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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

#361

Post by miki123211 »

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…

> And I buy this stuff. Every time I need customer service and I'm getting stonewalled I just go onto a marketplace, find an exec and buy their details for pennies

The article author claims that you can't get this stuff for under $10k. Where do you find it for pennies?

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

#362

Post by _pktm_ »

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…

Thanks for sharing this approach. I gotta say that I’d love to hear more about how/where you are buying this data, and the CashApp story too.

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

#364

Post by miki123211 »

hellojesus wrote: post #354
sneak wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Grapheneos lets you pick this for apps before they even launch. You can revoke their network access, as well as define storage scopes for apps at a folder level, so if an app needs access to photos, you can define a folder, and that is the only folder it can scan for photos. I used that when submitting parental leave at work. I didn't want to provide full access to all my photos and files for work, so all they got wa…

iOS and Mac also let you do this, for photos, contacts and files.

Apple is also pushing developers toward using native picker components. That way, you don't need to request consent at all, as you only get access to the specific object that the user has picked using a secure system component.

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

#365

Post by miki123211 »

dylan604 wrote: post #310
sneak wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Until the app's devs get wise to this, and do not allow the app to function without the network access. It could be as simple as a full screen, non-closable screen that says the app requires network access with a button to the proper setting to correct the issue.

You can't do this, because some users are genuinely offline sometimes.

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

#366

Post by sriacha »

ignoramous wrote: post #325
nickburns wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to devices and apps that are 'hard-coded' to query specific DoH servers/providers, therefore bypassing and regardless of any user-configured DNS server/s. And because DoH operates on outbound TCP/443, the lookups are indistinguishable from any other 'web' traffic. Even some of the most popular desktop web browsers are configured to utilize DoH by default nowadays. The most that a network administrator c…

> The most that a network administrator can do to prevent this is configure firewall IP blocklists of known DoH servers ... A firewall (which must also host a resolver) can choose to block requests to IPs it hasn't resolved domain names for. This is something I implemented for an Android firewall app I co-develop; it works nicely enough.

what app?

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

#367

Post by myself248 »

jrockway wrote: post #67
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 >…

What's most interesting to me about that is that they are willing to disclose that data to your email provider. Amazon, for example, is pretty cagey about what you've bought when sending emails, probably because they don't want Google to be able to use that information to target ads to you. (Not because they are Good and care about your privacy, but because they think they're going to beat Google at advertising. How'…

Oh, here I thought it was because every time I want to remember info about an order, it forces me back to their platform, rather than simply searching my email like I do for every other item I've ever purchased.

(And no, I don't use gmail.)

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

#368

Post by [deleted] »

ActorNightly wrote: post #357
gruez wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Why do you inherently trust Apple? Remember, the big celebrity photo leak happened because of a vulnerability within Apple Software.

[deleted]

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

#369

Post by TheBozzCL »

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 >…

This literally just happened to me last week. I emailed them to ask them how to stop this:

    > I understand you want to opt out of all points and rewards and not be tracked.  
    > 
    > We're constantly working to make Bilt as rewarding as possible. Currently, we don't have an option to opt out of points or rewards. To prevent your transactions from being tracked, the most effective step is to unlink your card from your Bilt account.
    > 
    > To unlink the card:
    >
    > Go to the Wallet tab > Scroll down to the Your Linked Cards section.
    > Look for the card you would like to unlink and tap View all benefits.
    > Click the ellipsis [:] on the top right, then tap Edit > Unlink.
Gah, I hate this service and will avoid renting on buildings that use it in the future.

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

#370

Post by WillPostForFood »

nehal3m wrote: post #186
gruez wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most online forums ban "doxing" even if it's theoretically legal.

Technically it's one step removed from doxxing, but I'll take your point.

More than one step unless you planned to post it publically. "I need a phone number, where can I get it" is all good!
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