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Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

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Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#61

Post by urda »

alwaysdoit wrote: post #56

If you're concerned about this level of location tracking, don't carry a cell phone at all. Keeping track of which cell tower your phone is closest to is fundamental to cellular technology. You can't make or receive calls unless Verizon, T-Mobile, or whichever carrier you have knows which cell to communicate with you through. Regardless of whether Google is tracking this, your carrier certainly is, and with a warrant…

> I can guarantee you Google protects this data more securely than your carrier does.

This sentence is completely insane in this context, did we read the same article? Google should not have access to this data, and it sure as hell shouldn't be sending it up to itself when disabled by the end-user. It's absurd that you typed that out for an article titled "Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled".

In what world does one operate in if you consider this as "Google protects this data more securely than your carrier does"? Your carrier is supposed to have this information (and in fact needs it), it's a complete privacy violation for Google to be collecting it though.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#62

Post by module0000 »

nvr219 wrote: post #24

If you care about personal privacy and security of your friends and family, you should discourage them from using Android.

> ....you should discourage them from using Android.

You should discourage them from carrying a portable radio transceiver, ie a cell phone, with them at all times. You only know about this because you read it in the news - Android is not the only outfit doing this. Sending tower-data back home is a fundamental part of your cell phone's operation. Without that information, your carrier would have no idea which tower to route incoming data/calls to.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#63

Post by IBM »

It's amazing to me how many comments here excuse Google's behavior by offering the impractical "solution" of just not using a smartphone (a false dilemma) when the obvious answer is to get an iPhone. That's the advice of pretty much everyone in the infosec field and I'm sure some of them will attest to that in this thread.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#64

Post by module0000 »

malchow wrote: post #29

This would seem to be a fairly monumental breach of the duty Google owes consumers.

edited summary: The 'duty' is owed to shareholders, not to you. That duty is to generate profits and protect shareholders' investment.

That's not how commerce works(anymore). You are technically a consumer...and you are fundamentally the "product". Companies buying advertising are the actual consumer - to which you(ie your data) are for sale.

If you cannot look at it that way, modern corporate America/Elsewhere will never make sense. There is no free lunch, no company anywhere wants to help you out of sheer kindness and goodwill. Free software? (sometimes) free phone? ...really?

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#65

Post by throwaway613834 »

kop316 wrote: post #18
mikeash wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other strategies for getting a lock faster. Most of the slowness for a cold start with a modern receiver is receiving the ephemeris data (i.e. where the satellites are at the moment), which is transmitted at a whopping 50 bits per second, and so takes about 30 seconds to receive. Once you have that, the rest comes quickly. Older receivers with less computational power and less clever techniques could take a…

Interesting, thanks for the info! I knew you could do some tricks to get a lock faster with GPS, but I am not sure of all of them.

There's a way to test that hypothesis. Install a different version of Android on the same phone and see if the behavior still changes. If not, it's a hardware thing. If it does, then dig into the source code to see if anything explains the change...

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#67

Post by baxtr »

IBM wrote: post #63

It's amazing to me how many comments here excuse Google's behavior by offering the impractical "solution" of just not using a smartphone (a false dilemma) when the obvious answer is to get an iPhone. That's the advice of pretty much everyone in the infosec field and I'm sure some of them will attest to that in this thread.

True. The big difference between Apple and google is that Apple sells you pricey hardware, that just works. In the case of google they sell you. Thus, but Business Model alone you should not trust google if you care about privacy. It doesn’t make sense for them to stop collecting data points about you.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#68

Post by katastic »

malchow wrote: post #57
alwaysdoit wrote: post #56

If you're concerned about this level of location tracking, don't carry a cell phone at all. Keeping track of which cell tower your phone is closest to is fundamental to cellular technology. You can't make or receive calls unless Verizon, T-Mobile, or whichever carrier you have knows which cell to communicate with you through. Regardless of whether Google is tracking this, your carrier certainly is, and with a warrant…

"Keeping track of which cell tower your phone is closest to is fundamental to cellular technology" But breadcrumbing it and phoning home to the phone vendor/advertising company?

I'm going to make a privacy app and tell everyone it's secure, fight lawsuits if anyone debates it, and then have it phone home with all their details.

Oh wait, that's what Google did.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#69

Post by Brakenshire »

growse wrote: post #40
Brakenshire wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sophistry, privacy in the sense that a private company is not continuously compiling a list of every location you visit throughout your life.

Claiming sophistry doesn't make it so, you have to try a little harder than that. The original assertion was "If you care about privacy, don't use Android". A more nuanced and useful assertion would be this: If you don't trust a specific private company with your information, don't volunteer it to them. If you don't trust Apple/Google/Microsoft with all of your data, don't buy a device with a radio they have root acc…

Sophistry in the sense that according to any reasonable idea of privacy, meeting someone in public, so that they know where you are, your name and your face, is distinctly different from a private company knowing exactly where you are at all moments.

Imagine if it came out that a company had hired private investigators to follow you around, and collected a list of every location you visited. You tell someone else, and they say "if you really cared about privacy, you should not have come out in public, for instance I met you, and now I know your name, and that you visit this place". It is just nowhere near equivalent.

Re: Google collects cell tower info even if location services are disabled

#70

Post by katastic »

cube2222 wrote: post #60
Brakenshire wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sophistry, privacy in the sense that a private company is not continuously compiling a list of every location you visit throughout your life.

And? How does that matter? What's dangerous in them collecting my location information? I actually have location history in google maps turned on deliberately. You can't imagine how often it helped me to know where I was exactly, one and a half year ago, at a precise time. (That's how I managed to get a copy of my nexus 5x's warranty papers after it died on me) I don't really care about them collecting info about whe…

>And? How does that matter? What's dangerous in them collecting my location information?

What's dangerous about them compiling your medical history? Who are you afraid of? Oh wait, that's a HIPAA violation.

I wonder if they keep track of the location of every doctor's office you visit... and that abortion clinic... and that methadone clinic. Surely, nothing to lose there.

The only information that isn't hackable, is information that's never gathered in the first place. The more valuable the information, the more likely someone will spend nation-state amounts of dollars to get it.

I propose Donald Trump use the NSA (legally) to steal all of this information to track illegal immigrants who pass between Mexico and the USA border who don't have a passport on file. And then send SWAT officers to break into everyone's current location, throw them into vans, and send them back over to Mexico.

Wow, that's really fucked up, huh? And Google made it possible.

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