Daily Archives: January 9, 2021

Turn a Touch Interface Touchless with Intel RealSense TCS

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Today, Intel announced Intel® RealSense™ Touchless Control Software (TCS), a simple solution for converting a touch-based kiosk or digital sign into a safer, touchless one while maintaining a familiar and intuitive user experience. With the pandemic affecting people worldwide, pay and check-in stations, automated teller machines and ordering kiosks could use the Intel RealSense software and camera to offer safer, touch-free options.

Source: Turn a Touch Interface Touchless with Intel RealSense TCS | Intel Newsroom

Content Moderation Case Study: SoundCloud Combats Piracy By Giving Universal Music The Power To Remove Uploads (2014)

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n most cases, allegedly infringing content is removed at the request of rights holders following the normal DMCA takedown process. A DMCA notice is issued and the site responds by removing the content and — in some cases — allowing the uploader to challenge the takedown.

SoundCloud has positioned itself as a host of user-created audio content, relying on content creators to upload original works. But, like any content hosting site, it often found itself hosting infringing content not created by the uploader.

Realizing the potential for SoundCloud to be overrun with infringing content, the platform became far more proactive as it gained users and funding.

Rather than allow the normal DMCA process to work, SoundCloud allowed one major label to set the terms of engagement. This partnership resulted in Universal being able to unilaterally remove content it believed was infringing without any input from SoundCloud or use of the normal DMCA process.

One user reported his account was closed due to alleged infringement contained in his uploaded radio shows. When he attempted to dispute the removals and the threatened shuttering of his account, he was informed by the platform it was completely out of SoundCloud’s hands.

Your uploads were removed directly by Universal. This means that SoundCloud had no control over it, and they don’t tell us which part of your upload was infringing.

The control of removing content is completely with Universal. This means I can’t tell you why they removed your uploads and not others, and you would really need to ask them that question.

Unfortunately, there was no clear appeal process for disputing the takedown, leaving the user without his account or his uploads.

[…]

SoundCloud continues to allow labels like Universal to perform content removals without utilizing the DMCA process or engaging with the platform directly. Users are still on their own when it comes to content declared infringing by labels. This appears to flow directly from SoundCloud’s long-running efforts to secure licensing agreements with major labels. And that appears to flow directly from multiple threats of copyright litigation from some of the same labels SoundCloud is now partnered with

Source: Content Moderation Case Study: SoundCloud Combats Piracy By Giving Universal Music The Power To Remove Uploads (2014) | Techdirt

And having said that, DMCA is a process that is very very far from perfect and is used to bully smaller players in the market by the big boys with big lawyer pockets.

Whatsapp locks you in – you can’t export all your chats. And now it will share everything with Facebook

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Yes, you can back up your database and if you’re rooted, you can find a key to it, but that will give you the chat in database form. You won’t get your pictures and videos etc. You can download them seperately though.

Yes, you can export a single chat / chatgroup, but doing that for the thousands of chats you probably have is not practically possible.

So you’re stuck. Either you share all your data with Facebook or you get rid of your chat history.

Lock down the permissions WhatsApp has – it has way too many!

WhatsApp Has Shared Your Data With Facebook since 2016, actually.

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Since Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014, users have wondered and worried about how much data would flow between the two platforms. Many of them experienced a rude awakening this week, as a new in-app notification raises awareness about a step WhatsApp actually took to share more with Facebook back in 2016.

On Monday, WhatsApp updated its terms of use and privacy policy, primarily to expand on its practices around how WhatsApp business users can store their communications. A pop-up has been notifying users that as of February 8, the app’s privacy policy will change and they must accept the terms to keep using the app. As part of that privacy policy refresh, WhatsApp also removed a passage about opting out of sharing certain data with Facebook: “If you are an existing user, you can choose not to have your WhatsApp account information shared with Facebook to improve your Facebook ads and products experiences.”

Some media outlets and confused WhatsApp users understandably assumed that this meant WhatsApp had finally crossed a line, requiring data-sharing with no alternative. But in fact the company says that the privacy policy deletion simply reflects how WhatsApp has shared data with Facebook since 2016 for the vast majority of its now 2 billion-plus users.

When WhatsApp launched a major update to its privacy policy in August 2016, it started sharing user information and metadata with Facebook. At that time, the messaging service offered its billion existing users 30 days to opt out of at least some of the sharing. If you chose to opt out at the time, WhatsApp will continue to honor that choice. The feature is long gone from the app settings, but you can check whether you’re opted out through the “Request account info” function in Settings.

Meanwhile, the billion-plus users WhatsApp has added since 2016, along with anyone who missed that opt-out window, have had their data shared with Facebook all this time. WhatsApp emphasized to WIRED that this week’s privacy policy changes do not actually impact WhatsApp’s existing practices or behavior around sharing data with Facebook.

[…]

None of this has at any point impacted WhatsApp’s marquee feature: end-to-end encryption. Messages, photos, and other content you send and receive on WhatsApp can only be viewed on your smartphone and the devices of the people you choose to message with. WhatsApp and Facebook itself can’t access your communications.

[…]

In practice, this means that WhatsApp shares a lot of intel with Facebook, including  account information like your phone number, logs of how long and how often you use WhatsApp, information about how you interact with other users, device identifiers, and other device details like IP address, operating system, browser details, battery health information, app version, mobile network, language and time zone. Transaction and payment data, cookies, and location information are also all fair game to share with Facebook depending on the permissions you grant WhatsApp in the first place.

[…]

Source: WhatsApp Has Shared Your Data With Facebook for Years, Actually | WIRED