A community for Lemmy users interested in privacy
Rules:
Not defending this bullshit but O title is "Nevada police may be tracking your phone’s location without a warrant. Here’s how"
With relevant part
Although Fog Data says that their data is made anonymous and “linked to devices … not people,” the company says the tool can help access information that “would otherwise remain hidden.” The company has a tool on their website that allows individuals to opt out of their databases.
Using a simple flip phone with no app ecosystem would fix this, right?
I miss when the internet was a place you went in our house to use.
Using a simple flip phone with no app ecosystem would fix this, right?
Probably not.
The cell phone network will need to know where every subscribed phone is, in order to be able to route simple phone calls and text messages. In the old days, that might have meant very broad ideas of which areas were covered by which towers (often divided into 3 slices of 120° each from a single physical tower), and maybe some timing data to understand how much to offset the signal timing to make up for the speed of light.
But each generation of cell phone technology has been about adding more capacity into each wireless frequency, and the towers have specialized tricks for transmitting and receiving on the same channel at the same time with different devices, by getting more precise about transmitting or listening in very specific directions and distances, with spatial signatures that distinguish between devices. It's all very cool and mathematically beyond my understanding, but the result is that the towers have much more precise location data about the actual handsets.
So the cell phone companies have your location data. The question becomes whether they sell them to location aggregators who resell the data on the open market, and whether some of the buyers of that data are law enforcement agencies without a warrant.
I understand triangulation. I'm talking about limiting the context to an advertising ID, which is what is being tracked by law enforcement.
The EFF reporting about Fog Data Science's sources is unsure of the ultimate source of the data.
But if you're concerned about the sources used by data brokers in general, collection and use of location data by corporations is pretty much unregulated, so it's fair to assume that brokers use every trick they can, including buying from anyone who sells the information. Which the carriers are widely believed to do, but are kinda hush hush about it.
You can opt out with this link: https://www.fogdatascience.com/contact
They can't be the only one doing this, though. It's going to be a game of whack-a-mole as long as the carriers are still allowed to sell this data. The only way that'll change is if some well connected politician gets outed or arrested because of it, probably.
Unfortunately yeah, although you can prevent for yourself it to some extent by disabling your advertising id
They just use the different techniques to fIngerprint you. It's an arms race, and we lost it years ago.
I would think opting out would just subject you to extra scrutiny.
Riot
That’s it. Permanent lockdown mode for me. Set paranoia to overclock.