Court case and Cloud Storage Security

[PKR]

"Justices to weigh cell phone privacy in landmark case"

"If the government’s position wins, it would imperil the search queries people enter into Google or WebMD, our complete browsing histories showing everything we read online, the heart rate data from a smartwatch saved by Apple, a person’s whole life in photos uploaded to the cloud and so much more,” he said."

http://thehill.com/regulation/court...-to-weigh-cell-phone-privacy-in-landmark-case

 

[charjohncarter]

Boy, it seems like a complicated argument. It was a short article but does that mean that Uncle Sam (and with Franken behind the wheel who would want them to be able) to/can look at our cloud photos whenever they want; that is if the Supreme Court lets them?

 

[PKR]

Boy, it seems like a complicated argument. It was a short article but does that mean that Uncle Sam (and with Franken behind the wheel who would want them to be able) to/can look at our cloud photos whenever they want; that is if the Supreme Court lets them?

It would be great if one of the legal minds on the forum read the argument. To bad Roger isn't around.

I always have had a lawyer explain anything critical to me. Legal people have a lot invested in legal-speak. It's why they can charge big money for interpretation and advice.

I don't store any images on off site (cyber) sources. I have HDD and optical archived in off site "three dimensional" real world sites.

I'm old fashioned ..

 

[Beemermark]

It's really simple. To search your car or house the police need a search warrant, reviewed and approved by a judge. The police are claiming they do not need a search warrant to gather information that is available through a third party (that holds your information). So a third party could be your cell phone service, your bank, the car repair shop that has your vehicle, etc.

The 4th amendment has been watered down and diluted for the last 20 or 25 years until it is almost meaningless today.

 

[Chuck Albertson]

Boy, it seems like a complicated argument. It was a short article but does that mean that Uncle Sam (and with Franken behind the wheel who would want them to be able) to/can look at our cloud photos whenever they want; that is if the Supreme Court lets them?

No, it doesn't mean that, and that's not the question before the court. I suspect the court will treat this like it did the issue of pen register traces (records of phone numbers you called or were called from, but not the conversations that ensued) in the 1970's, and rule that a warrant isn't required. I *think* a warrant is required if the cops want to put a tracker on your car (for example), but I'm not that sure what the state of the law is on that point.

I've long viewed my mobile as little more than a government tracking device that I have to pay for. The fact that most people seem to be overjoyed to share their location data with Google, Uber and other third parties (by leaving "location services" enabled on their phone to work with their apps) reinforces the point that people don't have much of an expectation of privacy in records of their movements. You can always shut the pig off (and remove the batt) if you don't want to be tracked.

It's quite another thing to apply that reasoning to stuff you store on data servers (someone else's data servers), as most people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in it; that's why you have it password-protected. But who knows? If you have an account with one of those "free" email providers that scan your emails so they can harvest marketing data, how much of an expectation of privacy do you have in your comms?