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Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

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Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#31

Post by dylan604 »

HelloUsername wrote: post #4

Related? NSA Warns iPhone and Android Users–Disable Location Tracking https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42713536 Hackers Claim Breach of Location Data Giant, Threaten to Leak Data https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42627336

It’s funny how in recent headlines the NSA & FBI have been saying to use secure messaging app. Yet the FBI is infamous for claiming the need for back doors into these encrypted apps. What are we to think of the opposing views? Are they really being benevolent for the citizens, or do they no longer need the back door, or do they have a back door whether intentional or not?

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#33

Post by jay-barronville »

inahga wrote: post #6

There are quite a few interesting tracking flows out there. My rent is paid through a company called Bilt. I discovered that when I shop at Walgreens now, Bilt sends me an email containing the full receipt of what I bought like so: > Hey [inahga], > > You shopped at Walgreens on 12/1/24 and earned Bilt Points with your > Neighborhood Pharmacy benefit. > > Items eligible for rewards > TOSTITOS HINT OF LIME RSTC 11OZ >…

I’ve had to deal with Bilt [0]. In case you’re not aware, they have a “feature” called Instant Link that automatically pulls ALL of your personal and sensitive financial data from financial institutions, including your credit card accounts, balances, etc. They apparently do this via a partnership with a company called Method Financial [1].

It’s frankly the most intrusive thing I’ve ever encountered in any software I’ve ever used—I’m not sure how it’s even legal, but this is America where we have no real privacy rights.

Instead of giving you the option to opt in for them to get this level of access, they automatically enroll you into it when your account is created, pull your data, and then allow you to “opt out” afterward, which enables them to have access to your personal and sensitive financial data anyway. And since you literally must have an account with them if your building uses their services for rent payments, they’ve effectively rigged the system to force millions of folks to unknowingly give them access to their personal and sensitive financial data.

Anyway, in your Bilt privacy settings, there are some options you can disable (including Instant Link), and I recommend that you disable ALL of them, although given the dark practices of this company, I don’t even trust that those settings are actually honored.

Side note: Did you know about a company called Method Financial that somehow has real-time access to ALL of your personal and sensitive financial data? Did you know that this company you never heard of that has said access then sells that access to the highest bidder? Do you remember agreeing to any of that anywhere? Yeah, me neither (on all counts)…

[0]: https://www.biltrewards.com

[1]: https://methodfi.com

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#36

Post by gruez »

jmward01 wrote: post #30

A long time ago I had the idea to create an 'accountability server'. The high level idea was for it to generate unique credentials so that you could track to the source who sold your info. There are some ways to do that now, but I wonder if it is time to start exploring that idea again. If you exposed it as a VPN/proxy+app that ran on a server in your home, so that you could collect your own data and provide unique c…

Wouldn't this require access to bid side data? The OP mentions it's pretty easy to get, but any company using this to expose advertisers is going to get their access cut off pretty fast. As the saying goes, "snitches get stitches".

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#37

Post by gruez »

mistrial9 wrote: post #29
gruez wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just sounds like a standard cross-merchant loyalty program? I don't think there are many examples in the US, but once you realize it's a loyalty program you really shouldn't be surprised that they're tracking your purchase history. That's basically the entire premise.

> it's a loyalty program calling something loyalty does not make it "loyalty" ..

That's just the standard term for such programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_program

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#38

Post by abound »

baggy_trough wrote: post #12
monlockandkey wrote: post #5

How did were the apps able to collect geolocation even though location services were disabled?

Probably from IP address geolocation.

Indeed, the article notes that the lat/long wasn't "GPS exact", more like "postal code exact".

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#39

Post by quantified »

quacked wrote: post #8
ta988 wrote: post #2

Shame on all of the people working on those systems. Legit companies trying to make the world better struggle to find competent people.

I think a big part of the ability of these shady companies pulling the brightest minds away from more clearly beneficial fields is that important flavors of ideology necessary to motivate people to take less lucrative work have been stripped from "business". There's a lot fewer appeals to art, history, cultural stewardship, or empire-building present in things like transportation, medicine, construction, etc. than th…

Doing things because they increase some non-monetary value has fallen out of fashion for sure. A colleague of mine recently shared, in a group social setting, a sense of disappointment that his daughter was studying to be a doctor. I was, as far as I could tell, the only one to note that there is practical utility to having doctors.

But the "be part of our mission" was shown to be hollow over and over too. First and foremost, you as an enployee are making the investors and CEO rich. The mission is usually exploiting the employee, even when it's not exploiting the world. Employees have recognized the real social ethic (money over everything) and are just playing the same game. Which is sad.

Ideally the people who see these choices would make alternative choices that will leave their grandchildren better off in the world. It has taken only a generation for the "greed is good" mentality to drop us into this fetid soup.

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#40

Post by not2b »

dylan604 wrote: post #31
HelloUsername wrote: post #4

Related? NSA Warns iPhone and Android Users–Disable Location Tracking https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42713536 Hackers Claim Breach of Location Data Giant, Threaten to Leak Data https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42627336

It’s funny how in recent headlines the NSA & FBI have been saying to use secure messaging app. Yet the FBI is infamous for claiming the need for back doors into these encrypted apps. What are we to think of the opposing views? Are they really being benevolent for the citizens, or do they no longer need the back door, or do they have a back door whether intentional or not?

It seems that they have changed their minds about surveillance back doors, after some devastating attacks, where Chinese state actors (among others) used back doors created for compliance with warrants to get in.

But that was the pre-Trump NSA and FBI. Now the Chinese and the Russians just need to get some DOGE volunteer to give them whatever they want, since Elon now has root on all the government payment systems and is too undisciplined to do things in a secure way.

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