US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by PeterisP » Thu, May 17, 2018, 7:32 AM UTC

joe5150 wrote: post #519

forapurpose wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A dumb phone can be localized by cell triangulation. The US military disclosed ... In the U.S., aren't dumb phones (or 'feature phones') locatable for E911 service?

if it doesn't have GPS, it doesn't have GPS

Using your phone's GPS requires cooperation from your phone, however, triangulation by timing is not only possible, but even required by the GSM standard, the signal continuously measures and encodes your "latency" to the tower needed so that you'll start transmitting your block slightly earlier if you're farther away so as not to overlap with the time slot possibly allocated for some other device.

It's not as accurate as GPS, but it gives a solid estimate of your location that neither you nor your phone can prevent unless you totally disconnect.

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

#562

Post by tomaskafka » Thu, May 17, 2018, 7:40 AM UTC

drbawb wrote: post #458

mohaine wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

... well now I'm wondering if I should have stuck w/ my Pixel + Fi instead of the S9 + T-Mobile plan I signed up for today. Whoops.

You are chosing between spyphone on spynet and spyphone on spynet.

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

#563

Post by Ntrails » Thu, May 17, 2018, 7:41 AM UTC

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…

> That's why Apple is trying hard to restrict it without scaring off consumers.

Do you have any details on this?

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

#564

Post by apk17 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 7:42 AM UTC

mdhardeman wrote: post #344

codedokode wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically either give up your right for privacy or don't use any new technology? That doesn't look practical. A better idea would be to ban cell carriers (and anyone else) from using location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law, like help in emergencies or conducting investigations.

What would be most effective would be a pair of rules in tandem: 1. Allow the location data to be utilized by the cellular carrier only for legitimate engineering purposes relevant to the delivery of the cellular services. (The network needs to know your location in real time in order to route calls to you.) Also, allow the use of real time location data for emergency services in response to an emergency call. Potent…

> The network needs to know your location in real time in order to route calls to you.

At least for GSM, that isn't as true as you say it. It only needs to know in wich group of cells you are, as as re-registering with each cell change was deemed too heavy on the battery, and they rather page for your phone in the entire location area.

Likewise, triangulation requires the phone to send something, which means that you can notice that, and also that continuous triangulation will drain your battery.

(Which brings up the question of how often and how smartly google sends updates for the traffic density map.)

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

#565

Post by satariano » Thu, May 17, 2018, 8:24 AM UTC

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…

I'm a journalist interested in learning more. Please reach out. Will keep confidential. adam.satariano@nytimes.com

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

#566

Post by robk » Thu, May 17, 2018, 9:05 AM UTC

satariano wrote: post #565

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…

I'm a journalist interested in learning more. Please reach out. Will keep confidential. adam.satariano@nytimes.com

^^^ this is what to do if you've got info relevant

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

#567

Post by stef25 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 9:36 AM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #267

stef25 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's always been common knowledge, the shocker is that it's being transmitted to "everyone and their dog" or even being sold. Afaik that was never the case with dumb phones.

A dumb phone can be localized by cell triangulation. The US military disclosed that it was using such a technique in Afghanistan to locate Al-Qaeda targets (they disclosed this because Al-Qaeda had gotten so paranoid about he accuracy of US military operations that they had assumed they had human spies on the ground feeding the US information and began killing civilians on suspicion of spying).

What I meant was that selling location data obtained by triangulation wasn't / isn't done and would require different methods anyway.

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

#568

Post by stef25 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 9:39 AM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #230

stef25 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for their own purposes Such as? If this also happens in the EU and is as blatant as you say it is and with GDPR and all, surely this is just waiting to blow up?

Parralel construction. You pull the phone location records of everyone near a protest without a warrant (and no intention of using the location data in court) then you dig into them to find something unrelated to the protest you can nail them on. That way you take out key players without it looking like a political crackdown.

So this is just a way to bulk identify people in a certain location at a certain time. Fairly efficient I guess but could bring up a lot of false positives, like passers by, journalists etc

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

#569

Post by SSLy » Thu, May 17, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

dude123456 wrote: post #105

gruez wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Qualcomm IZat location services did a quick check, it's not on my phone (SD 820 SoC). >other location-based trustzone applets remain running even on custom ROMs. I have no doubt some proprietary blobs still remain on custom ROMs, but do those actually send back location data to the OEM?

You have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820? Oh yes, IZat is definitively there, along with other interesting trustzone applets :) It is running under QSEE (Qualcomm) and/or MobiCore (Trustonic) OS, which is separate from your Android OS. It is left untouched by custom ROMs.

what about exynos chips?

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

#570

Post by ionised » Thu, May 17, 2018, 11:50 AM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #294

908087 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they "don't generally care", they wouldn't be collecting that data to begin with.

They collect the data because they can find themselves needing to care in the future, at which point nobody wants to be kicking themselves for failing to collect the data.

So they do care.