Hacker News: arien

New comment by arien in "On Apple’s “Expanded Protections for Children” – A Personal Story"

arien — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 08:55:48 +0000

Who would back up their phone to the cloud if they were involved in illegal activities?

This is going to bite more innocent people through false positives than criminals who already know how to get away with these things.

New comment by arien in "Google Safe Browsing can kill a startup"

arien — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 15:49:35 +0000

Might have, judging from this story.

New comment by arien in "Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository"

arien — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 12:32:23 +0000

It didn't have to be binding, just advisory or symbolic with no action to be taken. It might have prevented most of the current situation if the result had been to remain (which would have been most likely, back then, now I'm not so sure). If it had been independence I suppose we would be in a very similar situation.

New comment by arien in "Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server"

arien — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 13:28:08 +0000

What about the Instagram and WhatsApp apps? Do they behave the same way?

New comment by arien in "Apple suspends Siri response grading in response to privacy concerns"

arien — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 09:56:47 +0000

The explicit consent request is what they can do. It should have been there from the start, but better late than never.

New comment by arien in "Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations"

arien — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 23:02:12 +0000

Anything that falls in that 'personal data' segment above that belongs to me has to be obtained with my prior, explicit consent. And these bits of data with my name or other details in them must be included if I send Google a "right to be forgotten" or "show me all the data you've got about me" request. That's GDPR in a nutshell.

This might be a grey area for now, as both GDPR and listening devices are both quite new. But Google, Amazon & co aren't super popular with EU regulators and governments, so they might side with users' rights on this one.

New comment by arien in "Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations"

arien — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 16:41:01 +0000

But in this particular case, it's the company doing the recordings, not the owner of the device, so it's a slightly different situation, in my opinion.

That said... The owner could be liable if for example it were necessary to explicitly inform of the existence of such devices the possibility of being recorded.

New comment by arien in "Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations"

arien — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 15:50:05 +0000

In terms of GDPR:

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/

> ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

New comment by arien in "Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations"

arien — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 15:35:26 +0000

There are some rules concerning security cameras as well. I recently found out that private CCTV (at least in the UK) can't record public areas (e.g only your porch). Someone got sued over this recently.

There have been some stories in HN about opting out of face recognition as well. Maybe the laws for video are different as the other reply says, but there are privacy concerns in there as well.

edit: here's a list of GDPR fines (not comprehensive as I only see 2 in the UK). If you filter by CCTV you'll find a couple of examples from Austria: http://enforcementtracker.com/

New comment by arien in "Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations"

arien — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 15:20:17 +0000

Not in the case of the device being someone else's. I don't have any Google or Amazon smart listeners, so I never accepted them. Yet if my voice is in any of these recordings, well...

New comment by arien in "Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations"

arien — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 15:17:47 +0000

Doesn't mean you can use live data for tests. Should be opt-out by default, with the chance to opt-in if you wish to collaborate with your data.

New comment by arien in "Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations"

arien — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 15:13:43 +0000

And not to be anywhere near anyone else's listening devices.

Isn't there a law in some US states that there needs to be consent before recording someone? How does this fit in and who would be held responsible, the owner of the listening device or the company behind it?

New comment by arien in "A list of Amazon’s businesses and subsidiaries"

arien — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 12:45:58 +0000

I'm guessing it's some kind of A/B testing done by Amazon. Do people trust in the Amazon brand, or do they rather buy from unknown brands that offer cheap but decent quality (compared to the cheap and poor quality counterparts that flood the site)? Each brand is probably there to answer a specific question (or set of).

New comment by arien in "The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design"

arien — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 09:53:42 +0000

Yeah, I've seen those, but they are slightly different and have been available for a few years already (I believe before 2014, the date of this project, but I could be wrong).

I'm glad to see on the other reply that the plan hasn't been scrapped. Some of the lines could really use new trains (with proper air ventilation/filtering, especially).

New comment by arien in "Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?"

arien — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 09:45:04 +0000

I only started reading this one yesterday. I honestly know nothing of this book other than everybody always mentions it (along with 1984, Animal Farm and Farenheit 451). The first few pages made me raise a few eyebrows already, looking forward to finishing it.

New comment by arien in "Scientists are searching for a mirror universe"

arien — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 09:37:15 +0000

This reminds me of 'The Gods Themselves', by Asimov. Doesn't talk about a mirror universe per se, but a parallel one. It's one of my favourite Asimov stories outside the Foundation/Robots series.

New comment by arien in "The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design"

arien — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 14:43:15 +0000

Slightly off-topic, but couldn't help but notice on the Projects list a really cool version of the London tube. Unfortunately it seems it's from 2014 (there's even some quote from Boris as Mayor), so probably scrapped by now?

Makes me wonder if these Austrian train designs are already set in stone or just a proposal that might or might not happen.

New comment by arien in "The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design"

arien — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 14:40:26 +0000

I've been on a fair amount of sleeper trains and the Caledonian has been the most comfortable so far.

For the opposite, the most uncomfortable one to sleep in was the Hong Kong to Shanghai one. I paid extra for the Deluxe option, can't even imagine how hard the bed would have been on the lower classes. Still, was a pretty cool journey.

New comment by arien in "The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design"

arien — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 14:35:02 +0000

I did recently Chicago to Las Vegas with the Southwest Chief and, while it's not as shiny, it was still a lovely train (the cabins, the restaurant and the fantastic viewing lounge), with great service and quite comfy. It was a very enjoyable trip, would recommend it to anyone who loves train travel. Looking forward to taking the California Zephyr some day.

New comment by arien in "Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company"

arien — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 14:02:11 +0000

You can choose to share your email with each developer or not, so if you feel particularly attached to a service you can disable the email obfuscation. Or sign up withouth Apple ID if you know beforehand.