[HN Gopher] Military Unit Conducting Drone Strikes Bought Locati...
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Military Unit Conducting Drone Strikes Bought Location Data from
Ordinary Apps
Author : DyslexicAtheist
Score : 109 points
Date : 2021-03-06 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| rasengan wrote:
| Moral: If anything can be used against you, the adversary who
| will use it against you can get it and use it against you.
| Threeve303 wrote:
| This happens with domestic law enforcement as well. During the
| lockdown there were several articles about federal agencies
| relying on private companies for location data. It says
| something that both the military and federal government have
| been outmatched in their tracking abilities by silicon valley.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| They're not even remotely close to outmatched. The difference
| is the IC and the military can't collect intelligence inside
| of the United States. They're perfectly well allowed to use
| commercial and public data, though.
| xxpor wrote:
| I wouldn't assume that's unintentional. The Feds probably
| love having that level of indirection built in. Eases warrent
| requirements, and you don't get news headlines about
| government trackers in your devices.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| I used to work for a company that sold location tracking
| data. It was amazing how cheap this data is and how many
| sources you can collect it from. We would buy data from 3rd
| party sources and often have our own data sold back to us,
| sometimes straight up, and sometimes after randomization
| added to avoid exact matches. We had a whole system built
| to compare incoming data against our own data to make sure
| that we weren't having too much of our own data being sold
| to us.
| Proziam wrote:
| I take a more extreme view. My confidence that it is
| absolutely intentional and that significant planning went
| in to arrive at this point is in the region of 99%.
| virtue3 wrote:
| why waste resources when people -voluntarily- give their
| info up? It would make no logical sense.
|
| If the damn thing is free, you're the product :/
| Proziam wrote:
| I wonder how much time and effort went in from the side of
| government to arrive at a point where they can manipulate the
| free market to help them kill people.
|
| Other users have rightly pointed that getting this support from
| outside sources eases their legal burdens both domestically and
| abroad. It just seems wrong that a government can bypass its own
| checks and balances in this way. It violates the principles it
| was founded on.
| gumby wrote:
| Apart from the other issues discussed here: what about false
| positives?
|
| In the advertising case the cost of a false positive is a
| misplaced ad. In the case of a military strike the cost is
| getting the wrong person.
|
| Plus the level of security on a commercial product is lower (the
| risk of losing data is simply an insurable cost). So that false
| positive could be deliberate insertion of bogus data. If I wanted
| to get rid of a rival I could pay to have ID info for someone the
| US doesn't like inserted into the rival's home or workplace.
| Boom!
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| I'd doubt the military launched a lethal strike based solely on
| phone info. More likely this info helps locate a person and
| then they're identified by more than a geo tag.
| gumby wrote:
| One can hope, but I'm not so sanguine.
| MikeUt wrote:
| Don't worry about ad tracking - nothing similar could happen
| _here_! All the intelligence gathered on you will be used only
| for more relevant ads, guaranteed.
|
| Your employer, the police, military, school system, insurance
| companies, industry conglomerates, and foreign or domestic
| governments, won't get or abuse any of it.
| ddevault wrote:
| This is it. This is the end-game of the dragnet surveillance work
| that employs a significant population of Hacker News.
|
| You have literally turned cell phones into an informant which is
| used to fucking _murder_ the user.
|
| You are complicit in this.
| 1996 wrote:
| This, so much. People were getting icky a few years ago when I
| said I was working in crypto, as it if was below what a geek
| should aspire to - but it felt so much better than the
| alternative: I was providing something people were asking for,
| nothing else. There was no ads or engagement issues.
|
| I feel sad for all the people who have golden handcuffs
| (vesting, lifestyle) at a FANG job, basically selling dopamine
| hits and eyeball time - up to enabling murder in this case.
|
| I have very little morals on principles. I copied mine from
| someone I know: I will not work for the mob / organized crime
| ie what use violence against people, and that is true in all of
| its extensions: so that includes the government, the military,
| and any company that is deeply involved in business with them.
|
| Highly suggested for personal happiness!
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Appreciate this perspective. There are a lot of issues with
| the space of crypto that I can think of, but the truth is
| (especially with the past year or two), it's increasingly one
| of the few spaces that holds some kind of positive hope for
| technology which I can think of. I'm considering moving into
| the space myself, workwise.
|
| Are there any complaints you have about the space compared to
| other spaces you've worked in? It seems like you're pretty
| happy in the medium to long-term with your decision, which I
| think says a lot.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| Lots of crypto burns incredible amounts of electricity,
| adding to climate change, which also will lead to a lot of
| deaths. Maybe lots of tech is nuanced.
| [deleted]
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Okay, well let's engage that nuance then. Is that climate
| change intrinsic to the concept of crypto or just an
| implementation detail? Conversely, is addiction intrinsic
| to the concept of engagement optimization, or just an
| implementation detail?
|
| You could theoretically make arguments both ways, but I
| think that practically speaking, high burn is an
| implementation detail for crypto (and one that's actively
| being deprecated) whereas addiction is an indelible part of
| the concept of engagement optimization.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Whether you're a target for an ad or JADM, it's all the same to
| these people.
| upofadown wrote:
| A good reminder that allowing unrestrained commercial
| exploitation of personal data can have serious repercussions.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Military found a way to save your money. Citizens enraged.
|
| p.s. I'm sure it's not as simple as ordering pizza for someone as
| bin laden get's them swatted with tomahawk missile.
| drummer wrote:
| Librem 5. Purism needs to get the supplies up faster
| pas wrote:
| Doesn't mean much if folks just install all the BestFreeApp and
| TorchApp and FreePrayerApp on it, which then proceeds to spy on
| them in real-time.
| srswtf123 wrote:
| Sure seems like its past time to put down the smartphones, close
| the social media accounts, and be done with as much of this
| garbage as possible.
|
| I've got myself down to < 20 minutes of screen time on my
| smartphone, daily. Now to see if I can make it the final
| distance, and be free.
| nine_k wrote:
| Do you just print out everything you want to read from the web?
| srswtf123 wrote:
| I sit down at a desktop, and do what I must there.
|
| Edit: To be honest, I made this reply from my phone. I'm as
| addicted as anyone to these devices, and its why I've put so
| much effort into curtailing my usage. Edited from a desktop
| :)
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(page generated 2021-03-06 23:02 UTC)