Color is not stupid, it's evil. | Hacker News Reader

Color is not stupid, it's evil.

12 pointsrapcal9 comments

I wish I could go back to those naive times when I thought Color was just a silly VC move, an overrated photo sharing app, a confirmation of bubble times or anything like this. After reading some of the PR they've been pushing to fight the massive bad rap they got on their first day in business, I'm convinced Color is bad, evil bad, 1984 bad. For instance, according to 'Color CEO: The Tech Justifies the $41 Million' published on RWW, "When you take a picture or video, Color gathers a variety of information. It collects sound levels, Bluetooth readings, light readings, antenna strength, the time - even the direction you're pointing your phone - and more and uses it all to determine your proximity to other users." Wow! Scary thing... I'm not sure they do have the technology they claim to have, if all this is true or pure PR. But if they do, I wonder how will they use this data? What for? Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'll play safe and not install that thing.

This submission would be better suited as a comment in one of the (many) Color threads, or submitted separately as a blog post.

If this post ends up [dead] it's probably for that reason, and not part of some conspiracy on Color's part.

Agreed. It was my first HN contribution, so please be a little indulgent. I'm still getting the hang of it.

I wonder what use cops and stalkers will be able to make of this tech?

They're probably going to attempt to use the sensor data to get more data to form a mesh grid, so as to determine what point in a venue they're shooting.

For example, say there are four phones, in a square, and they all have color enabled, it would be possible to tell that they were all facing the middle of the square. From there, it'd be cool to stitch together the images and create a reverse panorama -- think of something like 'Streets' view, wherein you can 'enter' the scene and move around in it, from a variety of angles and perspectives.

At least, that's what I'd use it for.

I totally agree with you:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2367299

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2367277

I am not interested in their ability to get a clear picture of my surrounding through the sensors in my phone, or of the phones around me.

It is amazing tech, if they have it -- But I don't need that.

Sorry, hadn't seen your posts. Agree with you. And I'd add that there's not enough transparency regarding all these capabilities. It's like that cigar smoking baby from Bugs Bunny -- you think it's a photo sharing app, but that's just the coverup. You're helping them collect data God only knows what for.

Collecting data is not evil. Using data for evil things is evil. Color is not evil. If the secret police used proximity location to capture people and kill them, that would be evil. But do you see why that doesn't make Color evil?

Having control of how your data is used is nice, but it's not helpful to throw around terms like "evil" for such small things.

People get really trigger happy with "1984" on the Internet and sometimes it borders on ridiculous. Orwell didn't have a picture sharing program for handheld computers in mind when he wrote his book.

And maybe Sequoia didn't have a photo sharing app in mind when they put tens of millions in the game ;-)

Collecting data can definitely be 'evil'.

Would you be okay with the government sticking cameras in your house? What about your bathrooms? That's data collection.

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