Snapchat’s New Snap Map Shares Your Location

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A furore has erupted over Snapchat’s new location-sharing Snap Map – unless you set the app to “Ghost Mode”, your location is shared with your contact
[See the full post at: Snapchat’s New Snap Map Shares Your Location]

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Elly, MikeFromMarkham, Pepsiboy

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One day we’ll look back and remember the good ol’ days. You know, the time before everyone was tracked 24/7. The time before companies monetized every single shred of info about us. The time before compromised web servers and glaring security holes gave us privacy nightmares.

Crazy stuff like this is why we can’t have nice things. I’m waiting for the day when, inevitably, this feature causes the very problems brought up by someone in the meeting. Of course, this person was shot down and told “it won’t happen to us because _____.”

Oh, and get off my lawn.

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BobbyB, Elly, samak, dononline, MrJimPhelps

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Kirsty,

Yet ANOTHER reason why I WILL NOT use most Social Media.

Thanks for the heads up.

Dave

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BobbyB, samak, Microfix, fp, MikeFromMarkham

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Same here.

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Call me old fashioned, I don’t use ANY social media. Mobile phone, landline phone and text messages (my trusty old nokia mobile is suffice). What trackers, adverts, spyware, telemetry et al?

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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I don’t use any social media, don’t need it and don’t miss it. I do not need to see photos of anyone’s meal. If I need to contact someone or they need to contact me, we have e-mail and phones. Every now and then I google my name and nothing ever comes up. Perfect!

Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie

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grayslady

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Literally everything tracks you in lots of ways these days. Even your “smart” camera tracks you with geotagging, putting your GPS coordinates into pictures, so that anyone with the correct software can see where you were when you took a picture.

I remember when President Clinton opened up GPS to the general public (previously, it was only for the military). I never imagined where we would be 20 years later — because everyone now has access to GPS, and because all cell phones, smart cameras, etc., have GPS built-in, literally everyone can be precisely tracked 24/7. I wonder if that was the reason that he opened up GPS to the general public?

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One of the reasons for opening up GPS to the public was so emergency 911 could locate people who were using cell phones. This has saved some lives.

-- rc primak

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windows7wasthebest

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Tools are neutral, how they are used is not.

Experience shows that abuse always overwhelms good use given time.

Corporate technology is the worst destructor of civilized free society that ever was. Having been accepted by the masses, they deserve everything they get.

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Microfix

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rc primak wrote:

One of the reasons for opening up GPS to the public was so emergency 911 could locate people who were using cell phones. This has saved some lives.

This is one of the benefits, to be sure. But when you see all of the spying that the government is doing, as well as the fact that you rarely if ever hear any warnings about the dangers to privacy presented by universally-accessible GPS, it makes me conclude that the government was thinking ahead to the time when GPS would be everywhere, and therefore it would be a great way to track people.

We rarely hear about the vulnerabilities in IoT devices, yet they are being pushed by the experts as a way to bring yourself into the modern age. And we rarely hear about the dangers to privacy presented by RFID chips being implanted in virtually every retail product these days. In other words, people in power want to be able to easily track you and see what you do.

There is such a push to move people in the direction of more and more monitoring and tracking. This is further confirmation of my theory.

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Never attribute to malice (or forethought) what can be adequately explained by stupidity (or shortsightedness).

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That would depend on the entity you’re evaluating.  With those that already have a history of malice, it makes sense to assume that other actions are motivated similarly… “razor” or not.

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MrJimPhelps

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“Rarely” hear of IoT security? I count many dozens of Google results for that topic every week.

Alleged RFID snooping has been in every major tech pub for years now. And there seems to be a lot of smoke, but no fire there.

Now we get stories of tracking of and snooping on electromagnetic wave emissions from every device on the planet. Again, lots of smoke, but no fire so far.

Nope. This was not planned centrally by any US administration. It was at worst a Corporate Conspiracy, and I doubt any coordinated effort even there.

Sorry, Batman fans — there is no Court of Owls trying to control our every move in the real world. But it does make delicious fiction!

-- rc primak

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rc primak wrote:

“Rarely” hear of IoT security? I count many dozens of Google results for that topic every week.

If you’re an IT professional or a power user, then yes, you do hear often about IoT security issues. But you NEVER hear about vulnerabilities when you see these devices in the many stores that they are sold in, the Saturday morning “contractor” radio programs which extol the wonders of IoT devices, etc. In other words, the “regular” folks have no clue about the risks of deploying IoT devices in their homes. Of course, the most prominent IoT device, the self-driving car, often appears in advertisements as a wonderful, modern, convenient, safe device. But they leave out the adjective “hackable”, because no one would want them if they knew that they were hackable (and they are hackable).

rc primak wrote:

Alleged RFID snooping has been in every major tech pub for years now. And there seems to be a lot of smoke, but no fire there.

These major tech pubs tell you how to do it, and that testing has actually been done; and that it has been found that with the credit cards that one pub has tested, the info on the RFID chip was UNENCRYPTED. It has also been found that the RFID chip on a modern American passport has UNENCRYPTED information.

If it can be done, then you KNOW that hackers will be trying to do it. So, although it may not happen to you, are you willing to take the risk? It may be that no one will ever try to break into your house. Are you willing to leave your doors unlocked?

rc primak wrote:

This was not planned centrally by any US administration.

When I see the astronomical amount of domestic spying going on by the US government, I have to conclude that it is highly likely that this WAS planned by someone in the US government. But even if they didn’t plan all of the spying, they certainly are doing it now.

I’m not a batman fan, but I am a realist, an IT professionial, and I do have eyes.

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It was under Reagan that the GPS system was opened to civilians in 1983, in the aftermath of the shoot-down of Korean Airlines 007, the 747 that inadvertently flew into Soviet airspace.  A deliberate bit of random error was introduced in the signal, so that the civilian GPS would be less precise than the military version.

Clinton announced in 2000 that the untainted signal would be available to everyone, and that rule was made permanent under G. W. Bush in 2007.

 

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The reason this is even controversial is that SnapChat is popular with young people, including minors (under 18). Letting them track each other is a potential issue for their security, and most don’t even think about the dangers. If grownups let Uber track their every move, there is much less furor. Just resignation and disgust.

-- rc primak

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JohnW, Kirsty

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Gee that takes all the fun out of playing hide and seek…

Perhaps this will be the new normal for the future where your identity will depend on knowing precisely where and what position you are in. Along with all the other pertinent information such as heartbeat, metabolism, hormone levels–think FitBit on steroids. Oh the nanny state–think full on Person of Interest! Imagine the all the possibilities for apps to constantly monitor and record every second of your miserable life even when you’re off the grid. An advertiser’s dream to be able to precisely gauge your reaction to ads–and when and where best to hit you over the head with them. You’ll just be a rat in the maze for them to manipulate. Then there’s the potential for AIs to mimic all this too since you’ll be so predicable–and thus allow predators to get you into trouble you’d never have dreamed of. No where to run or hide. Completely vulnerable. You’ll be so stressed-out and those nightmares won’t let you sleep either. Just imagine the neuroses you’ll develop–and the chance for treatments for them to be sold to you. Naturally for the most unlucky few(?) their details will be splashed across the networks–and the opportunity for Experian to sell you a service to notify you when that happens. Just think–you won’t have to update Facebook page–it will be done for you–your whole life will be on display, play-by-play. As the crescendo builds, are you really wound-up tight now? Remember what you’re opting into whether you like it or not.

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Elly, samak, HiFlyer

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AI, if it is truly intelligent, would never try to make us believe we are living in a nightmare world. Rule Number One when staging a coup is to keep the masses calm. AI will seduce us, not bully us, into submission. Our lives will seem easier, almost stress-free, as the machines take over our most stressing tasks. Then, as we become dependent on them, the coup will happen — almost silently and invisibly. In some ways, circling back to social media, this is happening already.

“Keep calm, your Internet is on.”

-- rc primak

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Just like boiling frogs …  

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Great News! I am (not really) a professional thief who breaks into houses when the owner is not only away but will be so for quite some time. How do I know “you” are out for hours and it is safe to hit your house? Easy, you told me so on “Social Media”.

Don’t say it can’t happen…  thieves years ago read the wedding and funeral notices in the newspapers to judge when a family would be away.

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And use google maps and street view for the attack plan!

We’ve had a number of cases, where facebook was used as a burglar’s tool… in the news authorities warned about using social medias when planning for or being on holidays.

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Or, they send random emails, and look for the folks who have vacation notices turned on.

-- rc primak

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“With Snap Map, location-sharing is off by default for all users and is completely optional. Snapchatters can choose exactly who they want to share their location with, if at all, and can change that setting at any time. It’s also not possible to share your location with someone who isn’t already your friend on Snapchat, and the majority of interactions on Snapchat take place between close friends.”

The Telegraph, quoting a Snapchat spokesperson.

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