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

timsh.org

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

#291

Post by timsh »

sjtgraham wrote: post #286

> There's no "personal information" here, but honestly this amount of data shared with an arbitrary list of 3rd parties is scary. Why do they need to know my screen brightness, memory amount, current volume and if I'm wearing headphones? > I know the "right" answer - to help companies target their audience better! For example, if you're promoting a mobile app that is 1 GB of size, and the user only has 500 MB of spac…

The “right” answer is not the one I end up with but rather the version sold by the vendor. this is what Apple and Google would say.

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

#292

Post by timsh »

pas wrote: post #268
timsh wrote: post #109

wow @apokryptein thanks for posting my article here... I'm shocked it's #1 rn. if anyone has any questions regarding the post - I'm here to answer & talk!

how the MAID/IDfV gets into the PII-ID databases? It seems that part is completely missing. (Or I missed it.) So for example can/do airlines sell it? Or telecom/utility companies, when you use their app?

I don’t know the answer to this, which is why I didn’t mention it in the post. However, I could speculate that these data-broker companies scrape leaked [hacked and stolen] data from various panels and then match records on their end. kinda OSINT for bad reasons.

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

#293

Post by timsh »

BubbleRings wrote: post #237

I clicked the link at the beginning of your article, that led to the Google sheet with the list of apps. That list had 12,373 lines, not “over 2,000”, fyi. And while most of the apps looked like small time games that I have never downloaded and would probably not download, I saw included there “Microsoft Office 365”. Interesting.

agreed, however there are duplicates in that list + same app for ios / android. if I’m not mistaking I did a simple unique count on it (or catch the 2000 number from 404media post)

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

#294

Post by _heimdall »

qingcharles wrote: post #156

One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. And I buy this stuff. Every time I need customer service and I'm getting stonewalled I just go onto a marketp…

It is possible to just not use a phone number.

I mostly connect through Signal. I do technically have a phone number that my close friends and family have, but its a random VoIP number that I usually change every year or so. Surprisingly no one has really cared, I send out a text that I got a new number and that's that.

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

#295

Post by coin »

sneak wrote: post #253
gruez wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. >As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. Fortunately this is changing with iOS 18 with "limited contacts" sharing. https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-cont…

How about a no/limited internet setting? So many apps spy on you and they don’t need network at all to function.

I would love an iOS setting that blocks all network access for certain apps

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

#296

Post by gruez »

ActorNightly wrote: post #279
gruez wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. >As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. Fortunately this is changing with iOS 18 with "limited contacts" sharing. https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-cont…

>Fortunately this is changing with iOS 18 with "limited contacts" sharing. Its not. Apple still owns your stuff. There is no difference between Apple and other 3p retailers. Apple just wants more of your money.

>Its not. Apple still owns your stuff. There is no difference between Apple and other 3p retailers.

That could be taken to mean anywhere between "Apple controls the software on your iPhone, therefore they control your contacts" and "Apple gives out your data like the data brokers mentioned in the OP". The former wouldn't be surprising at all, and most people would be happy with, and the latter would be scandalous if proven. What specifically are you arguing for?

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

#297

Post by adeon »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #263

I paid for pcapdroid, it's a network monitoring app that use the vpn protocol on Android to monitor every packet sent, register which app made the request, to whom, dates and so on. In it's paid feature, you can select app to block internet connection or you can select country, ip and host. After browsing my internet logs, it shocked me to see some app I had absolutely no idea were spying so much. Xiaomi home ? Yeah…

If you have the equipment (e.g. a spare Linux computer and WiFi router) and know-how, you can set up something like mitmproxy (looks very similar feature set to the Android App, but likely requires more effort to set up) to your home network. That's what I did some weeks ago, and then basically the same exercise you did (just my whole network instead of just phone), looking what's going on. And yeah...it's not good.

Even if I trust some companies to be trustworthy, I can't possibly vet a gazillion entities getting telemetry requests, and not all of them can have their shit together, security, privacy or ethics-wise.

It made me ditch some Microsoft software, but overall escaping spying feels like a lost battle, unless you go do spartan Richard Stallman-like computing (IIRC he had pretty hardcore stance over the software he'll use).

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

#298

Post by Aurornis »

whatshisface wrote: post #277
codazoda wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m relatively sure they would bring the hammer down on the sender.

What hammer? It's legal, that's the problem.

Getting access to someone’s contact info legally doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want.

This would very easily be covered under harassment laws, which are a separate matter.

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

#299

Post by dietr1ch »

fragmede wrote: post #230
dietr1ch wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is the reason why it's sort of illegal, but done anyways. Honestly, beyond paying fewer fees on the bus as a kid, I'm pretty sure I'm being scammed everytime I experience price discrimination. I feel it's easier to make it illegal and give away reasonable credits to all consumers. I wouldn't discriminate in credits either, I'd rather have public transportation being free for all than claim to save money tha…

pricing is all made up to begin with though. your can't take the cost to make an item, add a reasonable amount of profit and that's the "real" price. that's just not the reality of running a successful business. human psychology is far too complicated. at the end of the day, prices are just a number you make up, and hopefully it's a big enough number that your stay in business. hopefully it's a big enough number that…

> at the end of the day, prices are just a number you make up, and hopefully it's a big enough number that your stay in business.

The only requirement is to make up a single for all your customers that are getting the same thing back. It'll be made up and account for business factors like risks, profits, etc.

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

#300

Post by [deleted] »

mickgardner wrote: post #269

I find it fascinating reading hacker news, full of IT folk who simultaneously build software that enables and profits from the advertising and personal information selling & tracking industry - are also the same people who complain the loudest about it. Unbelievable.

[deleted]
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