Anyone have a link to jeans with faraday pockets?
Problem is now you can't receive calls.
Many would see that as another plus :) . (I've just received a call from "Scam Likely")
US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
401–410 of 648 posts
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#403Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#404Earlier 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.
How does one determine which tower to route an incoming call through, in your model? How could roaming work? Spoiler: I don’t think doing what you are describing is feasible.
I can't find a link, but this problem was foreseen and solved by Robert Morris Jr. He wrote a paper on how users could register their location with a 3rd party using a hash of their IP address. When someone wanted to call them, they would contact that 3rd party for the location then route to the cell. The cell knew someone was there, it just didn't know who. And each 3rd party only had info on a few users, and no choice over which ones it had, if I recall correctly.
Looks like there is info here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris#Later_lif...
This is the way we should have designed these networks from the beginning. It was inevitable that the stuff in TFA would happen, given the interests of the companies involved and no regulation to prevent it. Same with FaceBook and Cambridge Analytica.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#405One of these days, most of you will finally understand just how right RMS was and is... It's just a shame so many can't see it, and worse, give those of us who do shit.
Stallman is not a prophet and there are many valid arguments against his views.
Not really "valid arguments" but differing opinions. If you are fine with closed systems and surveillance states then everything RMS says against these systems will sound wrong to you.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#406Earlier 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?
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. The fact that they can just get this with "oral approval" (relayed by them to your carrier) is shocking to me. This is ridiculous.
The other respondents to this message more or less have it right. The way this stuff works is that when GEICO signed the deal to get access to this, they pinky-swore in a contract to only use the data certain ways. Often, the representatives on both sides of such transactions even have a wink-wink nod-nod deal going which is different from what the contract materially represents. Importantly, these contracts virtuall…
> when GEICO signed the deal to get access to this, they pinky-swore in a contract to only use the data certain ways.
Like Cambridge Analytica's deal with Facebook.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most wifi hotspots have location information anyway, so your phone will know where it is, and then one of the many apps on your phone can report back with that information. And isn't a pager just a really simple cell phone? I'm not sure how that's a solution if cell towers can triangulate your position.
I should have been clearer: One way pagers seem to still exist. They do not transmit.
Isn't this just a billing distinction though? A 'receive only' pager still needs to announce itself to the cell tower to have messages routed...pretty sure they're not just multicast across the entire global cell network?
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#409It's so strange--I never would have expected the boot of tyranny to come from private corporations, but here we are. And what all this proves is that technology is value-neutral and can wipe us all out, or just make us incredibly miserable, if we let it. Hopefully there will be a way to opt out. Otherwise, I should start selling faraday bags for devices. Probably should anyways.
This tracking abomination is an emergent phenomenon of the merger of private industry and government in the US. See for example both legalized bribery (a.k.a. unlimited campaign contributions by corporations thanks to Citizens United) and outright bribery (Cohen) by telecoms like AT&T, ensuring that they will have the flexibility to perpetrate such garbage as this tracking data sale. Why not distrust both government…
Are you saying AT&T bribed Cohen in order to have the Justice Dept. sue AT&T over its acquisition with Time Warner?
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
The general public and repeatedly-reported-upon understanding of how data collection can be leveraged to find unexpected insights not obvious from the data, coupled with the Snowden leaks, coupled with the ever-increasing user count for cellphones, Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet in general. If people were deeply individually concerned about the risks vs. rewards of these technologies, they'd stop using them. Tha…
Kind of like how automobiles are a luxury, and if people cared about the 4th Amendment they just wouldn't drive anywhere. Nevermind that our way of life is literally not possible without the technologies in question. Every single one of the revelations you've mentioned was met with public backlash, followed by either a misinformation campaign or intense dog-wagging. This is called manufactured consent. For example, l…
You'll have to unbox how driving is related to the 4th Amendment; I would have assumed you were going to observe people continue to drive even though 40,000 people a year die in car accidents.
People do the calculus to decide if risk is greater than reward all the time. It appears ubiquitous connectivity, for most people, is far more rewarding than risky.