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FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

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Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#111

Post by orsorna »

anigbrowl wrote: post #70
observationist wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Differential identification means you can be singled out based on profiles. Even if you don't have any accounts, big tech companies still have shadow profiles, and those shadow profiles can be linked to your offline identity, such that everything you've done that's been recorded, and everything you've done in (temporal, physical, or digital) proximity to other people who do have accounts results in a record of activi…

There's also the superman problem - the burner phone would only ever appear when anonymars is missing, and vice versa, creating a real and exploitable pattern if anyone like the FBI wanted to root around in your life. All they'd have to do is query which shadow profiles match the temporal gaps correlated with your disappearance from tracking. This is nonsense. By your logic, people go 'missing' any time they are not…

It's not useful in a vacuum, but one of many degrees that can be combined to create a unique profile of you.

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#112

Post by betaby »

jshier wrote: post #96
jshier wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you like them to do? They already force apps to ask for permission, give user control over when the app can even access the location (including just once), tell the user when the app has been accessing the location repeatedly over time, and allow the user the shut off location services for each app individually whenever they want. So aside from shutting off more and more possible sideband sources of locati…

Answering my own question, they need a way for users to grant location permission only to the primary app and not any of its dependencies, as once you grant it, it's available to all code in the app. It would be great if there was some way to separate those. They could also better enable network traffic inspection on device, so we could tell where data is going. LittleSnitch on iOS would be great.

IP is often enough to correlate things. LittleSnich or whatever is no help - oftentimes data is collected by the app/site directly, and then funneled to various systems via kafka-like brokers. In this case you always have only cobbections to something like cool-application-domain.au

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#113

Post by autoexec »

FL4TLiN3 wrote: post #20

Who's selling the data is the far more serious issue here. Behind this is a remarkably well-structured syndicate. The supply chain looks something like this: consumer apps embed ad SDKs → those SDKs feed location signals into RTB ad exchanges → surveillance-oriented firms sit in the RTB pipeline and harvest bid request data even without winning auctions → that data flows to aggregators who don't have any direct relat…

> Who's selling the data is the far more serious issue here.

Everyone who has it is selling that info, and nearly everyone who collects it is selling it. Until there are laws that actually protect us, we should stop giving companies our location data every chance we get and push for laws that prevent it from being unnecessarily collected in the first place.

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#115

Post by downrightmike »

zer00eyz wrote: post #11
shevy-java wrote: post #4

They hate us for our freedom. Also, isn't this breaking the constitution? It bypasses needing a warrant respectively having a objective suspicion.

> Also, isn't this breaking the constitution? It bypasses needing a warrant respectively having a objective suspicion. Nope. Your personal information, when given to others, is now trash on the curb (in a literal sense, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_v._Greenwood ) Buying it just clears up the chain of custody as opposed to the NSA stealing it and reverse engineering your warrant -- OR -- using the goo…

Anti Pinkerton act: gov can't buy services it isn't legally allowed to do themselves

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#116

Post by lmeyerov »

cheriot wrote: post #107
lmeyerov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple and Google are facilitating the data sales Specifically, these big companies revenue share with app companies who in turn increase monetization via selling your private information, esp via free apps. In exchange for Apple etc super high app store rake percentage fees, they claim to run security vetting programs and ToS that vet who they do business with and tell users & courts that things are safe, even when t…

I'm game for throwing rocks at Apple and Google, but I don't get this one. > consumer apps embed ad SDKs → those SDKs feed location signals into RTB ad exchanges → surveillance-oriented firms sit in the RTB pipeline and harvest bid request data even without winning auctions Would you ban ad supported apps? Assuming the comment you're responding to is realistic, I'm not sure how the OS is to blame.

You can trace the big players

If Google & Apple & friends refused to take a rake and opened distribution, then I'd agree, net neutrality etc, not their problem

But they own so much, and so deep into the pipeline, and explain their fees to courts because "security"... and then don't do investigations. They employ some of the best security analysts in the world and have $10-30B/yr revenue tied to just the app store fees, so they very much can take a big bite out of this if they wanted.

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#117

Post by Tempest1981 »

lmeyerov wrote: post #34
FL4TLiN3 wrote: post #20

Who's selling the data is the far more serious issue here. Behind this is a remarkably well-structured syndicate. The supply chain looks something like this: consumer apps embed ad SDKs → those SDKs feed location signals into RTB ad exchanges → surveillance-oriented firms sit in the RTB pipeline and harvest bid request data even without winning auctions → that data flows to aggregators who don't have any direct relat…

Apple and Google are facilitating the data sales Specifically, these big companies revenue share with app companies who in turn increase monetization via selling your private information, esp via free apps. In exchange for Apple etc super high app store rake percentage fees, they claim to run security vetting programs and ToS that vet who they do business with and tell users & courts that things are safe, even when t…

Not Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax?

Or for location, the cellular providers?

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#118

Post by autoexec »

dylan604 wrote: post #104
samrus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the pipeline needs to be plugged at both ends. We shouldnt allow this data to be sold without express consent. And we shouldnt allow the government to purchase this sort of data regardless of consent, protected under the 4th amendment. unless, iguess, express consent is given to be used by the government for investigative purposes, which no one would give since they dont have to under the 5th amendment

> And we shouldnt allow the government to purchase this sort of data regardless of consent Fine, we'll force companies to allow a small little box to be added to their data center. Don't worry about what it does, but you cannot disconnect network/power to it once it is installed. Once it is operational, you'll no longer need to think about it ever again, and we recommend that you don't. You should also not talk about…

There's no reason to think that this doesn't regularly happen by at least one three letter agency. It's something they've done for a very long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A). They were willing and able to secretly redirect every last bit of data going over AT&Ts backbone into their systems back in 2003 you can bet that they have at least that much capability in place today.

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#119

Post by lmeyerov »

adrr wrote: post #82
lmeyerov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple and Google are facilitating the data sales Specifically, these big companies revenue share with app companies who in turn increase monetization via selling your private information, esp via free apps. In exchange for Apple etc super high app store rake percentage fees, they claim to run security vetting programs and ToS that vet who they do business with and tell users & courts that things are safe, even when t…

If I have a free app that hits location services on the device and I sell this data, how does Apple and Google make money from me?

[dead]

Re: FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

#120

Post by lmeyerov »

pocksuppet wrote: post #106
FL4TLiN3 wrote: post #20

Who's selling the data is the far more serious issue here. Behind this is a remarkably well-structured syndicate. The supply chain looks something like this: consumer apps embed ad SDKs → those SDKs feed location signals into RTB ad exchanges → surveillance-oriented firms sit in the RTB pipeline and harvest bid request data even without winning auctions → that data flows to aggregators who don't have any direct relat…

All of it is legal, and incentivised. Is it any surprise?

*legal in the US
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