US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
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Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#2It's so strange--I never would have expected the boot of tyranny to come from private corporations, but here we are. And what all this proves is that technology is value-neutral and can wipe us all out, or just make us incredibly miserable, if we let it.
Hopefully there will be a way to opt out. Otherwise, I should start selling faraday bags for devices. Probably should anyways.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#3Previously 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.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#4The most obvious use of the data appears to be by credit card companies to detect fraudulent use of a card and decline those transactions. This is something I'm relatively comfortable with, though it's plainly in the interests of the bank and I only indirectly benefit from the tracking.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#5> the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It doesn't restrict disclosure to other companies
Clearly the US has their priorities completely the wrong way.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#6Previously 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.
If you take that cell phone home with you regularly and don't live in a multi-unit building, it would be relatively trivial to figure out your identity using this data.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#7The way I understood it is that the requester of the location is trusted to have gotten consent from the subject of the query. The providers will answer any queries.
So Securus works on the "we're sure our customers are getting consent for their inquiries" presumption. What are the consequences if a company is found to not have gotten consent? Business sense dictates there to be no consequence at all if Securus can avoid it.
The way this should work is that the carriers can get permission to share location data with third-parties. They should not do it without having gotten permission from their customer. But then they probably get that when you sign the contract. Or do they just not mention it?
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#8The most obvious use of the data appears to be by credit card companies to detect fraudulent use of a card and decline those transactions. This is something I'm relatively comfortable with, though it's plainly in the interests of the bank and I only indirectly benefit from the tracking.
The most obvious use is insurance companies looking for excuses to deny claims.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#9I wondered how the spam callers knew what area code I was in while traveling out of state.
I would assume that through clustering analysis (eg coworkers/friends travel together) even fairly coarse position data can allow you to construct relationships. Then they can spam/fish both you end your coworkers with the same fake number. That makes it seem more important to answer and more organic.
Re: US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data
#10> the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It doesn't restrict disclosure to other companies Clearly the US has their priorities completely the wrong way.
Part of the American mythology is that government involvement is always bad. It's hard for me to know if this developed because of the myths of the America Revolution, that a small colony won it alone and not because of external factors, and how much is due to people preaching small government politics. Regardless a distrust of the government seems to be ingrained in the American psyche IMO.