Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police • Hacker News Board

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#101

Post by jhayward » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

vermontdevil wrote: post #20

dvtrn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading that article reminds me of a rather prophetically-accurate movie starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman "Emeny of the State"[0]. Granted, for a film that came out in 1998 it probably wasn't too hard to guess where things were headed w/rt surveillance compared to how seemingly prescient writings from the likes of Orwell and Bradbury were for their respective times. What stands out to me about the movie (because…

Hackman was also in another movie about spying and paranoia - The Conversation. Great movie. I know it’s not about nation states spying but wanted to add that here

Hackman played the same character in both movies. His character in enemy of the state has some deliberate references (the raincoat, the workshop, the opening sequence).

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#102

Post by jhayward » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #89

dontbenebby wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Location data can also be used to help prove your innocence. I can retain receipts from gas stations, getting a soda at the corner store, etc without needing to beam my realtime location data to the cloud.

I've never seen a gas station receipt with a timestamp. Is that common in other places?

I scan all my receipts, and every gas station receipt has a date and time stamp. How accurate they are is anyone's guess.

I also always use a credit card for any transaction which gives another 'I was there' proof point.

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#103

Post by dleslie » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #90

I turned off almost all tracking in Android a while ago, but never scanned the data it collected. I recently looked at what data was associated with my Google account, and there I saw: every voice command I ever issued my phone, and when I used what app. I could see at 9:30am I opened my camera app. I can see I viewed a notification at 9:45am. And so on. I deleted it all, but my guess is it probably still lives somew…

They track and consume and correlate/associate everything. That is their business: they sell their ability to know everything about you to anyone willing to pay for that information. All of their products feed into their core business.

Google is the most invasive and predatory attack on privacy ever; by no small margin.

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#104

Post by caymanjim » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

gist wrote: post #63

kyrra wrote: post #6

Even without Google or Apple, they police have the cell service providers. In the case of the Austin bomber from a year ago[0], police got cell tower records from the multiple bombings and figured out who was at all the locations. Cell phones are little trackers unless you turn them off or don't carry one. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna85...

> Even without Google or Apple, they police have the cell service providers Important to keep in mind that additional information provides corroboration at least in the mind of the jury and also detracts from issues regarding the information. This is illustrated by one of those Datelines' (or 48 Hours don't remember) that I saw recently. They exhumed a body to determine if the deceased was buried with contact lenses…

They need to bend over backwards with evidence because terrible shows like CSI and NCIS have convinced jurors that crime labs can perform magic and that they should acquit despite a preponderance of evidence unless there's a giant stack of lab reports and a manic pixie dream nerd testifying.

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#105

Post by deogeo » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

isoskeles wrote: post #97

deogeo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bad policing But arresting someone reasonably suspected of some crime isn't bad policing, even if they are later found to be innocent. That is why arrest and trial are separate.

Let's agree to disagree. I think that detaining an innocent person against their will is bad policing.

But how could it be avoided? The police don't operate on 'guilty' and 'innocent', but on 'suspect' - even if they do everything right, they'll occasionally arrest someone that will later turn out to be innocent. If they're responding to an emergency, they simply don't have time to determine guilt with much accuracy, and are just focusing on protecting possible victims. And if they're arresting someone being prosecuted for some crime, well it's unavoidable that occasionally someone won't be found guilty for what they stood trial for - that's the whole point of a trial.

However, I agree that if that should happen, the detained should be compensated for the harm they suffered, even if the police (and prosecutors!) acted reasonably.

I should clarify that I don't mean to imply the US police and public prosecutors meet these reasonablenes criteria - from what I hear, the deck is stacked heavily against anyone being prosecuted for a felony, guilty or not.

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#106

Post by caymanjim » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

This isn't the best case to use as an example of police overreach and information dragnets. Yes, they arrested the wrong guy and held him for a week, but the right guy was using the wrong guy's car. I realize they initially identified him--at least in part--via the Google-provided information, but the reason they held him for a week is because it was his car that was used to commit the crime. At that point, it was absolutely reasonable and correct to assume that he was the perpetrator. If that hadn't been the case, they probably would have questioned him and never even arrested him.

I'm not defending Google's information collection or the use of dragnets in general, but this is absolutely the wrong case to use as an example of how things can go wrong. Things did not go wrong here. This was good police work, and ultimately the arrest was not off-base, and led directly to the real perpetrator.

Find a better example if you want to drum up fear about information abuse.

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#107

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

DontGiveTwoFlux wrote: post #2

The article describes a case where an innocent man had to spend a week in jail. Eventually, he was released and the presumed actual perpetrator was caught. The lead seemed to come from the location data, so it wasn’t useless at least. But the so called justice system says that it got it right here. The innocent man lost his job when he couldn’t work for a week. Depending on his situation he could miss rent and be evi…

It's illegal for an employer to fire someone if they're selected for jury duty.

It's insane that it's legal for an employer to fire someone for being arrested, before being convicted.

The same protection should apply in any case where the government is the one forcibly removing you from being present at your workplace through no wrongdoing of your own.

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#108

Post by HenryBemis » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #90

I turned off almost all tracking in Android a while ago, but never scanned the data it collected. I recently looked at what data was associated with my Google account, and there I saw: every voice command I ever issued my phone, and when I used what app. I could see at 9:30am I opened my camera app. I can see I viewed a notification at 9:45am. And so on. I deleted it all, but my guess is it probably still lives somew…

I installed NoRoot Firewall, it has a "Access Log" tab, that logs all connections (allowed or block). My phone just didn't shut up'. Every other second some app (that wasn't in the foreground) was talking to some IP. My battery was getting slaughtered and my privacy as well.

I proceeded to disable the "Run in background" almost every application, kept only a handful that are really needed (e.g. Signal). Since then my battery lasts for 3 days, and my "Access Log" only moves minimally.

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#109

Post by lucb1e » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

reddog wrote: post #88

Crontab wrote: post #42

Orwell never guessed that the government could outsource our dystopian nightmare to corporations.

He also never guessed that we would eagerly stand in line to spend $1000 to buy our own tracking devices.

(Explaining my downvote: you know full well that the devices are not merely that. It's a useless comment.)

Re: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

#110

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

HenryBemis wrote: post #108

sbov wrote: post #90

I turned off almost all tracking in Android a while ago, but never scanned the data it collected. I recently looked at what data was associated with my Google account, and there I saw: every voice command I ever issued my phone, and when I used what app. I could see at 9:30am I opened my camera app. I can see I viewed a notification at 9:45am. And so on. I deleted it all, but my guess is it probably still lives somew…

I installed NoRoot Firewall, it has a "Access Log" tab, that logs all connections (allowed or block). My phone just didn't shut up'. Every other second some app (that wasn't in the foreground) was talking to some IP. My battery was getting slaughtered and my privacy as well. I proceeded to disable the "Run in background" almost every application, kept only a handful that are really needed (e.g. Signal). Since then my…

Can anyone recommend a good alternative for iOS to do just this?