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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

#471

Post by dylz »

8_hours_ago wrote: post #463
dylz wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

My fi number has always been blocked from everything (banking, paypal, whatsapp, etc) for being VOIP. Doing some xda-dev stuff, I see two separate underlying numbers for the two profiles. I can't receive texts on either of them.

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

#472

Post by jstanley »

adventured wrote: post #114
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.

Until/unless they modify the law - turning off your phone thwarts it. While your phone is powered off, it has no ability to track & record your location movements. Obviously your active location will then be picked back up after you power it on, it won't have a record of anything inbetween. A simple example of limiting the invasiveness using this approach, would be to have your phone on only at work & home, or simila…

Does turning the phone off actually turn the baseband off though?

How could we possibly tell?

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

#473

Post by SahAssar »

forapurpose wrote: post #393
mastofaces wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just used the internet site it said up to 14 miles off in accuracy on the results page. It was actually 4 miles off with my wifi off and GPS off and ZLAT off. I'm also pretty sure the location it picked is very close to an existing cell tower.

What is ZLAT?

I'm guessing s/he meant IZat: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/izat

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

#474

Post by aarongray »

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…

I think the ACLU did a report a while back and Cricket Wireless was the best largeish cell phone provider.

Provider comparison: https://privacysos.org/blog/how-long-does-my-phone-company-s...

Study details: https://privacysos.org/blog/att-stores-either-five-or-twenty...

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

#475

Post by mancerayder »

The individual rights under the Constitution have been deemed, in the U.S., to only apply to government and government institutions.

The private companies are exercising their free market rights, unfettered by inconveniences like privacy rights, and thus can (as per the article and the random65... whistleblower user at the top of this thread at the time of this writing) track behavior and sell the data.

Therefore, does it follow that government canNOT be the buyer of such data? That police departments or the FBI or others cannot access this data?

Is there a Chinese Wall in place to prevent such things from happening. Or...?

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

#476

Post by com2kid »

rsync wrote: post #224
pbasista wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh, sweet summer child ... "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." There is a separate OS running in parallel with Android and it is running on the very hardware that makes the network connections to the cellular network that you are speaking of…

Remember back when people got upset over Intel CPUs having a unique ID in them? Remember when people got upset over tracking pixels?

Since then, things went really bad, really fast, just no one noticed.

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

#477

Post by com2kid »

mickael-kerjean wrote: post #257
random6547545 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully this shows people how deep it is.

If all that is claim in here isn't conspiracy, how can it stay a secret? Isn't it the reason wikileaks was created in the first place?

It isn't a conspiracy, it is just unnoticed, I'd argue due to news fatigue.

Heck, it has a hompage. https://www.trustonic.com/solutions/trustonic-secured-platfo...

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

#478

Post by adrr »

jellicle wrote: post #232
limsup wrote: post #178

Earlier 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.

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.

You need approval from the customer if you're using a data provider that is pinging E911 location of the phone. Carriers require it. E911 location isn't that precise, its not like GPS and can be a mile or so off. It's good for detecting travel(banks) and roadside service.

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

#479

Post by com2kid »

stef25 wrote: post #203
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…

Allow me to ask some questions :) > It's not just your cell carrier No reason to think this is only US right? > cell phone chip manufacturer, GPS chip manufacturer How & when is this transmitted and what other data apart from lat & long? > pretty much anyone on the installed OS [...] is getting a copy of your location data You mean the devs of whatever app is installed on the phone? The outgoing data should be visibl…

> Whaaa ... ? Do explain, fascinating.

The stock trading I've heard of, and even seen news articles about before.

Location tracking lets stock traders know how well a store is doing well before public results are announced. If foot traffic is down at a store, time to sell off (or short) the stock before it becomes publicly known.

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

#480

Post by pdkl95 »

ghostly_s wrote: post #408
xfitm3 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> cell network

Pagers do not use the cellular network. (some cellular networks do provide paging-style services, but that is a later development that is unrelated to traditional pagers)

> A 'receive only' pager still needs to announce itself

A traditional pager doesn't have a radio transmitter.

> they're not just multicast

The message is broadcast region-wide using very low-bandwidth protocols[1]. A pager will generally only work inside the region it is registered with. To compensate for the lack of ACKs, the message is usually repeated several times; it will missed if the pager is off for all of the transmissions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLEX_%28protocol%29

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