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Police Are Filing Warrants For Android's Vast Store Of Location Data (theverge.com)
The Verge is reporting about a man who robbed a Bank of America office in Romana, California. A person, named Timothy Graham, matching his profile robbed another bank in November. The investigators, however, didn't have enough evidence to prove that Graham was indeed the same person who robbed the other bank as well. The cops contacted Google and utilised a feature of Maps that builds a comprehensive history of where a user has been -- information that is proved valuable to police and advertisers alike. The publication claims that in the past few months, police have used this Maps' feature in several other instances as well. From the report: Investigators had already gone to Graham's wireless carrier, AT&T, but Google's data was more precise, potentially placing Graham inside the bank at the time the robbery was taking place. "Based on my training and experience and in consultation with other agents," an investigator wrote, "I believe it is likely that Google can provide me with GPS data, cell site information and Wi-fi access points for Graham's phone." [...] It's not clear whether either of the public warrants were filled. No Google-based evidence was presented in Graham's trial, and the other suspect plead guilty before a full case could be presented. Still, there's no evidence of a legal challenge to either warrant. There's also reason to think the investigators' legal tactic would have been successful, since Google's policy is to comply with lawful warrants for location data. While the warrants are still rare, police appear to be catching on to the powerful new tactic, which allows them to collect a wealth of information on the movements and activities of Android users, available as soon as there's probable cause to search.
Now they'll know that I don't get out much.
Clear your existing history, then disable Location History for your Google account to prevent future tracking. I also disable High-Accuracy Location on my phone itself, although that's just because I don't want to send Google near-by wifi networks and cell towers, just use classic GPS.
Wow, so the robber supposedly used maps to find his way to the bank on the day of the robbery? And they still needed access to google's location data to convict him?
Richard Stallman has always maintained that our mobile phones are tracking devices. He famously refuses to carry one.
So in a way, this is old news. However, the police and government tracking has gotten a lot better over the years.
...because nobody ever heard of burn phones.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The police always have "probable cause" the moment we step out of the house.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is what happens when you are the product and not the customer. Endless tracking available to the highest bidder, or on demand by the government.
I'll keep my iPhone any day. At least they try to protect my privacy.
Leave your own cell phone at home, and use a disposable cell phone while you are out engaging in wrong-doing. Then even if you are correctly accused of a crime, you have an alibi...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's a funny old world isn't it?
It turns out that if I want privacy and a company that will actually fight law enforcement to defend it's device's privacy features, I should get an iPhone - which, by the way, is closed source - instead of an Android phone - which is open source, and is backed by a company whose motto is "Do no evil".
It's funny, in a, you know, extremely depressing kind of way.
I do wonder how long until the belief in the unquestionable veracity of third-party data will be utilized to get rid of some political undesirables.
Wasn't all this data supposed to be anonymised by Google's clever algorithms to the point where it could not be connected to any one person?
Why is this a surprise to anyone? Why would a company that is at its heart a targeted advertising company that collects vast amounts of information on you, records web searches, records web sites visited, scans your emails, collects location data, photographs your home and business front and back that faces a road, etc ... not be expected to be an incredible resource to law enforcement just as they are an incredible resource to advertisers. Sure the advertisers don't get your name or IP but advertisers don't have judges available to tell the company to provide such personally identifiable info.
Google practices a two sided market strategy. On one side they offer free services (search, email, maps, etc) to users in return for collecting info. On the other side they monetize that info through targeted advertising, delivering ads. They do not provide personally identifiable information to advertisers because that would destroy their business model, they need to be the gatekeeper between advertisers and users so they can collect their fee.
If ever the phrase "users are the product not the customer" ever applied it applies to Google. But hey, they have a friendly motto "do no evil", and they are not a three letter government agency so its all OK right?
When committing the next robbery, leave my cellphone at home and create a solid alibi.
If I ever get a life of crime leave phone at alibi locations
Have gnu, will travel.
DON'T COLLECT THE FUCKING DATA in the first place. you do NOT need it, google. you're the fucking OS provider, that's it. the carrier doesn't need it either, for that matter. if you do not collect the data, then the feds (et al) have nothing (or at least, much much less) to ask, demand, steal, coerce from you.
It's way better than "phone drove to the scene of the crime" alibi.
But if you really think it's so weak, tape your phone to the underside of your neighbors car before he or she leaves for the day.
The main problem you'd have there is that the traffic camera data would not show your car, but you could claim you were in the trunk...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't rob a bank or do anything illegal. What a crazy idea right?
If you have (had) an Android phone, you can see where you've been on Google Timeline: https://www.google.com/maps/ti...
These things work both ways. For instance, if you are planning to commit a crime, then leave your phone somewhere else, or with a friend. Voila! Now you have an alibi. "I was at such-and-such. I was with so-and-so. The location history on my phone proves it."
Proverbs 21:19
So let's follow the rabbit a little bit further down this hole: If the police manage to set a precedent that cell phone location data can be used to establish the location of a given suspect to a particular crime, then what happens when the criminals start leaving their cell phones at home? Does that now qualify as an alibi?
Is our legal system really ready to go that far down the hole?
Go into Google Maps, click the menu bar, and then open up "Your timeline". It has a calendar display, and you can click on any date in the past year and a half (on mine, at least), and it pretty much tells you where you went, and how long you were there. It's spooky. I mean, we all knew the technology was here, but it's another thing to realize that they've actually done it. Even when you aren't navigating, even if you've disabled hi-res location services. Plus, they have a nice UI for telling you they did all this, implying that nothing's wrong with this picture.
So you say you want me to consent to data collection purely so that you can run analytics on it, huh?
The lesson here to budding robbers is to not bring your phone with you when you go to work. Seriously, I'm sure that there are enough video cameras around to capture a robber's movements. Video is one way that it was proven that Timothy McVeigh was the Oklahoma City bomber. I think there's more to this story then we're being told.
All this talk about turning Google Maps location data off. My phone says "E911 location data cannot be turned off on any mobile cellular phone." What's to stop LE from constantly collecting that data? Plus with the amount of Sting Rays purchased why was asking Google for data even needed.
That's why there's a steady flow of convictions despite the relatively low intelligence of the average police officer; after what intelligent person wants to be patrolling the dark and dangerous streets late at night when there are so many other more attractive jobs out there, like computer programmer...
that makes me glad I use a dumb phone.
I switched to very simple mobile phone with no data at all, not even wap. It also helps against internet addiction.
The least you could do is get the spelling right.
The map shows nothing for me. It says my location data is shut off and only I know where I have been.....kind of funny the way it was written....only I know where I have been! Duh! I put a firewall on my phone ages ago, nothing goes out, nothing comes in. I turn off my cell data connection and only use it on wifi, mostly as a radio to listen to music. I tried to root my phone, Samsung S5, but it will only soft brick it. So I use noroot firewall and so far it has worked really well. I do have to jump through a few hoops for it to do anything but I don't mind pressing a few buttons when I need to use it, then lock up the ports again the second I am done. I never get updates, they used to try to update my phone and it would show some update knocking on my door. After a while they stopped trying to update anything on my phone. They must notice after a while that they have been blocked and give up trying to update after several attempts. Best app I ever loaded, noroot firewall, and it is free to boot!
Good luck, if your so impatient that you leave your phone wide open so you can quickly check your facebook or something, Then you are too impatient to have any protection from anyone doing anything with your phone. By the way, it is pretty easy to trick the carriers into thinking your phone is someone elses.....look it up. If you have rooted your phone there are free apps that spoof your mac addy, phone number and nearly every other form of identification anyone would get from your phone. For those who use their phone to pay for things....you are stupid and will deserve what you get. I looked into RFID readers for my phone. There are lots of them out there and they are free. Just stand next to someone at Starbucks and steal their info and your next coffee is on them....easy peasy. As easy as it is I am surprised more people are not digging into other peoples bank accounts and stealing their money via their cell phone RFID. I see young trendies with shabby beards using the phone to buy stuff and I just laugh. The only thing they have going for them is that their bank accounts don't have any money in them to steal. Trendy liberals are easy to fool, they think the GOV is great! Talk about no brain cells left to gather up an intelligent thought!
On top of everything else, cell phone cause cancer....f'ing brain cancer....good luck with that Mr. Trendy.
The article is talking about a feature in Google Maps, that seems to be enabled by default on some Android phones. It stores your location data. You can turn it off. You can also delete stored location data in your Google account settings.
A much more interesting way to track people would be the Android location service itself. In order to get precise location data, all phones (including Apple, Microsoft, ...) will scan nearby wifi access points and cell towers and upload this information to the designated location service, which has a database of all these stored. It works both ways, btw. Once you have a gps location by satellite, the phone will upload the same data, including gps location to keep the database updated.
So every time any service on your phone wants to know your location without waiting for the satellite (which won't work indoors at all, btw.), your location will be known to the location service. This can be turned off as well, btw. Though few people would do this, since this is very useful.
If police, or three letter agencies can access this data, they will know who is where at all times. Perfect location tracking for almost everyone.
Note that Apple maps does not store user information, and cuts the ends off of routes to make the data not identifiable. This is one of the reasons I use it over the (probably still better but the gap is closing fast) Google Maps. But, the cellular company still has that data and is more than willing to profit from it. The only real way around being tracked is not carry a cell phone.
I put mine in a steel can in the passenger seat while I robbed banks. Worked ok. Got caught by silent alarm and bad luck. Did nine years. Kind of sucked.
All the other convicts thought I was a genius. And yet, there I sat in prison.
According to the Three Letter Agencies, it's meta-data, which isn't really data at all, so it doesn't need warrants, it presents no privacy concerns, and really, it's so harmless and useless that they want us to forget about it altogether. In fact they don't even know why they are collecting it!
"Hi there neighbor. Won't you please forget about my spying? It's just meta-data. Just relax and it will all be over in a minute."
Google is first and foremost a data warehouse who sells data directly or indirectly of every type to anyone willing to pay or it.
Every single project from Google exists for gathering data. This means that things like self-driving car data, traffic information gathering, etc... they are all gathered by Google at all times. You are willing to buy Android and use Google maps because it makes your life better... you're willing to pay for the features supplied by collecting location data from other peoples phones and soon cars. In exchange you give all your data to Google.
To be more accurate... Google is first and foremost a corporation responsible to the needs and desires of their shareholders and are responsible above all else (including any form of ethic related bonds) to produce a return on investment to all shareholders. As long as no written law is being broken or if the law is being broken, Google can beat it in court, or so long as any possible fines related to losing in court will be less than the profit gained by breaking the law, Google has a responsibility to its shareholders to rape, pillage and plunder every possible customer to make that return on investment.
This is free market capitalism. It's the core responsibility of free market capitalism. Return on investment is more important than anything else. There are gamblers managing your retirement fund somewhere who dump their money into your company and whether you're ethical or not, whether you have to have people murdered in back alleys or not... that's irrelevant... free market capitalism says "You must show a profit or we'll find someone to replace you who is willing to do what it takes"
1. Leave cell phone at home during crime.
2. Profit.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
I'm moving from a Firefox phone to a phone with Replicant. All of Google's proprietary stuff is stripped out and that spyware found in every Android phone was stripped out prior to the discovery.
The cops contacted Google and utilised a feature of Maps that builds a comprehensive history of where a MOBILE DEVICE has been.
FTFY.
They'd be better to leave it with a buddy. A non-moving phone at home is pretty obvious, but a phone that goes to a dimly lit bar with a criminal buddy who vouches that you were "having drinks together" would probably be more compelling, especially if the culprit in question does go to the bar for awhile so that at least he/she is recognized by a bouncer or bartender.
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