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Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco

nrk.no

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Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco

#2

Post by santamarias »

A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD.

The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.

Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco

#3

Post by Foxboron »

santamarias wrote: post #2

A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.

A bit context on NRKbeta from their website.

"NRKbeta is NRKs sandbox for technology and media. We write about media, the internet and new technology with a focus on you as the user, and what we at NRK do in this field. We call it a sandbox because we want to test things out, be curious and find out how things change. And bring you, the users, with us on this journey."

https://nrkbeta.no/

EDIT:

I also think it's important to contextualize this journalism with the current debate around the Norwegian contact tracing application.

The application has been heavily criticized for the collection of GPS data for research usage and track behaviour when new guidelines are announced. They claim this data is going to be "anonymized", but alter clarified it would only be "pseudonomized".

It is also unclear if the data collected is going to be deleted in December, when the app is set for deletion by the current regulation from Stortinget.

Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco

#6

Post by SiempreViernes »

Foxboron wrote: post #3
santamarias wrote: post #2

A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.

A bit context on NRKbeta from their website. "NRKbeta is NRKs sandbox for technology and media. We write about media, the internet and new technology with a focus on you as the user, and what we at NRK do in this field. We call it a sandbox because we want to test things out, be curious and find out how things change. And bring you, the users, with us on this journey." https://nrkbeta.no/ EDIT: I also think it's impo…

Is december a realistic end date for the epidemic control it is supposed to provide? Herd immunity by vaccination at that point is extremely unlikely...

Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco

#7

Post by Grollicus »

This reminds me of an experiment I'd like someone to run on Strava. They had this big scandal some time ago where People identified US military bases simply by having a lot of activity in an otherwise empty area.

Now they've added some mojo to prevent this but still sell location data.

So how about running the same attack but instead of using the browser and their own website just use the bought location data.

I suspect they didn't fix that as I've disabled appreaing on their heatmap but they still sold my location data when I forgot to disable my vpn during a run some time ago.

Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco

#8

Post by SiempreViernes »

santamarias wrote: post #2

A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.

This reminds me of this rumour about how someone used tinder to triangulate opponent units during an exercise and arty them to shit. Supposedly Finns outwitting Norwegians, but is a anon text so who knows: https://imgur.com/gallery/bySUH

Re: Norway: Soldiers' location history found in data sold by Tamoco

#9

Post by mathieuh »

Grollicus wrote: post #7

This reminds me of an experiment I'd like someone to run on Strava. They had this big scandal some time ago where People identified US military bases simply by having a lot of activity in an otherwise empty area. Now they've added some mojo to prevent this but still sell location data. So how about running the same attack but instead of using the browser and their own website just use the bought location data. I susp…

You can add privacy zones around locations so when people look at your activities your line just disappears inside the radius of your privacy zones.

I have ones around my home and where I work. No idea if that affects whatever data they sell (I doubt it, since you can still the full activity yourself even with a privacy zone), but stops people finding where you live/work and nicking your bike

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