yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
Sir, this is what I wanted to know. Thank you very much for your valuable time and experience shared here. I know this is serious concern and people like us need a way to be have a sound sleep without virtual spies.

About permissions, Google chrome takes permission to use camera and mic without and command by user.. I mean why Google needs it...again another why...

Your reply was very helpful, thank you...

keep updated me here when you can...

Stay blessed..
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
My pleasure, I'm happy if I could help you...

Google chrome is one of the worst browser when it comes to privacy. If you want to keep on using it try to block the unwanted permissions like camera and mike with appsettings. The problem is that sometimes apps crash after having their perms blocked, and in this case what I do is just uninstalling and looking for another one that does the same job, fortunately there is no shortage of apps on the web:)

If you can't manage to tame Google chrome just use Mozilla. It has some abusive perms as well but they can be disabled for sure (I use it). Not with appsettings though but with permissions denied (another privacy app, quite powerful but one has to use it with care).

Just get the apps I recommended in my first post (some are paid but they are well worth the money) and start playing with them, in no time you will regain your privacy.

And uninstall as many system apps as you can...

Good luck!

Oh, I nearly forgot! Read my post in the following link, it tells which apps are safe to remove for the galaxy grand:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=39395506
[General Questions and Answers] Product F(RED):
They anonymize all of the usage data as much as possible. If you don't like using Google services but still want to be able to download apps from the Play Store, go into Settings -> Accounts -> your Google account(s) -> uncheck all of the boxes for syncing various services.

Every company collects information on usage in order to better their products and find out how people are using them. They're not reading all of your emails (yes, their computers scan them to show you relevant text ads, but that's all) or coming to your house to film you while you're in the shower. You guys are overreacting. There is not one company who doesn't collect usage data. And if they don't, then they're doing it wrong, because they're developing their products and services blindly. Google is pretty clear about their data collection policies.

You do realize that Chrome has the Microphone permission so that it can hear you when you use voice search, among other things, right? Your computer browser can also access your webcam and microphone...

I care about privacy as well, but you guys are wearing tinfoil hats. Google does not care about you. They just want to know how to further develop their products.
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
Of course I know that this perm is for the voice search, an app that I don't use either.

And I know that in 2013 it's not such a big deal if those big companies collect data about us, apart from spamming us with advs.

But I don't know how it will be in 10 our 20 years, and when I see the way our "democracies" go I rather understand now how to make myself invisible, better to prevent than to cure.

Imagine if Hitler had had this technology...

Those days are gone? I don't think so, the Yankees had Bush for eight years, the French had Sarkozy for five years, they were not modern Hitler but they were going in the same direction, cutting rough in the people's freedom.

They didn't go as far as Hitler but who knows what will happen in the next decades. I'm 44 and since the 90 ies I've seen a worrying drift towards less and less freedom, and it won't get any better for sure, it will only get worse.

Anyway, it's not only about this, it's about those apps using my data plan without asking, depleting my phone's battery and slowing my ram. If Google wants infos he has to pay for it, and I have to agree to sell him those infos.

Cuz my phone didn't come for free, I had to pay for it and I don't see why I should use my data plan to help big Google and co...
[General Questions and Answers] Product F(RED):
It's more like, "by using the software on this phone, you agree to Google's data collection policies." Either create your own ROM that doesn't include the code, or don't use the phone. You could go to Apple and use an iPhone, but they do the same thing. Microsoft does the same thing with Windows Phone. Palm did the same with WebOS. Seriously, there's nowhere you can go where anonymous data isn't collected to develop products.
[General Questions and Answers] silentvisitor:
I am glad that there are few more people who take their privacy seriously and knowledgeable enough to know what happening inside phones.

I strongly believe that this topic needs mass exposure. Millions of innocent people don't know what's happening and the risks. Take this topic to social networks and spread. For my part I will post this thread link on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

I would also wish that some of our great developers would come forward and help in this matter.

Thanks for starting this thread.
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
I knew people will feel thus topic as paranoid. But that's preference.

No problem, speak against topic or support this topic, you will help other members have clear picture of what I want to say. After all critics have role to play too. So thanks to all.

[MENTION=4703661]unclefab[/MENTION] thank you for your comment which helped me get my words meaningful.

[MENTION=4546136]silentvisitor[/MENTION] that's what I had planned to get the topic wide exposure. Hope, there will be respect for privacy oneday.

Revolutionary changes are required and that can be just hoped.

The only hope I can see is that when the country itself recognises this as an issue than it can impact on world... more and more country joins the cause the stronger will be the impact.

These are just hopes and how future will play that God knows.
[General Questions and Answers] Product F(RED):
If you want privacy, go move to a rainforest in South America or something. Get rid of your phone, computer, internet connection, etc. What you guys are asking for is ridiculous. You want free products handed to you on a silver platter. These companies need something in return. At the very least, they need the information they collect to understand their userbase. I'm a marketing major and computer science minor. Really, I understand that privacy is pivotal to you guys, but you're demanding something pretty ridiculous. This is ANONYMOUS usage data.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 2
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
You sound very straight forward. Your comments are brainwashing. You have better way of critical thinking, its appreciable. As a marketing guy you know user have different preferences and taste.

Rarely people are concern about privacy which is not letting this being called as an issue.

Data is used anonymously, is this justified?

Even Facebook says this, than why it has photos and name in their database?

How come Facebook/Google recognize face with exact name if data is anonymous..

Can any of data stealers come forward and give just a short justification and proof about how data is being used?
[General Questions and Answers] zelendel:
As Fred as stated, everything you do is tracked and monitored. This is nothing new really, been going on for years. There is only one way around it. That is to remove yourself from all things as stated above. You would be amazed how many times your personal info changes hands on a daily basis. Even utility companies track your usage. Your cell carrier does the same thing. Now I understand wanting privacy but total privacy is a myth that in this day and age is not an option. Now I dont trust the Gov in any way shape or form, to the point of not buying any device that has the fema chip installed. Which is 99% of the devices in the US.
[General Questions and Answers] Product F(RED):
I'm not trying to be a jerk about it. I'm just telling you what you're asking for is almost like saying "every time I go into a store or establishment with a security camera, I want the footage deleted." It's the reverse. If you want to be able to use these services, you must agree with the terms of use/service.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 2
[General Questions and Answers] silentvisitor:
For no apparent reason, marketing or making money, does anybody have right to beach privacy of anybody. And no, it's not okay even if it is made to look normal.

I am not sure but probably these companies can be sued for the same. Even if it fails there will be enough publicity to bring this important issue to notice of millions.
[MENTION=4703661]unclefab[/MENTION] you don't look like a bad guy at all ;)
[General Questions and Answers] Product F(RED):
They can't be sued because, whether or not they show a screen that says "Do you agree to these terms and conditions?", by using the application/service, you're agreeing to them. You may not be able to sue them on the grounds that you never agreed for them to collect the data, however if you find that they're using it for something that was never covered in the legal section/terms of service, you might get somewhere.

I think that, instead of suing these companies, we should focus on making it illegal to do what they do in the first place. Don't try and fix the symptoms of a broken legal system. Fix the broken legal system itself, and these companies won't be allowed to do what they do from the get go.
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
Thanks:)

Good that Facebook got mentioned because I think they are the worse. Think of a planetary data base with names, pictures, bios, time lines, stories etc, and they want us to believe that it stays in good hands? Come on, at this point it's even more naive than believing in Santa Claus!

The problem is that most people don't care about their privacy and are too addicted to those services to stop using them. Until one day it will be too late, long ago a great guy said (Goethe if I remember well) something like (translated from my native tongue):

the devil, they never see him until the very last moment when he pulls their beards...

That was a few centuries ago, but it could have been written yesterday (don't get me wrong, I'm not pushing the debate towards some theological blabla, devil here means something or someone bad/evil).

I think as well that those companies should be sued because they go too far, but even if it happened they wouldn't be condemned. Too much collusion with the politicians, the secret services and the army, it's the same with the banks or Monsanto. They weight so much money, they have so much influence and they have so many friends in high places that they are above the laws.

The only way to shortcut them is to stop using their services until they change their policies.

This is what I do, there are plenty of third part apps who do the same job and either respect more people's privacy or are easier to tame to make them respect this privacy...

Or maybe what Fred said above, but I'm not quite sure, justice is a joke and condemnations are only for poor people, rich guys always manage to escape, unless they are sued by an equally rich guy. It's sad to say so but justice is a whore, if you pay her she gives you her favors.

Anyone knows a billionar who wants to join the cause? :)
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
Lol, may be Bill Gates...
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
I just found this, I think that all those guys who say that our data is safe should read it:

http://www.xda-developers.com/andro...-order-forces-verizon-to-hand-over-call-data/
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
It's getting more interesting...

It's official, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Skype cooperate as well with the NSA and hand over our private data:

http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-data-mining-101-two-top-secret-programs-001233940.html?pt=BureoF3GVB

People with a bit of brain had understood it already long ago but they were mocked, tin foil hats, conspiracy theories etc.

So what now?
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
we cant run we cant hide!!

And were they able to control terrorism!! Infact from last 7 years terrorism has multiplied! What control they want! Is Government forgetting that terrorist can troll their records!!
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
its very informative sir!!

I wish i had uncle like you!! i could have best knowledge from your experience, daily!!
[General Questions and Answers] cinzacm:
Last days I've read some stuff about PRISM and other "watchful" actions of the US government. That just worried me more about my privacy. I'm brazilian, never set foot on the US, learned english from the UK, but right now I'm posting on a US hosted service, where the majority of members are american (at least they seem to) and much of my information goes through US networks.

New brazilian laws, that are being discussed right now in our congress, are aimed to prevent the government to access our information, unless court ordered. And that's just clearing that up, because our laws already prevent that. And, believe it or not, our "role model" was the US, the Bill of Rights and stuff. So, I'm here, protected by our Beloved Motherland but, behind my door, Uncle Sam is eavesdropping.

Worse of all, US are pressing, via FIFA and the International Olympics Comittee, to add to our laws the definition of "terrorism", which our laws lack. Why? Just to have one more paranoid country, like France or the UK?

To the original topic I reply, that's a mix of knowing all your tastes and likes to push you to buy, or visit, or watch anything they want you to. Not so bad after all, at least while the government isn't watching.
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
If collecting our data was meant only for mercantile purposes it wouldn't be so bad, but it's not the case. Have a read at this:

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/android-permissions-permissively-insecure/

[MENTION=296598]Dbz[/MENTION]

you are welcome. You know, you can figure out many things by yourself. Just take as a prerequisite the following:

governments don't care about you and me, they care only about money and power. Sometimes they throw three peanuts to make the people happy, but be sure that they keep the peanut tree for themselves.

They lie shamelessly all the time, look carefully at a politician talking and you'll see it.

Those politicians are only puppets, the real power lays behind them. It's people who have a lot of money, and thus influence, organised in various lobbies like for example the banks or Monsanto, to name only a few.

Nowadays they all get afraid because internet reveals more and more of their dirty business, and they regret the good old days where the only available source of information was government controlled (even if they called themselves independent) medias like tv and newspapers.

That's why they try to control the internet, they know that if they don't react quickly they may loose the hand.

All what you see on tv, wars, crisis etc. has been created by those men in high places for this or that purpose that serve them, and the official medias comments are nothing more than a bunch of lies.

If you bear in mind what is above you will see by yourself more of their tricks.

And then you have to tell your friends, and tell them to tell their friends, hopefully one day there will be enough people that see clear and things will change...
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
I will keep this information with me for analysis of news!
[General Questions and Answers] silentvisitor:
I fully agree with you on this. It needs to be cured from root up.

It also becomes responsibility of people like us who care of their own and others privacy and has knowledge to resist as much possible with available apps and hacks. We need to spread awareness on mass scale - Facebook, Twitter, Blog, WhatsApp, etc.

Together WE CAN !:good:
[General Questions and Answers] DBZo07:
Ya, mass awareness is what we need.

Everyone has a natural urge to protect their privacy.

Maybe, this natural feeling is what can be targeted.
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
I didn't know about those fema chips and I did some researches, it looks pretty bad.

Can you tell us more about it?

Specially how to know whether our phones or tabs have it or not, since it's not written on the box, and if there's a way to uninstall it.

As for me I own a galaxy tab p6210 Wi-Fi only bought in the states in March 2012, and a galaxy grand duo I9082 bought in India in March 2013.

Thanks for your answer...

Edit: I just recalled of a strange perm I had found in one system app at the time I was blocking everything:

"send sms no confirmation".

And now I understand better why many system apps (apart from the sms app) have a "receive message" perm.

Have those perms anything to do with fema?
[General Questions and Answers] zelendel:
Basically any cellular device in the states made after Jan has this chip in it. It allows the government to send texts directly to the device. There was a leak of the set up but it was pulled within hours. Other then that info has been hard to come by. I don't trust it myself.

Wayne Tech Nexus
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
Thanks for your reply. In the meanwhile I kept on searching and yes, very few informations.

What I understood is that an additional chip wouldn't been needed to send only emergency texts as they claim.

So what for is it?

You said that nearly all US cellular phones made after January have it, which means that if the system proves fruitful it will be exported within few years to other countries:(

Sometimes I'm seriously considering getting rid of my smart phone and replacing it with a cheap 15 USD basic phone, and use a Wi-Fi only tab for my Internet. Because when one looks at apps, perms and privacy leaks one has to admit that a Wi-Fi only device is much more secure...
[General Questions and Answers] zelendel:
Oh I don't think it will get used world wide. Only reason it passed here is because 90% of course he people didn't know about it till it was done and over with. As for what it's for. I think they used the claim that it could be used even if the device doesn't have a simple card.

Wayne Tech Nexus
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
Yes, governments always claim this and that, they need pretexts to make the brainless majority accept their scams.

In my native tongue we say that the wolf wears a sheep's skin to enter the sheepfold, I guess one says the same in english.

I'm not sure such system won't be used by other countries cuz, first the states are very good at exerting pressure to have their wishes granted, and second some other governments may find the idea good. The goal being to control internet cuz they start to get scared about it, too many websites talk openly about their tricks. For that purpose they experiment different ideas at the moment, and putting an additional microchip embedded in the phone's hardware, making it virtually unremovable (specially if you make it illegal to remove or alter it in any way), sounds like a good one, if I was them I would go for it.

For people who wonder what it's all about I recommend the following movie on YouTube:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHeg77LF4Y&desktop_uri=/watch?v=OrHeg77LF4Y

Don't think it's lies or paranoia, some people (including your favorite unclefab:)) knew most of what they talk about in this movie long time before it was released (I remember my mum telling me about governments and banks manipulations when I was a kid in the early 80 ies, and later in the 90 ies I found more by myself), and some of the topics they talk about in the movie had even been covered by French medias in the early 2000's. The difference is that before internet it was hard work to get to know about those things and thus many people had never heard about it, whereas nowadays anyone can access it.

That's why or beloved "democratic" governments try very hard to prevent those informations to spread too much.

One way is to make fun about people that ring the bell, calling them tin foil hats or conspirationists, in order to make them look ridiculous and prevent the rest of the population to listen to them; another way is to attack directly at the source.

In France for example, during the Sarkosy era they made a law enabling them to spy 100% on every people's computer and see all websites they connect to (and block your connection if you are not a good boy), supposedly to crack on illegal downloading, one more pretext. Then they made another law that allows them to block any website without a court decision and without publishing the list of blocked websites. This time the pretext was to fight paedophilia, but if it was true then why don't they publish the list of blocked websites?

Yep, that's not China or Iran, that's France, dubbed the country of human rights, what a good joke...
[General Questions and Answers] panda00:
Do you know how much time, effort and of course money Google invests in Android? A lot. Android is Open-source, i.e. free. So would Google just give someone their hard-work, millions-funded OS just like that? With nothing in return? No! It has its services pre-installed and compulsory to use (for the average user) to gain ordinary access to the services (Google Play). Through this, they collect your data... Now why would they collect your data? To show ads you would be interested in, so you could click it, and they would profit. It's just business as they say. They don't give a crap who you are, what you do and what not, they just want to sell the advertisements, and this is the most efficient way to do it. Now count how many people go on Google every day... Millions? Google's not going to sit down and peek at everyone's information... Everything is automated, so virtually no one sees your personal info, although it is out there, no one bothers, because no one cares, because what they care about is the money, just that.
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
Interesting, where did you get a free phone from Google? Cuz I had to pay for mine...

Have a look at this, it's interesting as well:

http://donttrack.us/
[General Questions and Answers] panda00:
Where in my comment do I say that the phone is free? Please quote it!

I specifically said the OS is free, any manufacturer can download it and incorporate it into their phone and release it...
[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
I know, it was ironic:)

Cuz your post stated that Google invested a lot of time and money for android as if they did so on humanitarian grounds.

They invested money, yep, but not fot the benefit of mankind. They did so to get more money in return, as any business man does.

Did you have a look at the link I gave in my previous post? At the bottom of the page there are other interesting links about our friend Google:)
[General Questions and Answers] panda00:
Oh god! Are you serious? I said that precisely!

I said that they will never provide the OS for free AND get nothing in return, the thing in return is gathering your info and selling ads that match your info.