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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

#141

Post by rcoder »

pnw wrote: post #92

Nobody has explained to me how iOS ad SDKs across different apps can track individual users given that there hasn't been an accessible GUID on iOS for many years now.

Fingerprinting devices once you’re installed on them isn’t much harder than doing so in a web browser.

Have Instagram installed on your phone? Great, now every Meta-owned app _or advertiser running on their platform_ has a pretty good shot at identifying you based on IP, location, app usage, etc.

There is a ton of signal about identity available just by virtue of running alongside other apps. Screen size, OS version, and IP are pretty good proxies for unique identity, especially if all you care about is _probable_ matches.

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

#142

Post by autoexec »

tamimio wrote: post #130

I don’t thinks there’s any person who doesn’t know this information already, yet you keep seeing the same empty articles of “oh yes they collect your data using commercial apps”.. list all these apps to consumers, list the services too, list the companies that are selling them, so people will stop using them or at least limit its access. I know most social media are, but there are far more companies and apps that are…

The companies handing your data over to the government are apple, google, microsoft, and every ISP, every social media platform, and every cell phone provider in the country. What now? You going to throw out every computer you own and never use the internet? When the problem exists in everything we use and depend on there is no avoiding it.

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

#143

Post by autoexec »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #2

That's the job of the FBI - to investigate domestic crimes. But, why do private organizations so willingly participate in the tracking ecosystem? I suppose they're in the, "you have nothing to worry about if you're not doing anything illegal" camp! Hopefully they understand that they have the most to lose.

> But, why do private organizations so willingly participate in the tracking ecosystem?

Because it makes them money and that's literally the only thing they care about. They'd do anything for money and the only reason they ever don't do something is because it either wouldn't make them money at all, or it would cost them more money than they'd make.

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

#144

Post by Terr_ »

pat2man wrote: post #135
Terr_ wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough location data becomes effectively unique: There is likely only one phone in the world that averages over X nighttime hours in my apartment-complex and averages over Y workday-hours in the the same office block where I work. That kind of pattern can be used to determine that two or more different app-identities are the same person, and anybody buying that data has a strong incentive to try it.

Which I guess is what iCloud private relay solves. But only if you pay.

So basically like a VPN or Tor? That won't defend against local code that can read location data and send it to a remote server.

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

#145

Post by anonymars »

inetknght wrote: post #139
NewsaHackO wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, I absolutely would. And then you will get fired by the end of day.

Luckily I don't work for an ad-supported business.

How did your company and its customers find each other?

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

#146

Post by roysting »

autoexec wrote: post #113
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.

"FBI is buying location data to track US citizens" ... "Until there are laws that actually protect us"

I don't see how we overcome that massive hurdle. It's not like those who ostensibly make the laws don't know and approve, and probably intentionally implemented that.

We now have full scale mass tracking and surveillance of the kind no one pre-9/11 would believe would have been allowed to exist in the form of the Flock cameras (of course it was an enemy Brit implementing surveillance in the USA) making anonymity quite literally as challenging as Winston Smith trying to move around without being detected to meet his love interest.

How are we going to get the de facto tyrants in the government to pass laws that materially disempower them by being unable to mass surveil everyone at any given time if they don't like what you are saying or thinking?

The problem with all the naysayers for all those decades is that once you have given up control over your own life and you have given away your rights protected by the Constitution, your enemies in the government are unlikely to simply give them back because you ask nicely. In fact, they will most likely aggressively move against anyone that even suggests that you nicely ask for your rights back.

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

#147

Post by dylan604 »

autoexec wrote: post #118
dylan604 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's why FB decided to encrypt in transit data moving internally between data centers. I'm guessing some TLAs were none too pleased with that. Then again, maybe they suggested a particular encryption to use so they can say they are encrypting yet not slowing down the intake either????

Especially after Snowden, if anyone does not think the US govt TLAs are trying to read every bit that crosses a wire, then they are just deluding themselves. Even before Snowden, Echelon was known for telephonic intercepts. It didn't take much imagination to take it further for internet traffic. Snowden just removed the need for imagination.

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

#148

Post by quickthoughts »

quantified wrote: post #90
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…

And Facebook/Meta. Their trackers are everywhere.

It's everyone. Especially google, but all the big tech companies play in the same pool. Amazon, Google, Apple, Meta etc make money selling ads, which ultimate enables the tools that result data harvesting from everyone across the internet. I wrote a little data investigation [1] (mostly finished) that show cases how every major news organization across the globe I scanned had some level of data collection integrated. This is just one industry, but its important (as it connects back to the incentives these media organizations have, which is to make money by selling ads at any cost). The eff also released an angle in how the bidding process to buy ads is itself a massive privacy nightmare[2]

[1] https://quickthoughts.ca/autotracko/ [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/targeted-advertising-g...

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

#150

Post by godelski »

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.

Neither big players have refined enough permissions. These set users up for giving away more data than they think.

Maybe one clear example is needing a permission once for setup and then it remaining persistent.

An easy demonstration is just looking at what Graphene has done. It's open source and you wana say Google can't protect their users better? Certainly Graphene has some advanced features but not everything can be dismissed so easily. Besides, just throw advanced features behind a hidden menu (which they already have!). There's no reason you can't many most users happy while also catering to power users (they'll always complain, but that's their job)

https://grapheneos.org/features

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