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U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

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Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#41
post #35

Seeing drone dropped grenades everywhere in Ukraine has made me worried about normalized "drone drop murders" spreading to the rest of the world. With widely available addresses gang violence, political killings, and even online flamewar escalations will become much much uglier. Who needs to do a driveby shooting if you could drop a homemade bomb from a McDonalds bathroom 20 miles away using some jailbroken drone? Vi…

are explosives as easy to get as bullets & guns where you live?

Wait until someone puts a gun on a drone and shoots up a concert from states away, or another country...

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#42
post #14

I heard this on NPR and I appreciate the avenue by which the red flag is being raised, but it bothers the shit out of me, because EVERYONE'S personal data is being sold by online brokers. The implication that their data is more important or something just seems like a ploy to get more eyeballs on the research.

Sometimes that is all that is needed to move the needle. Tik tok almost moved it but that just made certain swaths of the political spectrum ask for a direct ban (with other downsides eg. 1st amendment concerns) instead of overarching policy reform. "Policymakers should consider the following steps: Congress should pass a comprehensive U.S. privacy law, with strong controls on the data brokerage ecosystem. The most e…

if you don't just ban it, you get the whole GDPR consent banner issue. what is the downside of banning it? it's not like businesses couldn't manage advertising before the internet was around

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#43

I heard this on NPR and I appreciate the avenue by which the red flag is being raised, but it bothers the shit out of me, because EVERYONE'S personal data is being sold by online brokers. The implication that their data is more important or something just seems like a ploy to get more eyeballs on the research.

I'm not sure they are implying their data is more important. FWIW, the research claims:

Most of the previous research on data brokers and national security focuses on data about all U.S. persons, rather than focusing on servicemembers as we do in this report. Research in both categories is described here.

Also, I think of note is that Military personnel are unique in that they are banned from using tiktok, at least right now, as of recently. This research, combined with earlier and future research might be able to determine what kind of effect this ban has on data collection/data brokers.

I also think it is unique in that the US government is the employer of military personnel, so if they take any action related to protecting their employee data from brokers or from selling, maybe this can be a model for all US citizens, or at least for other employers.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#44
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be used for your social security account and nothing else.

What should we use for all the other government services that need to uniquely identify you? (This a trick question, not a rabbit hole you actually want to go down, because no matter what you suggest, I'll happily poke a thousand holes in it.)

DNA scan

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#45

Seeing drone dropped grenades everywhere in Ukraine has made me worried about normalized "drone drop murders" spreading to the rest of the world. With widely available addresses gang violence, political killings, and even online flamewar escalations will become much much uglier. Who needs to do a driveby shooting if you could drop a homemade bomb from a McDonalds bathroom 20 miles away using some jailbroken drone? Vi…

Seems like being able to look up people's home address is a pretty minor part of that threat?

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#46
post #43

I heard this on NPR and I appreciate the avenue by which the red flag is being raised, but it bothers the shit out of me, because EVERYONE'S personal data is being sold by online brokers. The implication that their data is more important or something just seems like a ploy to get more eyeballs on the research.

I'm not sure they are implying their data is more important. FWIW, the research claims: Most of the previous research on data brokers and national security focuses on data about all U.S. persons, rather than focusing on servicemembers as we do in this report. Research in both categories is described here. Also, I think of note is that Military personnel are unique in that they are banned from using tiktok, at least r…

To my knowledge, I'm not banned from using TikTok as a US military service member. The ban is about using it on government furnished equipment / devices / networks.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> social security will very likely be insolvent/cancelled by the time that we're old enough to qualify for it This is not true, it's propaganda promoted by rich people who want to get rid of social security. It could be eliminated for political reasons, but spreading this idea that it's going to "run out of money" only makes that more likely. The government cannot run out of its own money. It can cause inflation, but…

>The government cannot run out of its own money. It can cause inflation, but continuing to pay social security benefits is not going to suddenly cause massive inflation. Social security is a massive portion of federal spending, indefinitely printing money to fund it is not sustainable and will cause significant inflation

They've been throwing money left and right for years, they can throw some when we are unable to work.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#48
On Linkedin there's all kinds of "Top Secret/Security Clearance" groups which lists all the members in that group. Some have 5 thousand people.

Sure, some of those users don't actually have clearance at all, but many actually do, and work at firms all doing contracting for the federal government. Call me crazy, but giving out a list of people with clearance to the highest levels of secrets, usually doing tech work, is a bad idea. Even if a tiny fraction of them has anything that can be used as leverage to flip them, they all have targets on their backs and it kinda blows my mind that they all run around proudly plastering such things on their profiles and in public groups. It seems that's the last thing they would all be doing, as to not draw any attention from "the enemy"

"TS/SCI cleared IT Professionals" - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3967699/

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#49

I heard this on NPR and I appreciate the avenue by which the red flag is being raised, but it bothers the shit out of me, because EVERYONE'S personal data is being sold by online brokers. The implication that their data is more important or something just seems like a ploy to get more eyeballs on the research.

> The implication that their data is more important or something just seems like a ploy to get more eyeballs on the research. So? Their data IS more important from a national security perspective, as the study suggests. If you handle nukes, your personal information would probably be more valuable than the data of someone flipping burgers at McD. If this framing - 'the data brokerage industry is in itself a threat to…

Yes, the most troubling "red team" ideas are about attacking service members in their personal lives at home. Rather than attacking our nuclear bombers, submarines, and ICBMs, an adversary could target the people who operate and maintain those things, or their families, in their personal financial lives and neighborhoods where they are soft targets and reliant on law enforcement for protection.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#50
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government doesn't do this though, it's mostly banks that are guilty.

The government should regulate the banks.

I am sure the executive branch would require banks to use a better identifier, if the legislative branch allowed the executive branch to create one.
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