Don't allow soldiers to have mobile on restricted ground...
Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
21–30 of 78 posts
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#22This reminds me of an experiment I'd like someone to run on Strava. They had this big scandal some time ago where People identified US military bases simply by having a lot of activity in an otherwise empty area. Now they've added some mojo to prevent this but still sell location data. So how about running the same attack but instead of using the browser and their own website just use the bought location data. I susp…
It wasn't just the US military. There were plenty of jogging circuits around strange desert installations in Syria by joggers who had recently jogged around military bases in Russia, at a time when Russia was claiming no deployments and only observers and things.
There were also armchair people wondering about other tracks in various places in the world.
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#23Don't allow soldiers to have mobile on restricted ground...
That is akin to not letting them have guns in modern warfare. Or a field shovel.
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can add privacy zones around locations so when people look at your activities your line just disappears inside the radius of your privacy zones. I have ones around my home and where I work. No idea if that affects whatever data they sell (I doubt it, since you can still the full activity yourself even with a privacy zone), but stops people finding where you live/work and nicking your bike
you're essentially telling strava that the privacy area is very important to you (ie your home, work, etc) and they are probably selling that fact.
What a great signal for thieves too - this user has enough disposal income to have a fitness device, and is worried about being tracked, they must have good stuff.
Presumably you could filter by average speed and only get people with expensive bikes too.
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#25Don't allow soldiers to have mobile on restricted ground...
Traffic Analysis.
A lot of British intelligence during WW2 was gleamed not from the contents of the messages they intercepted, but rather from tracking who was where and communicating with whom.
And if you stop soldiers from using mobile phones on restricted ground, you are just going to have lots of tracks stopping abruptly at the gates and secure facilities identifiable by their lack of emissions.
Patterns.
There have been great examples of correctly identifying the crews of nuclear submarines by their predictable periods of time offline.
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#26Don't allow soldiers to have mobile on restricted ground...
That is akin to not letting them have guns in modern warfare. Or a field shovel.
Nonsense. I agree, the soldiers should not be permitted to have cellphones in critical areas unless exception is given for some other reason. There are ways to communicate using encrypted communication bands used by police etc. They could be using small handheld devices for 2 way radio and basic messaging.
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#27A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.
This reminds me of this rumour about how someone used tinder to triangulate opponent units during an exercise and arty them to shit. Supposedly Finns outwitting Norwegians, but is a anon text so who knows: https://imgur.com/gallery/bySUH
Reminds me of a story I heard: In a conflict, Russia sent SMS to the mothers of Ukrainian(?) soldiers, informing them of their son’s death (pretending to be the Ukrainian government/military). The mothers, distraught, called their son’s cellphone. The increased, clustered cellphone activity near the frontline gave away the unit positions. Shortly after, Russian bombs dropped.
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#28This reminds me of an experiment I'd like someone to run on Strava. They had this big scandal some time ago where People identified US military bases simply by having a lot of activity in an otherwise empty area. Now they've added some mojo to prevent this but still sell location data. So how about running the same attack but instead of using the browser and their own website just use the bought location data. I susp…
Seems to me the scandal is that US military bases allowed people in protected areas to upload GPS traces of their activities, more so than strava showing these along with millions of other traces in their activity maps...
Or that soldiers aren't trained well enough in SECOPS that they won't give away base details just to track their own fitness.
What's the punishment for having GPS tracking devices on a military base?
Bet they all love their free USB drives sent from a friend they forgot they had, too.
Hope they're epoxying the USB connections on their Win95 nuclear submarines.
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#29A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.
perhaps useful to replace the wording "track down" with "identify"?
Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco
#30A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.
A bit context on NRKbeta from their website. "NRKbeta is NRKs sandbox for technology and media. We write about media, the internet and new technology with a focus on you as the user, and what we at NRK do in this field. We call it a sandbox because we want to test things out, be curious and find out how things change. And bring you, the users, with us on this journey." https://nrkbeta.no/ EDIT: I also think it's impo…
They picked a dumb name. As a Norwegian, I was under the impression that they've actually got a beta version of some supposed new site functionality for the longest time.