[HN Gopher] The Nightmare of Our Snooping Phones
___________________________________________________________________
The Nightmare of Our Snooping Phones
Author : gmays
Score : 82 points
Date : 2021-07-23 15:15 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| Natfan wrote:
| https://archive.is/u2X5t
| uhtred wrote:
| I've been using /e/ on my android phone and it has been working
| great for me. https://e.foundation/
| sydd wrote:
| Is there some info on how they tracked him? Just bought some
| public data, that was so badly anonymized, that it could be
| correlated with his public visits?
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| > _The Pillar_ correlated a unique mobile device to Burrill
| when it was used consistently from 2018 until at least 2020
| from the USCCB staff residence and headquarters, from meetings
| at which Burrill was in attendance, and was also used on
| numerous occasions at Burrill's family lake house, near the
| residences of Burrill's family members, and at a Wisconsin
| apartment in Burrill's hometown, at which Burrill himself has
| been listed as a resident.
|
| https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-g...
| mariodiana wrote:
| If I remember correctly, from reading the original story that
| broke this news, location data at the rectory he was living in
| correlated with location data at various conferences he
| attended. That was sufficient to identify the anonymized data
| as his phone.
| panzagl wrote:
| Guess I'll never know because of the Nightmare of My Snooping
| Browser and it's Collusion with the NYTimes Snooping Server.
| LolWolf wrote:
| _Harry Potter and the Snooping Browser in Collusion with the
| NYT_ is my favorite book of the series
|
| Kidding aside, it's a little difficult to swallow some of this
| stuff when it's coming from websites like this. Sure, I
| understand there is a huge hierarchy of how the NYT, et al.,
| operate (and of course the set of writers and the people who
| choose the website's operations are likely fairly disjoint),
| but it's still somehow vaguely painful to watch.
| 3grdlurker wrote:
| I mean, people disagree with their employers all the time.
| titzer wrote:
| In their "steps to avoid location tracking of your phone", add
| this to the list:
|
| 5. Disable "high accuracy location" on Android phones.
|
| This mode enables a range of data harvesting by Google Location
| Services that includes detailed sensor traces fused with GPS,
| WiFi, and others. Google claims that this information is used in
| an "anonymous" way to "improve their services", but location data
| is not, and cannot be, anonymized. The resolution of data
| harvested here is nothing short of Orwellian, and you just gotta
| trust Google (as well as all governments that have subpoena and
| NSL authority over it) now and in perpetuity. No thanks!
| josefx wrote:
| > enables a range of data harvesting by Google Location
| Services that includes detailed sensor traces fused with GPS,
| WiFi, and others
|
| Brought to you by the company that got caught war driving while
| running Google Streetview and sniffing for passwords and emails
| transmitted. All signed of by management[1], despite initial
| attempts to throw the hacker they hired for it under the bus.
|
| [1] https://www.darkreading.com/risk/google-wardriving-how-
| engin...
| justinsaccount wrote:
| "got caught" -> voluntarily disclosed
|
| "sniffing for passwords and emails" -> collecting unencrypted
| data broadcast to anyone nearby.
|
| If you believe them (which you might not, since you seem to
| have issues here) they never even looked at any of this data
| once they realized what the software was collecting.
| wrs wrote:
| Recent iOS versions have a choice between precise or general
| location permission for apps, no longer just on or off. So of
| those few apps I give permission, even fewer get precise
| location.
| autoexec wrote:
| One of the issues with 5G is that you're always handing over
| your location using "high accuracy location" resolution and you
| can't disable it. Your cell phone company always had your
| location but it used to be accurate within a mile or so, but
| because 5G will have "towers" everywhere you can be located
| within a few feet of where you're standing.
|
| Also I can't read the article, but hopefully disabling
| bluetooth is in there. Phones are being tracked via beacons
| that just collect the ID of every device that passes in range.
| titzer wrote:
| I am not talking about triangulation via towers and signal
| strength, rather GPS, accelerometer, and WiFi traces recorded
| on-device.
| dTal wrote:
| And parent expanded on that.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Zero trust principles apply.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-23 23:02 UTC)