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.

  • Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 days 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.

    • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      Or, you know, let the gov work for you, not against you, & fully expect people to get jailed if they thank you.

      It’s a matter of perspective what the minimum standard should be.

      Especially when a personal device like a phone is basically necessary for a normal life and even public services.

        • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          You can answer this yourself. Get rid of your phone and see. If you beleive it’s not a necessity, don’t say “yeah I could do these alternative things to get by”. Actually do it. I hope you’re not job-shopping

        • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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          6 days ago

          Yes, imho, and increasingly so.
          In an environment where the vast majority has one people act like everyone has one (eg restaurants having qr links to menus).

          Even EU ruled as much (eg my company phone is my own personal device regardless of ownership & my privacy is protected differently than eg my work PC or laptop).

          And even if this wasn’t the case, why would you need to opt out of having a mobile phone just to get basic privacy?

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Wouldn’t just keeping your phone in a metal box prevent it from communicating with anything? Keep your phone in a metal box and only take it out when you need it. Only take it out in a location that isn’t sensitive. Or hell, just make a little sleeve out of aluminum foil. Literally just wrapping your phone in aluminum foil should prevent it from connecting to anything. A tinfoil hat won’t serve as an effective Faraday cage for your brain, but fully wrapping your phone in aluminum foil should do the job. Even better, as it’s a phone, such a foil sleeve should be quite testable. Build it, put your phone in it, and try texting and calling it. If surrounded fully by a conductive material, the phone should be completely incapable of sending or receiving signals.

    • moseschrute@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      There has to be some way that we could have created the architecture to do everything a phone does without letting a user be triangulated easily.

      I know there is no incentive to do that, but it amazes me how far ahead the security of the web is compared to phone tech.

      Like maybe if phones could authenticate without broadcasting a unique identifier. And maybe they could open a vpn style encrypted tunnel and perform their auth over that tunnel.

      Idk, I know nothing about phones, but it has to be possible.

    • wrekone@lemmyf.uk
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      6 days ago

      If you don’t want to be tracked illegally, don’t bring your phone.

      If you don’t want any to be tracked legally, write/call/tweet/visit your representatives.

    • actually@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      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)

  • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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    7 days 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.

  • Waldowal@lemmy.world
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    7 days 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).

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    7 days ago

    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
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      7 days ago

      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.

  • 52fighters@lemmy.sdf.org
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    6 days ago

    This is not new and it has previously been used against anti-abortion activists, tracking locations and even being used to record religious confessions. People on both sides of the abortion issue can oppose this type of monitoring.

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    Apple and Google can fix the problem. Apps are required to ask for permission to access location information. Most of the time, it’s for tracking and analytics, not anything related to the app’s functionality. That’s the data that is leaking to these data brokers.

    In those cases, if asked, user can say no, but apps keep haranguing you until you capitulate.

    Instead, the OS could add a button that says: “Yes, but randomize.” After that, location data is returned as normal, but from totally random locations nearby. They could even spoof the data clustering algorithms and just pick some rando location and keep showing returns to them, or just trade the data from one random phone for another every N days.

    You do this enough and the data will become polluted enough to become useless.

    • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      7 days ago

      I don’t think this would be technically useful to prevent exploitation of location data. The handset always has to identify to a tower using the SIM card, which is going to identify the phone and its user. Your cellular service provider can still sell this information to data brokers.

      With that said, I would love the option to lie about my location to apps that have no business knowing it.

      • umami_wasabi@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        Long term like get a iPod Touch like device, one only have WiFi/BT and no celluar. Get a celluar mobile hotspot with removable battery. Run PBX and VoIP at home with a celluar modem/landline or get a VoIP service like jmp.chat. Bring the iPod Touch like device and the mobile hotspot on the go, taking calls and mesaages via VoIP. To lose track, turn off the mobile hotspot and remove the battry. Use public WiFi with VPN as needed to connect to VoIP.

        Or use Signal if you don’t need celluar call and texting.

      • suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        It also won’t work since the service has enough precision to know whether you go in, and for how long. The real issue is that mobile phones are continuously broadcasting their location to any device that wants to listen, even if you turn wifi and bluetooth off.