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US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

theguardian.com

111–117 of 117 posts

Re: US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You insist on using broad brushstroke language like "masked goons". Nobody is going to listen to your lack of nuance on other topics either.

Well you're right, "goon" is a value judgement, but if someone's critical thinking extends no further than 'bad word therefore bad argument' then I'm not sure I could reach them in any case.

Re: US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

#112
post #78
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disabling "advertising ID" on iOS makes it extremely difficult to reliably fingerprint phones. Apple doesn't allow SDKs which attempt to bypass this, so the app would have to have a first party auth of some type.

>Disabling "advertising ID" on iOS makes it extremely difficult to reliably fingerprint phones. You got this flipped. The whole point of "fingerprinting" is to build a stable identifier that works even if a explicit identifier (IMEI or advertising ID) isn't available. And yes, there are shady SDKs that do this without facing repercussions. https://www.buchodi.com/i-broke-applovins-mediation-cipher-p...

That article is pure AI slop.

Re: US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You insist on using broad brushstroke language like "masked goons". Nobody is going to listen to your lack of nuance on other topics either.

Well you're right, "goon" is a value judgement, but if someone's critical thinking extends no further than 'bad word therefore bad argument' then I'm not sure I could reach them in any case.

The precise word choices have nothing to do with it. Even in this rebuttal you're still projecting an oversimplified perspective.

Re: US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

#114
post #46

It sounds like they disabled the "advertising ID" OS feature, but there are many other ways to fingerprint a device for advertising. Maybe this will lead to real privacy reform, now that the true risks are apparent. Not to mention ICE using the same data against civilians.

Disabling "advertising ID" on iOS makes it extremely difficult to reliably fingerprint phones. Apple doesn't allow SDKs which attempt to bypass this, so the app would have to have a first party auth of some type.

> app

Do they really allow any app to be downloaded on mil phones?

Re: US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

#115

Why even allow any mobile phone for the US solider if it could cause any arbitrary problem for the US military if the location data, name, unit, rank, ... of the respective soldier was published and permanently updated on a publicly viewable website? It should be obvious that the US military has good reasons why this would be the death for many military strategies. So, why doesn't the military than treat every soldie…

Probably because the intelligence community is also at the other side of this equation. The strategic advantage of a smartphone duopoly completely inside US jurisdiction is immeasurable.

Re: US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

#116
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is currently not deploying troops against an adversary that can make use of that information.

Why would they need to be deployed for an adversary to make use of that information? Sure it's more valuable on deployment, but wouldn't we also want to, you know, not give information on mobilization or lack thereof?

Large-scale troop mobilization are not subtle and can be sussed out by satellite observations. You can bet that all US forces are already closely tracked that way.

Invasions are usually spearheaded by elite forces that I presume are competent enough to understand that actively broadcasting what you're about to do is a bad idea.

Re: US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones

#117
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is currently not deploying troops against an adversary that can make use of that information.

China, Iran and Russia are probably all capable of it. Russians would love the blackmail potential.

There are currently no large-scale deployments against them though. Of course the US is going to learn the lesson painfully if they don't take care of these information leaks.
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