Reefa Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Quote The buzziest thing Google announced at its I/O conference Wednesday was Allo, a chatbot-enabled smartphone messaging app that looks to take on iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and the Facebook-owned WhatsApp. Early sentiment about Allo is overwhelmingly positive: It looks beautiful, lets you doodle on images before you send them, comes with stickers as well as emojis, and it’s the first Google product to offer end-to-end encryption, which is certainly a good thing. But if you care at all about your privacy, you should not use Google Allo. Allo’s big innovation is “Google Assistant,” a Siri competitor that will give personalized suggestions and answers to your questions on Allo as well as on the newly announced Google Home, which is a competitor to Amazon’s Echo. On Allo, Google Assistant will learn how you talk to certain friends and offer suggested replies to make responding easier. Let that sink in for a moment: The selling point of this app is that Google will read your messages, for your convenience. Quote Allo even has Incognito chats https://t.co/XrQjdWgTYs #liveblog #io16 pic.twitter.com/mfL2TOp7yE — CNET (@CNET) May 18, 2016 Google would be insane to not offer some version of end-to-end encryption in a chat app in 2016, when all of its biggest competitors have it enabled by default. Allo uses the Signal Protocol for its encryption, which is good. But as with all other Google products, Allo will work much better if you let Google into your life. Google is banking on the idea that you won’t want to enable Incognito Mode, and thus won't enable encryption. Lots of people use Chrome’s Incognito Mode for searching for porn or other sensitive or embarrassing stuff, but how many people use Incognito for every search? Likewise, it’s smart to turn off location history in Google Maps because once Google has that data, it's out of your control. As with any app that collects personal data, it's hard to know where that data will eventually end up: in the hands of a hacker or law enforcement, for example. However, turning off location history means you have to type in your full home address every time you want directions home. Quote Making encryption opt-in was a decision made by the business and legal teams. It enables Google to mine chats and not piss off governments. — Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) May 18, 2016 With Allo, the stated purpose of the app is to have a Google bot integrated into a messaging app, so that it can specifically learn more about you. In doing so, the messages you send to your friends will be more tailored—maybe it’ll suggest a coffee shop that’s halfway between you and the person you’re flirting with, for example. Google will have your express permission to mine your conversations for both your own benefit and the benefit of the company’s business interests (Gboard, Google’s new keyboard app with Google integration, has many of the same problems). Quote Google Allo's incognito mode is basically a sexting mode — Tom Warren (@tomwarren) May 18, 2016 Allo is fundamentally different in this way than Hangouts or Gchat. With those two programs, Google showed no interest in injecting its own suggestions into what you type and thus showed no interest in learning more about you. Allo, on the other hand, is the first major messaging app to have the express purpose of learning everything about you, further fleshing out Google’s already comprehensive profile of you. And so, of course it’s going to be less fun or useful when you’ve turned off that core feature. In that sense, it’s also entirely different than Facebook Messenger’s ‘M’ assistant bot (which may actually be a human). With M, you are speaking one-on-one with a bot, the bot isn’t monitoring every single thing you say to your friends. One final note about Allo’s place in the current encryption debate: The FBI only started getting upset about the state of crypto after Apple and Google announced that they were going to turn on encryption on their smartphones by default. Before those announcements, encrypting your iPhone or Android device was possible and easy, but few people actually did it. Quote The FBI stopped asking for backdoors a while back. Now they are just asking firms to not encrypt by default. The FBI will like Google Allo. — Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) May 18, 2016 And so my point isn’t that Allo is evil or Google is evil. But Allo’s security and privacy features are skin deep at best, and we should treat the app for what it is: Yet another chance for Google to learn more about you. We’ve seen time and time again that people only use privacy tools when they are seamless and don’t affect the overall experience of using the app or program. With Allo, collecting data is core to the value it's offering. Google is giving consumers two options: Insecure with a wonderful user experience, or secure with an inferior experience. What do you think the masses are going to choose? source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vibranium Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 I agree with the warning. At the same time, most of the apps (especially free-to-play) already demand an insane level of rights. Who knows how many % of Android phones are already sitting ducks for privacy violation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc71520 Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 3 hours ago, vibranium said: most of the apps (especially free-to-play) already demand an insane level of rights. Free to invade your Privacy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 Quote Edward Snowden Thinks Google's Allo Is 'Dangerous' And 'Unsafe' Right Now "Allo" is a new messaging app created by Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s Google, whose main feature will be a Google assistant. According to The Verge, Allo will act as a "fresh start" for Google's communication's division. The publication noted that Allo contains the "usual chat app stuff" including emojis and the ability to send photos. However, what sets it apart from other chat apps is the integration of the Google assistant. "You can set up a conversation with @google and ask it all sorts of questions," The Verge explained. "It'll respond with the stuff you've come to expect from typing into a Google search box — but it'll also engage in a bit of a conversation with you. It'll suggest further searches, and give you ways to do things that Google can do — like book a table with OpenTable." Engadget also pointed out that Allo uses its Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption which may be "strong enough" for privacy advocates like Edward Snowden to approve. But does Snowden approve? According to a Tweet he made on Thursday, it appears to be a resounding no. Quote Google's decision to disable end-to-end encryption by default in its new #Allo chat app is dangerous, and makes it unsafe. Avoid it for now. — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) May 19, 2016 The Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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