Hi HC, Quoting Hans-Christoph Steiner (2015-01-09 20:18:23) > Jonas Smedegaard: >> Quoting Hans-Christoph Steiner (2015-01-09 16:01:55) >>> I'm digging through the guts of how apps are sharing location >>> information. For the most part, its not a great situation, but there >>> is a lot of hope with the geo: URI (http://geouri.org). Anyway, >>> lots of Google apps share location using a http://goo.gl shortlink >>> (e.g. http://goo.gl/maps/V9dIV), which is even worse for a number of >>> reasons: >>> >>> * it uses http: to connect to goo.gl >>> >>> * the link that the goo.gl redirects to is also http://, so even if >>> you do https://goo.gl/maps/V9dIV, then the next step is http://. >>> >>> * the link that goo.gl redirects do obfuscates the latlong, so it >>> can't be parsed out of it by other apps, even though the final link >>> when you get to the page includes the latlong (very lame, Google). >> >> I wouldn't call it lame but a deliberate design to not expose >> semantics (gold to them) but replace that with tracking URLs (more >> gold to them). >> >> >>> Any ideas on how an app can get the latlong securely? One simple >>> way to improve this situation would be to pass something in the >>> query string to https://goo.gl/maps/V9dIV to make it only use HTTPS. >>> Anyone know if anything like that exists? Or is that ftid thing >>> parseable? >>> >>> Otherwise, I think an app will have to actually connect to >>> https://goo.gl/maps/V9dIV, then get the redirect URL and convert it >>> to HTTPS. >> >> I expect it is by design not possible to resolve the underlying >> geodata securely. If my suspicion is correct, then I guess the only >> possibility is if someone hosts a proxy to expand those tracking URLs >> on behalf of privacy-concerned users (who then would need to trust >> that proxy to not log anything). > > I think you're a bit more paranoid than warranted ;-). Google doesn't > need to make special URLs to track people, they track everything that > hits their servers. But it does look like they are trying to prevent > people from parsing the location out of their shared URLs.
For the record, my remark here was not about paranoia, but business logic: I do not expect Google to implement redirection schemes with an aim of _monitoring_ but to conduct their core business: harvest¹ statistics for use in analyzing and selling knowledge on behavoural patterns on the internet. Yes, they do need to serve obfuscated extra-roundtrip URLs if they want to avoid URLs being cached - i.e. if they want most possible uses of a URL to be registered by them. Do you think they are simply sloppy in their systems design, or...? > As for using HTTPS, it is fully possible to force the whole thing over > HTTPS, you just have to do it manually. And if you use Chrome, then > it would be automatically forced to HTTPS anyway. Right - if your concern here is not tracking URLs but 3rd party monitoring of necessary roundtrips to Google to resolve those obfuscated geodata URLs, then you are right, custom s/\bhttp:/https:/ is possible. > The upside is that Google has done a good job making geo: URIs > standard in Android. All the map apps accept them, and they are part > of their developer documentation. And Bill Gates sponsors money to developing countries. I don't see the how appraisal of Google's involvement in inventing the geo: protocol is any relevant for discussing cases where they do not embrace that very same standard. - Jonas ¹ When Google argue that metadata is not as harmful to harvest as data, I can follow their logic - even if I disagree that metadata harvesting is outright harmless. -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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