Anyone have a link to jeans with faraday pockets?
Found on Google: http://thefaradayproject.com/
US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
161–170 of 648 posts
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this happening with iPhone as well, or primarily android due to the third party nature of the hardware?
It's android for the hardware manufacturers and OS crapware getting location data. For iOS, assume every app using your location is selling the data. That means every app using a map or location smoothing SDK (GPS jumps around, there are services to smooth it out), since the map SDK providers (and there's not many) are selling your data even if the app itself isn't. Google, Apple, Microsoft etc are pretty careful for…
Every app that has access to nearby WiFi SSIDs (or even just the one you’re connected to) can also turn this data into location data.
In fact I don’t think that is even a gated permission on iOS.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#163The most obvious use of the data appears to be by credit card companies to detect fraudulent use of a card and decline those transactions. This is something I'm relatively comfortable with, though it's plainly in the interests of the bank and I only indirectly benefit from the tracking.
Does it bother you that you're being tracked?
Yes, I am greatly bothered by it, especially because I am not aware of the extent that my information is being distributed.
On the one hand, I opt-in to location tracking for apps and services such as Google services, because I genuinely believe that I benefit greatly from location-targeted information. On the other hand, I would opt out of any other location tracking of my cellphone to companies that I do not see the benefit of having. I want fraud-protection and no liability when it comes to fraudulent purchases (opt-in for credit card companies and banks), but I don't want the government/Facebook/retailers/insurers to have this access without permission.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#164Throwaway account. I work in location / mapping / geo. Some of us have been waiting for this to blow (which it hasn't yet). The public has zero idea how much personal location data is available. It's not just your cell carrier. Your cell phone chip manufacturer, GPS chip manufacturer, phone manufacturer and then pretty much anyone on the installed OS (android crapware) is getting a copy of your location data. Usually…
And how can I buy this realtime data? Also > Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go. Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?
>> Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go.
> Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?
Foursquare does it, there were some articles last year about how they pivoted to providing that data. They were able to accurately predict Chipotle customer declines after their food contamination scandals.
I'm not sure if they use this carrier location data, or just the data from the people who are still using their app.
Edit: here's one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/04/2...
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#165Anyone have a link to jeans with faraday pockets?
The off button/battery out is a simpler solution. You won't be receiving calls anyway.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a problem with the GSM/UMTS standards themselves. Carriers always know where you are, but one could create a standard where they wouldn't have to know unless you make a call. With enough encryption and effort, I'm pretty sure one could even create a standard where carriers would never know where you are, even while you are using services.
How does one determine which tower to route an incoming call through, in your model? How could roaming work? Spoiler: I don’t think doing what you are describing is feasible.
Off the top of my head, you could have this system: you use a new id that authenticates you with the carrier every n packets, and you do the routing from the source to your id on a server that you control yourself.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#167Throwaway account. I work in location / mapping / geo. Some of us have been waiting for this to blow (which it hasn't yet). The public has zero idea how much personal location data is available. It's not just your cell carrier. Your cell phone chip manufacturer, GPS chip manufacturer, phone manufacturer and then pretty much anyone on the installed OS (android crapware) is getting a copy of your location data. Usually…
For those who want to try out LocationSmart, you can use it here: https://www.locationsmart.com/try/ They were about two blocks off, and located me by cell tower. Apparently they don't have (or at least don't admit to having) A-GPS level data for me.
Can you post the SMS opt-in message you received? Curious as to whether this is exploitable as well
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> did a quick check How? Thanks.
searched up the package name, and according to https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/software-hacking/ar... , it's installed at /system/priv-app/xtra_t_app, which was not on my phone. Also noticed that most posts had mentions of IZat in their location settings, which my phone did not have (in lineageos or stock)
You're looking in the wrong place.
TrustZone OS is started during SBL2 (secureboot level 2), running in hypervisor mode, while you're looking at the Android OS started during SBL3 (secureboot level 3). You cannot see hypervisor processes & apps from your vantage point (the android kernel).
The trustzone OS is usually located in TZ partition, and it uses some additional partitions for custom TZ apps and data persistence.
The hypervisor has independent access to the internet, the wifi card (for indoor location), and more.
Qualcom boot process, showing SBL1, SBL2 and SBL3 stages:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1769411&pa...
It goes without saying that without TrustZone OS, the phone won't boot to Android OS (won't proceed to SBL3).
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#169The worst part is there isn't any possible way I know of to defend yourself against this other than not having a phone.
While unreliable it wouldn't be unrealistic to use wifi in densely populated areas. It looks like the pager industry is still alive, too.
Most wifi hotspots have location information anyway, so your phone will know where it is, and then one of the many apps on your phone can report back with that information.
And isn't a pager just a really simple cell phone? I'm not sure how that's a solution if cell towers can triangulate your position.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does one determine which tower to route an incoming call through, in your model? How could roaming work? Spoiler: I don’t think doing what you are describing is feasible.
Calls could be done over IP, and as long as you could anonymously authenticate to the tower then you could be granted a new IP address at each tower via something like DHCP. I imagine roaming and handovers would have to be done on the end-device though; the end-device would need to proactively associate to new towers and both ends of the voice call would need to agree to switch to the new IP address. But if the tower…
If you really wanted to do this, a more secure approach is onion routing. It's essentially the same problem -- attempting to preserve anonymity in the face of adversarial network hardware, while being limited by a requirement to enter / exit through certain nodes.
So you'd want a mesh network, formed adhoc out of currently in range cellular device neighbors, with packets re-encapsulated and encrypted at each hop, eventually hitting the tower from a random device.
Authorization would be impossible (the intent of the scheme) without a side channel (as you can't simultaneously have individual authorization and individual anonymization). Which makes it a non-starter for commercial use.