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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

#491

Post by georgek »

raesene9 wrote: post #276
fhood wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good way to loose your job very quickly. I don't think we should have to rely on somebody sacrificing themselves to make a difference.

Not sure anyone would lose their jobs. 1) Be an investigative Journalist 2) Purchase access to these location vendors data 3) Correlate data with known mobile numbers of politicians 4) Find things in data that might be of interest to readers (e.g. "politician x was noted to be in the same place as Lobbyist y on 5 different occasions") 5) Publish Story :)

The more titillating version would be to crawl Backpage or similar successor service for phone numbers of escorts and correlate that with known phone numbers of public figures such as politicians to determine when both were in the same place at the same time. Then publish client lists, with links back to original escort ads for extra sensarionalism.

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

#492

Post by jcfrei »

dude123456 wrote: post #323
rsync wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

True++ there are at least 4-5 OSes on Qualcomm with direct access to the Internet: 1. Linux Kernel / Android OS, running on main ARM CPU in "normal mode" 2. QSEE or Trustonic OS, running on main ARM CPU in "trusted execution environment" mode, in parallel with "normal mode" 3. OKL4 / REX Kernel + AMSS OS, running on the baseband CPU (modem) 4. SIM card processor, although it is very limited (typically 32k RAM) and ac…

Do you happen to know if Apple phones are any better with regards to privacy?

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

#493

Post by fixermark »

jadedhacker wrote: post #489
fixermark wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that one in that context cares, but I think you can agree that most people are not in that context. So on the whole, they receive benefits from deep data integration and no immediate downsides. Which circles back to the original question: should a person feel guilt over creating tools that help the average user and harm the political dissident? Seems an open question. Perhaps one heavily dependent upon whethe…

Generally, dissent is a healthy thing and you'll get a better society that way. Once the capability for real dissent is eroded, the social controls of the society will be turned to the benefit of the victorious faction. This turns out poorly for everyone else. We should not be creating a mass surveillance state. The actual abuses domestically generally of minority populations, abroad, generally of non-NATO civilian p…

Does the UK encourage dissent? It doesn't seem to. And it seems to be doing fairly well.

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

#494

Post by [deleted] »

raesene9 wrote: post #276
fhood wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good way to loose your job very quickly. I don't think we should have to rely on somebody sacrificing themselves to make a difference.

Not sure anyone would lose their jobs. 1) Be an investigative Journalist 2) Purchase access to these location vendors data 3) Correlate data with known mobile numbers of politicians 4) Find things in data that might be of interest to readers (e.g. "politician x was noted to be in the same place as Lobbyist y on 5 different occasions") 5) Publish Story :)

[deleted]

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

#496

Post by mr_toad »

205guy wrote: post #467
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…

Or just turn off location services when you’re not using them.

Turning off Google Now & location services will radically improve battery life on standby.

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

#497

Post by Steeeve »

It's funny to me that this is news to anyone. This has been going on for quite some time - at least the length of my career. For the longest time it was wide open for anyone to access who had an inkling of knowledge about how mobile devices worked.

Did this _never_ come up at defcon or in an issue of 2600? Are people really _that_ focused on web security?

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

#498

Post by state_less »

jadedhacker wrote: post #489
fixermark wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that one in that context cares, but I think you can agree that most people are not in that context. So on the whole, they receive benefits from deep data integration and no immediate downsides. Which circles back to the original question: should a person feel guilt over creating tools that help the average user and harm the political dissident? Seems an open question. Perhaps one heavily dependent upon whethe…

Generally, dissent is a healthy thing and you'll get a better society that way. Once the capability for real dissent is eroded, the social controls of the society will be turned to the benefit of the victorious faction. This turns out poorly for everyone else. We should not be creating a mass surveillance state. The actual abuses domestically generally of minority populations, abroad, generally of non-NATO civilian p…

Perhaps we need more freedom in this scenario. We have public airwaves which are presently owned by corporations (the highest bidder) where in fact we ought to give everyone the freedom to carve out a slot of that bandwidth in their spatial region. We ought to homestead the airwaves giving individuals the ability to both send/receive and route packets. These airwaves should be treated like byways where everyone can send/receive packets. We'd carry an envelope of bandwidth around us wherever we travel by reserving common airwave (e.g. 2.4ghz, 5.8ghz, etc...). In this way, you starve the companies of their revenue, making their existence more difficult.

I'd like to ask anyone within RF earshot to carry my packets. I'd even consider paying for faster bandwidth if others were offering below some threshold. Some common low bandwidth communication should always work, say some fraction (split between freeloading users) of 20% of the link speed. I'll carry your packets if you're in earshot, rebroadcasting as needed, following the same rules. We could rotate our source addresses every so often.

You'd be persona non-grata (illegal) if you're recording and sharing who you hear. At the heart of it, saving and recording in perpetuity who you're communicating with and where ought to be illegal. Certainly selling that data should be too, or you end up with what we have today.

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

#499

Post by dserodio »

cryoshon wrote: post #457
raesene9 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure anyone would lose their jobs. 1) Be an investigative Journalist 2) Purchase access to these location vendors data 3) Correlate data with known mobile numbers of politicians 4) Find things in data that might be of interest to readers (e.g. "politician x was noted to be in the same place as Lobbyist y on 5 different occasions") 5) Publish Story :)

pay me the cost of a data set plus 6k for a month's labor and i'll do it. still need an outlet for the story though

The Intercept would probably be interested in publishing something like this

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

#500

Post by thsowers »

mr_toad wrote: post #496
205guy wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or just turn off location services when you’re not using them. Turning off Google Now & location services will radically improve battery life on standby.

The tracking seems to be happening below that level. I had all location services turned off, it dropped a pin on the very room of the house I was in
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