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Eh, I think I have something interesting to say on this topic. I'm not making a "religious flame war", merely stating that literal and thorough implementations of scriptures cause human suffering. Please see this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18888118

Well, by thorough I simply meant not skipping any part. And those horrible parts of scriptures from religions originating from middle east (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) really cannot be sensibly interpreted in any metaphoric way unless by skipping it. A common way to do it is by saying "this is very specific code that was only relevant in societies back then; we're wise to not follow it now". But that's just skipping with extra steps.

Edit: just to make sure it's clear - I'm very happy when such skipping happens. A quote from Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz:

> When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever say he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.

> By “an old Jew of Galicia”.

True, but the only way to make it more sensible is to be less thorough. I.e. not implement certain rules that are stated explicitly in the books. Like modern Christians and Jews that do not kill adulterers, even though Deuteronomy explicitly tells them to do so.

As much as I like GDPR, I have no idea why would this law be any good. Perhaps I'm not seeing something here - can anyone explain how this law is good for society?

Ugh. Thanks for pointing it out.

Why would you want to make it a price to pay? We choose what's legal and what's not, it's not given to us in some great revelation. Do you think people's lives would be better without privacy, or with privacy?

I see little benefit in developing an alternative system of payment to the dollar, some form of intellectual nudity, implications of which I don't fully understand. The dollar is fine, charge me and leave me alone.

Not sure what your point is. I can just suggest to see the PDF: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18411935

Yeah I meant that there's another layer to the symbolic representation of "sqrt(2)" than just the tree of operation, so that you can ask sensible questions about the value of the number. For instance a generator of decimal representation or a function like "given N return a fraction q/p that's within 1/2^N of the value".

And floats are really a whole other beast than fractions or naturals or real numbers. As I wrote earlier - the "+" operator isn't associative. Python snippet:

    def before():
        x = 0.0
        x += 1.0
        for i in xrange(1000):
            x += 1e-17
        return x

    def after():
        x = 0.0
        for i in xrange(1000):
            x += 1e-17
        x += 1.0
        return x


    print before() == 1.0
    print after() == 1.0

Will print:

   True
   False

US needs (something like) GDPR. 2% to 4% of revenue is a good starting point for a penalty. In the absence of a penalty why would anyone running a Telco company not take the extra cash from selling data.

Yup, it is possible. That was just a hand wavy example to show where the issue is. Symbolic real numbers need not be represented as small programs/objects generating a sequence of digits. But all of those implementations/representations will fail to compare some numbers.

Edit: for instance, you could imagine a representation (think object of a virtual class in c++) that gives you a fraction and a 1/2^n bound for error, where you can query the number for whatever n you see fit. Still, in some cases it's undecidable to determine which number is greater.

It's extremely counter intuitive what would happen if a computer system (a Turing machine) was operating symbolically on real numbers, not floating point numbers which have vastly different properties (for example, addition is not associative there although it is commutative). We can refer to constructive logic proofs in the real number theory. There's a ton of surprising facts there, to pick two:

  1. For x and y you cannot prove that x<=y or x=>y
  2. Every function is continuous

Some hand-waving to see why 1. is a problem: given two numbers, x and y, as a lazily-computed infinite decimal expansion, the program that loops in parallel over the expansions and seeks the first difference (to determine which number is greater) will never terminate if x and y have identical expansions.

See this submission from two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18411935

You have a point, but the problem is that there's no way to not spew data out in public spaces. I'd have to cut off all of the following:

  - my mobile phone
  - my landline phone
  - all credit cards and bank accounts
  - all hosted email solutions
  - all other hosted ways of communication (social media, messaging apps)
  - all ways of transport unless I own the devices (and even some cars you could own have telemetry these days...)

Basically only talk face to face, ride old cars and use cash or Monero. It's unrealistic.

Thanks, I'll look out for that. @tapland and @jgibson also mention that mobile networks often outsource running the infra.

In any case - I agree with you that this seems like a shitty legal pseudo-loophole. At the very least the company you sign mobile contract with needs to share your phone number with those infra subsidies. But then according to GDPR: "15. 1. The data subject shall have the right to (...) access to the personal data and the following information: (...) (c) the recipients or categories of recipient to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed". Following this rule one should be able to reach the bottom of the data processing chain.

Good to know, thank you! It should be enough to harass one's provider, but perhaps a more broad approach will work.

This is interesting, if that's indeed the case then I'll publish my findings and encourage people to 1) fill similar requests, 2) fill requests for data deletion and ceasing of further collection. Hopefully eventually we'll get an option to opt-out via the web, like on http://myactivity.google.com/

Also, EU readers: why not ask your own provider today?

Apart from location I'm still concerned about actual data transferred via those networks (calls, text and data).

I'm not familiar with how GSM networks operate. Why would I send a request to Huawei or Ericsson? Don't they just provide networking equipment? Or do they also provide services, part of which may be relevant for end user privacy?

See, one of the reasons why I'd prefer someone who speaks legalese to do this :)

Thanks, makes sense. I wanted to make it clear I'm not happy with a response "Yeah sir, you live here and here, and your device model is X. That's your personal information.". But I'll keep pressing them, as I seriously do not entertain the idea that someone may store all the data that can be inferred from my activity in a mobile network.

That's what I'd do if I were in their shoes.

I planned to document it and share with wider audience in case I find something out of the ordinary. For example, if they kept my location history for longer than is necessary to just route my data through their network, or if they had the contents of my texts, or DNS requests history.

Not sure how to pressure into the Google-style solution, but I think knowing would be a fist step.

Nothing fancy, and I sent it to the contact point they have in their privacy policy. You can find it on their websites (or at least I found it; in my case it was just an email but it will possibly escalate to snail mail). As far as contents goes - here it is, translated into English:

I am a/an [OPERATOR] subscriber, identification data: (...)

I would like to get a complete list of personal data that [OPERATOR] stores about me:

  - The history of telephone calls, metadata (when and where [to which number] I called or when and who [what number] called me) as well as the data itself (the content of the calls themselves);
  - The history of text messages, as in the case of calls - metadata and the data itself;
  - History of data transfer (Internet), as above - metadata and the data exchanged itself;
  - Connection history - when my phone was connected to the [OPERATOR]'s network, when in [OPERATOR'S COUNTRY] or when via roaming;
  - Location history - where my phone was located, e.g. which base stations it was connected to or from which country it was connecting or any other information allowing to determine my location more accurately than "Planet Earth";
  - History of used devices - IMEI numbers as well as other data collected about my device / devices;
  - Any additional information collected about me.

If any of the above mentioned types of data is not stored by [OPERATOR] please let me know.

You guys need (something like) GDPR in the US. I believe it's a necessity.

For EU folks: anyone tried a GDPR request to their phone provider to figure out what do they collect and what do they store? I'm thinking any of the following are within the realm of possibilities:

  - Call history, including metadata and potentially also contents;
  - Text messages, same as with calls: metadata and potentially the contents;
  - Location history;
  - Data connection activity, again: metadata and potentially the contents;
  - IMEIs of the devices I used.

Basically I want http://myactivity.google.com/, but for my mobile subscription.

I submitted a GDPR request to my GSM provider a few days ago, but I'm not fluent in legalese, so may not reach as far as someone fluent in it. Still awaiting initial response.

So, if I understand correctly, the source of bullshit here would be some sort of soft coercion/engineering of consent? Over something that people don't need/shouldn't need? I.e. something like working on ad campaigns for cigarettes?

I am one of those bullshit jobs deniers. Would you like to explain why your job is bullshit? Feel free to change details to protect your privacy.

I think the author does a rather mediocre job on explaining a point that's IMHO critically important.

Here's Yuval Noah Harari explaining it much better: https://youtu.be/Bw9P_ZXWDJU?t=269

His basic argument is that: 1) free will has always been an illusion, 2) it was an acceptable one because generally no one knew you better than you know yourself, 3) with the advent of mass data processing (call it AI if you want) the premise 2 breaks down, and we should be skeptical of trusting people's judgement. For example, the fundamental ideas underpinning liberal democracies and capitalism ("the customer is always right", "this is what voters want", ...) become unreliable.