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

zdnet.com

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

#381

Post by lutorm »

trendia wrote: post #249
jellicle wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need oral approval or any approval. GEICO is only asking so that their customers won't freak out when GEICO magically knows where they are. The customer service rep probably had the data up on their screen already when they asked.

I wonder if they use this data to price insurance -- they would easily know when their drivers are going over the speed limit (or, if such data is not so precise, if their average speed over 10 minutes exceeded the speed limit).

They might know how fast you're traveling, but they don't know who's driving.

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

#382

Post by wilsonnb »

TechieKid wrote: post #322
fixermark wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should they? The vast quantity of users find it incredibly useful and have no reason to be concerned about governments or third parties being able to determine their geographic location, because governments or third parties don't generally care.

Several recent HN stories have had this kind of comment (first noticed with the Securus submission) that's a weird mix of "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" and "They will never come for you, you're too unimportant." Is this a sustained campaign or just a way for folks who have contributed to these issues to feel good about themselves?

It's just how a lot of people feel about the issue.

I'm not sure why you would jump to concluding that it's a sustained campaign or some kind of reaction to guilt.

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

#383

Post by OldSchoolJohnny »

losteric wrote: post #313
stef25 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Yes, these applications are blatantly violating the GDPR: https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/personal-...

Then it's going to get very costly for them when the EU goes after some more of that sweet sweet penalty money.

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

#384

Post by paulmd »

pbasista wrote: post #188
dude123456 wrote: post #105

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…

The SIM card is a separate OS that gets underneath the SOC's OS. It can run its own applets without the knowledge or permission of the SOC OS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31D94QOo2gY

The baseband is a completely different RTOS as well. And then there's also TrustZone running in the SOC as well.

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

#385

Post by vertexFarm »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #254
vertexFarm wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a cell phone out of a pi with a sim card and gps daughter board is sounding less and less crazy each day. Really looking forward to when the librem phone starts shipping. I wonder if they've really been thorough enough vetting hardware for those bare-metal security issues. This is at once staggering and completely unsurprising that companies would violate user trust in such a way and sell data without proper v…

Even a RPI won't help you unless you can build all of the software for the microprocessors which drive the wireless stack. Even then, vendors (e.g. Qualcomm) will already have their software on the chip when you get it. A completely open spec, open source set of components is what the community has desired for a long time. As standards get more complex and evolve faster, 4G and beyond, it becomes less possible to kee…

True, but at least you'd have somewhat more granular control and be able to do things like put a hardware switch on the transceiver. Crude, but it would at least work for when you're not actively using it.

I guess that's no different than a faraday pouch though.

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

#386

Post by upofadown »

yosito wrote: post #39

Has anyone suggested a practical way that people can avoid being tracked? (Aside from Airplane Mode or keeping your phone in a Faraday Cage)

There is a reason that pagers are popular with drug dealers...

Assuming that you can actually get pager service where you are... Then you only get tracked when your phone goes hot and you access the network to return a call.

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

#387

Post by ThinkingGuy »

hanspeter wrote: post #360
metalliqaz wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airplane mode would work, yes. But it only works against the cell provider. The on-phone GPS can still work and sync the data later.

I would imagine the airplane mode deactivates GPS signal recipience?

I can confirm that it doesn't, at least on the iPhone 7. I recently took one on an overseas trip and left it in airplane mode the whole time. The photos I took during the trip were all properly geotagged.

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

#388

Post by hbosch »

rinze wrote: post #243
random6547545 wrote: post #44

Throwaway 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…

> This data is sold to whoever wants 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. This isn't fantasy, it's what happens every day. I initially thought this was too far fetched but then I started duckduckgoing* and found this: https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/regulators-campaigners-sou... *…

I read just recently that one of Foursquares biggest revenue slices is selling their users check in data to hedge funds. On a previous HN post, one commenter claimed the app Robinhood sells their order flow through clearing houses, which the net result is hedge funds and other such firms trade off of — under the assumption that Robinhood investors are emotional rather than educated.

Hedge funds in general seem like a major consumer of retail data, which makes sense. Home Depot just announced earnings: imagine if you knew exactly how many people went into Home Depot, walked out empty handed, and then went to Lowe’s... how you could profit off that data in the market.

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

#389

Post by wilsonnb »

codedokode wrote: post #138
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an amateur radio operator, I would expect nothing less for carrying a highly networked radio transceiver with loads of sensors including geopositioning. Simply put: don't want to be tracked? Put your phone in a lead sealed box or leave it at home. Tracking only tracks the phone , not your person.

So basically either give up your right for privacy or don't use any new technology? That doesn't look practical. A better idea would be to ban cell carriers (and anyone else) from using location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law, like help in emergencies or conducting investigations.

The best option would be to require the data be properly anonymized before being stored, used, or sold. That way the companies can still sell it for profit, the buyers can still gain useful insights from the data, and the users location is not available to anyone with enough money.

I'm not sure how possible it is to anonymize that kind of data in a way that prevents it from being deanonymized, or how useful the anonymized data would be to the buyers, but this seems like a better solution than a blanket ban to me.

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

#390

Post by tzahola »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #93
random6547545 wrote: post #44

Throwaway 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…

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.

Thank you for your contributions in making the world a little more shitty! /s
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