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What Location Tracking Looks Like

eff.org

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Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#11

Post by karzeem »

davidw wrote: post #7
ck2 wrote: post #4

Airplane-mode is your friend. But why are carriers storing this tracking information for more than 24 hours, unless of course it's by government demand.

> But why are carriers storing this tracking information for more than 24 hours, unless of course it's by government demand. This information can be invaluable in crime investigations. Think if you're abducted and manage to keep your phone with you and on - they can track it. It's a situation where the data can be valuable, but someone needs to watch the watchers.

One solution: they record your location data but will delete it on (your) demand.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#12

Post by kgo »

lowprofile wrote: post #6

This makes me want to get a tinfoil hat. Now do I give up one of my most vital tools because someone knows where I am at almost all of the time? Do I trust the government to make sure this data is not misused? Or do just go all in and make sure the google, fb, twitter etc have it too and continue to whistle through the graveyard? There has to be a realistic middle ground to protect privacy but with the global data cl…

You can get a pay-go phone, sometimes with cheaper unlimited rates than AT&T and Verizon, although they won't subsidize the purchase of a nice smart phone. (And I'm not too happy with the data transfer speed on Boost.)

This obviously wouldn't prevent against a targeted attack. If the phone company or the government wanted to track YOU specifically, they could probably figure out your phone number by looking at the calls your family and friends have made and finding the union, and retrieve the info from there.

But if someone wants blanket info, i.e. a list off all the people at a G-20 protest or whatever, a computer won't be able to instantly figure out who you are. Someone would have to start investing real man-hours to accomplish this. This hopefully gets too cost-prohibitive for large scale tracking of the general population.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#14

Post by kgo »

wmf wrote: post #10
kgo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it would make sense to keep records for a few billing cycles. It wouldn't be unreasonable to have to deal with a customer dispute 3-6 months in the future. But I imagine it's also just plain easier to truncate the logs every six months or every year.

What do billing cycles or customer disputes have to do with my location?

Well I guess roaming charges are getting a bit passe these days, but I could still see someone arguing they were never in Niagara Falls, or that they were on the American Side (normal rate) and not the Canadian Side (crazy rate.)

But in principal, I can see why a company would think any and all info they have might be useful in a dispute.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#15

Post by evandavid »

re1s wrote: post #13

This is insane. Can this information be used in court? The information here is inconclusive ( https://www.eff.org/issues/cell-tracking ), but I'm surprised I've not heard of a case where this sort of data was presented as evidence?

I'd also like to know whether this information can be or has ever been used in court as evidence. "Where were you on the night of such and such...?" may become a question of the past. Frightening.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#16

Post by evandavid »

kgo wrote: post #14
wmf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do billing cycles or customer disputes have to do with my location?

Well I guess roaming charges are getting a bit passe these days, but I could still see someone arguing they were never in Niagara Falls, or that they were on the American Side (normal rate) and not the Canadian Side (crazy rate.) But in principal, I can see why a company would think any and all info they have might be useful in a dispute.

You could still keep a record of all calls made, and the tower(s) used to make each call, without getting down to this level of granularity. I might be wrong here, but it seems that they're storing a stream of triangulated location data for a given handset, regardless of the actual network activity like calling.

Let's say that the carriers only stored call records with tower IDs for each call. If there was a dispute every so often because a call was made on a close-by tower that itself happened to be located in a different toll bracket (resulting in an incorrect overcharge to the customer), I'm sure the carrier would happily write off that charge if you disputed them about it, which is probably what they'd do right now anyway.

There must be another reason they're keeping it, even if it's just a case of it being super-cheap to store, and they think that they might figure out something to do with it later.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#17

Post by trotsky »

evandavid wrote: post #15
re1s wrote: post #13

This is insane. Can this information be used in court? The information here is inconclusive ( https://www.eff.org/issues/cell-tracking ), but I'm surprised I've not heard of a case where this sort of data was presented as evidence?

I'd also like to know whether this information can be or has ever been used in court as evidence. "Where were you on the night of such and such...?" may become a question of the past. Frightening.

Oh yeah, it does get used in court in the US. I paid attention to a murder trial of a neighbor that happened nearly a decade ago, and they presented evidence of his cell tower connections contradicting his story of whether he was in a certain state at the time. It was by no means a substantial part of their case though, they were just piling things on. But yes, it's definitely admissible, I assume it happens all the time.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#18

Post by trotsky »

lowprofile wrote: post #6

This makes me want to get a tinfoil hat. Now do I give up one of my most vital tools because someone knows where I am at almost all of the time? Do I trust the government to make sure this data is not misused? Or do just go all in and make sure the google, fb, twitter etc have it too and continue to whistle through the graveyard? There has to be a realistic middle ground to protect privacy but with the global data cl…

It's a tough question and I think there is a drought of answers, even from those who think about the subject quite a bit. I'm not sure it's the best idea to go all in, but that's certainly an approach. I suspect one of the mid term answers (in general) may involve creating a ton of contradictory noise on your behalf, but I'm not even sure if that could be applied to mobile location. Privacy is clearly not winning the match so far.

While it's not quite on topic, this presentation by moxie marlinspike last year at defcon europe has some interesting thoughts on how we voluntarily surrender our privacy. It's definitely worth a watch if you're thinking about the subject.

http://vimeo.com/11303353

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#19

Post by trotsky »

evandavid wrote: post #16
kgo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I guess roaming charges are getting a bit passe these days, but I could still see someone arguing they were never in Niagara Falls, or that they were on the American Side (normal rate) and not the Canadian Side (crazy rate.) But in principal, I can see why a company would think any and all info they have might be useful in a dispute.

You could still keep a record of all calls made, and the tower(s) used to make each call, without getting down to this level of granularity. I might be wrong here, but it seems that they're storing a stream of triangulated location data for a given handset, regardless of the actual network activity like calling. Let's say that the carriers only stored call records with tower IDs for each call. If there was a dispute…

Here is a link to comments about this story when it was carried in the NYT:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2371548

The discussion included that they use it for modeling traffic patterns and areas to help them plan capacity and new towers. I'm sure they use it for other things as well.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#20

Post by eliasmacpherson »

re1s wrote: post #13

This is insane. Can this information be used in court? The information here is inconclusive ( https://www.eff.org/issues/cell-tracking ), but I'm surprised I've not heard of a case where this sort of data was presented as evidence?

Yes it can, and so can recordings from remote activation of the mobile phone mic: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html
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