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CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

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Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#101

Post by chaps »

legitster wrote: post #16

I work with Ad Data a lot in my job, and there's a lot of misconceptions about what this data that journalists love to propogate: The location data in these networks is very inaccurate. Your OS and browser actually do a pretty good job of locking down your location data unless you give explicit permission. It's in the ad network's interests to lie about the quality of their data - so a lot of the "location" data is g…

I worked in ad-tech for a year before I left the tech industry as a whole. I've also done a fair bit of investigative journalism.

Let me share a thing:

Factual, a company that specializes in hyperlocal geofencing, uses geofencing much smaller than the self-regulation that their industry allows in their own rules. I learned this after a coworker quit because our company was allowing ad targeting to people using these smaller geofences. The whole company had an all-hands about it where the CEO of the company told everyone that we were not going to stop using Factual nor the smaller-than-allowed geofences because we, ourselves, were not the ones to produce those geofences. We were just a man in the middle helping to build a system to track people at high resolution.

Please try to reconcile with what your industry has and continues to destroy.

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#102

Post by Computer0 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #52
cdrnsf wrote: post #40

I have 26 apps on my phone. Of those, four are Safari extensions, one is a PWA and another I wrote myself. I use a restrictive nextDNS profile that also blocks Apple's native tracking (as best they can) and don't use social media. I feel like that's the best I can realistically do.

And you do realize your cellphone is constantly sharing your location with your cell phone company which is more than willing to give it to the government without a warrant. Whatever you are doing is meaningless privacy theatre

They are probably actively providing that information. At AT&T we still are working very closely with the NSA.

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#103

Post by golem14 »

legitster wrote: post #64
golem14 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your is statement is inaccurate to the point of being intentionally misleading: Many devices, when running, and in some cases even if turned off but connected to their battery, will ping cell towers (maybe even BLE/Wifi) and get triangulated by the network infrastructure (such as cell towers) without actively broadcasting the GPS location. That's why I don't quite understand why the gubernment needs to have f…

Cell-site location information (CSLI) is not available to apps or adware and is protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Yes, but it is available to the gubernment ? Especially this gubernment?

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#105

Post by PostOnce »

Cider9986 wrote: post #87
Zak wrote: post #66

I have never regretted my decision to aggressively block ads on every device I use, and to shun devices where I can't.

I am not sure that ad blocking is enough now or in the future as fingerprinting is extremely hard to fight while keeping a convenient web experience. Of course, continue blocking for convenience, but for privacy, more robust solutions are needed. Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com

Beginning to wonder if convenience is the root of all evil, and not money. Money's just a proxy for convenience.

More of us should learn to do things the hard way more often, and to be familiar with less-convenient things. There are life-changing advantages to doing things the hard way at least some of the time.

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#106

Post by golem14 »

jonas21 wrote: post #43
golem14 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your is statement is inaccurate to the point of being intentionally misleading: Many devices, when running, and in some cases even if turned off but connected to their battery, will ping cell towers (maybe even BLE/Wifi) and get triangulated by the network infrastructure (such as cell towers) without actively broadcasting the GPS location. That's why I don't quite understand why the gubernment needs to have f…

That location information is not available to apps or ad networks without user consent. The government can access it from the carrier with a warrant, but that's not what we're discussing here.

I think that's very much what is discussed in this whole thread.

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#107

Post by drnick1 »

Zak wrote: post #100
Cider9986 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure that ad blocking is enough now or in the future as fingerprinting is extremely hard to fight while keeping a convenient web experience. Of course, continue blocking for convenience, but for privacy, more robust solutions are needed. Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com

I beat it with Firefox, UBO, standard Firefox advanced tracking protection, and a VPN. It was able to track me as long as my IP address didn't change, but as soon as I switched VPN endpoints, it gave me a new identifier.

Same thing here (Firefox + Arkenfox + uBlock Origin). Need to change the IP to beat the fingerprinter, but that is just how the Internet works and the browser itself cannot do anything about it.

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#108

Post by beepbooptheory »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #52
cdrnsf wrote: post #40

I have 26 apps on my phone. Of those, four are Safari extensions, one is a PWA and another I wrote myself. I use a restrictive nextDNS profile that also blocks Apple's native tracking (as best they can) and don't use social media. I feel like that's the best I can realistically do.

And you do realize your cellphone is constantly sharing your location with your cell phone company which is more than willing to give it to the government without a warrant. Whatever you are doing is meaningless privacy theatre

This makes sense to me but then why is CBP here needing/wanting to pay for ad data if they can just ask the ISPs/cell phone companies?

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#109

Post by titzer »

legitster wrote: post #22
ducttape12 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither the government nor an ad agency needs to know where I am, no matter how "rough" the data is. It's none of their business.

At this point, your device is not giving anyone your location without explicit permission. So it really just comes down to your IP Address, which services do need.

If you use Google Location Services, which is stock install on basically all Android devices, it absolutely is uploading "anonymized" GPS data all the time.

Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements

#110

Post by jandrewrogers »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #25
ramoz wrote: post #21

I worked closely to some of this. There were strict policies in place to never monitor US Citizens. That said i was focused in more kinetic warfare domains and not sure what would've extended past the borders by local law enforcements (DHS typically dictated no-us-soil policies). But, this is a money-hungry data pipeline of resellers and aggregators and they were always eager to sell more.

How do they determine if the person is a US citizen? I've sometimes wondered if my Google account is caught up in mass surveillance of non-Americans because I created my main email address while living in Australia, though I am a US citizen and only a US citizen. I haven't checked in a while, but I know that even in the US, checking my email on the web it would show that it was connecting to an Australian domain.

There are multiple cues in the data stream that let you tag the person with a country of residence even when traveling internationally. It isn't perfect but it is likely more than adequate in most cases.

The US government contracts with commercial data providers stipulate that all US data must be removed. There are quite a few regulatory controls that are adhered to.

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