My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants • Hacker News Board

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#81

Post by superkuh » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

csbartus wrote: post #79

I stopped to use smartphones in 2018. Since then I have a Nokia 3310 new model, with Facebook installed. However the wi-fi is turned on around 10 minutes per month, in best case. What I've immediately observed after switching to the new phone that I'm receiving more precisely targeted ads. Before, on smartphone no adds were relevant, after the smartphone new adds were all relevant. My guess was the phone / the cellul…

Even if your use a dumb phone with no real operating system or applications if you carry an operating cell phone your location is tracked and stored. In the US this data is stored for 2-5 years minimum depending on which Telco you use. It is used and sold just like in this article.

Tracking is how cell phones and cell basestations work. You cannot have one without the other. The better the clocks in the base stations the better the multilateration accuracy. It's already well under As for listening to you to provide context for what ads to show, I find that supremely unlikely. Probably other aspects of your digital life are also monitored to inform this kind of thing.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#82

Post by alisonkisk » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

mgamache wrote: post #23

bjarneh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True; although who knows what would hold up in court if anyone was to file a lawsuit based on some of these "digital contracts" we agree to every time we click "I agree".

I have a feeling that a judge would want to find them invalid, but what happens if he/she rules that they are non-binding? The chaos it would cause for US B2C businesses would be large. This alone may sway the courts to make them binding.

The often are non-binding. Read up on "contracts of adhesion". Business doesn't fall apart because at the end of the day it mostly doesn't matter if you obey TOS. This has nothing to do with privacy though, since there's (in most cases) no law against what the companies are doing with the day.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#83

Post by laszlokorte » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

martamorena9182 wrote: post #78

dalbasal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As people, we like to think categorically... especially "contracting" in the philosophical and legal sense. Whether its a medieval oath or a standard employment contract, the concept of "binding agreement" sorts out moral issues of consent and creates a platform for further relations. Reality is generally less fussy about categorical boundaries. It likes spectrum. Linnaean classification is an approximation. Biology…

I legitimately have no clue what you are trying to say. But it sounds very educated, so that's good I guess?

In short: contracts are only as valid as you want them to be or as a powerful entity can force them upon you.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#84

Post by alisonkisk » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

dfgdghdf wrote: post #75

Why is "track and trace" a challenge when this exists?

using the tech still takes effort, which is preferred to be spent on incarceration than public health.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#85

Post by jerry1979 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

derwiki wrote: post #45

miguendes wrote: post #28

Interesting article. Is there any way to mitigate the amount of data collected? If I turn GPS off can they still track my steps? One thing that I notice frequently is discussing some topic with my wife and then finding an AD related to the topic on Instagram, LinkedIn, and whatnot. Could be a coincidence but I not sure any more.

Most likely a coincidence: https://www.avg.com/en/signal/facebook-listening-private-con... If it were true I feel confident that information would have leaked by now.

Couldn't the facebook app just listen for signal fingerprints? For example, Nielsen embeds digital fingerprints into songs so that it can tell what you listen to without listening to the full audio stream. They simply listen for a certain pattern, and make note when they detect the pattern. You could do the same with with "coffee" or "jogging" or "yoga mat". You don't listen to the conversation audio, you detect audio fingerprints.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#86

Post by zug_zug » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

csbartus wrote: post #79

I stopped to use smartphones in 2018. Since then I have a Nokia 3310 new model, with Facebook installed. However the wi-fi is turned on around 10 minutes per month, in best case. What I've immediately observed after switching to the new phone that I'm receiving more precisely targeted ads. Before, on smartphone no adds were relevant, after the smartphone new adds were all relevant. My guess was the phone / the cellul…

If you have full confidence in your theory, you should perform a controlled experiment for statistical significance.

Say the name of 20 places on a call (but never you nor any facebook contacts go there) [and have 20 controls you never mention]. Then count ads over the next month.

You can conclude something to a certain confidence level if the results show you were right.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#87

Post by quenix » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #36

robin_reala wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS at least you can allow an app access to location data only while the app is in use (or not at all). Not sure what the situation is on Android.

Same on Android 11. There's also an "Only this time" option.

That’s different. That would just ask you to confirm again if the app prompts.

The iOS counterpart blocks location requests quietly when the app is in the background and allows them when the app is in the foreground.

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#88

Post by SamuelAdams » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

nbzso wrote: post #6

asicsp wrote: post #3

The thread also mentions https://nrkbeta.no/2020/12/03/my-phone-was-spying-on-me-so-i... which would be a better link than twitter.

Thanks, I don't like Twitter for long form content. It's not designed for this.

I agree with you, but a hacky workaround is @mythreadreader

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#89

Post by baxtr » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

tclancy wrote: post #72

baxtr wrote: post #41

A good advice: disable background app refreshes if you use an iPhone.

Can you explain why? I'm not clear on the implications but am definitely interested.

Battery life, but mostly the topic of the article: apps use it to track you [1]. I always ask myself: why does this app need to communicate with a server if I didn't open the app? For the majority of apps there is no need to do anything while they're asleep.

[1] https://www.macobserver.com/news/background-app-refresh-data...

Re: My Phone Was Spying on Me, So I Tracked Down the Surveillants

#90

Post by vorpalhex » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #64

diarrhea wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tracking is extremly intrusive. With GPS turned off, accuracy is diminished, but locating the device is still possible via WiFi SSIDs and cell towers the phone is logged into. Maybe Bluetooth also plays a role. In the background, the phone uses its gyro sensors so it can tell what you are doing: walking, running, getting into a car/sitting down, getting out/up, ... The unsettling part is that location logging con…

If you actually turn off location services in the OS none of this tracking occurs. About the only remaining source would be the mag of apps implement their own harvesting of the Earth’s magnetic field. Such things are extremely technically difficult to do well (you’d need to map the mag signals across the world) and the accuracy isn’t great (somewhere between wifi and coarse cellular if I recall correctly). If at any…

> If you actually turn off location services in the OS none of this tracking occurs.

Location services doesn't disable bluetooth. If you're in a dense area, your local stores may have bluetooth beacons which will report location hits against your bluetooth ID, which may be tied to you through applications you install.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluet...