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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

#81

Post by sydd »

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…

And how can I buy this realtime data? Also

> Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go.

Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?

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

#84

Post by freeflight »

yosito wrote: post #55
John_KZ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way to do this without using your own antenna network. Even then, you need encryption just to anonymize your calls, but if you end up talking to people subscribed to the same carriers you're trying to avoid, you can trivially be de-anonymized by timing attacks. So there's no good solution, unless you're willing to turn your calls to voice mail. More practical solutions would include: -(physically) Powered…

It used to be possible to buy prepaid SIM cards with cash and not have to provide any identification. AFAIK, this isn't possible anymore. Does anyone know for sure?

The real question being: How hard is it to bypass/cheat the identification requirement? Especially considering the US doesn't even have something like an official ID card.

They also changed this in Germany. Now you have to fill out a form to activate your SIM, but afaik nobody ever checks if the information in the form is actually yours.

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

#85

Post by xtrapolate »

random6547545 wrote: post #61
avoutthere wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one prevent this and still carry a cell phone? Would keeping one's phone in a faraday bag defeat this constant tracking?

Yes. But switching off location will probably do it too.

> "But switching off location will probably do it too."

Wrong. Phones can be triangulated by the carriers regardless.

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

#86

Post by gruez »

dude123456 wrote: post #77
gruez wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 not in software but by contract, one gives gps data to all the others as part of the bill of materials. so what's the flow here? is it something like this?: phone gps -> manufacturer installed…

some of crapware can be avoided by using custom ROMs, but not all of it. For example: Qualcomm IZat location services and other location-based trustzone applets remain running even on custom ROMs.

>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?

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

#87

Post by fapjacks »

braunshedd wrote: post #3

Previously discussed yesterday, and again two days before that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17069459 This is one of the reasons I use a public-facing Twilio number, which forwards to a private number which I never hand out. This isn't something that people should have to do to opt-out of tracking like this, but it doesn't seem like there are many other reliable options.

Just a heads up: Twilio now offers a metric fuckton of services geared towards SIM-enabled IoT. You can order SIM cards by the pile and then bind them to a Twilio number by activating it in the UI (or via API). So now instead of (or in addition to) simply forwarding traffic from garbage numbers to your real number, you can get Twilio numbers that are registered on T-Mobile's network via an actual SIM card, making it much easier to send from your Twilio number than it used to be without it bound to a SIM card. Fairly good price, too. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what happened to Twilio's API as it's now as opaque and awkward as any AWS API (almost as though someone on Twilio's engineering team made the decision to model their API after the way AWS builds their APIs), but the services they offer are as compelling as they always were. I'd give Twilio a solid D for what the API has turned into, but A+ for service innovation.

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

#89

Post by wpietri »

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…

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.

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

#90

Post by throwawaymath »

sydd wrote: post #81
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…

And how can I buy this realtime data? Also > Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go. Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?

Pinsight is a big one.

But there are too many to name. In 2018, you should assume that any free service (Unroll.me), web/mobile SDK (Slice), email client (Airmail), personal finance tracker (Mint), integration API (Plaid), geolocator (Foursquare), etc is monetized by selling your data en masse for market research.

It's not just location data. Dig into the TOS of free services you use. It's your receipts, your transactions, your subscriptions...all are "anonymized" to varying degrees of success. Even Meraki, the network router/switch company, sells location data.[1]

____________________________________________

1. https://meraki.cisco.com/technologies/location-analytics

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