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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

#611

Post by facetube »

forapurpose wrote: post #407
mdhardeman wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other respondents to this message more or less have it right. The way this stuff works is that when GEICO signed the deal to get access to this, they pinky-swore in a contract to only use the data certain ways. Often, the representatives on both sides of such transactions even have a wink-wink nod-nod deal going which is different from what the contract materially represents. Importantly, these contracts virtuall…

> when GEICO signed the deal to get access to this, they pinky-swore in a contract to only use the data certain ways. Like Cambridge Analytica's deal with Facebook.

Exactly. Telcos recover damages, the products (read: users) who were damaged get nothing.

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

#612

Post by 8_hours_ago »

bootlooped wrote: post #603
8_hours_ago wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cricket's Privacy Policy looks much better than T-Mobile's or Google Fi's: "We will not sell your personal information to anyone, for any purpose. Period." https://www.cricketwireless.com/privacy But they also say that they may share personal information (which may include location??) to 3rd parties with user "consent": "Do you share my Personal Information with other companies for them to market to me? We may share…

I think a big question is since Cricket is an MVNO that runs on AT&T's network, is AT&T able to sell a Cricket customer's location data?

Looks like Cricket will give personal information to AT&T:

"Cricket is an AT&T company and we share your Personal Information with AT&T and other companies in the AT&T family, commonly referred to as affiliates, for a variety of purposes, including the marketing of products and services to you." https://www.cricketwireless.com/privacy

The "variety of purposes" is what concerns me, and is why I have learned to hate trying to understand Privacy Policies. There are too many potential loopholes. Of course, I am not a lawyer, so my interpretation may be incorrect.

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

#613

Post by api »

ZainRiz wrote: post #456
lallysingh wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screw that. Put together a consumer stalking website, sell the data directly. Advertise, make tons of money, and let the outrage from that bring light to the entire industry.

And then be the only one sent to jail as the scapegoat for the rest

Do it on the dark web.

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

#614

Post by Distribution »

ballenf wrote: post #260
wpietri wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who want to try out LocationSmart, you can use it here: https://www.locationsmart.com/try/ They were about two blocks off, and located me by cell tower. Apparently they don't have (or at least don't admit to having) A-GPS level data for me.

Tested and same result. I have a strong suspicion that it intentionally places you some distance from where it knows you actually are. Unless there is some underlying reason why it would never be 100% accurate -- I've seen dozens of people post their results and every time it's 1-300 meters off. And it's not just "no one tests while under the cell tower" because the location it gave me was 150 meters in the opposite…

Did you have WiFi on? Several companies have basically mapped (wardriving) nearly every wifi spot in the US and have correlated that with GPS. The vast majority of these wifi spots never, or rarely, move. By using several known wifi locations and their given latency, you can accurately predict location without cellular or GPS, like, down to the tens of meters.

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

#615

Post by willstrafach »

Rjevski wrote: post #287

This exploits a vulnerability in the SS7/MAP protocols that power mobile networks worldwide; the cooperation of the carrier isn't even required (even if carriers were against this; bad actors can and will get this data anyway).

You are referring to the command used to request where to route an SMS message, I assume? If so, carriers can (and have been albeit very slowly) restrict this activity so it is less of a free-for-all.

That said, it seems they are intentionally selling this data as well, which is a whole new issue.

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

#616

Post by heurist »

hunter23 wrote: post #369
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…

Can you name and shame the congressmen that ignore you? Or can you make a tip to one of the newspapers? Given the facebook privacy news saga this might get picked up.

I'm a liberal in Texas so being ignored by politicians is nothing new to me.

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

#617

Post by api »

bscphil wrote: post #517
jstarfish wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help. Your next car will support telemetrics. Your insurer will know how fast and how often you drive. Your wife will know where you've been going after work. The cloud will gather and retain everything else of non-obvious value, up to the point where it all magically disappears when your self-piloting car drives itself through a schoolyard at recess and the company claims they don't have enough data to de…

Parts of your analysis are hyperbole, clearly, and I think that undercuts what are several very important points. There are still areas in which you can make choices. You can still buy appliances with no internet connections at all, or buy open hardware and run open source software. This is what I currently do. Surely inexpensive and/or used cars will dispense with GPS and other high tech features; in addition, I wou…

What's hyperbole? I heard all this predicted when smart phones came out, and people said it was paranoid hyperbole then. It wasn't.

If anything the parent's predictions are probably conservative.

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

#618

Post by api »

codedokode wrote: post #141
Darthy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a problem with the GSM/UMTS standards themselves. Carriers always know where you are, but one could create a standard where they wouldn't have to know unless you make a call. With enough encryption and effort, I'm pretty sure one could even create a standard where carriers would never know where you are, even while you are using services.

Would not it be easier to ban anyone from using this location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law? The problem is not with standards, the problem is with people.

They will just move it all offshore.

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

#619

Post by heurist »

throwawaymath wrote: post #253
heurist wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foursquare is selling business services based on the data they collect, not the data itself (as far as I know).

They sell direct location analytics: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290543 This is mostly a distinction without a difference, because for firms that do this, one of those "business services" is providing a thin layer of analysis over the underlying data.

What I'm saying is they don't sell the raw location data they've collected. There is a huge difference between derived analytics and the raw point-by-point device-linked location data. It's a reduction of multiple terabytes of data down to a few kilobytes of identity-obfuscating information. I am not affiliated with Foursquare but I appreciate the direction of their pivot.

Honestly, since my line of work is similar (tangential) to what they do, my opinions are probably quite different from the moral majority who might read about this kind of issue without understanding the range of applications. I'm not sure what the solution is but I think there is a regulatory solution that preserves both consumer privacy and the extraction of economy-benefiting value. And I do think something needs to be done to protect privacy, even if it means negative impacts to the commercial space I am in.

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

#620

Post by throwawaymsft »

mywittyname wrote: post #599
pcarolan wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and op work for companies you seem to fundamentally disagree with. Can you say why you don’t leave? Asking not out of judgment but to understand.

Because they will just hire someone else.

But where does that line of reasoning end? If asked to join a gang, do you agree because they'll simply find someone else?
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