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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

#461

Post by dylz »

mohaine wrote: post #438
8_hours_ago wrote: post #351

I believe the relevant T-Mobile privacy policy (that I definitely read before signing up...) is: "With your consent. We may provide location-based services or provide third parties with access to your approximate location to provide services to you." https://www.t-mobile.com/company/website/privacypolicy.aspx That is why a text message confirmation is required to get a cell phone's location from https://www.locations…

Well, the locationsmart fails completely on my Google fi phone.

Are you using your Google Voice number? Fi numbers are GV and in cloud.

Somewhere in your sim/about under settings you can find your underlying phone numbers for Sprint/TMO that you can look up.

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

#462

Post by 8_hours_ago »

mohaine wrote: post #438
8_hours_ago wrote: post #351

I believe the relevant T-Mobile privacy policy (that I definitely read before signing up...) is: "With your consent. We may provide location-based services or provide third parties with access to your approximate location to provide services to you." https://www.t-mobile.com/company/website/privacypolicy.aspx That is why a text message confirmation is required to get a cell phone's location from https://www.locations…

Well, the locationsmart fails completely on my Google fi phone.

Switching from T-Mobile to Google Fi might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire ;)

The Google Fi Terms of Service says they are collecting location data:

"When your device is turned on or when you use the Services, we may collect and process information about your actual location. This may include information about your current activity (e.g., driving, running, walking, etc.), which lets us know when you may be moving between different mobile and Wi-Fi networks." https://fi.google.com/about/tos/#project-fi-privacy-notice

I'm okay with Google collecting location information, insofar as they only use it to provide cell service, and not for advertising and don't provide it to 3rd parties. Unfortunately, their Privacy Policy states that they can use it for advertising:

"We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads ." https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=us#infouse

And they can provide it to 3rd parties. Note that they require "consent", just like T-Mobile's privacy policy:

"We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so." https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=us#nosharing

So even if they are not currently providing information to LocationSmart, according to my understanding of their privacy policy, they are able to.

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

#463

Post by 8_hours_ago »

dylz wrote: post #461
mohaine wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the locationsmart fails completely on my Google fi phone.

Are you using your Google Voice number? Fi numbers are GV and in cloud. Somewhere in your sim/about under settings you can find your underlying phone numbers for Sprint/TMO that you can look up.

I would be interested to know about that... I don't see anything mentioned in the Project Fi Terms of Service (https://fi.google.com/about/tos/) about Sprint, T-Mobile, or US Cellular. I assume that by signing up with Fi you are also subject to each of their privacy policies, but I'd be happy to be corrected!

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

#464

Post by Skunkleton »

stamps wrote: post #151
Qwertie wrote: post #35

The worst part is there isn't any possible way I know of to defend yourself against this other than not having a phone.

I'm hoping the Librem 5 succeeds. I think disabling the baseband would be a solve and at least slightly more trustworthy than airplane mode. Right now I think you're right, there's no defending against it without turning off devices.

> more trustworthy than airplane mode

All airplane mode does is turn of transmitters. There is no reason that the firmware should stop caching GPS data for later transmission

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

#465

Post by Skunkleton »

yosito wrote: post #379
bckygldstn wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a service like Twilio or Google Voice.

This occurred to me. It solves part of the problem, in that your phone number isn't tied to a physical location anymore. But it creates a new problem in that you don't actually have a cellular connection.

And also your phone is still collecting GPS and Wifi information, which is better than tower information anyway.

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

#466

Post by superkuh »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #284
superkuh wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason that cell phone networks actually work (they're effectively decentralized networks) is that they pay the big bucks to rent space on high towers, building roofs, etc. The only thing that matters for radio communications is line of sight. The only thing that gives you line of sight is relative height. The only thing that gives you consistent height is money.

Voice over WiFi definintely works. I don’t think “works” is the word you are looking for. “Won’t have great coverage” is maybe what you were going for. A WiFi-based network with stronger privacy characteristics would be valuable to the small part of the market who cares more about privacy than coverage. Those people exist, ya?

By works I mean, doesn't cut out permanently and from then on at every small hill or rise in the ground. I've done a lot of real implemention of 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz mesh wireless networks.

I currently operate a 5 MHz channel at 910 MHz using broadband hamnet firmware on ubiquiti transceivers. This is for between home (custom antenna up on a tall 10m pole on my apartment) and my car (custom antenna popping up through the sunroof). By work, I mean, work at all for more than the first slight change in elevation. I've even tried using custom FPV narrowband solutions (56k SLIP) at 433 and 900 MHz and those do not better. The first slight rise in the ground kills you after a block or two. And I'm not in a super-hilly region.

I have no confidence than any ad-hoc deployed mesh network of 2.4 GHz is going to be good for anything but within a single home or building.

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

#467

Post by 205guy »

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…

The original article seems to be saying that the carriers track and sell phone location by cell triangulation ("less accurate than using GPS, but cell tower data won't drain a phone battery"). This is less accurate, as seen by the example of "within a city block."

The parent comment seems to be saying that the OS and apps use the internal GPS data to get a much more accurate location, which is then freely transmitted somehow and shared and sold. My question is to clarify that this more accurate data, needed to enable the "walk into specific store" scenario, can only be obtained via data (eg 3G, LTE, or wifi)?

Therefore not buying a data plan or turning off cellular data manually should prevent the GPS-accuracy tracking, but the only way to prevent the less accurate cell-tower tracking is to use a faraday cage.

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

#468

Post by ethbro »

apozem wrote: post #395
heurist wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the space as well. I've tried telling my congressmen but they ignore me. I'm waiting for the backlash, especially will all the recent privacy issues. It hasn't happened yet and the problem is so large that I honestly doubt whether the public will ever truly grasp what the scope. The advice I always give when this topic comes up us to be very careful with what you install on your phone. The least expensive mobi…

Talk to a congressperson who knows about cyber like Ron Wyden.

FFS. "Cyber" is an adjective. Not a noun.

Just because the less-technically adept parts of the infosec community & even more hapless government workers wanted to sound cool doesn't suddenly make it right.

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

#469

Post by komali2 »

Lionsion wrote: post #422
komali2 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only thing that gives you consistent height is money. Or long rope, a balloon, and a heat source ;)

> Or long rope, a balloon, and a heat source ;) Good luck if a storm hits.

Fishing reel.

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

#470

Post by jstanley »

lutorm wrote: post #381
trendia wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just because it's not 100% accurate doesn't mean it's 0% accurate.

There's still value in a noisy signal.

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