Slashdot Mirror
Mobile Phone Use Patterns Identify Individuals Better Than Fingerprints
chicksdaddy writes "Mobile phone use may be a more accurate identifier of individuals than even their own fingerprints, according to research published on the web site of the scientific journal Nature. Scientists at MIT and the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium analyzed 15 months of mobility data for 1.5 million individuals who the same mobile carrier. Their analysis, 'Unique in the Crowd: the privacy bounds of human mobility' showed that data from just four, randomly chosen 'spatio-temporal points' (for example, mobile device pings to carrier antennas) was enough to uniquely identify 95% of the individuals, based on their pattern of movement. Even with just two randomly chosen points, the researchers say they could uniquely characterize around half of the 1.5 million mobile phone users. The research has profound implications for privacy, suggesting that the use of mobile devices makes it impossible to remain anonymous – even without the use of tracking software."
I did not consent to participate in this study.
I learn something very useful today !!
It really sends chills up my spine reading TFA --- it IS that easy to identify and track and predict the location of any individual based on what TFA has outlined !!
Man ... I think I gotta get more cellphones with different phone companies, that way I can rotate the use of the phones to cut down of the chance of being identified
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The mobile carrier can tell who is using those phones with a simple database lookup, and that's an extra data point they can provide for advertisers or the FBI or whoever.
That has implications that are... well less profound, but still implications all the same.
And there I was, seriously considering running out and buying a dumbphone and a pay as you go plan, and then more news of the Orwellian nightmare we are all dilegently constructing. Isn't there some wisdom in smashing your computer with a hammer and throwing your cell phone in the toilet?
A use pattern is NOT comparable to a unique and unchanging physical characteristic as an identification method.
Profound implications for privacy... The analogies are perplexing. Should I also worry about the fact that I have ten fingers with ten fingerprints at the end of them (not mentioning toes) means that it is impossible for me to have privacy? Recent research on 1.5 Million users shows that phone numbers uniquely identify subjects 100% of the time. That does not sound like this has profound implications for privacy, does it? Now admittedly, they talk about randomly chosen "spatio-temporal points", meaning, if you think of it, that you have a good chance at any time, of being either at home or at your place of work. But since your phone number already identifies you, the profound implications for privacy referred to in the article somehow escape me...
you don't own a cell phone? I've been without one for nearly a year, and I couldn't be happier. I have no landline either. People who are important to me know how to get a hold of me.
The research has profound implications for privacy, suggesting that the use of mobile devices makes it impossible to remain anonymous – even without the use of tracking software.
We've known that since the 1990s. Why get all upset about that now?
-- Cheers!
But now we also have scientific proof that when carriers sell our cell data claiming it has been anonymized they are lying. There's no such thing as anonymous location data.
all this proves is that most people do the same thing every day. wake up, go to work in the same place, hit the same cell towers and call the same people
i bet if you start calling random numbers every day it might make it harder to identify you
The one use I can see here is tracking criminals who use throw-away phones. Unless the "spatio-temporal points" are dependent on your phone model of course. (No I did't read the article...)
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Because your fingerprints won't change if you start behaving erratically, or are having a really shitty day, or basically anything, while your phone use will.
I the same mobile carrier too. Edit much?
"Your honor, we are 95% sure the fingerprints we recovered from the murder scene belong to the defendant."
You really ought to've had an inkling. Alright, it wasn't spelled out, but the writing was on the wall.
Note that using PAYG without any name attached is still a better than going contract, even if more marginally so than you'd've thought. And yes, there's millions of other ways in which you can be tracked, in fact are being tracked.
In a sense you've lost the war for your privacy years ago. But since we're still alive we can show we care. We can invent better systems and get them rolled out.
In fact, the EU is sponsoring "5G" development (why? beats me. At a guess, pork barreling.) so the few stray Europeans here could write their MP and demand that the new generation of mobile protocols be more respectful to your privacy. The USians can write their congresscritter or senate snake.
And it ought to be possible, it just wasn't a design parameter before. For example, tracking gets harder if the phone is not checked in constantly, but listening to a much larger-range pager-type transmission to know when to check in to pick up an incoming call. Something like that.
And hey, are we not geeks? We can make better protocols too. If the industry isn't interested, well, we'll do another freenet. Mesh telephony perhaps. Maybe not in 2.4GHz, but in some other ISM band. Or yet something else. With 3d printing on the rise we can even have nice handsets, and open source the entire thing too. Why not?
Downside: Electronics, RF, antenna theory, and so on, all in a small-enough package with good battery life, all that is Not Trivial. But hey, challenge, so get cracking.
It has been known for some time that when one wants to commit a crime, one leaves their mobile at home.
Have gnu, will travel.
Legitimately interested here. I love privacy. But what's the big deal here from a privacy perspective?
You all have phones you pay by CC or other identifiable means, right? So right now, you are trackable.
If law enforcement wants to track you, this doesn't give them *anything* new. What it does give them is the ability to pair secret, cash-paid phones with people who use phones tied to their identities. This does not make you easier to find. They could already do that by saying (in the case of the US), "ATT/T-Mobile/whoever, give us your data about XYZ person."
I'd go so far as to say this is *harder* to track a person with them the old-fashioned way.
Schedule flight mode. Schedule email and SMS checking.
Why won't /. let me post smartass short replies? :p
A blog I run for the wealth
Oh yes, you are THIS slashdot user, the only one, that does this. I identified you very easily :-D
Herve S.
I wonder how this research would have shifted if they'd only sampled geo-cachers and Ingress "agents"
The VERY SAME result -- within margin of error anyway -- was found like 10 or 12 years ago. There is absolutely nothing new here.
All this tells us is that law enforcement and other 3rd parties should not be allowed to get their hands on your cell phone location data without a warrant.
regarding... "makes it impossible to remain anonymous â" even without the use of tracking software."
Hello World -
You are carrying a PHONE. Your PHONE is a mobile phone, and requires a radio link to the local tower to connect your call.
Yes, this means that a system must be able to locate you to deliver your connection, and maintain your connection while you move from cellular tower to cellular tower.
You must chose:
1) If you want to remain anonymous, then have your radio information delivered to you by one-way-broadcasting. Turning on your car-radio allows you to receive the broadcasts, without actively revealing your location. Drawback: it's not a conversation.
2) If you want to have a two-way conversation, then you're going to have your call routed to you, and your radio phone sending back. You will not now, nor never will be anonymous in this scenario.
The solution: make choices based on your values. Stop waiting for a Deus ex Machina.
If societal norm is carrying a phone, and you chose not to - then you are in sync with your values, and not society.
Similar to a person who chooses a "car-free" lifestyle, biking 20 miles each direction for a work commute. Not typical, but not harmful to society. People might think it's odd, but will either adapt (or, stop inviting that person to breakfast meetings at the office, because they are stinking of sweat :-) )
In conclusion: It's your life. Choose. Choose with the understanding that no two way radio phone conversation is anonymous.
This is very unsurprising. Most people spend the majority of their time at home or at work, so location information will give you those two data points. If I gave you my address and my employment and you told me my name, I would not be very impressed. Why is anyone surprised or impressed by the results of this research?
In a recent Slashdot poll, 7% of all respondents didn't have a mobile phone. I'm one of them.
Not having a mobile phone doesn't mean you're paranoid about privacy. It could just as easily mean that you're waiting for the technology to mature. I notice that everyone seems to hate something: hardware quality, hardware cost, no signal, dropped calls, awful sound quality, basic service cost, roaming charges, long term contracts, etc. The list of complaints goes on and on.
Why do you guys put up with that crap? They never address the basic problems. They dangle flashy new features in front of you, you eagerly gobble them up and then gradually you realize that you still have the same old litany of problems hobbling your new gadget.
Vote with your money. Use land lines till they solve the fundamentally flawed user experience. In the meantime, you don't have to worry about your phone use identifying you better than fingerprints.
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/wow-i-cannot-believe-my-mom-stooped-so-low.136316639/
This person might be borderline autistic. It's kind of sad.