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US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

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Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinsight is a big one. But there are too many to name. In 2018, you should assume that any free service (Unroll.me), web/mobile SDK (Slice), email client (Airmail), personal finance tracker (Mint), integration API (Plaid), geolocator (Foursquare), etc is monetized by selling your data en masse for market research. It's not just location data. Dig into the TOS of free services you use. It's your receipts, your transac…

Hasn't Foursquare been doing this and nothing but this for ten years now?

Foursquare is selling business services based on the data they collect, not the data itself (as far as I know).

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here the difference shows pretty clearly, as I would trust the government more than any company. Government serves the people, while companies mostly care just about profit. Any of companies' privacy concerns are related to legal and PR risks. Being from Northern Europe, I do feel I have a good reason to trust the government. It's a machine that is working for my benefit, with my tax money, and is held accountable vi…

“Here the difference shows pretty clearly, as I would trust the government more than any company.” What the? ”Government serves the people” Wait seriously? ”Being from Northern Europe,” OH. Yea, I’m pretty sure there is a cultural difference we just aren’t going to agree on. I don’t know what country you are from but I’m going to guess it’s population is pretty small and what you effectively have is small government…

Whether or not they live up to that purpose is another discussion, but at a base level the government exists to serve the people while (for-profit) corporations exist to make money. Regardless of cultural differences.

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820? Oh yes, IZat is definitively there, along with other interesting trustzone applets :) It is running under QSEE (Qualcomm) and/or MobiCore (Trustonic) OS, which is separate from your Android OS. It is left untouched by custom ROMs.

I do not understand. Even if there was a separate OS running in parallel with Android, how could it access the wireless-networks-based and satellite-based location data? I thought that access to these things is controlled by Android. In other words, when I turn off e.g. satellite location data in Android, can IZat (which, according to your post, runs outside of Android) or other similar spyware keep secretly using it…

Oh, sweet summer child ...

"Even if there was a separate OS running in parallel with Android, how could it access the wireless-networks-based and satellite-based location data? I thought that access to these things is controlled by Android."

There is a separate OS running in parallel with Android and it is running on the very hardware that makes the network connections to the cellular network that you are speaking of.

In fact there are two - the OS and software stack that run on the baseband processor and the OS and software (java apps) that run on your SIM card, which is a full blown computer with its own memory and processor, etc. In fact, your carrier can upload new java programs to your SIM card without your knowledge at any time.

Your final question is a good one - many (most ?) implementations give the baseband processor DMA to the main, application processor. So you are hopelessly owned. Deeply, profoundly, hopelessly owned.

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#225
post #75

Earlier 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.

Would not it be easier to ban anyone from using this location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law? The problem is not with standards, the problem is with people.

Banning things works relatively well for people because they fear having trouble with law and justice. Doesn't work that well for corporations whose law department is just like any other department. In this case you must assume that if it's technically possible then it's done.

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#226
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you want to get it to blow up then (based on past experience of what seems to catch regulator/legislator interest) I'd say that someone tracking the locations of a load of politicians for a while, finding things of interest about places they've visited and then publishing on a news outlet would do the job.

Good way to loose your job very quickly. I don't think we should have to rely on somebody sacrificing themselves to make a difference.

Why not? How do you think change comes about, by complaining about it on a tech forum?

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#227
post #35

The worst part is there isn't any possible way I know of to defend yourself against this other than not having a phone.

What about a decentralized networks over 802.11?

It wouldn’t be a total solution, because access points get hacked, etc. but it would make the data a lot fuzzier.

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#228
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As blocking fraudulent claims could remove a reason for my premiums to he higher, I can't say I'm against that. With the caveat, for course, that people are not always where their phone is so this taken on its own would be circumstantial evidence: one would hope decisions are not made directly based on this information.

It’s not in the interest of insurance companies to lower premiums. They only do it if competition is eating them alive. Geico has been raising their margins ever so slightly. I bet they are also the purchasers of ungodly amounts of data for targeting marketing. Insurance companies #1 goal is to make maximum profits for their shareholders without getting caught with their pants down.

GEICO is a private company. There are no shareholders. GEICO is owned by Birkshire Hathaway which is owned by Warren Buffett.

I am sure your point is still valid with publicly traded insurance companies.

http://investsnips.com/complete-list-of-insurance-companies-...

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm this is happening, I designed some of the analysis systems used. Contrary to what many people assume, this is not just a US thing. It is done throughout the industrialized world to varying degrees, including countries where most people believe privacy protections disallow such activity. Governments tacitly support it because they've found these capabilities immensely useful for their own purposes.

Do you feel guilt over creating them?

I know TV and movies have imparted upon people that there is some kind of feeling of immense guilt, or maybe you are just dishing the ubiquitous passive aggressive shaming as a weak attempt at social control, but fact of the matter is that today's devs (yes, many if not all of us here) have exponentially less qualms about what we do and support and develop (let alone even fully understand the ramifications, as has become apparent to me) on a day to day basis, than any of the soldiers or henchmen or perpetrators of the favorite historical villains we are trained to hate from early on. Reality is that to the vast majority of people that are swept up in the cult mania and are essentially blindly and instinctually following their most basic herding impulses, the actions they are taking and the things they are doing are just fine as they say "it doesn't look like anything to me".

We have thoroughly entered a pathway with an ever more narrow set of possible outcomes, none of which are good, but just as all the other past events that all the "smartest" people were warned about well in advance and who self-magnanimously proclaim how the inevitable outcomes "could not have been predicted" in to protect, at all and any cost necessary, the most important thing there is ... something so important and sacrosanct that reality and fact and intellect and rationality will be suffocated and smothered and exterminated and sacrificed the very microsecond it potentially could even maybe rear its head .... their ego and incomprehensible notion of having to admit fault or infallibility.

It is utter hubris that will be bringing about the inevitable next calamity that will, due to the ever growing and expanding size of the house of cards, collapse under it's own self-deluding weight.

Remember kids, tech fraud valuations were based on sound business and house prices could only go up; and those were just the early tremors of what is to come ... unfortunately. All manias invariable are followed by crashes, regardless of how they manifest themselves. What goes up must come down and down, farther and harder, it will come crashing the higher it climbed into the sun. Lest us forget Icarus

Icarus (IK-uh-rus) Son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman's genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea.

The folly of Daedalus to not be mindful of the foolish youth of Icarus. But, do tell us of how the young of today will not cause the calamities of past generations of young who thought the too were infallible from their unearned privilege, pampered, and hedonic existence.

Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data

#230
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm this is happening, I designed some of the analysis systems used. Contrary to what many people assume, this is not just a US thing. It is done throughout the industrialized world to varying degrees, including countries where most people believe privacy protections disallow such activity. Governments tacitly support it because they've found these capabilities immensely useful for their own purposes.

> for their own purposes Such as? If this also happens in the EU and is as blatant as you say it is and with GDPR and all, surely this is just waiting to blow up?

Parralel construction.

You pull the phone location records of everyone near a protest without a warrant (and no intention of using the location data in court) then you dig into them to find something unrelated to the protest you can nail them on.

That way you take out key players without it looking like a political crackdown.

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