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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

#241

Post by SamBam »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101
dawnerd wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From the article, which talks about the police being able to get a warrant on you based on nothing more than you being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and from the fact that the police convict innocent people based on flimsy evidence all the time, I'd say at this point you're much more likely to get falsely convicted based on your location than exonerated.

Has anyone ever been exonerated based on their Google location history?

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

#242

Post by SamBam »

jjoonathan wrote: post #82
refulgentis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true: when location is turned off, location is turned off. Apple still has a loophole where turning off Bluetooth doesn't turn off Bluetooth, but location should be "fixed"

Your cell phone company knows the tower you are talking to and probably which (directional) antenna you are talking to. Antennas are in the process of getting a lot more directional with 5G, so they'll soon go from trivially being able to track you within a block or two to within a meter or two. It's not great.

As far as we know, though, the police haven't (yet) been able to demand Verizon turn over the records of everyone who sent near a crime scene at 2pm, though, have they?

I feel like Google's location history is basically built for that kind of thing.

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

#243

Post by nyolfen »

dotBen wrote: post #215

Remember, the US Government only needs a warrant if you are a "US Person" (which is a US citizen anywhere in the world or a person of any nationality physically located within America). We learned from the Snowden leaks that the US government constitutionally doesn't need a warrant to request any of this information if you are outside of the US if Google is holding the data domestically on servers in the US. And it m…

we also learned that it sidesteps this by collecting data on UK persons and exchanging it with GCHQ, who does likewise

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

#244

Post by dpweb »

lr4444lr wrote: post #210
slownews45 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is pretty out of touch I think. When I talk to non HN crowd. * Apple's efforts around blocking CASM are applauded * Folks are GLAD that cops are using tech to catch criminals * Folks don't have a ton of trust that the regulations will help their lives, or block govt from doing things, but do imagine they will be annoying (more permission banners / cookies popups etc). It would be interesting to look at other count…

What fundamental problem do you have with cops using tech to catch criminals? Not talking about the abuse of innocents here, or warrantless intrusions into your data, just the core of what you're saying.

The use of technology is irrelevant. The question is one of unreasonable search and seizure, unsupported by probable cause.

"Law enforcement" is always used as a reason to invade privacy. Searching smartphones wasn't envisioned by the founding fathers but is exactly what they were talking about when it was written into the constitution.

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

#245

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

VRay wrote: post #223
TeMPOraL wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how a different tactic would fare: 1. Buy some legit(ish) dataset for marketing purposes. I hear DMVs in the US like to sell people's data. 2. Do a direct marketing job: send every single person in the dataset a snail mail letter with a printout of all the data you have on them, and a reference to where you got it from. I hear USPS offers good rates for bulk spam campaigns; they apparently live off it. That…

Man, that would be great. I'll bet it'd be doable for anyone whose name is tied to public records via home ownership too Scale up what they did to Trump for this NY Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat... See if people keep clicking "Allow" on their phone games after that goes out.. Of course, what'd actually happen is everyone would just attack the messenger. Maybe there'd be som…

I think carefully designing the campaign from the start to avoid a PR backlash would be really important. Doable, too.

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

#246

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

sphinxcdi wrote: post #226
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, I might add, consider GrapheneOS and CalyxOS as alternative operating systems for your Pixel phone. https://grapheneos.org/ https://calyxos.org/ GrapheneOS is more security-focused, CalyxOS is more privacy-focused, and they're both a step in the right direction.

GrapheneOS isn't less focused on privacy than security or than the other one. They recently made a thread addressing this: https://twitter.com/GrapheneOS/status/1424412990074494979

You're probably right. They have different philosophies and threat models.

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

#247

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

bradlys wrote: post #162
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about raising money to buy a bunch of data from, say, the Washington, D.C. area and then de-anonymizing it. I wonder what we'd learn...

I really doubt legislation would come into effect. Instead, the people organizing the effort will be hunted down, prosecuted, and turned into examples of what happens when you try to fuck with people in high level government positions.

That's a coordinated response. We don't want to invoke a coordinated response. Pick some prominent people to make examples of--people who will make many others happy by their embarassment.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

titzer wrote: post #129

1. Turn off Google location history. 2. Disable all Google apps' access to your location. 3. Disable Android's "high accuracy location" if possible in your Android version. This little snitch collects terrifyingly precise "anonymized" location information fused with device sensors. Do not accept surveillance in the name of convenience. And don't let Google normalize even more intrusion into our lives. Don't use their…

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by sodality2 »

spoonjim wrote: post #232
sodality2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difference being "don't save" would mean not being ingested at all; if it is sent to google, a stink could be made (perhaps by sniffing netreqs, looking at GPS requests, etc). Once it's in Google, us peons would have no way to verify any claim .

How can it be not ingested at all? If Google is giving me turn by turn directions it needs to know where I am.

Google maps vs tracking location at all times, though.

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

#250

Post by red_hobbit »

lr4444lr wrote: post #225
MereInterest wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. The problem is asymmetry of information, and that the protections haven't advanced alongside the ease of collecting information. For example, imaging you have a suspect and want to trail them. The courts have established that you have no expectation of privacy when in a public area, so an officer can trail your car and watch where you go. You only have so many officers, and so there are implicit limits on…

I am pretty sure thr police cannot put a GPS tracker on your car without a warrant.

Cops were doing that without a warrant in the past. In 2012 it was ruled illegal by the courts. Here's a wired article. https://www.wired.com/story/man-charged-with-theft-for-remov...
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