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How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

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Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#101

Post by asdffdasasdf »

partiallypro wrote: post #39
mucle6 wrote: post #17

I don't understand how targeted ads on Grindr can be used to get peoples locations. Does the ad auction tell the users current location? Does grindr let you run your own auction bidder on your own machine?

SnapChat does the same thing, we (not me technically, I am just a developer that worked with our ad team) set up Geofences around events to serve ads and we could continue to target those users for continuous remarketing as soon as they stepped foot into and out of a location of our choosing. In our case it was mostly a concert and car race. We knew -a lot- more than we probably should have. You could push filters, a…

every ad network does this. right before the pandemic the new feature released on all big five was digital-out-of-home, which is the literal plot of dystopian movies... outdoors targeted to people passing by.

after that they all added targeting by weather (latest fine grained targeting under gdpr) and BT beacon tracking.

fun fact, google uses BT on your phone to mark of you entered a store after seeing an ad for it to get paid for the "conversion".

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#102

Post by asdffdasasdf »

nebula8804 wrote: post #88
username135 wrote: post #45

One thing I've always been curious about, and have never been able to find a solid answer too, is what data is available to the various companies whose software I have on my phone? What can AT&T/TMobile/etc... learn from my device as my carrier? What can the apps I have installed decern from my device if I allow no access to anything settings? How does this change if I use a vpn? I have an idea of whats possible base…

I am not sure if this is exactly what you are asking. Are you looking for aggregated data on yourself or methods to discover what is being transferred? For the latter: One thing you can do is install a man in the middle and "sniff" what is being transferred by your phone (at least on wifi). I use a tool called Proxyman, it allows me to install a self signed certificate on my phone and this allows the decryption of SS…

"learn a dozen technologies to the point of being an expert on all fields and then waste 2 months of work on each app, which will update every three days"

you're not wrong, but not going anywhere either.

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#103

Post by kyboren »

XorNot wrote: post #70
hnburnsy wrote: post #6

>Working with Grindr data, Yeagley began drawing geofences—creating virtual boundaries in geographical data sets—around buildings belonging to government agencies that do national security work. Are you seriously telling me that government phones of national security employees allow for the installation of apps that track your location and/or these employees are allowed to bring personal cell phones into these buildi…

Whether they take it into the building or not is irrelevant. If they drive nearby and leave it in the car, you can find them. If they drive nearby and turn it off then, you can find them (improve it by bracketing by the average 9-5 workday, add correlation of world events to late-night anomalies - i.e. the Washington pizza index[1]). If they leave their phone at home and switch it off, then you can still find them by…

Absolutely.

Here's my proposal:

- Prohibit all Federal employees from bringing a personal cellular radio to work.

- Build many parking structures for DC Federal employees across the region.

- Assign each employee a particular parking structure, ideally selected at random.

- Ensure each parking structure is served by public transportation infrastructure, dedicated shuttles, and a USGOV-run black car service to bring people to their workplace, potentially via an extra obfuscating hop to a different parking structure.

In an ideal world, all Federal employees would behave indistinguishably. That's impractical, but we can do a lot better than the status quo.

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#104

Post by spamuel »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #90

This is why you don't let the weather app access your location. In fact, weather apps are one of the main offenders here. ICE in the US has been known to use this same data to track down and harm undocumented migrants. Personally, I have a de-googled Pixel running GrapheneOS. It has a sandboxed version of Google Play, but without the elevated system privileges. I am not signed in to Google at any kind of global devic…

"track down and harm"? Just speak without weird political euphemisms please.

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#105

Post by XorNot »

kyboren wrote: post #103
XorNot wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether they take it into the building or not is irrelevant. If they drive nearby and leave it in the car, you can find them. If they drive nearby and turn it off then, you can find them (improve it by bracketing by the average 9-5 workday, add correlation of world events to late-night anomalies - i.e. the Washington pizza index[1]). If they leave their phone at home and switch it off, then you can still find them by…

Absolutely. Here's my proposal: - Prohibit all Federal employees from bringing a personal cellular radio to work. - Build many parking structures for DC Federal employees across the region. - Assign each employee a particular parking structure, ideally selected at random. - Ensure each parking structure is served by public transportation infrastructure, dedicated shuttles, and a USGOV-run black car service to bring p…

These would be the only people with movement patterns like that. They wouldn't blend at all: they'd stick out like a sore thumb on any type of large scale statistical analysis as anomalies.

"being really secret" doesn't work because the attempt to do so means you're doing a whole lot of stuff that no ordinary person does. That's a statistical anomaly - that's easy to find.

And again: all this information is public. It would be widely and well known that this is what is done, so what to look for would be well advertised. The locations of these buildings would then be well known. And since you've now added multiple intervening steps, nailing down who's going where is also easier - i.e. if someone drives into a known parking structure at time X, then you can draw a circle around that which is the mean transport time to get to any interesting federal buildings in the area before the work day starts. Map this across a few months and you'll pin down exactly which one they work at (I mean, you wouldn't bother if you were a foreign government though - a couple days worth of casual surveillance work would also grab every number plate and face you can see).

This is quite aside from the why of doing this: it would be a huge pain in the ass for the employees, who are not paid nearly enough to bother with it and become a hiring problem, for...what gain?

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#106

Post by nebula8804 »

asdffdasasdf wrote: post #102
nebula8804 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if this is exactly what you are asking. Are you looking for aggregated data on yourself or methods to discover what is being transferred? For the latter: One thing you can do is install a man in the middle and "sniff" what is being transferred by your phone (at least on wifi). I use a tool called Proxyman, it allows me to install a self signed certificate on my phone and this allows the decryption of SS…

"learn a dozen technologies to the point of being an expert on all fields and then waste 2 months of work on each app, which will update every three days" you're not wrong, but not going anywhere either.

What are you talking about? What dozen technologies? Wasting 2 months on what?

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#107

Post by mu53 »

unmole wrote: post #91
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #90

This is why you don't let the weather app access your location. In fact, weather apps are one of the main offenders here. ICE in the US has been known to use this same data to track down and harm undocumented migrants. Personally, I have a de-googled Pixel running GrapheneOS. It has a sandboxed version of Google Play, but without the elevated system privileges. I am not signed in to Google at any kind of global devic…

[flagged]

If the immigration laws were enforced 100% accurately today, the US economy would falter. Undocumented workers do work in farm, janitorial, restaurant, construction, and other sectors that is irreplaceable through any other reasonable means.

The immigration crisis of today is the result of a failure of legislative body to legislate (10% approval ratings are bad). Including other external factors such as corrupt governments/drug cartels and internal factors such as many companies happy to look the other way when people don't have legal work status.

If you watch videos on immigration seeing ICE, courts, and migrants interacting, the migrants get asylum and then encouraged to find work. It's all tongue-in-cheek. If anything the system could be intentional because without legislation, the executive branch can unilaterally set thresholds and targets for migration in step with economic goals. Even Trump didn't tighten the migration laws drastically until covid hit bringing an economic slowdown (no workers needed during recessions).

The social issues focused on in the media are minor compared to the economic benefits.

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#108

Post by leereeves »

browserman wrote: post #100
unmole wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Being an undocumented resident is not a crime. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/FINA...

But:

> Entering the United States without being inspected and admitted, i.e., illegal entry, is a misdemeanor or can be a felony, depending on the circumstances

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#109

Post by leereeves »

mu53 wrote: post #107
unmole wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If the immigration laws were enforced 100% accurately today, the US economy would falter. Undocumented workers do work in farm, janitorial, restaurant, construction, and other sectors that is irreplaceable through any other reasonable means. The immigration crisis of today is the result of a failure of legislative body to legislate (10% approval ratings are bad). Including other external factors such as corrupt gover…

> Undocumented workers do work in farm, janitorial, restaurant, construction, and other sectors that is irreplaceable through any other reasonable means.

It's all replaceable, but only by improving wages and working conditions. I find it a bit unappealing to celebrate the economic benefits we gain by paying people so little to work in such terrible conditions.

That said, I agree it's mostly political theater. Both Democrats and Republicans look the other way when the people who employ migrant workers violate labor laws. If Rs were serious about controlling immigration, or Ds were serious about protecting workers, they would prosecute the employers.

Re: How The Pentagon learned to use targeted ads to find its targets

#110

Post by jevoten »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #95
unmole wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I prefer the lest dehumanizing undocumented migrants. Using intentionally dehumanizing language exposes a desire for unchecked cruelty.

Do you have this backwards? Any animal can be "undocumented", and there are in fact strict requirements for cattle documentation if they're to be used as food. But only humans can be criminals.

More relevant is perhaps the issue of accuracy - if a US citizen loses their ID, they are "undocumented". Meanwhile an illegal immigrant, even if they have all their papers and the authorities know who they are, i.e. they are fully "documented", is still not permitted to stay in the country.

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