{"id":2499,"date":"2017-09-08T09:23:11","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T17:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2499"},"modified":"2017-09-08T09:23:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T17:23:11","slug":"locking-the-barn-after-its-burned-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2499","title":{"rendered":"Locking the barn after it’s burned down"},"content":{"rendered":"


<\/em><\/p>\n

Ultimately, the thing is this: at some point the Google Now-like service has to be something that does all its data mining and processing locally\u00a0<\/em>on the phone itself.\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Independent or at least agnostic of service provider, able to get useful info out of your work email without compromising your security in doing so and able to leverage whatever personal email provider you use without relying on Google\u2019s technology. \u00a0In a way, that\u2019s already present in iOS \u2013 for instance, if you get email with a tracking number from UPS or FedEx and tap on that tracking number, you\u2019ll see \u201cTrack Shipment\u201d as an option, irrespective of whence came the email. \u00a0Apple Data Detectors \u2013 a technology that Apple first rolled out in 1997 then largely ignored until two or three years ago \u00a0– can do that right now, already parsing out addresses to be sent to the address book (or soon to Maps) or dates to be sent to the calendar. \u00a0So the technology is there and it doesn\u2019t take much to suggest that it could be extended to include things like flight confirmation numbers or \u00a0the like.<\/em><\/p>\n

All of this is a very roundabout way of saying that I fully expect an Apple watch before long, and I expect it to rely on the functionality of iOS 7 to deliver a thin but satisfying slice of data to a glorified wrist-bound FitBit. \u00a0And in doing so, obviate the need for the phone itself to do a lot of the heavy lifting that currently makes it difficult if not impossible to use the iPhone itself as your fitness\/presence tracker (see: the battery-slaughter of Saga or Human or Moves). \u00a0Anything that can be staffed out to something with its own separate battery is good for your phone.<\/em><\/p>\n

So now we wait. \u00a0Every man his own Big Data. \u00a0It\u2019s coming.<\/em><\/p>\n

– 4 Sept 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think I might have been onto something. Four years later, this is more or less what Apple is pitching with CoreML.The promise is that all the processing of your data, all the heavy lifting of sorting through your information to find the patterns and tease out the useful interactions, can be done ENTIRELY on the phone without ever exposing your information to offsite processing. Do I buy it? Maybe. The fact of the matter is, though, Apple is the only vendor in this space explicitly touting the privacy and security of their solution. Amazon pays it lip service, and Google\u2026well, Google has never made any secret of the fact that you\u2019re the product, not the customer. (Another reason I try to avoid their products at all costs, and mostly succeed – except for occasional use of YouTube or text messages to a Google Voice number, or the old Moto X experiment.)<\/p>\n

The problem is, there\u2019s just so much that goes to the cloud anyway now. It\u2019s not just storage – Apple had the 100 MB iDisk product as part of the original iTools in 2000, which is probably why Steve Jobs dismissed Dropbox as a feature rather than a product – it\u2019s processing. Try using Siri offline. Doesn\u2019t work. That external processing is mandatory for parsing voice commands. Signal is only slightly above battery in Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Modern Needs. And then there\u2019s the whole bit about how the Big Four kind of have you stuck. Only Apple isn\u2019t really doing much with services beyond what is needed for independence from the others for email and music and the line – Google, Amazon and Facebook all have the ability to reconstruct fairly detailed profiles of your interest and behaviors.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s before taking into account the fact that their information is probably not dissimilar to what the big credit bureaus have, and Equifax just demonstrated how well protected that is. The majority of American adults now have their golden-ticket personal ID out somewhere for the use of nefarious types, to the point that we may have to institute credit-freeze-by-default as a security measure. Which they don\u2019t want, obviously, because they make their money providing your information to others. And before saying \u201cthat\u2019s different\u201d, consider that the use of Facebook and other social media in credit ranking is already out there<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve poured our lives into the Internet with no thought of security. Facebook in particular got away with the greatest bait and switch in history, offering a walled garden in exchange for your real identity before dynamiting the walls. Throw in the whole \u201cwe accidentally the election\u201d and Fuckerberg deserves to be in Gitmo trading cigarettes, not acting like nobody notices him running for President. \u00a0Too many companies have spent too much time and made too much money off our data without protecting it. A genuinely populist movement would be pushing back against that. Hard. But we don\u2019t have populism in this country, just redneckery dressed up as populism by the kind of assholes who assume that \u201cpeople\u201d means \u201cwhite.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, get as far off Google and Facebook as you can. Maybe you can keep secure and unprobed. I doubt it, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ultimately, the thing is this: at some point the Google Now-like service has to be something that does all its data mining and processing locally\u00a0on the phone itself.\u00a0Independent or at least agnostic of service provider, able to get useful info out of your work email without compromising your security in doing so and able to … <\/p>\n

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