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Mobile Phone Companies Appear To Be Selling Your Location To Almost Anyone (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: You may remember that last year, Verizon (which owns Oath, which owns TechCrunch) was punished by the FCC for injecting information into its subscribers' traffic that allowed them to be tracked without their consent. That practice appears to be alive and well despite being disallowed in a ruling last March: companies appear to be able to request your number, location, and other details from your mobile provider quite easily. The possibility was discovered by Philip Neustrom, co-founder of Shotwell Labs, who documented it in a blog post earlier this week. He found a pair of websites which, if visited from a mobile data connection, report back in no time with numerous details: full name, billing zip code, current location (as inferred from cell tower data), and more. (Others found the same thing with slightly different results depending on carrier, but the demo sites were taken down before I could try it myself.)
We ARE the product, and short of bloody revolution there's SFA we can do about it. Time to open that Facebook account I guess - the war has been lost, so I may as well get as much value as I can out of our corporate overlords in return for them raping my privacy.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
You agreed to this in the ToS. This should not be a surprise to anyone. Turn the phone off when you do your nefarious deeds; or leave it someplace where you plan to have your alibi.
Slackers, there's money to be made!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
Everything which is not forbidden is compulsory.
If a company isn't forbidden from selling it to make money they will find a way to do so.
as long as they use the information to target me with valuable offers and promotions.
I only turn on location services when I need it, and I don't use apps that require a constant connection. Obviously, Google, Facebook, and Amazon et. al. do not exist in my world. And BTW, I miss nothing doing things this way. If you are going to get angry with these companies, reserve some for yourself for offering up your data so willingly.
Don't use Facebook... or any social networking site. If you're going to post on a site like Slashdot, consistently fake a few personal details and simply never share others.
Don't use GMail, Hotmail, or any other such system. (I run my own mail server, which is probably not reasonable for most people... but there's also probably a market out there for a small appliance with a domain registration + DNS package that gives you your mail server without too much user effort).
I have friends 'IRL', which is where they belong. If I only ever catch up with you by reading your Facebook page... we're not friends anymore anyway.
You're still going to leave a trail through your credit or debit card, plus whatever government database you're in that is shared in any way, but you can significantly limit the data gathered on you.
Unfortunately, that's less true every day. Every photo you're in is subject to facial recognition and even if it's not location tagged... location recognition probably isn't far behind (I don't like being photographed and every year I let my kids' school know they're not authorized to publish their names or pictures except in the hardcopy yearbooks). Every text post you're mentioned in can be used to build a shadow profile of you. Other people are giving up your personal information for you whether you want them to or not. And, of course... your phone company is pimping you out to data miners like you're a $2 alley-dwelling crack whore.
If the war is lost, why did they need to keep it secret??
Just buy up every celebrity location, politician, judge, tv presenter's data and do cross analysis on it.
Want to know who Hannity met just before he repeated that Russian "deep state" crap? Just pull his data, his families data and do co-location analysis to go see.
Want to know who Chairman Pai met just before he started on that attempt to kill Net Neutrality, well his location data will show where he was and who he met with, if it was a face to face meeting that is.
The only people stripped from that data are typically Verizon, ATnT CEO's. We learned they strip their own data from the NSA spy set, so it will be stripped from this one too.
You are carrying a location tracking device in your pocket. Don't be surprised.
and don't use the term "climate change" and you should be fine.
With the latest conviction of someone using a pressure cooker to make a bomb, I'm going to assume that anyone visiting a store that sells them is going to be looked upon with suspicion.
If you're a black powder gun enthusiast living in Denver who likes to cook, you're in for a rough ride.
It's time for people to opt out of this shit instead of just bitching about it.
Any data you give away WILL be tied to your profile and bought and sold behind your back. You should minimize the data trail you leave. Do not carry an always on tracking device. If you must carry a phone take the battery out and only insert it when you want to make a call. (Yes, this means you should buy a phone with a removable battery, and yes, you can buy those).
Stop using Facebook and similar. Just stop. There is nothing in it for you.
Stop giving all your photos, messages,k emails, etc to your corporate masters.
The more you feed this machine the more powerful it will become. If you do not want it, then stop feeding it.
So instead of "Follow the Money", the new investigator's dogma is "Follow the Phones". Nice.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
As I understand this, it could be easily thwarted by running a VPN. My wife runs vpn on her phone constantly. It is easy enough.
and it is firmly anchored to the wall. Next question?
The saddest part of this news, and so much news like it.. Is that none of this crap surprises me anymore. I already expected that they were selling me out, and I'd be more surprised if they weren't.
What the hell is happening to the world?
If Verizon and AT&T are pathologically customer-hostile, then it is time for the electorate to emasculate them.
Tor is obviously not enough. Fine them into oblivion, then sell their assets at auction.
Let's address the root of the issue: This is all 100% legal because the assclowns that most people vote for made it so. None of this should be legal. My ISP shouldn't be selling my info. My cell provider shouldn't be selling my info.
I don't respond to AC's.
Can't nobody use land lines and payphones anymore if you really have to? What's the obsession with always being reachable or reaching out? People got along without smartphones before. It's more destructive than convenient. People don't seem much happier, only more obsessed.
And I'm getting sick of strangers calling me.
If a company has data about you, they are selling it to anyone willing to pay the fee.
There are exceptions, of course, but they are rare enough to safely ignore.
All business will respond to force (political/legal/economic force).
But applying such force requires numbers.
When the majority don't know and don't care, the force can't be mustered.
Our position on privacy lost the majority vote long ago.
Or enjoy playing with them. Poison their data well. Create false information about yourself. Get creative and have exciting new hobbies. Have fun with it and explore the exiting world of being a product. [examples...]
Reminds me of the "defamation service" suggested by some people in the '80s. Idea was to hire a servince to spread lots of scandalous, but clearly false if examined closely, rumor about you, in order to discredit any other rumors about you later.
Problem is, that puts too high a bar on the rumor-hearers. If they DON'T go on to the discrediting stage, you've just trashed your own rep for no gain - and lots of potential loss.
Scandalous rumor (especially if true, but false can do it, too) can take down even a rich and powerful figure VERY fast. See Harvey Weinstein for an example of fast, JonBenet Ramsey's parents for an example of false.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
From reading the blog post carefully, it looks like this is designed for credit card processing verification at the point of service. Allowing the gas station's credit card processor to verify you really are at the gas station your credit card is being used at. So in that use case, they would already have your location because they know where the POS terminal is located. This doesn't seem too concerning to me, but they should probably provide an opt-out.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
Be both a true patriot and a revolutionary! Opt out of America and build the foundations for a great new nation that enshrines this generation's values.
Because if you don't, who will?
This is SO tiring. Everywhere there is someone looking for some way to sell us out for a quick buck. Here we go again, the carriers trying to get their pound of flesh and avoid being disintermediated by the Facebooks and Alphabets of the world.
Not really related, but last night I saw the 60 Minutes piece showing how Rep. Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican, shepherded big-pharma-written legislation to prevent the DEA from prosecuting Fortune 500 companies which deliberately make opiates available for diversion to the black market, fueling the epidemic and their profits. All with congressional cover.
It's just nonstop. Seems like it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
Is anybody still under the impression that Orwell's "Big Brother" can only be a government?
The rise of "Big Brother" is being missed because everybody's convinced it can only come from the Government... and not from friendly corporations, who only have our best interests at heart.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
This isn't news. In other not news: your mobile carrier is selling the rest of the information you provide to them (PII, financial stuff, it's in the agreement), your financial institutions are selling your shopping lists. Virtually every entity with any info on large groups of people are selling it. Google and Facebook don't do that because they're ad networks—the typical buyers—and don't want to provide it to competitors. Government agencies and hospitals probably do not sell much of your information, but maybe think twice before paying for meds with credit next time if you care about keeping that kind of thing private.
getting by without a mobile phone is damn near impossible, especially in today's hyper-competitive job market.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's a great idea. Let me get started:
I'm a 6'2'" wall of muscle with a string of romantic conquests, a PHD is Astrophysics and a collection of Star Wars action figures.
Ha! Only one of those things is true but good luck figuring out which with all your highfalutin statistics.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
After the eclipse while on vacation, I got spammed on my cell phone from a business I drove past. I wondered who outed me, guess it was my cell phone service.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
We need a comprehensive law that requires for each and every bit of information to be collected written consent. First violation is 5% of annual revenue, second offense is 20% of revenue, third is the end of the entire corporation with top level managers being personally liable for any damages. Harsh, but will fix this rampant abuse in no time.
Use a reliable, logless VPN with a proven track record of standing up for users and privacy. Opt for open source solutions whenever possible. Consider using an open source mobile operating system like Copperhead. Use a logless search engine like DuckDuckGo or Startpage. Use a privacy-friendly e-mail provider like ProtonMail or StartMail. Encourage your friends, family and colleagues to use Telegram, Signal, or Wire, and conduct as much conversation as possible on those services. Use Firefox or Brave as a web browser instead of Chrome or IE. Install ad and tracker blockers like Disconnect, uBlock or AdBlock Plus. Use HTTPS Everywhere. Get off social media, or at least be cautious of what you post and control your settings.
These things wonâ(TM)t solve every problem, but they will solve most of them, especially if tens of millions of us are doing it. Corporate surveillance is a business; make it expensive for them to spy on us and the market will bankrupt them or force them to stop spying.