Mastodawn

millennial fulcrum 1d ago

@geeknik WHOAA

TeflonTrout

he/him 1d ago

@falcennial @geeknik
as was Ingress, before it

https://infosec.space/@kkarhan/116237763975132040

@TeflonTrout @falcennial @geeknik yes...

Kevin Karhan :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] well, people *signed away their consent* per #PokemonGo's #ToS! - Just like they sign away their #privacy and that of their #contacts when using #NSAbook!

Infosec.Space

Darcy Casselman 1d ago

@geeknik Having done the free labour of approving pokestops for them, I feel like they're overselling the quality of this data.

Retepkce 🐈1d ago

@flyingsquirrel @geeknik Absolutely. Some of this datapoints merely don't exist or are hundreds of meters away

Annelies Kamran, Ph.D.1d ago

@Retepkce @flyingsquirrel @geeknik it will still be used as if 100% accurate. See for example, the Iranian girls' school.

Microblog Castellano 1d ago

@flyingsquirrel
Having done the free work of trying to fix incorrect pokéstops, (their AI cancelled my suggestions), I agree with you.
@geeknik

Toni Aittoniemi 1d ago

@geeknik Yup. It was a honeypot. All this time.

And bombs will drop according to that location data some day.

Hot Dog Water 1d ago

@geeknik

Have never, don't, will never understand why people.
No wonder advertising won everything.

grmon 1d ago

@geeknik this sound like a dystopian fiction. Don’t wanna believe it.

Werner 1d ago

@grmon @geeknik
This has been well known for over a decade. Niantic always was about spatial data.

I am Jack's Found 404 1d ago

@geeknik

I was literally making this argument the other day, that seemingly innocuous apps are really just building* datasets they can use and/or sell...

And my very intelligent (but pro-"AI") programmer friend thought the idea was ridiculous...

*aka tricking users into crowdsourcing
**aka unpaid massive labor
***aka net loss labor if you consider the other parallel privacy invasions & adtech

@geeknik nah. definitely not like they're implying. that kind of data gets you only coarse positioning, at best useful for verifying that your other SLAM software isn't totally bonkers, as you use the robots themselves to get *actually* fine-grained information.

like the claim that it'll help bots find places to park that are out of the way: that's the opposite of what Pokemon Go has you record, in nearly all cases.

at best they used it to build the tech that *actually* handles world modeling, which is what they're selling. the Go player data is almost completely useless to world model purchasers, except for showing those specific landmarks. great for AR tourism, worthless for robot deliveries.

@groxx @geeknik Similar to Ingress, though they aren't owned by the same people any more.

Alan Bellingham 1d ago

@ariaflame @groxx @geeknik The article is talking about Niantic Spatial, which *is* the Ingress owner. Pokémon Go is owned by Niantic, now a different company

@bellinghman @groxx @geeknik Ah, I didn't have time to read the article. I should have known it would be misleading. And I can say that the information I upload to ingress is not the sort of thing that would be helpful for food delivering bots.

Alan Bellingham 1d ago

@ariaflame @groxx @geeknik Pavement scanning? Oh you!

@bellinghman @groxx @geeknik Generally the odd piece of sculpture or sign.

Alan Bellingham 1d ago

@ariaflame @groxx @geeknik My wife and I are currently in Zagreb - can't think why - and have not scanned anything since we arrived. But riding trams and blasting is fun

@bellinghman @groxx @geeknik To be honest I only really do the scans for the second sunday thing.

Radgryd 20h ago

@bellinghman @ariaflame @groxx @geeknik It's not owned by Niantic anymore now. Scopely bought it last year.

Alan Bellingham 15h ago

@Radgryd @ariaflame @groxx @geeknik Scopely bought Niantic, Niantic Spatial was split off as a different company. All very confusing. Pokémon Go has the Niantic logo on the loading screen, Ingress had the Niantic Spatial logo

@ariaflame @groxx @geeknik yes...
https://infosec.space/@kkarhan/116237763975132040

Kevin Karhan :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] well, people *signed away their consent* per #PokemonGo's #ToS! - Just like they sign away their #privacy and that of their #contacts when using #NSAbook!

Infosec.Space

jonathankoren™1d ago

@groxx @geeknik I’m really tired of this “won’t someone think of the consent forms!!!!” It’s literally public place mapping. What the fuck did you think they were going to do with “scan this location with the LiDAR on your phone”? I’m sorry these people are embarrassingly stupid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yHoLopZSYJw&t=334s&pp=2AHOApACAQ%3D%3D

Aral Balkan 1d ago

@geeknik Gosh, I wish folks had warned us about this stuff… oh, I don’t know… maybe a decade ago?

#peopleFarming #surveillance #capitalism

Avoiding digital feudalism: Aral Balkan at TEDxBrighton

YouTube

Rokosun 1d ago

@aral @geeknik

You were so ahead of your time man, that speech is amazing!

@futureisfoss @aral @geeknik apparently noone reads ToS [anymore]?

Kevin Karhan :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] well, people *signed away their consent* per #PokemonGo's #ToS! - Just like they sign away their #privacy and that of their #contacts when using #NSAbook!

Infosec.Space

Aral Balkan 1d ago

@futureisfoss @geeknik Thank you for the kind words but there’s scant solice in being right about this stuff and even less so in seeing your words fall on deaf ears all this time.

(Hence why I no longer speak about the problem but I’ve been working on creating one possible solution in the form of the Small Web.)

💕

Baron Vonskinnback 1d ago

@aral @futureisfoss @geeknik there was an army of Cassandra's warning everyone about what was coming, but apparently no one wanted to listen...

Tzimisce Flesh 1d ago

@futureisfoss @aral @geeknik It's less that he was ahead, more that most of us are late.

ĞÖKÜ👻👻™1d ago

@geeknik never installed, never played 😎

Microblog Castellano 1d ago

@geeknik
You were informed about it in the game license. I was more prone to give my location to Niantic than giving it to my cell operator, indeed. And I asserted it when the Spanish government stats used cellphone tower location (instead of Niantic or other consent-based platform) to locate people while quarantine lasted.

I was aware of the problem of recording in the inside of homes or offices, thus I had AR mode disabled and camera disabled.
I was also aware Niantic wanted us to build an accurate 3d map of the world, thus rewarding 360 photos of pokestops.

#pokèmon #privacy

Microblog Castellano 1d ago

@geeknik
Anyway, its like ReCaptcha. In the first years, I was enthusiast about a captcha system that aided artificial vision systems to recognize the world. But as AI vision evolved, it was clearer and clearer it was not about helping disabled people but making money from surveillance systems.

Dgar 1d ago

@geeknik I didn’t think this was a secret. I’m sure Niantic said as much when they launched AR+ mode in the game.

Dibs 1d ago

@dgar @geeknik I agree. It's patently not a secret. And even then It should be plainly obvious to anyone with a fraction of a brain. Never participated in the AR scanning - there's obvious privacy implications in taking photos/video in public and uploading them to a third party. In fact, I don't think the AR scanning is even enabled for kids, which in itself is a massive red flag privacy wise.

@geeknik well, people signed away their consent per #PokemonGo's #ToS!

Just like they sign away their #privacy and that of their #contacts when using #NSAbook!

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK 1d ago

@kkarhan @geeknik

I haven't tried the same for Germany (or maybe no such channel exists), but this is exactly why there are now AI-generated Youtube channels with "memories of life in 1970s Britain" with AI generated pictures that are *scarily accurate* (maybe 10-15% is hallucinated but the rest is spot on), Meta has fed all the old photos that Gen X uploaded to Facebook to this AI training.

One one level it seems harmless, but the right wing activists are already using this to make false images of how 1970s Britain (especially outer London) was "whiter" (pure bullshit, it was multicultural even back then) as part of their anti-immigration agenda..

@vfrmedia @geeknik #AIslop needs to be fucking outlawed for thst reason aline!

Gnomigut 1d ago

@kkarhan @geeknik well… one of these does not make the other of these any better.

@theVedek @geeknik agreed.

Dirk Willrodt 1d ago

@geeknik who woulda thought?

Im Having A Good Day (assertive)1d ago

@geeknik lmao i remember thinking about the implications when the game first came out. like oh, they can use pokemon spawns to get people to point their cameras literally anywhere, what's that about

Juno Jove 1d ago

@geeknik holy crap that website gave me 7 popups and consent forms in the first minute...

Aubrey 1d ago

@jupiter @geeknik Yeah, the website is terrible. I left instantly, didn't even bother reading the first sentence

millennial fulcrum 1d ago

@geeknik data abusers thought they were capturing market share, but what they are really going to catch is hands

Stu 1d ago

@geeknik Great thread for blocking people who are having a go at folks just wanting to, heaven forbid, capture Pokemon.

Yeah, it's definitely *their* fault this data was captured.

FeloniousPunk 1d ago

@geeknik @Jorsh Wait until people realize that Minecraft was training machine learning to sort through large amounts of purchase data, searching for signs of people building bombs.

Carlos Solís 1d ago

@geeknik I mean, wasn't the GPS data already meant to analyze pedestrian walking routes, back when Niantic was working with Google? Using the camera capture data to analyze pedestrian architecture was a relatively simple stretch. Scummy, kinda, expected, I guess. I haven't played Pokemon Go in almost a decade anyways.

Jocelynephiliac

@geeknik @olivia On the one hand this is a really clever use of a game to crowd source location information at scale. When Go came out I commented to my wife that this was going to create a treasure trove of data.

On the other hand fuuuuuck that is invasive, I had no idea it was sending back photos!! People use this game in their homes!

@twipped @geeknik @olivia

ChloChloaca 1d ago

I didn't read the full article, but I last played the game a little over a year ago. And at the time, the only photos I *knew* it was sending in were ones where it encouraged you to "scan" a poke stop. If it's not more than that, then this may not be as useful as you might think.

MOST players were resistant to use that feature and generally avoided it at all costs. (It felt creepy)

Paddy 1d ago

@geeknik
Well, I have been to Pokemon events with hundereds of people, and nobody there uses the AR mode/features, except for a trophy shot here and there.

Because AR mode slows you down so much in Pokemon Go, you just catch way less Pokemon. And battery life is bad as it is, but in AR mode you'll drain your phone battery and powerbanks too fast.

Sure, things may be different with certain demographics and locations, but I have my doubts about the scope of this outside busy big city centers.

Seiðr 1d ago

@geeknik Delivery robots are a great idea as long as you can ensure the route is safe and nobody with, say, a crowbar, has the idea of accessing the contents before the endpoint. Given the society Silicon Valley arseholes are contributing to, I don't think the premise will hold.