Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
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Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#2Related 2018 US Supreme Court decision, mentioned in article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States]
EFF guide "How to Disable Ad ID Tracking on iOS and Android"[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-disable-ad-id-trac...]
Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#3So how does that work? I install some app that "needs" location data to function and in the EULA I "consent" to that data being sold. Police then buys this data via several proxies. So far so "told you so years ago". But how does police use that data? How do they associate account IDs from all these apps to real persons? Is that data collected and sold as well, e.g., via the payment processing? Do they use the email address as key?
Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#4So how does that work? I install some app that "needs" location data to function and in the EULA I "consent" to that data being sold. Police then buys this data via several proxies. So far so "told you so years ago". But how does police use that data? How do they associate account IDs from all these apps to real persons? Is that data collected and sold as well, e.g., via the payment processing? Do they use the email…
You try to match people in the db with known locations of a target and very quickly there will be only one match.
Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#5So how does that work? I install some app that "needs" location data to function and in the EULA I "consent" to that data being sold. Police then buys this data via several proxies. So far so "told you so years ago". But how does police use that data? How do they associate account IDs from all these apps to real persons? Is that data collected and sold as well, e.g., via the payment processing? Do they use the email…
Location is account id. If you have the locations a person has visited, you have their home and their work/education/etc place.
This is why any and all claims of anonymization are gaslighting. You can't know something and not know it. The entire concept is incoherent and anyone who claims ad tracking and privacy are in any way compatible is lying to your face.
Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#6So how does that work? I install some app that "needs" location data to function and in the EULA I "consent" to that data being sold. Police then buys this data via several proxies. So far so "told you so years ago". But how does police use that data? How do they associate account IDs from all these apps to real persons? Is that data collected and sold as well, e.g., via the payment processing? Do they use the email…
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Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#7The root of this investigation was the EFF. If you make tech money, you can toss $50 their way without any hesitation. https://supporters.eff.org/donate
You'll get some cool swag and, more importantly, ensure that they continue their excellent work.
Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#8So how does that work? I install some app that "needs" location data to function and in the EULA I "consent" to that data being sold. Police then buys this data via several proxies. So far so "told you so years ago". But how does police use that data? How do they associate account IDs from all these apps to real persons? Is that data collected and sold as well, e.g., via the payment processing? Do they use the email…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-anonymity
Basically, it only takes a few pointed datapoints to deanonymize a person. They are weaponizing this concept.
Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#9So how does that work? I install some app that "needs" location data to function and in the EULA I "consent" to that data being sold. Police then buys this data via several proxies. So far so "told you so years ago". But how does police use that data? How do they associate account IDs from all these apps to real persons? Is that data collected and sold as well, e.g., via the payment processing? Do they use the email…
In addition to the boring “99% of people are uniquely identified by where they spend the most time at 2am and 2pm,” the linked EFF dive [1] says that they let federal agencies look up each device’s advertiser ID and other device info that makes it easy to look up a specific phone they have or have had physical access to. And if they still have no clue, they can use the cellular IP address to get the cell companies to identify the person paying the bills.
(Anyway, you have an address the phone lives at. Finding out who lives at an address is some of the basics of investigating, starting with a query of DMV databases, followed by credit reporting databases.)
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/fog-revealed-guided-to...
Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused
#10The root of this investigation was the EFF. If you make tech money, you can toss $50 their way without any hesitation. https://supporters.eff.org/donate You'll get some cool swag and, more importantly, ensure that they continue their excellent work.
I haven’t followed them enough but is it possible to support them without supporting other charitable causes of a political persuasion I don’t support? I fully support everything directly related to their cause but it gets me very upset when charities are supporting other various agendas around gender/immigration for example that are unrelated to their main goal.