this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Privacy advocates got access to Locate X, a phone tracking tool which multiple U.S. agencies have bought access to, and showed me and other journalists exactly what it was capable of. Tracking a phone from one state to another to an abortion clinic. Multiple places of worship. A school. Following a likely juror to a residence. And all of this tracking is possible without a warrant, and instead just a few clicks of a mouse.

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[–] Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 41 minutes ago

a device that constantly connects to antennas all over the place, is used to track your location.

who would have thought?

if you dont wanna get tracked - dont bring your phone.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 21 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Start tracking politician phones. Oh look who paid a visit to the lobbyist house this week! That shit will get shut down real quick.

[–] bamfic@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago
[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 33 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

This is nothing new. Did we already forget about the Snowden leaks?

[–] actually@lemmy.world 14 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The leaks that 2% of the population got very excited about for a while, but try not to think much about? The leaks judged by many on the reputation of an obscure man living in Russia? Those leaks?

I trust my government and not things only nerds understand. Also they sound weird and made up and very scary ( said most of the people)

[–] isaaclw@lemmy.world 1 points 52 minutes ago

Maybe, I think people still "know" its going on, but they forget by the allure of our smart phones, so this is a good reminder.

[–] ntma@lemm.ee 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Whatever happened to that Edward Snowden loser?

[–] Rin@lemm.ee 5 points 32 minutes ago

~~loser~~ hero

[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 58 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

It drives me nuts how our economic system is making not having a cell phone increasingly difficult. Many necessary things won't even work on a tablet. The smartphone is the most amazing futuristic device I dreamed about that has evolved into a distopian nightmare.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

It drives me nuts how our economic system is making not having a cell phone increasingly difficult.

that's by design. why you do you think the US government allows corporate interests to take such a high position above American citizens? it's not just only because of corruption, it's because one hand washes the other.

The smartphone is the most amazing futuristic device I dreamed about that has evolved into a distopian nightmare.

like all technology, it can be used in ways that you cannot even imagine.

instead of blocking advertising data, we should embrace it IMO.

imagine a world where users shove so much information at these tools that they can't even tell what's real or not. camouflage works better when everyone participates.

[–] Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 36 minutes ago

instead of blocking advertising data, we should embrace it IMO.

imagine a world where users shove so much information at these tools that they can't even tell what's real or not. camouflage works better when everyone participates.

There's an ad blocker that does exactly this. Called Ad Nauseam. Chrome blocked it from their store super fast, then blocked it from being installed in Chrome from 3rd party sites, then blocked known versions of it from being manually installed in developer mode. I used to run it set to a low percentage - if I "clicked" every ad they'd know to throw my data out, but if I click say 3% of them...

[–] bamfic@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

does it though? if everyone is sharing their advertising data under the covers no amount of ML could correct it.

think of it like a tor network for advertisement tracking.

you're going to Walmart, I'm going to Target. but according to our phones, I'm at Walmart and you're at Target. now scale it up to thousands or even millions of users sharing their advertising trackers.

[–] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Run a headless browser that does random searches at random times across different social media and search engines and have it click random ads.

[–] archonet@lemy.lol 1 points 58 minutes ago

you can essentially already do this with TrackMeNot and AdNauseam

[–] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

This was part of the fictional operating system in the book Little Brother. I think it inspired similar features in a particular real life Linux build too

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Better to leave your phone at home (or better, in the pocket of someone who lives in your house and takes the same daily path as you do) if you are doing something that's currently illegal. Or in any situation where you are doing something legal that the cops are likely to break up.

The juror going home thing is terrifying but I don't think the government would be after you for fulfilling your civic duty.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 69 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (4 children)

"I got nothing to hide. I'm a boring person" dumbass mfers

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago

"why don't you take your clothes off, then? You said you 'have nothing to hide', didn't you?"

[–] elliot_crane@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago

I’ve heard this exact same thing from a former colleague that left my company to go work at a place selling “smart” security systems 🤦🏻‍♂️

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 27 points 4 hours ago

"Got nothing to hide" - Man wearing pants

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 37 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

I got nothing to hide.

I'm willing to bet that they have curtains on their bedroom window...

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 14 points 4 hours ago

I'm willing to be they lock their doors

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[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 16 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

this combined with the whole "your pager/phone is now a bomb" texture that the IDF decided to add into the mix should make for interesting times.

soon you will be the drone.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Archive: https://archive.ph/bSrZR

tl;dr: It's basically a MAID attack, along with the usual suspects of social media, navigation, and weather apps.

[–] Waldowal@lemmy.world 10 points 4 hours ago

Some additional info based on their published material (screenshot below). The software gets its data from "publicly available sources" which includes tracking information from many different online advertisers, public social media posts, etc. As we know, the advertising data can sometimes have your personal info attached - sometimes not. Babel Street claims to anonymize the data, but let's assume there is a $$ amount at which they won't.

So, theoretically, if you can successfully avoid ad trackers, and you don't post on social media platforms except where you want to be "seen", you can avoid this tracking (granted that seems quite impossible these days).

[–] capital@lemmy.world 25 points 5 hours ago (12 children)

Don't bring your phone.

Get a burner and set up call forwarding.

[–] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 22 points 5 hours ago (8 children)

burner goes from your house, to abortion clinic, to your office, back to your house

Hmm, must be someone else, I don't recognize this number

-The Government

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[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 192 points 8 hours ago (5 children)

This should be illegal. There is absolutely no good reason this should be available to anybody. It should also be considered unconstitutional; if one of those dots is a person, whether you directly know who the person is or not, it should violate the right to privacy and the right of illegal search and seizure — no questions asked.

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 17 points 5 hours ago

Search and seizure, the Fourth Amendment, only applies to State actors. The only exception is when a private entity is acting as an agent of the government, such as in the case of private prisons.

Congress needs to pass consumer protection laws aimed at privacy in the digital age. They haven't updated this sort of thing I believe since 1996. It used to be legal for adult video stores to disclose the tapes people rented, but Congress passed a privacy law forbidding it when some journalists disclosed some of their rentals. The scandal had some cool name. I forgot what.

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