That the two biggest supermarket chains in the US are considering merger indicates that US antitrust enforcement is far too weak.
If they try this I would break them into 4 companies
Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
51–60 of 243 posts
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#52Sometimes it feels ridiculous how much OPSEC I need to employ to buy anything at the grocery store. I walk or bike to the store to not reveal a license plate. All radios and sensors on my handset are turned off. I wear a mask to thwart facial recognition cameras. I pay cash.
Biggest thing is leave the phone at home
or in a Faraday cage/bag if you think you might want to call someone later, but it might be performing dead reckoning
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#53Sometimes it feels ridiculous how much OPSEC I need to employ to buy anything at the grocery store. I walk or bike to the store to not reveal a license plate. All radios and sensors on my handset are turned off. I wear a mask to thwart facial recognition cameras. I pay cash.
Edward Snowden revealed that u need to remove the battery on ur phone to make it "safe", turning it off doesn't do the trick. [Which u can't do anymore]. As another commenter says: leave the phone at home.
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#54I’ve just always assumed that big stores were collecting and selling every iota of data they could. I recall reading about retailers using license plate scanning in their parking lots in the early aughts.
I recall reading about retailers using license plate scanning in their parking lots in the early aughts. They also pick up the unique IDs from the wireless air pressure monitor chips in your tires. Even if you don't have an internet-connected car, they're still tracking you from parking lot to parking lot. That information can then be combined with time/date information and your credit/debit card purchase to identify…
> I recall reading about retailers using license plate scanning in their parking lots in the early aughts.
Yep, that technology is called ANPR - automatic number plate recognition. Outputs a license plate, state, date/time, and gps coord of scanner.
> They also pick up the unique IDs from the wireless air pressure monitor chips in your tires.
That's called TPMS, tire pressure monitoring system. There is 1 device per tire, which emits temp, pressure, serial#, and other data. You can decode this for yourself with https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433 and a RTL-SDR.
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#55I know Kroger (or QFC) has been doing this for ~6 or 7 years. My wife would start getting targeted ads for things that were in areas we lingered around for more than a few seconds.
FWIW Lowe's does the same exact thing. Probably IMEI harvesting but IIRC Lowe's is looking at or has implemented facial recognition. If not to identify your face outright, at least to see what you're focusing on in-store.
More reason to shop local at the hippy stores. Or start gardening.
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#56Nothing really is done with this data, ultimately. It gets fed to 'analysts' who make models, and if those models don't agree with the decisions the executives are already making, it just gets ignored.
In one sense this is correct and why I personally stopped caring - what are they going to do with 5 years worth of my choice of cream cheese and apple varieties?
But for other people it may be more revealing, of medical conditions, life changes, etc, especially when combined with other datasets. You moved from a one bedroom to a studio, started buying half as much milk and twice as many frozen pizzas, and take cars to restaurants less? Sorry about the breakup, here are some dating app ads.
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I googled "Jenny's Number" thinking it was a SaaS platform
Tommy Tutone gave up pop stardom and became a programmer. It would be really cool if he created a SaaS platform called "Jenny's Number".
OMG! I finally figured out what all that fuss was about at this past year's DEFCON(DC30) about "Calling Jenny". I didn't call Jenny! :O
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#58Sometimes it feels ridiculous how much OPSEC I need to employ to buy anything at the grocery store. I walk or bike to the store to not reveal a license plate. All radios and sensors on my handset are turned off. I wear a mask to thwart facial recognition cameras. I pay cash.
But... why?
Much like you will never understand why someone would go to these lengths I struggle to understand how someone _wouldn't_. I can't understand people whose threat model begins with "these places I'm okay with someone knowing things about me".
If I read your email and then selected "metadata" I found important, walked into a very busy public square, and started shouting your secrets you'd be right to be uncomfortable. If I, for example, made a reasonably accurate prediction that you are pregnant/on drugs/have ED/etc and then told 10,000 people about this you'd be right to be angry.
Yet...you're okay with a company doing any of this? Is it because you can't see it or feel it directly? The head in the sand approach doesn't work. With enough datapoints in one bin anyone can use "metadata" to make extremely accurate predictions about your private life. You need to defend yourself from the constant gathering of this metadata. Snowden warned us and apparently very few of us decided to listen. All it takes is one leak, one hack, one disgruntled employee, or one bad government to take all those secrets you're not thinking about and turn them into weapons to use against you. In a modern battlefield you are a target and the war has been going on for decades now.
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#59Sometimes it feels ridiculous how much OPSEC I need to employ to buy anything at the grocery store. I walk or bike to the store to not reveal a license plate. All radios and sensors on my handset are turned off. I wear a mask to thwart facial recognition cameras. I pay cash.
Edward Snowden revealed that u need to remove the battery on ur phone to make it "safe", turning it off doesn't do the trick. [Which u can't do anymore]. As another commenter says: leave the phone at home.
What about a Faraday bag?
Re: Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You
#60Sometimes it feels ridiculous how much OPSEC I need to employ to buy anything at the grocery store. I walk or bike to the store to not reveal a license plate. All radios and sensors on my handset are turned off. I wear a mask to thwart facial recognition cameras. I pay cash.
Recently I’ve noticed multiple grocery store chains posting notices about how they no longer accept cash. A couple as of the new year.
Isn't that illegal?