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Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

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Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#41

Post by rdl »

gruez wrote: post #19
sneak wrote: post #9

It would appear that sometimes even paying for the service doesn’t mean you won’t end up as the product anyway. How can one avoid this kind of aggregated location tracking?

As long as you want to receive calls, the cell service provider will know your approximate location. If you have wifi available, you can mitigate this by only using a voip/messaging service like jmp.chat. You'll still be unavailable while on the road, though. If you have tons of money, satphone is always an option.

Satphones still get your location data, although by default not to quite as precise a location. Some of them do GPS on the handset to give location data separately, and all of them can be localized pretty precisely (either to a circle or a specific location) if the operator wants, although for some networks this isn't routine. The default is just footprint and then slant distance/timing, but most systems (iridium, etc.) are more complicated.

VoIP and then VPN/tunnel/whatever (or just opportunistic wifi use) to connect and pull down messages is the only reasonable way.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#42

Post by Beldin »

StreamBright wrote: post #36
danso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title doesn’t assert that this necessarily exists worldwide. edit: I mention this downstream, but it's worth correcting myself. The article prominently features a company named Zumigo, which provides mobile device location data in India as well as North America. So adding "in the U.S." to the (already altered) post title is not needed, especially since it could obfuscate the fact that these location companies do…

Yet mobile customers exist worldwide and I opened the article to see how they circumvent GDPR because I though it applies to Europeans too.

As a European, having "bounty hunters" in the title implied that already.

I was unaware of bounty hunters being aserious profession in any particular EU country. Then again, i don't know any EU country where an accused can bail themselves out of jail till the court case.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#43

Post by danso »

techsupporter wrote: post #30
danso wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s true that they are correctly formed sentences. But they seem to lack context. What does it mean to pay an operator to auto-rotate my number, and what relevance does it have with the subject of the posted article? What’s “free real estate” refer to?

"It's free real estate" is a meme based on a parody of late-night infomercials touting quick and easy money but are actually bait-and-switch scams. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-free-real-estate The other two bits are probably meaning that the phone company can make money selling your location and make money charging you to change phone numbers every so often to avoid tracking efforts by people who only have you…

Thanks for the helpful explanation (TIL a new meme :)). I guess it seems the problem is the commenter using inconsistent subjects, i.e. it would make sense (even without punctuation, or knowing the meme) had it been phrased as:

> Charge for your users' locations! Charge users to change/auto-rotate their numbers! It's free real estate!

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#44

Post by axaxs »

guitarbill wrote: post #4

> “The allegation here would violate our contract and Privacy Policy,” an AT&T spokesperson told Motherboard in an email. That pretty much sums up how much carriers care about this. But it is nice to see Senator Ron Wyden is still doing good work, almost restores my faith in politics.

Even as an independent that leans a bit right, I love Ron Wyden. I feel the US would be a much better country with a congress full of his type (even if not his ideas).

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#45

Post by dragonwriter »

Beldin wrote: post #42
StreamBright wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet mobile customers exist worldwide and I opened the article to see how they circumvent GDPR because I though it applies to Europeans too.

As a European, having "bounty hunters" in the title implied that already. I was unaware of bounty hunters being aserious profession in any particular EU country. Then again, i don't know any EU country where an accused can bail themselves out of jail till the court case.

> Then again, i don't know any EU country where an accused can bail themselves out of jail till the court case.

While some other countries have cash deposits as part of bail, the US and the Phillipines appear to be the only countries with widespread commercial bail bonds system.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#46

Post by [deleted] »

danso wrote: post #21
dragonwriter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's perfectly good sentence (or 3, rather) once you insert the missing punctuation; a full stop before each of the capitalized words (except the first.)

It’s true that they are correctly formed sentences. But they seem to lack context. What does it mean to pay an operator to auto-rotate my number, and what relevance does it have with the subject of the posted article? What’s “free real estate” refer to?

[deleted]

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

h0mEDw wrote: post #18
sneak wrote: post #9

It would appear that sometimes even paying for the service doesn’t mean you won’t end up as the product anyway. How can one avoid this kind of aggregated location tracking?

You guys need (something like) GDPR in the US. I believe it's a necessity.

Probably, though eliminating cash bail would address this particular problem and is a good idea anyway.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#48

Post by untog »

robrenaud wrote: post #5

Perhaps this is a good reason to use Google Voice and not give anyone the underlying real phone number with cell service.

Google Voice doesn't actually provide cell service, though. Whatever telco you use with Google Voice will still have realtime access to your location.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#49

Post by Scoundreller »

techsupporter wrote: post #27
Scoundreller wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve set up a DID that leads directly to a voicemail box that emails me the recording. It’s worth the $1/month expense to have a number to hand out to people I don’t want to be available to. And, in a way, it keeps me available when I’m overseas and don’t have my usual SIM card installed. I use VoIP.ms

What gets me are all of the places (like Venmo, et al) who pitch a fit if a user dares give them a not-a-real-mobile-number. Even if the number is SMS-capable, they complain. I wonder if the fact that services like this won't work on VoIP numbers is a reason why. Regardless of the motivation, it's annoying because I don't give out my real mobile number to hardly anyone for this--and spam call/text avoidance--reason.

I fear the reason is that the pools of VoIP numbers have already been exhausted as a resource for setting up’accounts.

Ie: some firm is renting VoIP numbers for a month for $1, creating accounts on 100 services and then moving to the next VoIP number.

Perhaps the VoIP firms support this whenever they get a block of « virgin » numbers before putting them in their regular pool of numbers for rent.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#50

Post by chooseaname »

sneak wrote: post #9

It would appear that sometimes even paying for the service doesn’t mean you won’t end up as the product anyway. How can one avoid this kind of aggregated location tracking?

When the overarching goal is to return as much money as possible to investors quarter after quarter, this is what you get. Anything and everything is fair game now.
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