on the "private" setting.

If the soldiers concerned aren't privates, they probably didn't want to say that they still were!

[Sheb]

Well, there's also the fact that people got used to getting things for free*. Trying to sell a software for real money is hard, so in that sense I wonder if the fact that people are now getting used to paying for stuff like streaming music (spotify, music and co) might help. There might be a market opening for a company that charges a bit more cash and respect its users privacy now.



*aka, paying with data and eyeballs watching ads rather than actual money.

[Zangi]

Paying upfront for what could be a janky piece of carp is usually a no-go.  Most mobile apps do not have a demo and refunding them isn't really a common thing. 
It is easier to accept trying out a free thing that 'coincidentally' packs in all the ads/tracking/data collection.

[Sheb]

Paying upfront for what could be a janky piece of carp is usually a no-go.  Most mobile apps do not have a demo and refunding them isn't really a common thing. 
It is easier to accept trying out a free thing that 'coincidentally' packs in all the ads/tracking/data collection.

Yup, that too.

Also, re: the entire Strava thing, while I don't expect individual soldiers to know about this, I'm kinda surprised the DoD doesn't have a standard procedure to inform all its soldiers (at least the one deployed) about those privacy tracking issues.

[misko27]

If the DoD didn't before, they sure will think about it now!

Also, back on the plumbers, my experience with plumbing is putting duct tape on pipes until things fix themselves.

[EnigmaticHat]

My guess would be that the current staff of the Pentagon isn't super tech savvy outside of military tech.  I mean I assume they have IT people but the generals and such, well, my impression is that they're much older than the average for the military.  Smart phones have only been around for ~10 short years.  And just a couple years ago "third world" meant "doesn't have cell phones."  Its a weird new world.

Also from the linked Strava article

Many years ago, operational security was a relatively simple matter of not being physically overheard by the enemy.

I'm going to take a wild guess that the author is not a history buff lol.  People have had their plans compromised in all sorts of creative ways long before the internet.

Edit: My experience using duct tape to fix things is that it comes loose eventually and leaves an obnoxious sticky residue.  Which yes I know acetone removes, but still.

[Sheb]

My guess would be that the current staff of the Pentagon isn't super tech savvy outside of military tech.  I mean I assume they have IT people but the generals and such, well, my impression is that they're much older than the average for the military.  Smart phones have only been around for ~10 short years.  And just a couple years ago "third world" meant "doesn't have cell phones."  Its a weird new world.

Meh. Given the size of the beast, they surely have someone who is in charge of writing OPSEC procedures for classified bases and the light. This is an oversight on that guy's part.

[Zangi]

Eh, given the size of the beast, it probably has trouble scratching it's own back every now and then. 

A public corporation who knows nothing about OPSEC stuff that only sees the profit motive is a different demon from the cloak and dagger/cyber espionage stuff that the military is expecting.

[Ametsala]

I've got the feeling that base locations and common patrol routes are about as secret as the location of Rome for those who want to know. Granted, it is harder to spot people gathering intel when that intel is publicly available to anyone anywhere on the planet. While Strava's information itself isn't that dangerous, the fact that a random company collects and publishes this kind of information, seemingly without understanding its importance, is.

With the great strides in privacy we've had in the past few decades, this is probably just a case where the people in charge couldn't imagine anyone stupid enough to use this kind of app when doing classified work in a restricted area. (It probably says somewhere in the official papers (which no-one really reads) that "sharing classified information with outsiders through the use of smart devices, such as phones and tablets is absolutely forbidden", and the same message has probably been taught a couple of times as well. As this app wasn't specifically forbidden, the not-privacy-minded not-privates-anymore probably figured that this app doesn't count..)

[Zangi]

Technically, jogging around the military base isn't classified work. 
Though, I suppose security with private cell phones will be looked at.