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The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

theguardian.com

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Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#101

Post by lotsofpulp »

dawnerd wrote: post #91
caymanjim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want a self-hosted location tracker because you don't want someone else tracking you? Because it's not going to help. Your cell company knows where you are at all times, and even with location turned off, your OS is reporting enough information to either Google or Apple at all times to know where you are to within a few feet.

I know I cant avoid cell companies, but I can at least limit how much Google knows (or any other company that requires always on location). The problem is though, the data I can get from my location history from Google is really useful for me so it's been a privacy trade off I've taken.

I keep Google location history on so I can have evidence of where I was.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#102

Post by Y_Y »

jjoonathan wrote: post #81
flanbiscuit wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently set my google location history to auto-delete. At first I wanted to keep it recording my location history forever because "just in case" I needed to know where I was for something that was extremely unimportant. Overall, I've looked at it only handful of times over the many years it has been running so in the end it really helps Google more than it helps me. I might even just turn it off completely. I'm sl…

Do we have reason to believe that auto-delete means anything other than "hide it from me, please?"

At least in the EU, they run the (qualified) risk of a collosal statutory fine. It wouldn't be easy to get them audited (particularly in Ireland where the Data Protection Commission favours discretion over valour), and they'd have to actually get caught. Assuming that they didn't hide the evidence, and the auditors found it, and the necessary hoops were jumped, it could be financially and reputationally painful, even for big G.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#103

Post by Syonyk »

chrononaut wrote: post #83
Syonyk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a trained neural network I keep between my ears... Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about external queries violating my various rights nearly as much as with tech companies. At this point, I think every piece of modern consumer electronics ought to be considered hostile until proven benign. I've worked with enough of them over the years, on different ends,…

> I use a trained neural network I keep between my ears... Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about external queries violating my various rights nearly as much as with tech companies. I don't understand the point you're making (unless you're being snarky.) You recognize that most other users of Google Location History can do the same? > My first question, though, w…

> I don't understand the point you're making (unless you're being snarky.)

I am. I'm referring to my brain in a "tech industry buzzword" way. It is, technically speaking, a trained neural network. Just a biological one, not a silicon/code based one. I happen to like it, and it can also do things like tell the difference between a low moon in the sky through a smoke haze and a traffic light.

> Another way of framing is what utility Location History can provide to users.

"If there are any positives, then the technology is worth using!" style thinking misses, entirely, the concept of opportunity cost, and the various downsides.

I won't argue that it's not pretty cool to see everywhere you've been - but it's also an exceedingly detailed record of who you are, and anyone who claims it can be suitably anonymized is full of crap (see the Grindr Bishop for a solid case study here).

Where I really start to get upset, though, is that there's no opt-in for this, other than some vague, generic, "nobody reads this and it doesn't say anything anyone would understand anyway" clickthroughs.

Android doesn't have a, "Would you like us to keep a record of your location and everywhere you've been? You can review it later and see what cool places you've been!" sort of opt-in. It just does it.

Google clearly is getting some value from that data, and it's not at all clear what it is.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#104

Post by asquabventured »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #75
AlbertCory wrote: post #69

Someone (Eric Schmidt? not sure) once said, "If you really want something to be private, don't put it on a computer." Still the best advice. Rather than storing it and then worrying about where it goes, just don't store it.

Don't put it on a computer, don't say it within earshot of a computer, and don't have it visible to any computer's camera: getting pretty impossible to follow this advice.

> Don't put it on a computer, don't say it within earshot of a computer, and don't have it visible to any computer's camera: getting pretty impossible to follow this advice.

I predict an increase in the number of golfers and boat enthusiasts in my lifetime.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#105

Post by whoisburbansky »

kelnos wrote: post #94
whoisburbansky wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's https://owntracks.org/ , which has iOS and Android apps and instructions on setting up your own server. If you run NextCloud self-hosted already, there's PhoneTrack ( https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/phonetrack ), which has a list of supported/suggested apps that send data back to it in a compatible format.

I've been using OwnTracks (plus ot-recorder) for a few years now, in parallel with Google's location tracking/timeline, and I find that OwnTracks tends not to update all that well or frequently. If I switch OwnTracks to "move mode", it's great, but then it drains battery like crazy. "Significant changes mode" doesn't really cut it to map out my track as I move around during the day. And it's especially annoying becau…

Ah, that's good to know. I've been meaning to set up OwnTracks with iOS, so I'll report back with how that goes, see if the accuracy/battery tradeoff is any different from what you're seeing on Android.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#106

Post by ram_rar »

> McCoy later found out the request was part of an investigation into the burglary of a nearby home the year before

Just wondering, if he would have still shown up in the search results, if he had setup auto deleting Google data older than 3 months.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#107

Post by KingMachiavelli »

sneak wrote: post #89
Syonyk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So don't. Check traffic before you depart, pick a route, and leave some extra time in case you hit unexpected traffic. I know I've been going on about it lately, but for almost every "How can we possibly do this without an app tracking every bit of data it possibly can?" sort of task, people were doing that, or something functionally equivalent, before cell phones, or on cell phones that aren't actively user-hostile.

Checking traffic before you depart also leaks your location, as well as your intended path of travel.

It can not be used to prove that you actually did travel though. You can also put in only approximate address locations.

Google isn't going to be running some inference algorithm to identify your most probable location or residence, they are just going to give LE the raw data. Unless you are a extremely wanted criminal, LE probably doesn't have the resources to do extensive analysis of google maps searches and a jury is not going to interpret those results the same way they would of actual location history.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#108

Post by ghaff »

Syonyk wrote: post #85
ghaff wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone from school who is a fairly senior manager at one of the FAANGs. He only got a cell phone in the first place because he and his wife adopted and the nanny insisted. I know he has a company-issued smartphone now. Don't know if his personal phone is a smartphone by now or if he's still using a flip phone of some sort.

This is another thing rarely talked about that's quite common - people really high up in the tech companies don't use the stuff. Remember, when Steve Jobs' biographer asked him what his kids thought about the iPad, his response was, "They haven't used it." You're more likely to find the "cellphone free" group among high level tech execs and such. Why is that? It's worth pondering. I know more and more people, deeply…

The main answer is probably that they don't need to. They have personal assistants and admins who deal with their appointments, their email, etc. And, believe it or not, some of them really do unplug when they go on vacation.

In a former life when internal company email was becoming a thing, there were execs at my computer company that made one of these minicomputer-based office productivity systems who had their admins print out their email, they'd write responses by hand, and have the admin send the response.

Re: The new warrant: how US police mine Google for your location and search history

#110

Post by uhtred »

Syonyk wrote: post #52
tpmx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tricky to use e.g. Google's Waze then.

So don't. Check traffic before you depart, pick a route, and leave some extra time in case you hit unexpected traffic. I know I've been going on about it lately, but for almost every "How can we possibly do this without an app tracking every bit of data it possibly can?" sort of task, people were doing that, or something functionally equivalent, before cell phones, or on cell phones that aren't actively user-hostile.

OSMand is open source and really good for navigation. It's on f-droid.
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