Google’s Pixel 8 and 8 Pro can now be located even with a dead battery

Without reading, let me guess how this works, and then click the link and see if I was right.

It tracks the location of your phone constantly when it does have power, and sends that to the cloud for "find my phone purposes".

1712608202557.png


Then if you use find my phone, it shows you the last place it was before the battery died?

Of course Google keeps that location data to "better serve you ads".

Edit:

Wow, I was wrong. It is even more creepy than that.

They save spare power in a dedicated capacitor/battery especially for the bluetooth chip, so they can track your location even when your phone is off.

How there has not been a violent revolution against these big brother assholes yet, I don't understand.

Humanity is pathetic.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Wow, I was wrong. It is even more creepy than that.

They save spare power in a dedicated capacitor/battery especially for the bluetooth chip, so they can track your location even when your phone is off.

How there has not been a violent revolution against these big brother assholes yet, I don't understand.

Humanity is pathetic.
Click to expand...
$1500 phones being stolen or lost is more of a concern than google knowing which of my usual two places i am currently at. And if i go and get my firearms and go rush google headquarters, it really wont end well for me. Not really the violent type anyways.
 
Darunion said:
$1500 phones being stolen or lost is more of a concern than google knowing which of my usual two places i am currently at. And if i go and get my firearms and go rush google headquarters, it really wont end well for me. Not really the violent type anyways.
Click to expand...

I'm not terribly concerned about Googles intended uses for my data. At least not yet. I fully believe that they only intend to anonymously serve me ads. That's how they make money, and they want to make money.

Google has actually been pretty effective at keeping as much of that data as possible for themselves, but that's only because it gives them a competitive edge, if they have the data and no one else does. (that's why they got rid of third party cookies in Chrome. They want to be the only ones to vacuum up your data)

I'm more concerned about the misuse of such data by others who get their hands on it once it is collected. Google employees, thieves, data miners, data brokers, etc. Not to mention probable NSA "national security letters" issued to companies that have that data, who are then not allowed to mention that they received a secret national security letter.

GM cars collecting data and selling it to Lexis Nexis, who then sells it on to insurance companies is probably a bigger concern.
 
I think the headline is a bit more threatening sounding than it actually is. It would continue to serve location based bluetooth tracking for a few hours after a "dead" battery. When your phone powers off from a "dead" battery it still has a bit of juice left. Phones will power down before critical low for battery longevity. This is just leveraging a little bit of juice left.

It's not going to track you weeks on end after a phone's battery has been drained.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm not terribly concerned about Googles intended uses for my data. At least not yet. I fully believe that they only intend to anonymously serve me ads. That's how they make money, and they want to make money.

Google has actually been pretty effective at keeping as much of that data as possible for themselves, but that's only because it gives them a competitive edge, if they have the data and no one else does. (that's why they got rid of third party cookies in Chrome. They want to be the only ones to vacuum up your data)

I'm more concerned about the misuse of such data by others who get their hands on it once it is collected. Google employees, thieves, data miners, data brokers, etc. Not to mention probable NSA "national security letters" issued to companies that have that data, who are then not allowed to mention that they received a secret national security letter.

GM cars collecting data and selling it to Lexis Nexis, who then sells it on to insurance companies is probably a bigger concern.
Click to expand...
Honestly, the NSA or other gov't agency doesn't need to worry about national security letters, getting a rubber stamp FISA court order etc...when they can just buy that data from public data brokers, invest in barely 'anonymized' micro-targeted advertising platforms be it Google, Facebook or elsewhere that expose that data, or other methods that have less legal and PR pitfalls. Its so disappointing that people can always find the time to get angry at public or government behavior legitimately or otherwise, but we allow massive invasions of privacy to come from the private sector and people either ignore or outright defend such behavior, even when those involved are caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar. That however, is a bigger discussion...

In any event here, I'm going to be very interested if this Pixel 8 Pro feature is exposed in an open source/libre manner or if its something proprietary and if so, what level is it baked in upon? If I was running a custom ROM like GrapheneOS or DivestOS, will this be usable? Are there granular permissions to transparently enable and disable this sort of functionality? This isn't something that was developed with some sort of insidious nature inherent within - the potential for those to track their phone, or use their phone to find their other tagged items like keys etc..is a more likely rationale than another method to track "persons of interest" , but that doesn't mean it can't have unintended consequences. The bigger issue is what kind of control will users , and more importantly any third party have over its functionality. Setting up a profile to save a bit of battery life for Bluetooth use is one thing, but if its some sort of special surrepticious function that's limited to a binary blob for accessing hardware specific proprietary functionaity within the SoC used exclusively in newer Pixel devices that's something different. Those who never use "find my device" related features shoud be able to disable this behaivor if they don't want their devices always prioritizing trackable Bluetooth signals for others to query and if they can't, that's a problem.
 
RanceJustice said:
Honestly, the NSA or other gov't agency doesn't need to worry about national security letters, getting a rubber stamp FISA court order etc...when they can just buy that data from public data brokers, invest in barely 'anonymized' micro-targeted advertising platforms be it Google, Facebook or elsewhere that expose that data, or other methods that have less legal and PR pitfalls. Its so disappointing that people can always find the time to get angry at public or government behavior legitimately or otherwise, but we allow massive invasions of privacy to come from the private sector and people either ignore or outright defend such behavior, even when those involved are caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar. That however, is a bigger discussion...

In any event here, I'm going to be very interested if this Pixel 8 Pro feature is exposed in an open source/libre manner or if its something proprietary and if so, what level is it baked in upon? If I was running a custom ROM like GrapheneOS or DivestOS, will this be usable? Are there granular permissions to transparently enable and disable this sort of functionality? This isn't something that was developed with some sort of insidious nature inherent within - the potential for those to track their phone, or use their phone to find their other tagged items like keys etc..is a more likely rationale than another method to track "persons of interest" , but that doesn't mean it can't have unintended consequences. The bigger issue is what kind of control will users , and more importantly any third party have over its functionality. Setting up a profile to save a bit of battery life for Bluetooth use is one thing, but if its some sort of special surrepticious function that's limited to a binary blob for accessing hardware specific proprietary functionaity within the SoC used exclusively in newer Pixel devices that's something different. Those who never use "find my device" related features shoud be able to disable this behaivor if they don't want their devices always prioritizing trackable Bluetooth signals for others to query and if they can't, that's a problem.
Click to expand...
Blue tooth BLE setup for beacon runs a couple microamps during a pulse and will sleep in the nanoamp range. It won't take any noticeable amount of usage from the battery. So maybe in the grand scheme, a few days of tracking ability from a powered down phone would maybe be 5seconds of on time? Extreme but might not be far off. Think of remote temp sensors for thermostats, running over a year on a small coin cell.
 
Ihaveworms said:
I think the headline is a bit more threatening sounding than it actually is. It would continue to serve location based bluetooth tracking for a few hours after a "dead" battery. When your phone powers off from a "dead" battery it still has a bit of juice left. Phones will power down before critical low for battery longevity. This is just leveraging a little bit of juice left.

It's not going to track you weeks on end after a phone's battery has been drained.
Click to expand...
My issue is that it can be tracked if I decide to power it off. I've powered it off for a reason.

It's not convenient.
 
auntjemima said:
My issue is that it can be tracked if I decide to power it off. I've powered it off for a reason.

It's not convenient.
Click to expand...
Trackable from something looking for it within 10-100meters depending how strong they run it for.
 
Darunion said:
Trackable from something looking for it within 10-100meters depending how strong they run it for.
Click to expand...

I am curious about something specific. I read the article ,but I feel like maybe I missed something.

It powers a Bluetooth chip... Not wifi. So if I do "find my device", I would technically have to do so via bt. How?
 
auntjemima said:
I am curious about something specific. I read the article ,but I feel like maybe I missed something.

It powers a Bluetooth chip... Not wifi. So if I do "find my device", I would technically have to do so via bt. How?
Click to expand...
ble has directional sensing so it can do warmer/colder as you get closer and also know if you are facing it and help get you to turn the right way.

I believe it also uses 2 arrays to get angle for distance. but that im not 100% on.
 
Darunion said:
ble has directional sensing so it can do warmer/colder as you get closer and also know if you are facing it and help get you to turn the right way.

I believe it also uses 2 arrays to get angle for distance. but that im not 100% on.
Click to expand...
Interesting.
 
Darunion said:
Blue tooth BLE setup for beacon runs a couple microamps during a pulse and will sleep in the nanoamp range. It won't take any noticeable amount of usage from the battery. So maybe in the grand scheme, a few days of tracking ability from a powered down phone would maybe be 5seconds of on time? Extreme but might not be far off. Think of remote temp sensors for thermostats, running over a year on a small coin cell.
Click to expand...
Oh I'm aware that it doesn't use much power - a factor that makes it a useful addition when intended for use, but one that makes it more concerning if cannot be controlled or not without very granular process management inspection; you're not likely to be aware of a process drinking power excessively or or other signs that something unintended is happening. If its simply an efficient power delivery option for BLE, sequestering power to act as a beacon for an extended duration when it is turned on and certain other features are enabled that's fine, but if it cannot be disabled with ease and the various software/firmware/hardware for its use and control are not openly accessible, that's not acceptable.

Even if its just 100 meters or so, its an issue of networking. The article mentions that Apple and Samsung's trackers that work similar ways (unsure if they have the same sort of hardware the Pixel does to sustain the tracking hours after power down or not, but I am guessing that as far as the beacon BLE functionality its all very similar) that involve "large networks of other people's devices to detect yours" . Even if its just 10-100 meters, think of all the people you pass, all the people they pass and the huge amount of information that can be gleaned from this sort of thing. If someone can shut down their phone before going to a protest, and for "several hours afterward" , the Pixel back up BLE broadcast is still pinging I AM HERE WHO ARE YOU THANK YOU MAKING A LIST to every other device n the area, clearly you can see how it couldn't be desirable - and that's even before other sorts of geolocation from GPS to A-GPS cell tower triangulation, to WiFi etc..get invoved.

Its not a bad feature entirely but like anything else, it needs to be transparently and verifiably under the control of the user. Having phones that don't actually shut down when you think they do, or continue to broadcast certain tracking compatible features "for your convenience" without a verifiable way to disable them is not acceptable
 
RanceJustice said:
Oh I'm aware that it doesn't use much power - a factor that makes it a useful addition when intended for use, but one that makes it more concerning if cannot be controlled or not without very granular process management inspection; you're not likely to be aware of a process drinking power excessively or or other signs that something unintended is happening. If its simply an efficient power delivery option for BLE, sequestering power to act as a beacon for an extended duration when it is turned on and certain other features are enabled that's fine, but if it cannot be disabled with ease and the various software/firmware/hardware for its use and control are not openly accessible, that's not acceptable.

Even if its just 100 meters or so, its an issue of networking. The article mentions that Apple and Samsung's trackers that work similar ways (unsure if they have the same sort of hardware the Pixel does to sustain the tracking hours after power down or not, but I am guessing that as far as the beacon BLE functionality its all very similar) that involve "large networks of other people's devices to detect yours" . Even if its just 10-100 meters, think of all the people you pass, all the people they pass and the huge amount of information that can be gleaned from this sort of thing. If someone can shut down their phone before going to a protest, and for "several hours afterward" , the Pixel back up BLE broadcast is still pinging I AM HERE WHO ARE YOU THANK YOU MAKING A LIST to every other device n the area, clearly you can see how it couldn't be desirable - and that's even before other sorts of geolocation from GPS to A-GPS cell tower triangulation, to WiFi etc..get invoved.

Its not a bad feature entirely but like anything else, it needs to be transparently and verifiably under the control of the user. Having phones that don't actually shut down when you think they do, or continue to broadcast certain tracking compatible features "for your convenience" without a verifiable way to disable them is not acceptable
Click to expand...
Thank you for expanding on you point, I think I understand more clearly.

I do feel there should be some means of completely disabling. What comes to mind are adult run aways, like abuse victims that while they prollly should just trash the phone might not like having a back door means of still being tracked and found.
 
Darunion said:
Thank you for expanding on you point, I think I understand more clearly.

I do feel there should be some means of completely disabling. What comes to mind are adult run aways, like abuse victims that while they prollly should just trash the phone might not like having a back door means of still being tracked and found.
Click to expand...
Why does it have to be so specific at all? Why a specific use-case to get people behind it

How about I just want my phone to be OFF when I turn it off? Seems reasonable to me.
 
auntjemima said:
Why does it have to be so specific at all? Why a specific use-case to get people behind it

How about I just want my phone to be OFF when I turn it off? Seems reasonable to me.
Click to expand...
Because it has to be otherwise google feels like it knows better of what you want than you do.

It should have a power off, power off beacon off options
 
"The cloud AI" already knows where you were, where you are now, and where you are going next, so what's different now ?

Track me, slack me, I don't care, cause I don't go to places I shouldn't, just don't jack me !

So the REAL question now is how much longer before the googly & the carriers use this as an just ANUTHA pitiful excuse to jack up their fees even more....somebody's gotta pay for all that extremely excessive bluetooth bandwidth usage ya know hahahaha :D
 
I miss the days when Samsung would give you their phones for free if you would let them track you. RIP Samsung Insights.
 
Egads, the leaps to conclusions are so large here that you'd think it was a long jump competition.

This doesn't mean Google is spying on your whereabouts even when your phone is off. The company even notes that location data is end-to-end encrypted, and the crowdsourced data is provided in a way that prevents the company from tying it to individuals. This is literally just to help you find the phone that fell out of your pocket in the parking lot.
 
Aurelius said:
Egads, the leaps to conclusions are so large here that you'd think it was a long jump competition.

This doesn't mean Google is spying on your whereabouts even when your phone is off. The company even notes that location data is end-to-end encrypted, and the crowdsourced data is provided in a way that prevents the company from tying it to individuals. This is literally just to help you find the phone that fell out of your pocket in the parking lot.
Click to expand...
"It's totally anonymized, dude, we swear."

"It's completely incognito, we pinky promise."

Riiiiiiight.
 
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If you're on the internet then your data is out there. You can jump through a bunch of hoops to pretend that you data is secure and anonymous, but it's like wearing a hat and sunglasses at the airport.
 
Domingo said:
If you're on the internet then your data is out there. You can jump through a bunch of hoops to pretend that you data is secure and anonymous, but it's like wearing a hat and sunglasses at the airport.
Click to expand...
I can deny the browser access to location data. Does it really? Who knows.
 
jfreund said:
"It's totally anonymized, dude, we swear."

"It's completely incognito, we pinky promise."

Riiiiiiight.
Click to expand...
If it's end-to-end encrypted, then it's going to be very tough to access. Google may thrive on user data, but I really don't think it's quietly tracking users here.
 
Aurelius said:
If it's end-to-end encrypted, then it's going to be very tough to access. Google may thrive on user data, but I really don't think it's quietly tracking users here.
Click to expand...
Nobody's ever lied about encryption or possession of the keys, either. Or just had a "bug" affecting such.
 
Aurelius said:
If it's end-to-end encrypted, then it's going to be very tough to access. Google may thrive on user data, but I really don't think it's quietly tracking users here.
Click to expand...
They make so much overtly tracking, i dont think it would be worth the risk to secretly do something like that.
 
jfreund said:
Nobody's ever lied about encryption or possession of the keys, either. Or just had a "bug" affecting such.
Click to expand...
In this case I don't see a reason to lie. If anything, Google has a strong incentive to tell the truth as this is a selling point for the Pixel 8.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Without reading, let me guess how this works, and then click the link and see if I was right.

It tracks the location of your phone constantly when it does have power, and sends that to the cloud for "find my phone purposes".

View attachment 646380

Then if you use find my phone, it shows you the last place it was before the battery died?

Of course Google keeps that location data to "better serve you ads".

Edit:

Wow, I was wrong. It is even more creepy than that.

They save spare power in a dedicated capacitor/battery especially for the bluetooth chip, so they can track your location even when your phone is off.

How there has not been a violent revolution against these big brother assholes yet, I don't understand.

Humanity is pathetic.
Click to expand...

cyberpunk_dystopia.jpg
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm more concerned about the misuse of such data by others who get their hands on it once it is collected. Google employees, thieves, data miners, data brokers, etc. Not to mention probable NSA "national security letters" issued to companies that have that data, who are then not allowed to mention that they received a secret national security letter.
Click to expand...
You will be justified to know that the House (and soon Senate/President) reauthorized spying on Americans through warrantless FISA searches.

Darunion said:
$1500 phones being stolen or lost is more of a concern than google knowing which of my usual two places i am currently at.
Click to expand...
Maybe you should think again about that mentality. Even if stolen, the police don't care about your $1500 phone, anyway.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Maybe you should think again about that mentality. Even if stolen, the police don't care about your $1500 phone, anyway.
Click to expand...

Well more so lost, i misplace stuff so that is actually useful to me. But if it is stolen, still knowing that location is more valuable to me versus google tracking me, when they do on everything else already. I don't even have police where i live anyway lol. Couple towns over they do.
 
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