Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 77 posts

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#41

Post by lurking_swe »

Lammy wrote: post #34
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This confuses a technology used for the purpose of optimizing the performance of a technology with tracking for the purposes of selling you crap or keeping tabs on your location for unwarranted reasons. Huge difference. The former does not entail the latter.

I'm not confusing anything. I'm saying that even if you completely eliminated the latter, your privacy will still be compromised by the former. When “The Government” is the entity wanting to know where you are, it doesn't matter which private company they compel to participate. They will just go for the path of least resistance, and as long as your location data is recorded by something, somewhere, they will get it.

> They will just go for the path of least resistance, and as long as your location data is recorded by something, somewhere, they will get it.

There is the real problem. It’s not a tech issue. It’s a people problem. Most governments don’t actually _respect_ and _serve_ their people. They see them as cattle to be monitored and manipulated.

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#42

Post by zikduruqe »

everdrive wrote: post #11
JohnMakin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, It's not popular because this is very reductive and dismissive of the problem almost to the point of dishonesty. Many modern functions need an application and there is little or no alternative. Some examples: QR codes - lots of restaurants don't have a physical menu and need a QR code scan. This behavior extends well beyond restaurants as well. Keys -…

>QR codes Those restaurants are worthless >Keys Carrying your car key does not count as inconvenient >Banking Agreed, and this is a problem, but you can just do your banking at home without carrying around your smart phone. This is a case where the industry is forcing a choice on consumers. I'm considering joining a local credit union for this reason. > Navigation How did people manage this prior to 2007?

> How did people manage this prior to 2007?

You just looked at a map. People used to be good at looking at maps, and remembering cardinal directions prior to GPS units. We have unfortunately lost that sense of natural direction.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32545974

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#43

Post by libraryatnight »

everdrive wrote: post #3

It's never popular when I post this, but I'm just going to do it again: "No matter the risk, I must carry my smartphone everywhere and install every app. It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, but then wait to do it later until I'm using a real computer. No negative outcome will EVER shake my deep, permanent need to carry a smartphone all the time and use it for as much as possible." We've do…

This is funny because one of my major gripes with everyone having phones is they don't really use them for meaningful information seeking. They'll sit in conversation and speculate and invent nonsense, accept the smartest/most convenient sounding nonsense at the table, and move on as if they did not have the ability to look it up on the spot. Then later they quote the nonsense to someone else as if it were something they learned as opposed to made up with one of their social circles.

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#44

Post by Retric »

ux266478 wrote: post #40
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This confuses a technology used for the purpose of optimizing the performance of a technology with tracking for the purposes of selling you crap or keeping tabs on your location for unwarranted reasons. Huge difference. The former does not entail the latter.

Actually it is physically impossible to have any wireless comms at all without giving away a unique identity that can be tracked. Not unless you're going to replace your phone's radio every time you send some data. Every single transmitter has a unique fingerprint that can be identified relatively easily. It's called Specific Emitter Identification. If at any point a fingerprint is associated with your identity, it's…

How things are aren’t the only way things could be.

A receiver could use a new random ID to call “collect” to a secure third party network which agrees to pay for the base stations bandwidth for every connection. The station then responds to the base station yep ID X’s bandwidth will be paid by vert tel.

Obviously, this doesn’t eliminate the possibility of tracking as you’d want the cell to have multiple connections created and abandoned randomly, but it does remove that ID you’re concerned with.

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#45

Post by SoftTalker »

PyWoody wrote: post #15
everdrive wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>QR codes Those restaurants are worthless >Keys Carrying your car key does not count as inconvenient >Banking Agreed, and this is a problem, but you can just do your banking at home without carrying around your smart phone. This is a case where the industry is forcing a choice on consumers. I'm considering joining a local credit union for this reason. > Navigation How did people manage this prior to 2007?

> How did people manage this prior to 2007? MapQuest? It sucked. Google Maps does allow you to download areas to your device that can be used offline, too.

Paper maps before that. If you were in AAA you could get a "trip map" that was a complete route with turn by turn directions and a spiral bound, printed map that you paged through as you traveled, but paper maps worked well. Not as convenient as a phone but not terrible either.

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#46

Post by onion2k »

everdrive wrote: post #3

It's never popular when I post this, but I'm just going to do it again: "No matter the risk, I must carry my smartphone everywhere and install every app. It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, but then wait to do it later until I'm using a real computer. No negative outcome will EVER shake my deep, permanent need to carry a smartphone all the time and use it for as much as possible." We've do…

They MUST have access ALL THE TIME, no matter the downside.

The problem is that the downside is incredibly small (government isn't interested in most citizens) until it's suddenly massive (government is interested in you.) That makes it very difficult for people to build a mental model of why it's a problem: because in all seriousness it genuinely isn't unless you're either fighting the system, you're a criminal, or you have a level of perception where you can understand that other people are a threat to the government and you have empathy for them or you can see that the government might see you as a threat to in the future. Most people can't or won't understand about that.

You can't really blame them. Mobile devices are useful beyond 'looking stuff up'. Maps, communication, banking, etc are huge upsides to counter the probably very small (if you ignore empathy) downside for most people.

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#47

Post by SoftTalker »

everdrive wrote: post #20
JohnMakin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is goalpost shifting and ignored much of the point of my post. this same thinking can be applied recursively to “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.” And you’re flat out wrong about banking, there are things and situations that require you physically entering one. And yes it is a situation where society is forcing the decision, that’s my entire point - I as an individual cannot apply the non remedy…

I appreciate the response, and I would argue that in at least some cases “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.” is totally valid. With regard to the job, and the banking, I agree. I need to have OTP on my phone and I haven't tried to bank in person for a while. We have two young kids, and once things calm down I'm going to see if we can swap to a local credit union. The decision will be predicated on whe…

My credit union still offers walk-in or drive-thru in-person service for everything.

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#48

Post by pocksuppet »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #37
pocksuppet wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all political systems respond to consumer demand.

Democratic ones do. But for 95% of causes it's hard to become so loud that they are forced to respond. That's exactly why orgs like EFF exist. Most laws also aren't passed because of overwhelming consumer feedback. It's lobbied by special interests. Which sadly took a negative connotation over the last few decades, but lobbies can be for the people too.

Studies show if 0% of the American population support a bill, it's 30% likely to be passed, and if 100% of the American population support it, it's 30% likely to be passed. Is America democratic?

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#49

Post by kelnos »

everdrive wrote: post #3

It's never popular when I post this, but I'm just going to do it again: "No matter the risk, I must carry my smartphone everywhere and install every app. It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, but then wait to do it later until I'm using a real computer. No negative outcome will EVER shake my deep, permanent need to carry a smartphone all the time and use it for as much as possible." We've do…

I agree with you, but at the same time: we shouldn't have to worry about this. We should be able to have nice things. We should be able to live our lives how we want (within reason) and not have to worry about our own government spying on us and tracking our every movement.

The response to revelations about this sort of tracking should not be to roll our eyes at people who carry their phones everywhere. It should be to get angry at our government for treating us all like potential criminals, and vote out shitheads who support this sort of thing. (Which I know feels damn-near impossible most of the time...)

Re: The government uses targeted advertising to track your location

#50

Post by kelnos »

Lammy wrote: post #23
js8 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a false dichotomy. Citizens can have useful smartphones while not being tracked by unwanted actors.

Not with modern cellular and Wi-Fi tech we can't. Base stations literally “steer the beam” to follow you. Precise location spying is essential to the way they achieve such high throughput.

You're missing the point. Just because it's possible for that tracking to happen, it doesn't mean it has to happen. We could have strong privacy laws. Mobile carriers (and anyone else) could be required to not store this data at all, or at the very least delete it after a short time. We could have mandated surprise audits to ensure this actually happens. We could have significant, company-ending fines for non-compliance.

We don't, and that sucks. But it's not a binary choice between "you can carry your phone everywhere" or "you can avoid having your movements stored in a database indefinitely". There are other options that we as a society could choose, if we could get our acts together.

Sure, the opsec ideal is that you don't have to trust other parties in the first place. But honestly, for the vast majority of people, that sort of thing doesn't matter, and having strong, readily-enforced privacy laws would be more than sufficient to keep people safe and secure.

Post reply on HN