Call recording

[silversolver 849]

15 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

Luckily it is not ONLY up to the individual to abide to the law in all countries.

There might well be legislation requiring a device to have limitations build in. Just as certain devices are not allowed to be sold without special permits. (e.g. lethal weapon in many countries).

E.g. in Denmark the Scooters sold have to have the maximum speed capped. Of course you are still not allowed to exceed the speed limits for the model say down hill, that part is the users responsibility.

I believe there is an EU legislation that require phones to not go above a certain volume without explicit consent (Android does this for us for the Pro1).

And I'm pretty sure there are legal limits on the sending power from the antennas too.

I'm well aware that many governments feel the need to babysit everyone, and I don't feel that is lucky. Freeing people from the need to take personal responsibility for their actions by removing choices doesn't make society better over time because it makes people less competent to self-manage over time, and then even more choices have to be removed, and then people become even less competent to self-manage, and then.....you get the idea.

Certainly in the case of the phones the default settings, and the way it operates out of the box should comply with every conceivable mandate. However, removing the ability of the user to change the way it operates because they might break a law by doing so is treating everyone like children, and I resent that.

[Rob. S. 1,661]

4 hours ago, D1ggs said:

Record away, keep it to yourself

Just to be clear on this, my posts on the matter were intended as an explanation why manufacturers might be not too eager to give us the feature, not as a conduct recommendation for users... 😉

That said, in many legislations evidence will be rejected and is therefore worthless when it was acquired illegally, and even if you'd present such evidence in a legislation where it is honoured, you might still get prosecuted for having recorded it in the first place and might even get condemned to pay compensation.

 
 

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Rob. S.

[Rob. S. 1,661]

3 hours ago, silversolver said:

Certainly in the case of the phones the default settings, and the way it operates out of the box should comply with every conceivable mandate. However, removing the ability of the user to change the way it operates because they might break a law by doing so is treating everyone like children, and I resent that.

I do sympathize with your general position there, but I guess the concrete intention in this case is not so much to babysit people so they'll not get into trouble by breaking the law, but that the manufacturers themselves want to avoid a reality of many complaining users, which could be either users complaining about getting caught breaking the law with their phones while they didn't know they did, or people who complain that they were illegally recorded and the phones allow it.

Which I also guess is the intention of restrictive laws in the matter – not so much trying to babysit people, but to protect people from being recorded without their knowing. To ensure the privacy of communication by phone as much as it is possible. Which I generally appreciate, too, since privacy of communication has been under attack from so many sides over the last two decades – including, of course, governments.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Rob. S.

[silversolver 849]

18 hours ago, Rob. S. said:

I do sympathize with your general position there, but I guess the concrete intention in this case is not so much to babysit people so they'll not get into trouble by breaking the law, but that the manufacturers themselves want to avoid a reality of many complaining users, which could be either users complaining about getting caught breaking the law with their phones while they didn't know they did, or people who complain that they were illegally recorded and the phones allow it.

Which I also guess is the intention of restrictive laws in the matter – not so much trying to babysit people, but to protect people from being recorded without their knowing. To ensure the privacy of communication by phone as much as it is possible. Which I generally appreciate, too, since privacy of communication has been under attack from so many sides over the last two decades – including, of course, governments.

 

 

Honestly, the only party I find it upsetting that they might be recording me is the government. If I'm talking to someone and don't want them to have a recording of me saying something, I shouldn't say it, should I? It's like when facebook went to timeline view and people complained that their private messages were made public.....only they weren't. People just couldn't fathom that they actually said those things in public, but they did. If I'm talking to someone and they choose to record it, so be it. I do my best to only say things that are repeatable, and not tell profound secrets on the phone.

The government is just eavesdropping on everyone because they can, and it's none of their stinking business. That I mind.

Edited January 17, 2020 by silversolver

[Doktor Oswaldo 904]

7 hours ago, silversolver said:

Honestly, the only party I find it upsetting that they might be recording me is the government. If I'm talking to someone and don't want them to have a recording of me saying something, I shouldn't say it, should I? It's like when facebook went to timeline view and people complained that their private messages were made public.....only they weren't. People just couldn't fathom that they actually said those things in public, but they did. If I'm talking to someone and they choose to record it, so be it. I do my best to only say things that are repeatable, and not tell profound secrets on the phone.

The government is just eavesdropping on everyone because they can, and it's none of their stinking business. That I mind.

You mean you are okay with f.e. your insurance getting more expensive or even cancelled because you talked to your friend about your hurting leg? or googled it?
The whole danger behind it is not that someone tries to blackmail you, the whole danger is bleeding you out.
The more data they have they more money they gonna make from you. In the end the big target of a lot of companies is user based pricing.
So since they now you love f.e. chocolate, they gonna sell it for 7 bucks to you !

Edited January 17, 2020 by Doktor Oswaldo

[silversolver 849]

3 hours ago, Doktor Oswaldo said:

You mean you are okay with f.e. your insurance getting more expensive or even cancelled because you talked to your friend about your hurting leg? or googled it?
The whole danger behind it is not that someone tries to blackmail you, the whole danger is bleeding you out.
The more data they have they more money they gonna make from you. In the end the big target of a lot of companies is user based pricing.
So since they now you love f.e. chocolate, they gonna sell it for 7 bucks to you !

If I talked to my friend about my hurting leg and they recorded it, I fail to see what a friend would do with such a recording that would affect my insurance. On the other hand, Google is known to be evil, so I don't give them any information at all, precisely because I don't trust them to be ethical with it, albeit that's somewhat off topic here. Farcebook is very much the same way, so about the only thing they know about me is that I like driving through the woods in weird old cars.....hardly a monetizable fact. :) Certainly large corporations can and do find ways to monetize information about users, but recording phone conversations  has little to nothing to do with that, hence why the very real problem you describe is an internet-era problem.

Speak of user-based pricing, did you know that some online merchants show higher prices to people browsing with more expensive devices? User-based pricing is already a thing.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

1 hour ago, silversolver said:

Speak of user-based pricing, did you know that some online merchants show higher prices to people browsing with more expensive devices? User-based pricing is already a thing.

....And expect higher prices in offers with "Personalised ads" as they already know you are interested. But with random ads the seller hope to catch new users by impulse purchases, thus higher offered discounts are likely....

[Doktor Oswaldo 904]

On 1/17/2020 at 1:25 PM, silversolver said:

If I talked to my friend about my hurting leg and they recorded it, I fail to see what a friend would do with such a recording that would affect my insurance. On the other hand, Google is known to be evil, so I don't give them any information at all, precisely because I don't trust them to be ethical with it, albeit that's somewhat off topic here. Farcebook is very much the same way, so about the only thing they know about me is that I like driving through the woods in weird old cars.....hardly a monetizable fact. 🙂Certainly large corporations can and do find ways to monetize information about users, but recording phone conversations  has little to nothing to do with that, hence why the very real problem you describe is an internet-era problem.

Speak of user-based pricing, did you know that some online merchants show higher prices to people browsing with more expensive devices? User-based pricing is already a thing.

Your friend uses a strange gallery app on his phone, the recording is uploaded and that is it. The data is merged with your account, your insurance may buy it, done.

I know there already is user based pricing, especially if you are gonna book a flight. My point is, that this is the wet dream of any economic student who thinks he understands the whole world. This is extremely dangerous and one of the reasons why data is sooo dam valuable.

[silversolver 849]

@Doktor Oswaldo Your scenario is not exactly what we were discussing, though. In your scenario, neither party has reason to believe anything is being recorded, but it is. Interestingly, a number of my friends are suspicious of Farcebook's Messenger doing this. Your scenario is data gained without the consent of either party through dishonest means, i.e., fraud. Certainly laws should and do exist to address fraud, including situations like this. That is different than my friend recording their calls and storing them locally for their own review.

[Doktor Oswaldo 904]

14 minutes ago, silversolver said:

@Doktor Oswaldo Your scenario is not exactly what we were discussing, though. In your scenario, neither party has reason to believe anything is being recorded, but it is. Interestingly, a number of my friends are suspicious of Farcebook's Messenger doing this. Your scenario is data gained without the consent of either party through dishonest means, i.e., fraud. Certainly laws should and do exist to address fraud, including situations like this. That is different than my friend recording their calls and storing them locally for their own review.

Not exactly what I meant. What I meant is that your friend just records all calls and another app does scan the storage.
The permissions for that are easy to get.

[silversolver 849]

12 hours ago, Doktor Oswaldo said:

Not exactly what I meant. What I meant is that your friend just records all calls and another app does scan the storage.
The permissions for that are easy to get.

OK, but still an app that uploads a users files without their consent is committing fraud, right? Companies that do that should be punished. It is certainly true that having the recordings on the device makes data theft possible, but that is true of anything on one's phone. That someone might steal and misuse data doesn't justify banning the private posession and collection of data on events in which you were involved, IMO.

Edited January 21, 2020 by silversolver

[Doktor Oswaldo 904]

6 hours ago, silversolver said:

OK, but still an app that uploads a users files without their consent is committing fraud, right? Companies that do that should be punished. It is certainly true that having the recordings on the device makes data theft possible, but that is true of anything on one's phone. That someone might steal and misuse data doesn't justify banning the private posession and collection of data on events in which you were involved, IMO.

Not necessarily fraud. You know an audio player sends "anonym data" to increase quality. Or A voice assistant scans recording to improve the product. After all Microsoft analyses your skype calls. This is even compatible with the GDPR and we should not even start with US "data protection" laws. 
So even if we ignore that there are millions of shady apps out there which do illegal stuff, at least the call recording app could collect the calls. And I am pretty sure there are a lot of other loopholes.
The problem is that anonym data nearly always can me merged into a known dataset.

I understand the urge to record calls to protect yourself from shady calls. But there are ways which are to be preferred (at least in my opinion).
Do not talk to people you don't know on the phone. Use a app which shows you if the number calling you is registered. Your bank will not call you from an unregistered number block. However the situation in your country may be different and it should also not be your problem. The only real solution is to vote for people who will stop shady business practices.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Doktor Oswaldo

[EskeRahn 5,460]

1 hour ago, Doktor Oswaldo said:

The only real solution is to vote for people who will stop shady business practices

Though always a good idea to vote for people like that, promoting that to a "solution" is a bit on the optimistic side IMHO. But at the least it can remove the option of doing stuff like that legally.

A part of the solution is open source, so all the shady stuff can be detected, as is needed before it can be avoided.

[Doktor Oswaldo 904]

4 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

Though always a good idea to vote for people like that, promoting that to a "solution" is a bit on the optimistic side IMHO. But at the least it can remove the option of doing stuff like that legally.

A part of the solution is open source, so all the shady stuff can be detected, as is needed before it can be avoided.

Sorry I was unclear. That would only solve the issue of stuff like skype does. Not the illegal activity.
And I was talking about it in relation to the law against call recording. Illegal stuff does not really care about that.
 

I of course wholeheartedly agree with your promotion of FOSS!
And you all should pay attention and try to protect yourself.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Doktor Oswaldo

[EskeRahn 5,460]

1 hour ago, Doktor Oswaldo said:

I of course wholeheartedly agree with your promotion of FOSS!

Actually it could be interesting if there were set up some (preferably multilateral) agency that could give us something in between closed source and open source. Some sort of "Verified source", that would allow companies to keep their trade secrets close, but yet have independent parties verifying that the code is benign, and does what is described only,

....But now I'm moving the thread off topic.

[silversolver 849]

@Doktor Oswaldo There is a reason I avoid programs which collect any data wherever possible. Those few that I do use which do also allow it to be disabled. FOSS solves so much of this garbage; because the community is directly involved in the development of the product, there is no need to spy on end users, anonymously or otherwise, for quality feedback.

This is the model F(x)tec has taken with Pro1. @EskeRahn And we're back on topic. ROFL!

[vnipicom 1]

There is a working method to install and activate call recorder (I use it for the second week running record with a line without any problems)

in russian forums:

https://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=263718&st=21500#entry73410633

I am trying to translate into English:

Call Recorder - SKVALEX

Those who do not have as root, but I want to to write calls since the answer, try the following:

1.1 Install apk - Call Recorder - SKVALEX on your phone
1.2 Install on the computer adb: ADB
1.3 Make sure the latest version Call Recorder - SKVALEX - 3.x software
2. Install the attached Call Recorder Add-on
3. Connect your phone to your computer. On your computer, in terminal, do the following:

adb shell pm grant org.skvalex.cr.root android.permission.READ_LOGS

4. On your phone, forcibly stop the Call Recorder Add-on.
5. Click "Start recording at the answer" in the program settings> recording

the files

CallRecorder_v.3.3.9.apk

and

CallRecorderAddOn_v.2.1.0.apk

you can download after registering on the forum

Edited June 16, 2020 by vnipicom

[hostar 17]

Recording using Skvalex works, you can hear both sides, but quality of the other side is sometimes bad and hard to understand. I wonder if any of the many settings can fix it...