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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

#301

Post by actually_a_dog »

benwad wrote: post #228
philderbeast wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the programmers sleep at night because doing this is the only thing that lets them feed there families. like it or not, there are always people who will see this as the lesser evil because of their personal circumstances don't give them other options.

I'd agree if we were talking about low-skill work where people are just scraping by. Programmers have the luxury of choosing from a wide range of places to work. We're all in a position where we can refuse work we find unethical, even if it means taking a pay cut.

You say that as if we all started out fresh from college with the ability to pick and choose the kind of dev work we do. Not everybody has the kind of safety net starting out that implies the ability to do that.

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

#302

Post by johnisgood »

throw827474737 wrote: post #211
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working close to Government... I've never seen any mission specifically seeking large-scale citizen-based tracking capabilities. They tend to keep those kinds of things pretty secret. We didn't know about all kinds of spying they do on us for even decades after the spying started.

> Working close to Government... I've never seen any mission specifically seeking large-scale citizen-based tracking capabilities. Further and rarely understood, but it never is about what the government currently does, but what it could do when change occurs.. like the Nazis could exterminate the dutch jews (was it then?) better because they had those registers.. like what if the next Putin/Orban/Trump takes over an…

> what if the next Putin/Orban/Trump takes over and wants to take some more steps..

What are you implying here by bring up those names?

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

#303

Post by juunpp »

nly wrote: post #227
whyagain1885 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"How do you sleep at night?" https://youtu.be/GO0JaecRWy0

Minus the beautiful ladies.

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

#304

Post by mikeiz404 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #293
29083011397778 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It matters to me a great deal, but I've just come to face the fact that much of what I and the various organizations who collect PII from me consider private is effectively publicly accessible, no matter what lip service to privacy these organizations give. Our SSN's, names, ages, address, phone numbers, emails, locations, habits, interests, political opinions and affiliations, sexual orientations, medical histories…

I think there are some steps which can be taken to help mitigate this:

- use a VPN to obscure rough IP based location lookups and if the VPN has shared traffic it also make tracking more difficult

- limit apps which are useful with geolocation to use rough geolocation

- If on ios, opting out of app tracking will at least disable Apple’s advertising ID.

- Be mindful of granting bluetooth and network access.

For apps which require precise geolocation this becomes a problem (ex: google maps for navigation). If you can, find an alternative with better privacy incentives (ex: apple maps).

For the stronger privacy willed when signing up for a service think about what information is identifying and whether or not it is worth withholding:

- use unique email addresses (ideally with a unique domain or a shared domain; ex: simplelogin)

- use a credit card with a unique number which can make payments under a unique name (ex: privacy.com)

- use a unique name

- phone numbers are a bit more tricky (ex: talkatone)

None of these things are perfect, introduce their own risks, and may trigger fraud alerts but I think they help in some of the situations listed above.

I admit this certainly isn’t realistic to expect of most people.

If you or anyone else have thoughts on this or know of other services, I’m all ears.

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

#305

Post by juunpp »

kornhole wrote: post #182
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?

F-droid is an app store that carries only FOSS apps that do not have any Google API's. These apps are generally safe. Some may require your location such as maps to function. The difference with most of these mapping apps based on OSM.org is that they do not transmit your location anywhere. You can still install other proprietary location harvesting apps on your phone. If you do so, you are just minimizing the number…

You forgot the IMEI.

Unless you wrap that phone in a Faraday sleeve, what you mentioned does not prevent tracking.

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

#306

Post by juunpp »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #233
ReactiveJelly wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> virtually every mobile app Reminder to readers to use F-Droid

And now you are the weird outlier that doesn't have the same data spewing forth instead of Average Joe making Average Data.

Exactly. Bruce Schneier - Data and Goliath.

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

#307

Post by juunpp »

atlas_shrugged wrote: post #50

I wish the apple privacy team would address this, otherwise what good are their privacy claims

The OS is just part of what enables tracking; the cell company can track you just as easily regardless of OS. Apple's privacy claims are sheer marketing; their business is not so directly tied to mass surveillance like Google's, so they play the marketing game that the circumstances allow for.

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

#308

Post by juunpp »

pnw wrote: post #267

How does Apple’s removal of IDFA affect this? The ad companies no longer have a cross-app identifier that would be of any use in correlating data from a specific phone/person?

The phone company is still tracking your IMSI/IMEI, and they sell data too. The former is directly linked to your identity; the latter also trivially so for most people.

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

#309

Post by lrvick »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #243
lrvick wrote: post #43

Among the many reasons I choose not to own a cell phone.

There are DOZENS of us! ---- As a fellow non-mobile phone user, my life has drastically improved. There are many (MANY!) acquaintances whom this frustrates immensely (for they cannot instantaneously speak with me), but my inner circle all know how to reach me by pager a/o physically visiting. As for my outer circle... good riddance (FWIW I am retired)!

Ha, I don't even have a pager. Just another thing being triangulated by cell towers that sell the location.

I have VoIP landlines... and SMS can go to my email, but that is the closest thing to telephony that I have.

I check email and chat from my desktop when I am in my home office when I want to be reachable.

I am mid 30s, so almost everyone in my social circle has their face buried in their phones at all times which is something I am all the more painfully aware of now, as that used to be me. I notice the families all at tables all on their phones. Now that I have some distance, it feels really gross.

I am just present in whatever I am doing and noticing my surroundings now. Slowing down. Life is short.

As a bonus, between not having a connection to cell towers and using only cash, I navigate the physical world mostly invisibly which means slightly less food for the corporate survilliance machines of the world.

The only real annoyance is restaurants that all want me to scan a QR code for menu/ordering, and have no idea what to do when I say I don't have a phone. One recently hooked up a tablet to a printer just to print a menu for me. They never complain as they realize instantly it is their own bad assumption that -everyone- has phones and they don't want to discriminate against me.

It feels like re-clearing a trail that has grown over sometimes.

Also for those wondering, you -can- have a lifestyle that integrates plenty of disconnected time and have tech jobs. I run a security consulting company and have ongoing consulting retainers with 10+ companies at any given time. I simply schedule time with them when they want it, and set a 24 hour response expectation.

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

#310

Post by lrvick »

BizarroLand wrote: post #288
vaylian wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am well aware of this which is why I only use cash and cash-purchased disposable prepaid debit cards IRL.
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