Is Google really looking at my stuff?
-
So there is a notification and it said "Memes are taking up space on your phone". What the fuck? What memes? Turns out these were the pictures that are usually forwarded mindlessly on whatsapp groups that i've set to auto-download.
Now, these photos are stored on the phone, not syncing with google drive, and I don't remember giving google any explicit permission to look at my images. How the fuck does it know there were memes unless these pictures were input into some ML API on Google's side?
What the fuck is this?
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
What the fuck is this?
Well the notification should tell you what App it came from.
Perhaps it's the built-in cleaner thing?
-
@stillwater Searching for the notification text came up with an image that said Files by Google (formerly "Files Go") is the culprit. Since it's a combination of file cleanup and sync client (like Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.) it probably has access to your entire file system. One of its features is:
SMART RECOMMENDATIONS:
Get helpful suggestions of files to erase before you run out of space. The recommendation from Files app get smarter the more you use it.So check in there and see what it's doing.
-
@stillwater What's your phone? If Google Photos is the stock photo app, it doesn't need permission to index your photos (by default, you can still disallow it).
-
@Tsaukpaetra
Hey! How did you make a screenshot with screen scratches intact?
-
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@Tsaukpaetra
Hey! How did you make a screenshot with screen scratches intact?Transparent background with a live wallpaper. 😉
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
I don't remember giving google any explicit permission to look at my images
You probably just clicked "next" during first boot of your phone instead of reading the license agreement, didn't you?
-
@pie_flavor It's an MI A2, one of those stock android phones. And yes you're right, the photos app is there but I never opened it in fear of photos getting automagically synced with the cloud. I use the Files app.
-
@Gąska said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
I don't remember giving google any explicit permission to look at my images
You probably just clicked "next" during first boot of your phone instead of reading the license agreement, didn't you?
Yeah I think that must be it. :(
It did ask for a bunch of permissions and I had to check like 24 checkboxes but "we will read your photos" was definitely not one of them. Must have been in the big scrolling agreement I suppose.
-
@stillwater You don't need to open Photos, it works automatically. That's a pretty dumb "security" measure. If you want to actually stop it from working, open the app permissions and prevent it from reading files.
-
@pie_flavor Removed the app permission for storage. Now i gotta find out what else is being sent back to google.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@pie_flavor Removed the app permission for storage. Now i gotta find out what else is being sent back to google.
Do you have g account set up?
-
@MrL I signed in using my Google account when the phone started up for play store and Gmail and such. If that's what you're asking.
Am a complete noob when it comes to how g+, Google account are same / different
-
@stillwater A Google account is used for all Google products, including Drive, Photos, Gmail, and Google+.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@MrL I signed in using my Google account when the phone started up for play store and Gmail and such. If that's what you're asking.
Hmm, I don't quite understand. You want privacy but you use GMail?
You can't stop g from gathering data about you when you connected your phone with g account. You can just turn it off.
-
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Hmm, I don't quite understand. You want privacy but you use GMail?
I don't use gmail gmail. The play store needs a google account so I had to create one, and I mostly use it to sign up for newsletters and such. nothing serious.
-
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Hmm, I don't quite understand. You want privacy but you use GMail?
Are you saying google reads emails of people who use gmail? That's going too far surely!
-
@stillwater If you cannot figure out how they make money off the product, you are the product. Repeat until you understand.
By the way, if you use the Gmail app, then they read your email too, even if the email is on a different server.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Hmm, I don't quite understand. You want privacy but you use GMail?
Are you saying google reads emails of people who use gmail? That's going too far surely!
They've been doing that from the beginning. You really need to start reading TOSes, or at least ars technica.
-
I'm definitely living under the proverbial rock
-
@pie_flavor said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
If you cannot figure out how they make money off the product, you are the product. Repeat until you understand.
This would mean outlook is peeking too.
-
@stillwater You guessed it.
-
@pie_flavor What other email vendors are out there?
Okay so my last company's email was hosted on G Suite. Those emails were read too? This is all very swell and warm. This also makes Google fuckin assholes for all the "oh we ll suck cocks to maintain users' privacy" thing that they do
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
The play store needs a google account so I had to create one
Well, there's your choice: google store and no privacy or a bit of privacy and no store.
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@pie_flavor What other email vendors are out there?
I use fastmail.
Okay so my last company's email was hosted on G Suite. Those emails were read too? This is all very swell and warm. This also makes Google fuckin assholes for all the "oh we ll suck cocks to maintain users' privacy" thing that they do
Thet also track your location and everything you browse on the net. And you can't turn it off, of course.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Hmm, I don't quite understand. You want privacy but you use GMail?
Are you saying google reads emails of people who use gmail? That's going too far surely!
They have all the bits on their servers. What stops them from reading those bits?
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@pie_flavor What other email vendors are out there?
I have my own mail server on the machine hosting my domain. I've also got a catch-all set up so I can give everybody
{whatever}@mydomain.comon the fly which is very handy.If you don't have your own domain already then maybe this would be a viable option, you'd know you'd (probably) be the only one reading it then.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@pie_flavor What other email vendors are out there?
Okay so my last company's email was hosted on G Suite. Those emails were read too? This is all very swell and warm. This also makes Google fuckin assholes for all the "oh we ll suck cocks to maintain users' privacy" thing that they do
I don't think they bother with G Suite ones. They might have legal trouble otherwise. Don't quote me on that, though. Also, they will absolutely maintain your privacy - from other people, not themselves.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Hmm, I don't quite understand. You want privacy but you use GMail?
Are you saying google reads emails of people who use gmail? That's going too far surely!
For quite some time, their corporate motto was "don't be evil".
-
@Cursorkeys said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
If you don't have your own domain already then maybe this would be a viable option, you'd know you'd (probably) be the only one reading it then.
You and every relay server between the sender and yourself. Including the senders host.
-
@Carnage if you (and the server at the other end) configure encryption right, you can reduce it to just you and that other server.
-
@Gąska said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@Carnage if you (and the server at the other end) configure encryption right, you can reduce it to just you and that other server.
Ah, yes...
And at that point you may as well swap to a modern communication channel.
-
@Carnage see, this is the main problem with communication - you can only use what the other person is using, and you need to agree on the protocol before the communication happens. Emails are ubiquitous; you can expect every single person online to be able to use them. Signal - not so much.
Edit: I checked my 100 most recent emails, and every one was sent through TLS, with one exception - Discourse.
-
@Gąska said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@Carnage see, this is the main problem with communication - you can only use what the other person is using, and you need to agree on the protocol before the communication happens. Emails are ubiquitous; you can expect every single person online to be able to use them. Signal - not so much.
Edit: I checked my 100 most recent emails, and every one was sent through TLS, with one exception - Discourse.
Yeah, but pretty much everything about emails is wrong, and it should die. But like everything else social, fit for purposeness has fuck all to do with if it dies or not.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
How the fuck does it know there were memes unless these pictures were input into some ML API on Google's side?
What the fuck is this?
Sometimes it's just a safe bet.
-
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Well, there's your choice: google store and no privacy or a bit of privacy and no store.
I finally just gave up. Fine. Google, you own me. I get my convenience. They get my soul.
-
@Cursorkeys said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
If you don't have your own domain already then maybe this would be a viable option, you'd know you'd (probably) be the only one reading it then.
As long as you don't use the gmail app! (I have my own domain but throw away the catch-all emails. It's all spam.)
-
@PleegWat said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
For quite some time, their corporate motto was "don't be evil".
Didn't they drop that - like a decade ago? (Now it's "don't be evil to ourselves"!)
-
@stillwater I think you're putting too much thought into this.
if(file.sourceApp == "WhatsApp"){ Notify("Dude delete your memes lmao"); }
-
@dcon I do not remember whether they ever removed it from their API payload prefix.
-
@anonymous234 said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@stillwater I think you're putting too much thought into this.
if(file.sourceApp == "WhatsApp"){ Notify("Dude delete your memes lmao"); }Seems like access to the source app metadata is still kinda intrusive. But yeah no it's way more likely to have been this than AI... although hash comparison against meme dbs seems more betterer.
-
@anonymous234 said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@stillwater I think you're putting too much thought into this.
if(file.sourceApp == "WhatsApp"){ Notify("Dude delete your memes lmao"); }No, they definitely analyze it. Google knows what's a meme, what's a screenshot, etc.
-
@PleegWat said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Hmm, I don't quite understand. You want privacy but you use GMail?
Are you saying google reads emails of people who use gmail? That's going too far surely!
For quite some time, their corporate motto was "don't be evil".
But you see, scanning your mail is not being evil, it's just "being curious" and "taking an interest". They care about you!
-
@anonymous234 said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@stillwater I think you're putting too much thought into this.
if(file.sourceApp == "WhatsApp"){ Notify("Dude delete your memes lmao"); }Except the other photos that i receive on whatsapp that are not memes don't turn up. And I'm pretty sure it is a ML API reading it because these memes are not just in English, some are in regional languages too.
-
@stillwater regardless, delete your WhatsApp memes, they are probably not very high quality
-
@bb36e said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@stillwater regardless, delete your WhatsApp memes, they are probably not very high quality
I don't even look at them. I've turned off the auto-download feature in whatsapp off now. Should solve a lot of problems.
-
@dcon said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Well, there's your choice: google store and no privacy or a bit of privacy and no store.
I finally just gave up. Fine. Google, you own me. I get my convenience. They get my soul.
I don't see the convenience. Every single google 'service' I tried fucked something up and caused inconvenience.
The most incredible thing about it is how people react to google fuck ups. A little story:
In my former company we had some pretty big project coming up and the crucial thing about it was to get specification right and to understand how it should exactly work, because we had problems with communication with people ordering the thing. So we scheduled a meeting with all people involved. It took over a month to get all interested parties to attend.
The meeting starts and we need to somehow take notes, right? Google docs! What a splendid idea! So convenient. The meeting took 5 hours and almost all issues were discussed, some 30 minutes of work left, so we agreed on a short meeting the next morning.
We gather the next morning, open the doc and... at least 3 hours of work are not there. It just stopped saving 2 hours in. What to do? We just have to do it all again. Meeting on a different date is not possible, so we extend current short meeting to 4 hours, schedules of all people attending go to shit.
How do we take notes in this situation? In google docs, of course! They are so convenient!
And noone sees any problem with that, except me.
-
@stillwater said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
Except the other photos that i receive on whatsapp that are not memes don't turn up. And I'm pretty sure it is a ML API reading it because these memes are not just in English, some are in regional languages too.
I could easily imagine it's identifying meme images using a fingerprinting technique, so it's not actually uploading any images.
Then again they could well upload unidentified images for the AI to analyse.
-
@MrL said in Is Google really looking at my stuff?:
It just stopped saving 2 hours in.
Did you figure out why? Did the internet crap out on the laptop halfway in or something?
Also, I've literally had people tell me they won't use word/excel cos office 365 sucks and then proceed to fumble around in Google docs and whatnot and their excuse is "I don't know how to use it that's why it looks like it sucks". Ummm... ever thought that might be the case with Office 365?
God, people hate one company only to go and suck dick from another.
-
-
Fingerprint (computing) - Wikipedia
