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Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

an.dywa.ng

341–350 of 622 posts

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#341
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regulations say the baseband MUST control: all wireless signals (including wifi and GPS), all microphones and speakers, and it must be able to disable the camera electrically. It must have a tamper-resistant identifier (IMEI number ... kind of). This is simply not true. Source: I own a phone where this is not the case. Many Linux phones internally attach their wireless devices via USB, so there is good separation.…

Connecting a cellular radio via USB provides far less isolation than the approach of a tiny kernel driver connected to an IOMMU isolated cellular radio on mainstream devices. USB has immense complexity and attack surface, especially with a standard Linux kernel configuration. Forensic data extraction companies mostly haven't bothered using attack vectors other than USB due to it being such a weak point. Many of the t…

> cellular radio via USB provides far less isolation

Really? Does the radio somehow become the USB Host in this equation and magically start driving the conversation? How?

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#342
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. That's the first time I've seen a "[deleted]" comment. IIRC, HN would just disallow deleting if somebody replied. Maybe this is from replying on an already deleted comment.

Probably Meshtastic people sending DMCA takedown lol. I could imagine HN moderation would have to delete it.

It was my comment. I deleted it, but I was surprised to see the ghost of my comment.

Deleted it because it was a shallow complaint about LoRa being proprietary. However, looking closer, it's not that bad. The physical layer is unavailable, but the link layer protocol spec is downloadable by anyone. Meanwhile, DASH7, an open-source alternative, requires you to be accepted into the alliance before letting you download the spec. Might be a simple thing, but they do advise requesting membership with a company or university email.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#344
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don’t believe is that courts should have the power to force anything to happen just by signing a piece of paper.

So how should it work?

With fundamental rules, applicable to all situations, limiting what information courts can demand. There are things so private that they should be out of reach of the state regardless of what justification someone can come up with.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#345
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should it not be available with a valid court order as well?

Why? What is the rationale? Unless of course you subscribe to the idea that anything goes as long as a court decrees it, in which case there’s nothing to debate really.

That's how courts work. They have superuser access.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You people are so cynical. Its simply made for 911 calls. In the 2G era there was no compute space to just put in extra evil shit for fun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_resource_location_servic...

Made for, and used for, are two different things. The article gives an example of Israel slurping down that data constantly to track everyone, and you can bet they aren't the only ones doing that.

Why is it always about Israel?

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#348
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We aren't going to remove the security state What security state? They aren't doing this for anyone's safety. This is the surveillance and parallel construction state. > What needs to happen is accountability. No agency can have this power and remain accountable. Warrants are not an effective tool for managing this. Courts cannot effectively perform oversight after the fact. > The only way to stop the rampant abuse…

> They aren't doing this for anyone's safety. Strictly speaking, this is not completely true. When you call an emergency number, it’s very good that they can see exactly where you are. That was how this was sold 15+ years ago. But of course, that’s basically the only use case when this should be available.

Except apparently they can't. I'm in L.A., a city where resources presumably represent what's available in modern cities, and the first thing I've been asked in any 911 call is "what's your location?"

This is particularly offensive considering that everyone was forced to replace his phone in the early 2000s to comply with "E-911." Verizon refused to let me activate a StarTAC I bought to replace my original, months before this mandate actually took effect.

Looking back on it, it was a perfect scam: Congress got paid off to throw a huge bone to everyone except the consumers. We were all forced to buy new phones, and for millions of people that meant renewing service contracts. Telcos win. Phone manufacturers win. Consumers lose.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#349

"and notify the user when such attempts are made to their device." We aren't going to remove the security state. We should make all attempts to, but it won't happen. What needs to happen is accountability. I should be able to turn off sharing personal information and if someone tries I should be notified and have recourse. This should also be retroactive. If I have turned off sharing and someone finds a technical loo…

> We aren't going to remove the security state We definitely won't get rid of it if we accept failure. I get that it seems extremely unlikely, but there's no use in trying to just mitigate the risk short term. One way or another that power will be abused eventually (if it isn't already).

Idealist views like this get us nowhere either tho.

The reality is somewhat more murky. On a long enough time horizon your point makes sense, we might be able to get rid of the security state by slowly chipping away at ig over hundreds or thousands of years.

Most of us are going to be dead in about 40 years tho. Security state isn't going anywhere in that timeframe.

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