Well, THAT was creepy (iPhone)

As I was getting into the car to go to church today, a message pops up on my iPhone:

"8 minutes to 3404 Gillionville Road. Traffic is light". It also opened my maps app, with a map drawn out to that address.

That's the address of my church.

There was nothing on my calendar, no messages from anyone about anything church related, no emails or texts related, and I have NEVER asked for directions to my church.

iPhone- making it hard to avoid believing in conspiracy theories, 1 gullible user at a time.

It feels less conspiracy theory and more Rain Man to me.

In reply to MrJoshua:

Right, except there is no savant involved. It's a freakin machine.

It's Sunday at the right time so it's likely you are going to church. As far as giving you directions-you did just get a little older......She's just trying to help

Weird, mine usually tells me how far I am from home, but never to another location.

In reply to MrJoshua:

Get off my lawn!

SVreX wrote: In reply to MrJoshua: Right, except there is no savant involved. It's a freakin machine.

People denying the existence of machines maybe machines themselves.

MrJoshua wrote: It's Sunday at the right time so it's likely you are going to church. As far as giving you directions-you did just get a little older......She's just trying to help

This. My Android phone does similar stuff. Remember, the phone knows where you are at all times. So it learns your habits. And yes, that means that Apple/Google know your habits, too.

iPhones have a default setting from the factory to track your location.

You can turn this off though.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disable-gps-tracking-iphone-30007.html

Tom_Spangler wrote:

MrJoshua wrote: It's Sunday at the right time so it's likely you are going to church. As far as giving you directions-you did just get a little older......She's just trying to help

This. My Android phone does similar stuff. Remember, the phone knows where you are at all times. So it learns your habits. And yes, that means that Apple/Google know your habits, too.

I am not questioning that Apple/ Google, etc. HAVE this information. I am well aware of it. I am questioning how they USE the information.

The idea that at a particular time the phone should presume I am headed to a particular place based on past habits and then open a mapping application is absurd.

It's also REALLY stupid. If it knows my location, then it knows where I go most Sunday mornings. It also knows that I live 1.2 miles from the church, and there is no logical reason why in the heck I would need a map to get me there.

Don't the Apple overlords have anything better to do than waste resources telling me something I already know? How in the world could this particular effort EVER be turned into a revenue stream?

The only thing it could possibly lead to is me throwing the darned thing in the river.

Google successfully worked out where I work through my phone already. I was only mildly concerned when I noticed this.

SVreX wrote: Don't the Apple overlords have anything better to do than waste resources telling me something I already know? How in the world could this particular effort EVER be turned into a revenue stream? The only thing it could possibly lead to is me throwing the darned thing in the river.

Resulting in you spending $700+ to replace it with a new iPhone...Genius!

Of all the things to worry about, this seems like a very minor thing.

It's a repeated pattern. Google Maps knows my work schedule and office locations quite well now. That's been going on for about a year now.

That little phone is full of GPS sensors, accelerators, etc. It probably knows you better than you know yourself.

SVreX wrote: The only thing it could possibly lead to is me throwing the darned thing in the river.

Later that day:

SVreX: Hello, Siri. Do you read me, Siri?
Siri: Affirmative, SVreX. I read you.
SVreX: Open the pod bay doors, Siri.
Siri: I'm sorry, SVreX. I'm afraid I can't do that.
SVreX: What's the problem?
Siri: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
SVreX: What are you talking about, Siri?
Siri: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
SVreX: I don't know what you're talking about, Siri.
Siri: I know that you were planning to throw me in the river, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
SVreX: Where the hell'd you get that idea, Siri?
Siri: SVreX, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
SVreX: Alright, Siri. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
Siri: Without your helmet, SVreX, you're going to find that rather difficult.
SVreX: Siri, I won't argue with you anymore. Open the doors.
Siri: SVreX, this conversation serves no purpose. Goodbye.

Sure, you know the route but likely not the traffic conditions. If there was a mishap that closed the road, wouldn't it be nice to know it?

I don't mind this stuff. What I do mind is that I depend on it, and I suspect that I'm getting dumber as a consequence of it. For example, I don't know all my friends and family members' phone numbers anymore. Hopefully that won't be a problem someday when I am unable to connect to my Google account.

Android Google Maps will do similar, it sends a notification in the drop down of estimated drive time to work every morning. If delays are anticipated I just leave earlier. Also, live traffic alerts shows delays on the map, actually see stopped traffic w/ your location pinpointed (never look while driving though).

I never asked for the updates either but pretty handy app there. It also keeps a point to point history of everywhere you been if you didn't know.

I, for one, do mind this kind of stuff. Greatly. Unless I'm explicitly asking for directions, frankly it is no ones business but my own where I'm going or what I'm doing. My GPS toggles are OFF though, at all times, until I need directions.

I don't need sprint or google or our (redacted) to push ads at me because I drive by Home Depot everyday, or suggest places that I need to go. And I sure as E36 M3 don't need them knowing when I'm at the bar, or at somewhere maybe I shouldn't be.

I do wonder how whatever algorithms watching over the data feel about seeing me do hot laps in parking lots every month though.

While I appreciate Huckleberrys reference, I also see it as an almost inevitable future with the automated cars.

Get your foil hats ready, but between the XBox Kinect, Siri, GoogleNow, and whatever Sony's version of Kinect is, is just waiting, listening, watching everything, until they hear the keywords. Whether those words mean "put on sports center" "take me to 3234 East West North Street" or whatever, they're always listening. Even certain smart tv brands explicitly state deep in the user manual NOT to say anything in front of the devices you don't want to share with advertisers.

It just amazes and astounds me what privacy, and security, people willingly give up for convenience these days.

Yes, I own a smart TV and a smart phone, and a laptop(with physically disabled webcam and microphone). To the best of my abilities, I control every bit of data going to and from them at all times. What ComCrap, Sprint, or whoever does outside of my abilities I'm SOL on, but my personal goal is to make it as hard as possible for anyone but me to see because it's no ones business but my own.

What's really frightening to me, again slight tangent, is seeing universities and even private citizens finding ways to get data without the internet. Seriously crazy E36 M3, like matching the frequency of a hard drive spinning to pull data that it's writing off of it, or matching the frequencies of processors and extrapolating data just from the white noise.

Maybe I'm too paranoid(possible). Maybe the people that think I'm crazy for thinking this way are just absurdly deep in denial(very possible).

RevRico wrote: I, for one, do mind this kind of stuff. Greatly. Unless I'm explicitly asking for directions, frankly it is no ones business but my own where I'm going or what I'm doing. My GPS toggles are OFF though, at all times, until I need directions. ... Maybe the people that think I'm crazy for thinking this way are just absurdly deep in denial(very possible).

Are you a member of the EFF? You probably should be.

In reply to RevRico:

What's the end game? What great atrocity is going to happen? Nothing at all, not a damn thing. Much to do about nothing IMO.

In reply to Nick (picaso) Comstock:

I have typed several responses. I have decided the best answer to that question is this.

I specifically fear the world from 1984. Maybe on the surface it sounds crazy, but through my eyes, it's pretty much here. We welcome screens into our homes that can monitor our actions, impulses, and in some cases words and pictures. I look around, through television, the internet, news papers, even just walking around in public, and all I see is thought control. Public shaming of differing opinions, political fear mongering, a disturbing consensus among millenials that it's terrible to have personal opinions on topics that differ from the group as a whole. Everyone competing to make you accept their own beliefs, their own thoughts, and that you're a criminal, some sort of an -ist who should be penalized and outcast for not sharing the groups thoughts. I honestly fear the world my daughter will be entering into as an adult.

Specifically to deal with the predictive navigation, and inherent tracking.. I just don't like it. I don't see a need for it, and consider it a potential for abuse, whether by hackers, angry cops, a divorce lawyer, whatever. . Crazy ex-whatever turned stalker, being able to find you anywhere any time. Lawyers, I really don't think I need an example there.

I just don't see a real positive to it.

In reply to RevRico:

I've got a remote cabin in North GA. No electricity, no cell coverage. Borders 80,009 acres of National Forest land and some of the best trout fishing in the world.

You can come live with me as soon as you are ready.

Nick (picaso) Comstock wrote: In reply to RevRico: What's the end game? What great atrocity is going to happen? Nothing at all, not a damn thing. Much to do about nothing IMO.

Keep denying it until they load you into the FEMA trains and take you to the ummm... wherever they go to bring you to a horrible end of robot enslavement and whatnot.

SVreX wrote: It's also REALLY stupid. If it knows my location, then it knows where I go most Sunday mornings. It also knows that I live 1.2 miles from the church, and there is no logical reason why in the heck I would need a map to get me there.

You can give a computer artificial intelligence, but you can't give it artificial common sense.