Secret life of phones: how one contacted 315 servers a day | Hacker News Reader

Secret life of phones: how one contacted 315 servers a day

channel4.com

37 pointsthinkling18 comments

I wish they'd give a transcript of what they actually did during the day, what apps they actually started by hand, what happened without user action initiating it, and so on.

It'd certainly be useful to know more about the activity while the end user is idle. Not only for privacy reasons but also since you sometimes (e.g. when roaming) want to strictly limit data traffic.

Maybe someone could write an app for this. :-) And better yet, put the transcript in plain English.

The really crazy part of this is that this article is restricted to simple internet traffic that can be traced. There's as much -- or more -- information available at the transport layer, which can include where you are, who you call, how long you're on the phone, and so on. Then there's reading of MAC addresses from the phone's WiFi passively and tracking folks down to the sub-meter level than way.

The modern cell phone is one of the pinnacles of mankind: it is able to tag, track, and monitor the individual's thoughts and actions on a level never dreamed of by science fiction writers.

Title is deceptive. ONE test Android phone did this and much of the traffic was related to one app.

Fair criticism on the title; I weakened it and made it specific to Android. [Edit: op edited subject after I did.]

Your comment about the one app (Talking Tom) isn't quite accurate. Most of the times the phone sent its IMEI, this was due to Talking Tom. But the sheer number of servers contacted is unrelated to that app--and there was no testing of how many other apps that weren't installed would have sent the IMEI.

Android is the most popular smartphone OS, and they set it up with a typical selection of apps, so it shouldn't be too far from a typical phone someone carries around.

This app is not atypical though. Talking Tom may have been the insane-o app in this instance, but it is far from alone. Free apps whose sole purpose is to blast your information everywhere and anywhere are a dime a dozen in the Play Store (and the App Store, and the web).

This is why my Android phone is rooted and uses Xprivacy to control app permissions.

Though I still have no control over all the information Google itself leeches using it's own framework.... which is sad.

This article, if true, reveals even more invasive measures from Google

"Google takes its tracking into the real world" http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/

Just as depressing as the story however is the lack of scrutiny of online companies on privacy matters. Google arguably tracks and records online behaviour with far greater capability than any other online company. Yet Google gets an easy ride on privacy issues from the tech community.

Sticking a VPN on a smartphone then sniffing the traffic always yields a surprising number of ad requests in the background.

I once put a proxy in front of an HN client for iOS. Every time I tapped on something or performed an action, it would send at-least 10+ requests to various analytics firms. This included locking my phone. Additionally, almost every private key was transmitted in the clear, over HTTP. Nothing was encrypted, not even the connection to HN.

Am I the only one who found this incredibly uninformative and sensationalist? Their 'special device', just a wireless proxy, measured 350,000 requests, which to someone who doesn't know how many dozens of requests loading an average webpage would make, might be frightening. Every level you win on Candy Crush, and every profile picture loaded on Facebook would be a request. The number of requests mean nothing. I'm going to stop myself from continuing to rant because there's too much to be said about this video. Their aim seems to be to frighten, not inform, people.

The number of requests is irrelevant from a privacy perspective, but it does mean one thing - reduced battery life. Making 30,000 requests when the phone is idle over just 45 minutes is a good way to kill the battery.

> Am I the only one who found this incredibly uninformative and sensationalist

That's Channel 4 is all about.

My MOTO FONE (Motorola F3) contacts zero servers per day while idle.

I had one of these too! I finally caved and got a Nokia N9. Before that, I had my F3 and an iPod touch together. All in all, sadly, the convenience of a smartphone beats the ridiculous durability and talk time of the F3.

I got Xprivacy on my android so it doesn't affect me. Before that I had Pdroid. These things don't affect me because I take privacy in my own hands.

FYI man, you can sit at home and do absolutely NOTHING -- and your name goes through like 17 computers a DAY, man.

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