You are confusing private contracts with government charters- the two don't necessarily relate. A private entity can give your data to whoever they want so long as you agree to it by accepting the ToS (provided they include the permission in the fine print). It's not wiretapping. You're giving the private entity free reign, and the private entity is giving the government free reign. Yes, it's legal. Yes, it's constitutional (according to current judicial precedent). The Constitution does not ban your ISP from tattling on you to the government as long as you agree to allow them by accepting their ToS. The Constitution only pertains to scenarios where the government wants to search someone or their possessions directly. If you give your possessions over to someone, and you sign a contract with them saying they can give it to the government, then it's not illegal for the government to take it.

I'm obviously not defending this, but this is just the current legal reality. Current common law precedent and overly-permissive DoJ civil law interpretation have conspired to allow this sort of loophole.

Exactly. As much as I love hating on Oracle, the blame lies on the Android Java team for not merging in those updates.

Speaking of that, has anyone presented a solution? I'm an app developer among other things, and I don't want my apps using old ciphers over important network infrastructure.

The provider almost certainly has a clause in their ToS/Contract specifying that they may turn over records for law enforcement purposes. I am going to guess that legally speaking, Basaaly Moalin does not have a leg to stand on.

The state security apparatus views third-party services as a way to circumvent pesky legal red tape like warrants. We need more companies that actually fight gag orders and warrantless data requests.

a rooted Android phone with some sort of toddler app mode or custom ROM.

That's just a way of dodging responsibility for your words and actions. You can offend somebody if you mean offense, and you meant offense. Internet pseudo-anonymity doesn't change the fact that you were acting like an asshole to someone whose motivations you have no idea about (FYI: far from fanboy). Get off your high horse.

Despite my previous response, you still haven't told me how exactly I was being a fanboy. There is precedent for silly passive aggressive swipes against Linus Torvalds on Slashdot...remember the Sarah Sharp incident? And how she and others turned it into Big Bad Aggressive Male Developer vs the Feminist Civility Superheroes despite claiming that it wasn't a "gender issue"? It doesn't take being a fanboy to be frustrated by that sort of politicized nonsense.

The irrelevant inclusion of Torvalds falling to 101st definitely seemed to be on the same lines. It's like mentioning that the ever-controversial Rasmus Lerdorf isn't contributing as much to PHP development in an offhand way that isn't at all relevant to the actual issue of PHP development. Why else would it be said?

Calling someone a fanboy with all the abusive tone of Linus Torvalds. How ironic.

Just FYI, I'm not at all attached to Linus or the manner in which he conducts himself towards others...but the continual complaints and passive aggressive swipes can be even more tiring and petty than the man himself. Linus is just not all that big a deal. In what world is the statement "so-and-so has fallen out of the top 100 contributors, ALL THE WAY to 101st!" news? Why are we even talking about him, again? That's my question.

does that matter? He still maintains the repo, still performs the merges, still does the quality control, still determines the direction of future updates. As Slashdot is fond of saying, the quality of a developer isn't just determined by the number of lines or commits he contributes.

I don't know why that bit about Torvalds is even necessary, unless someone is trying to take a swipe at him. Again.

If you think the US government is willfully in bed with terrorists, then you're completely delusional.

Looking at your post history, it appears that your view on Foreign Policy is much the same Cold War-projected claptrap as makes our intelligence agencies so incompetent.

Never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity.

or actual infiltration?

The original Bin Laden al-Qaeda is practically non-existent, its Islamist affiliates are too busy trying to win over regimes in the mideast, Hamas is trying not to piss off the US considering that Obama has been much more pro-Palestinian. Hezbollah....maybe. We're talking about a few tens of thousands of eligible individuals here, most of them with Hezbollah and Hamas.

I have serious doubts that this is anything other than the Three Letter agencies trying to project a Cold War interpretation ("big centralized nation-state entity out to get us") onto a set of data that only shows small, disparate groups who are all actually too busy trying to avoid being smashed by the US, Israel, or the Arab League.

I'm one of the technical cofounders of a software startup. I'm often dumbfounded by how shortsighted my business counterparts are. Some of their behavior can be legitimately justified on account of their concern for the company's bottom line- but only some. For example, they have recently tried to outsource app development for the fourth time (that I know of), thinking it was a quick solution. And for the fourth time, it failed. After talking to them and hearing them go on about how it was still cheaper to outsource development work instead of hiring someone, I still don't think they've learned their lesson.

Their core problem is nothing more and nothing less than the fact that they are "business school" graduates. Because instead of running businesses in a technocratic manner with the intention of selling a good product, we instead need to train a separate class of people to do this nebulous thing called "business", which involves short-term thinking, buzzwords, and a ton of ass-kissing. And it seems that the ultimate purpose of this thing called "business" is just more "business".

Put your Tor client in a Secure Linux VM, so none of your hardware information can be exposed. Go to https://check.torproject.org/ to check if Tor is working, and make sure NoScript or something similar is enabled.

Ok, you have been mostly reasonable but this is kind of ridiculous. There is no way that my cell phone in my pocket can tell that I am looking at a specific billboard or building front.

I'm an Android Developer that develops autonomous high-detail locator apps for public transit telemetry systems running Android, but that wouldn't really tell you why I'm right. So I'll describe exactly why you're wrong.

Phone GPS/Network Location Providers can give speed/heading based on the direction and spacing of your last few positions. This tells me what direction you're headed (since most people don't walk backwards), and more importantly, I can use this information to normalize the output from the phone's accelerometer/tilt sensors. So if your phone is sideways in your pocket, my knowledge of your bearing lets me figure out how much the phone is offset from the standard "flat in hand front to back" orientation so that I'll be able to properly interpret the output from your tilt sensors. I'll be able to tell the difference between running and walking, I'll be able to tell when you move your torso relative to your legs.

I can also use wifi networks or network location providers to figure out where you are even if your GPS is off.

You're seriously underestimating the number of sensors on a standard Android device, and the complex inferences that can be drawn about their simple output.

I defy you to say that you would be capable or even willing to maintain custom ROMs for all of your associates and family

Most popular custom ROMs come with OTA updaters. There are third-party ROM updaters as well.

Once you've loaded a custom ROM you are excluded from any future automatic updates/security patches.

No you're not. ROM updates merge in the latest security patches.

It's not any different than the current problem with Android fragmentation and custom ROMs. If you follow that logic, it leads to a place nobody wants to be.

You either know very little about custom ROMs or you're not very competent at using them.

This comes across as a really contrived set of objections, for a number of reasons.

First of all, all the "they're reading my mind, man" objections can be put to rest with a custom ROM, as I already addressed. Same goes for cellphones.

Second, the "outward tracking" objection is naturally limited by battery power and user consent.

Third, you haven't really described how the basic capabilities differ from a cellphone. Yes, there's a cosmetic difference. But cellphones already accelerometers and tilt sensors- they can tell which direction you are facing and what position your body is in. The "outward tracking" distinction is superficial.

I'm not really a huge Glass fanatic, but these really just come across as whining from conspiracy theorists. Sure it could track your vitals. No, it won't unless you let it, otherwise every major government and data protection agency in the world will eat Google alive. Can you even imagine the EU fine?

Leave out the "slippery slope" objections until you've actually got evidence that such an undertaking would even be economical in the face of the coming ad bubble burst and the government fines.

"Google Glass is scary because it's easier to record others!"

You have a cellphone in your pocket capable of doing just that, and pinhole surveillance cameras have existed forever anyway.

"Google Glass is scary because GPS!"

Your cellphone doesn't even need an active GPS setting in order to be tracked. As an Android App developer, I can just use a Network Location Provider and triangulate your position to within 100-1000 meters. If you have a cellphone, you're being tracked just as easily as with Glass.

"Google Glass is scary because it might serve me ads!"

That's from an early video parody of Glass. Ads are against Google's guidelines.

"Google Glass is scary because they're trying to get us to depend on it, then sneakily put in ads and spyware!"

Even if they do that, we've already got the dumped firmware for Glass. Just run a custom ROM on it.

"Google Glass is scary because some pseudo-libertarian tech journalist told me to be scared!"

Oh ok, I guess that explains the inconsistency in your position. Funny how all these former pro-corporate tech gossip douchebags are suddenly worried about your rights. Where were they 10 years ago? And for that matter, where were you?