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New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

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Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#281

Post by dogleash »

pnutjam wrote: post #263
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listen to Jordan Peterson - especially Maps of Meaning lectures and/or book.

Don't fall down that rabbit hole. https://www.unikumnett.no/2019/10/12-reasons-why-no-one-shou...

C'mon, it's just someone with some opinions you don't like, not the bogie man.

It's not a rabbit hole to hear out someone you disagree with. Unless you're either afraid 1) they might be right, or 2) the listener doesn't have critical thinking skills. I get that #2 is scary, and it's a legit issue in society, but they shouldn't be listening to you either.

Also, there are good tear-downs Peterson's message online, the one you linked is... not.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#282

Post by dogleash »

whyagain1885 wrote: post #215
ramoz wrote: post #27

It's important everyone becomes educated about the fact that virtually every mobile app sells some part of your data that leads to some private company possessing the ability to draw a circle around your house on map and then detect all patterns of life without any PII. I don't think it's fair to pit this as a US gov't surveillance problem. It's true though - the Government missions involved, where this type of data…

I always get annoyed how these programmers can have a good sleep at night given what they have done. Note that blaming it on the marketing VP is not fair. If even 50 % employees have a thought this tracking can be stopped.

Programmers selling out is the goal in and of itself these days.

It's gotten to the point where we just sorta accept that people want to work at places like Facebook and Google. There's so many of them that the thing to do is treat it like a morally neutral job or be seen as a weirdo.

And when the largest and most pervasive global surveillance systems history has ever known "aren't so bad", then nothing is.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#283

Post by encryptluks2 »

asdff wrote: post #58
encryptluks2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

White or not if you are only middle class in middle america that ticket for the weed and steeper paraphernalia charge are going to hurt. Good luck getting the dumb things you've done as a teenager expunged unless you are actually upper class in middle america and therefore have access to legal council that your parents bankroll.

I guess the definition of middle class has changed quite a bit.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#284

Post by beardedwizard »

mushbino wrote: post #159
nr2x wrote: post #101

The Feds have been buying consumer data for decades, this is far from new. This goes back to “junk mail”, pre internet. As usual the US congress sat by and did nothing, and in all likelihood, will continue to do nothing.

Buying? The NSA has backdoors in nearly everything through PRISM and they directly monitor internet traffic. Zero chance congress would/could put a stop to that.

You still need to be able to decrypt which is what makes these data sets way more valuable

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#285

Post by Ruthalas »

fsdffvsdsdfb wrote: post #206
sfmike wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

naive question, if you use f droid and you have location services on, use a bunch of social apps, have google maps on it, use it normally, what extra layer will f droid have with all of those leaks anyways?

It Depends. Any f-droid app that depends on location uses the standard android location APIs. That means you're submitting what RF networks (mobile and wifi) are visible, and Google then passes back an approximate location. Once you have a good GPS lock, the same data is submitted to Google again for inclusion in their database. If you avoid installing Google Play services, you'll have to use a framework like microG…

Unified-nlp is another option to replace the Google location backbend. It similarly allows you to select location options or build your own local database.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#286

Post by BizarroLand »

omginternets wrote: post #238
agilob wrote: post #235

Funny how this is right below: >FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

Both can simultaneously be true.

There's a cliff between America spying on their citizens (to see trends and to catch criminals that make themselves statistically relevant) and China spying on Americans (to commit ideological subterfuge).

Not that either are good, but given that some of the Chinese powers that be consider America to be an enemy the potential consequences are terrifying.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#287

Post by pmoriarty »

SoftTalker wrote: post #275
Spooky23 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sorts of things are compartmentalized. The FBI, ICE and DEA absolutely do scaled collection. DEA/ICE was known (ie NY Times article) to be tracking cars via LPR/camera a decade ago up and down I95, for example. Individual cities and other jurisdictions share LPR and camera data. Things like fusion centers and drug task forces probably get access to various forms of intel. Civilian government is different - they…

> usually take data protection seriously Do we need to list the number of government data breaches/leaks over the past 20 years? My own PII has been in several. They may take it seriously, but their actual track record isn't really that great.

We need to start facing the fact that PII just isn't private.

It's not necessarily personally identifiable either (considering all the different ways to fake it, make mistakes, the inability to correct mistakes once the information is out there, and the unreliable methods used to verify identity)

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#288

Post by BizarroLand »

vaylian wrote: post #249
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which just means you are tracked differently. You are an Outlier instead of Average Joe making Average Data.

how?

Credit card usage tied to a non-cell phone user. There are layers of patterns to watch and the best invisibility you can have is to blend in, which is scary, worrying, and terrifying because the powers that be would prefer to have a citizenry of crabs in a bucket rather than half a billion free-roaming cats to corral.

It makes their job a little bit easier and that's all that matters to them.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#289

Post by n4r9 »

dogleash wrote: post #281
pnutjam wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't fall down that rabbit hole. https://www.unikumnett.no/2019/10/12-reasons-why-no-one-shou...

C'mon, it's just someone with some opinions you don't like, not the bogie man. It's not a rabbit hole to hear out someone you disagree with. Unless you're either afraid 1) they might be right, or 2) the listener doesn't have critical thinking skills. I get that #2 is scary, and it's a legit issue in society, but they shouldn't be listening to you either. Also, there are good tear-downs Peterson's message online, the…

I used to think that - despite his overreaching when it comes to politics and culture - he was probably a decent enough psychology researcher and self-help author.

However, having been through a fairly significant psychological journey myself and then reading the 12 Rules for Life, I'm quite worried that his rules have the potential to prolong or exacerbate psychological insecurities. Some of them, e.g. "Pursue what is meaningful" and "Make friends with people who want the best for you." are absolutely fine. But there is nothing there I can see about self-compassion or self-acceptance. If anything there's a general trend in the opposite direction of encouraging self-criticism. This probably works in the short-medium term for people who experience pleasure from validating their own self-critical thoughts, but I fear in the longer term that it will postpone or diminish their potential to love themselves.

Admittedly I have only read the rules themselves and not the whole book; in fact I'm reluctant to read the rest if that is the best he can do.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#290

Post by 29083011397778 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #287
SoftTalker wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> usually take data protection seriously Do we need to list the number of government data breaches/leaks over the past 20 years? My own PII has been in several. They may take it seriously, but their actual track record isn't really that great.

We need to start facing the fact that PII just isn't private. It's not necessarily personally identifiable either (considering all the different ways to fake it, make mistakes, the inability to correct mistakes once the information is out there, and the unreliable methods used to verify identity)

Spoken like someone that's never had a partner with impulse control or anger issues. Keeping PII private is, IMO, like freedom of speech or privacy: it may seem trivial and unimportant when you don't need it, but it sure as hell matters to some people, and can keep them safe.
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