[HN Gopher] Texas State Police Gear Up for Expansion of Surveill...
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Texas State Police Gear Up for Expansion of Surveillance Tech
Author : OhMeadhbh
Score : 97 points
Date : 2024-08-31 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.texasobserver.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.texasobserver.org)
| morninglight wrote:
| All the surveillance is done with American made hardware and
| software.\s
| hsnewman wrote:
| So glad I left Texas after 65 years.
| moate wrote:
| If you think Texas is the only state/federal law enforcement
| jurisdiction contracting with these types of services, I have
| terrible new for you...
| xmzx wrote:
| Even all surveillance being equal, Texas has demonstrated it
| uses its powers in vastly more nefarious ways against
| marginalized groups, notably women and Latinos and that's
| just in these past few months.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| I'm intrigued. Can you give me some examples of how this is
| being used against those groups disproportionately?
| selectodude wrote:
| https://www.texastribune.org/2024/08/23/texas-ken-paxton-
| vot...
| anonfordays wrote:
| So glad I moved to Texas after 65 years.
| dylan604 wrote:
| "Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other
| personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app
| advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this
| information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of
| their products."
|
| It's these type of examples that show just how bad tracking and
| data harvesting is being used beyond the described use by
| whatever is doing the hoovering of data. The fact this is
| something that can be sold is beyond ridiculous. If you collect
| it for internal use is totally different from collecting for the
| explicit purpose of selling to others.
| advael wrote:
| I don't think it's possible to craft regulation such that
| companies collecting data for "internal use" can't abuse it.
| It's so easy to create plausibly deniable ways to move data
| around. In ML research we get a lot of "anonymized" data for
| example, which is ridiculous because even pretty primitive
| statistical methods can usually use such data to uniquely
| identify people, let alone the inference techniques in
| widespread usage in industry today
|
| In theory it could be different, in practice it simply isn't.
| If we want any kind of privacy law, "internal use" or
| "legitimate interest" or whatever nonsense the data brokers
| deploy to pretend there's some way to do this that isn't
| unethical is a smokescreen and a loophole in every context, and
| we should ban the harvesting of that data regardless of its
| intended use
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm much less concerned about if 'you collect it, you use it'
| situations. It's the companies that build an app with a
| psuedo purpose whose real purpose is to collect data for
| reselling later. Collecting data for the sole purpose of
| selling to others should be regulated into oblivion.
| advael wrote:
| Okay, so we ban selling data and then people who want it
| will buy or even fund breaches instead. Massive breaches
| will likely become more common, because that's how driving
| valuable stuff into a black market always works, and
| companies who aggregate data already do a shit job
| protecting said data and face negligible consequences from
| regulators or markets for this. Even the press will happily
| blame the constant stream of leaked data on unnamed
| "hackers" every single time
|
| I also expect to see a shift to buying more "data-driven
| insights" from big data aggregators, which in practice will
| mean the same thing as buying the data means now, just with
| the middlemen rearranged slightly
|
| Governments will still be able to subpeona the data in ways
| that route around human rights and on the rare occasions
| where this comes to light, "national security" and the need
| to fight whatever war - whether against a concrete nation
| or organization or an abstract concept - they believe will
| most muddy the waters to cite
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > I don't think it's possible to craft regulation such that
| companies collecting data for "internal use" can't abuse it.
|
| Actually, the regulatory language is easy. "You may not buy
| or sell user data."
|
| The friction comes from the fact that a large part of our
| economy is highly dependent on the ability to buy and sell
| user data.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This AND liability on the data being part of an inevitable
| breach. Both working in tandem would limit data collected
| to a minimum required to operate and remove incentive to
| collect.
|
| But as you note.. surveillance economy will not be happy
| about it and likely fight back.
|
| Amusingly, the people who understand the risks and take
| precautions are also least likely to put a spotlight on
| them, which privacy-conscious tend to avoid.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > The friction comes from the fact that a large part of our
| economy is highly dependent on the ability to buy and sell
| user data.
|
| This is only a recent part of the economy that the world
| would not collapse if we went back to a time of it not
| being part of the economy. Just because something is does
| not mean that it should. There are plenty of historical
| example of where something was that was not right that took
| time so that eventually what is is now no more.
| advael wrote:
| I don't think any such regulation can have teeth or
| actually protect anyone. The mechanism by which data is
| abused is a moving target that will shift with any
| regulation you throw at it. It will go to black markets, be
| reshaped through loopholes, or done in plausibly deniable
| ways by entities that can bog any legal challenge down in
| technicalities indefinitely, while still probably making
| more doing it than they'll be fined for, and every loophole
| will require new regulation to close it. The only way to
| regulate data collection with teeth is to make the
| collection itself illegal, and actually enforce those laws
| ideashower wrote:
| You are, in too many words, essentially describing data
| minimization principles.
|
| But I don't believe that the existence of black markets
| means we shouldn't regulate legal markets. Even if it's
| true that bad actors would try to find new ways to
| exploit data as regulations change, this doesn't negate
| the value of regulation entirely. Lots of industries face
| similar challenges (e.g. financial regulation,
| environmental protection) yet still benefit from
| regulatory frameworks.
|
| Furthermore, the existence of loopholes is an argument
| for crafting more robust and adaptable regulations, and
| knowledgeable bodies to govern them--not for abandoning
| regulation altogether.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I feel like we're precariously close to proposing a War
| on Data. I suspect it will be as successful as every
| previous War on....
| photonthug wrote:
| Drug/terror networks are composed of anonymous semi-
| independent actors without clear command/control
| hierarchies. That's nothing at all like businesses with
| registered addresses, clearly defined executives who also
| have addresses, thousands of employees who officially
| declare this as part of a legit taxable income stream.
| Every one of those non-anonymous people have to comply
| with subpoenas, etc. Why would you even make this
| comparison?
| CuriousSkeptic wrote:
| GDPR is pretty clear on anonymisation requirements https://ww
| w.edps.europa.eu/system/files/2021-04/21-04-27_aep...
|
| So somewhat possible?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| There is no point in leaving a loophole when we can forbid
| selling data entirely.
| ideashower wrote:
| How do you anonymize a person's location? It just isn't
| possible.
| https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3038912.3052620
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| This data is also used by cartels to kill people. Mass
| surveillance has a blood price.
| notduncansmith wrote:
| This certainly seems within the realm of possibility but can
| you link to a source?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/07/mexico-
| cartels...
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=q1p94mLE3Aw
|
| Mass surveillance is used to kill journalists and
| politicians.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-
| councilwoman-k...
| kurthr wrote:
| Don't collect any large scale data on your public (customer?)
| you don't want adversaries to have.
|
| You quickly become the weakest link.
| whatnotests2 wrote:
| Or arrested, convicted, imprisoned. Cite the Telegram CEO's
| current status.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| This is how Astrology Apps and similar genres work. They prey
| on a gullible demographic and then extract as much data as
| possible: contact lists, location, and more. Apple is complicit
| because even the dumbest reviewer knows an Astrology App
| doesn't need constant location access (but we need to lookup
| their star signs! We couldn't possibly just ask for a one-off
| zip code!).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Haha, and why would my contacts be necessary to tell me my
| reading?
|
| The fact that the walled garden isn't preventing this type of
| behavior is pretty good evidence of why it's no where near as
| safe as they tout it.
| ideashower wrote:
| It's actually travel apps (non-navigation/maps) that collect
| the most.
|
| Maybe astrology apps fit under "lifestyle" which is #2. It's
| much more widespread than we think.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat.
| ..
| TheCleric wrote:
| Honestly surprised weather is so low. I've seen a few that
| seem shady and they don't even have to make up a lame
| excuse as to why they need location.
| qingcharles wrote:
| The frustrating thing with this is, that if you have naive
| friends, family, and professional associates your contact info
| is getting harvested from their phones without you having to do
| anything.
|
| They just install one of these scummy apps and click OK to it
| vacuuming up all their contacts, which includes everything they
| know about you.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| $1 million a year for 5 years? They probably spend 10x that just
| on their gmail storage in a year.
|
| I was expecting some big scary number or software, but it's
| pretty boring technology and contract.
| mojomark wrote:
| As a U.S. Citizen who's spent stints in Texas over the course of
| several decades, while I jave friends there, it's clear that they
| are following in the footsteps of China. They are welcoming an
| autocratic surveillance state. Stripping freedom of movement and
| rights to your own body, one by one.
|
| It'd be healthy if they just ceceded. Kind of like the a reverse
| Taiwan situation. Sorry Chip and JoJo, I think you're about to
| slip off the USA map, nit that the rest is much better.
| fastball wrote:
| Which state do you live in that is doing better?
| karmajunkie wrote:
| well just one data point, but i left texas for california,
| which may not do much better on the surveillance front (i
| haven't really checked) but definitely does on the personal
| autonomy and movement front (at least, i haven't heard of any
| cities in CA trying to adopt sanctuary-city-for-the-unborn
| laws restricting the use of their roads). we're just a couple
| af clicks away from TX trying to mandate pregnancy tests to
| leave the state at this point.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Washington is doing a lot better despite not being the
| biggest route into our largest trading partner or flush with
| oil money. Texas is among the worst states in the union.
|
| Texas is one of the worst for human rights to the point where
| I wouldn't even drive through. They had to make a law that
| their police have to stop searching drivers buttholes without
| cause and yet they keep getting sued for doing random cavity
| searches. The last run through my parents got the third
| degree with implication that they might be immigrants. My
| fathers roots are in England/Scotland and both families have
| lived here for longer than the US has been the US.
|
| It is the among the worst for reproductive rights with
| lawmakers wanting to punish women for abortions obtained in
| other states, punish women who even drive through anti
| abortion counties on their way to leave the state, and let
| any interested party including woman's rapists collect a
| bounty on the head of their victim in a brazen attempt to
| avoid getting the law thrown out.
|
| Because of this and other factors its drastically short of
| doctors having almost the worst ratio of doctors to patients
| in the US
|
| https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/rankings-and-
| ratings/s...
|
| It has more people without health insurance than any other
| state and its getting worse in recent years.
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/pe.
| ..
|
| It is among the worst for law and order. It's AG is a
| criminal several times over.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/paxton-indictment-
| texas-d5e57fc6c...
|
| It allows a certain county judge selected by Trump handle all
| the most insanely biased cases that nobody in their right
| mind would take handing out rulings binding citizens in other
| states. These cases are so ridiculous that the 6v3
| conservative Supreme Court has to keep stepping in to put
| down this court's militantly stupid decisions.
|
| It is among the worst for democracy. It is working to try to
| pass a law that all statewide offices would have to be held
| by candidates who won the majority of the majority of its
| counties not its population. For reference Texas has 256
| counties some with as few as a few dozen people and the
| majority of the majority could constitute as little as 4% of
| its population. It wants to enshrine rural republican rule at
| the expense of anything else.
|
| It filed a lawsuit last go round asking the surpreme court to
| literally throw out everyone's votes and essentially appoint
| Trump President.
|
| https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/11/texas-lawsuit-
| suprem...
|
| Despite being hard on crime its murder rate is slightly
| higher than average while its incarceration level is much
| higher than average.
|
| https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/us-criminal-
| justi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
|
| List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_r
| ate
| briandear wrote:
| What? Texas is honestly one of the freest states in the U.S. --
| remember the Covid lockdowns in California? They arrested
| surfers. They kept schools closed for years.
|
| You can start businesses easily in Texas. You don't have to get
| permission to cut down a tree in your own yard like you do in
| California.
|
| As far as body autonomy -- in New York you had to have a Covid
| vaccine card to visit a restaurant! What kind of rights to your
| own body do you have when you are required to have an
| experimental shot to visit a private business?
|
| And freedom of movement? Is that a joke? Name one citizen who
| isn't incarcerated that can't move freely within the state.
|
| There is plenty to complain about with every state, including
| Texas, but "lack of freedom" in Texas is absolutely absurd. Try
| to build a structure or start a business in California. Work
| with local permitting departments and see how long it takes.
| Try to get a restaurant inspection in New York. It's obscene
| how difficult those states are to start or operate businesses.
| There is a very good reason most tech companies in California
| are incorporated in Deleware.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >You can start businesses easily in Texas. You don't have to
| get permission to cut down a tree in your own yard like you
| do in California.
|
| Lol, wtf are you talking about. A huge number of
| municipalities have laws around business regulations and
| around cutting trees. In addition most new houses in Texas
| are built in HOA's that have a significant number of rules.
|
| >There is a very good reason most tech companies in
| California are incorporated in Deleware.
|
| Taxes and well defined legal law that doesn't change on how a
| random judge feels on a particular day, and law that is
| tilted toward business needs.
|
| >And freedom of movement?
|
| https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/09/texas-abortion-
| trans...
|
| It's leaving the state that said state is looking at
| punishing you for.
|
| You are really sucking up way too much propaganda and
| respouting it without understanding what you're talking
| about.
| edward28 wrote:
| Are you just going to ignore the federal patriot Act.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| It wouldn't be healthy to have a large potential enemy next
| door with a chunk of resources that used to accrue to our
| benefit nor to abandon the 45-47% whose wishes are in accord
| with the majority of the nation we all live in but who aren't
| in line with the majority of the state.
|
| Furthermore demographic changes suggest that the majority will
| be in some decades in accord with the rest of us if we don't
| blink now.
|
| More importantly it would create a legal precedent that if
| allowed would fracture the US utterly diminishing our global
| power and likely leading to long term conflict which we may
| lose.
|
| Anyone want to see civil war v2 with the new Confederacy
| aligned with China and Russia?
|
| Conflict with China and Russia seems increasingly likely
| already in the long run and as China's star rises they have
| less reason for restaint.
|
| Traditionally the rising star wars with the existing powers
| when supremacy is in doubt and that would very much be the case
| if we split in 2 or 3 and allegiance to eachother were in
| doubt.
|
| There is every reason to believe that the US will defeat the
| fascist threat presented by Trump and come through it whole. If
| we allow seccession we will instead likely see the US split
| into the US and Trumpistan with TX only the first domino to
| fall. Doubtless other red states would follow probably into a
| loose confederation of states itself in danger of splintering
| further.
|
| The best case would be ending up the EU with major economic
| ties preventing conflict between China and Russias aspirations
| crushed in Ukraine.
|
| This is however a massive dice roll with no guarantee that it
| goes so well especially for women, liberals, and minorities in
| the red states.
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| we have your oil, F35 production pipeline, and best access to
| your #1 trading partner (Mexico)
|
| remember our much-maligned "disconnected" grid when you think
| you are turning the lights out on us
| akira2501 wrote:
| > It'd be healthy if they just ceceded.
|
| It'd be expedient. An entire generation of people have had such
| bad experiences in politics they've apparently just entirely
| given up on them and then have mistaken their position for one
| of rationale.
|
| It'd be healthy if we fixed whatever caused this type of banter
| to be accepted.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41405789
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Isn't this stuff fairly easy to circumvent as an individual by
| disabling location services on your phone? There's still wifi
| positioning, but at least on iPhone I think that's opt in. That
| leaves cell tower triangulation which I believe is only good to
| within a mile or so, right?
|
| I guess if you really don't want to be found, put your phone on
| airplane mode or get a burner.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| A mile or so in a big congested city might make it difficult to
| find someone, but we're talking about spread out rural areas
| near the Texas/Mexico border where there are less people per
| square mile. But even the DFW area is huge and spread out.
| Maybe it's plausible?
| akira2501 wrote:
| What you really want is noise. You want your phone to generate
| a bunch of additional fake data. So much so that anyone who
| collects it will have no ability to tease out the real data
| from the fake data.
| maronato wrote:
| When your phone downloads stuff, their servers can see your IP.
| While IPs may not give very specific locations by themselves,
| the fact that your IP may change as you move around helps a lot
| to narrow it down.
|
| Collect data for a few days to learn schedules, throw in some
| more specific data purchased from ISPs, other fingerprints,
| plot it on top of an actual map with roads and buildings, and
| you've got a very good guess of where specific people are,
| where they live and work, and how they move around.
|
| Correlate that with other people's data and eventually you'll
| be able to guess who they live and hang with.
| maxclark wrote:
| Reminds me a a city in the PNW using outdoor APs to track people.
| Doesn't matter if you're on the free WiFi they still get your
| movement.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Yes. Carry a cell sized Faraday bag.
| eslaught wrote:
| You don't trust your own phone's airplane mode to shut the
| cell modem off?
| scinadier wrote:
| You do?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| It doesn't. The baseband is still active and still responds
| to towers to a degree.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Kinda defeats the point of having a cell phone tho
| morkalork wrote:
| Many cities have scanners that track cellphones via Bluetooth
| for monitoring traffic congestion.
| pnw wrote:
| I don't see how this system can track a modern iOS device given
| Apple's deprecation of IDFA. Likewise, the Wifi MAC address on
| iOS is randomized by default. The only non-randomized identifier
| is Bluetooth AFAIK.
|
| What am I missing?
| mu53 wrote:
| Browser fingerprinting is insanely sophisticated, and I am sure
| that apps have sophisticated techniques as well. When you pool
| the data together, it's easy to correlate.
|
| Plus, IMEI numbers can be used by carriers, and that is a very
| solid identifier per phone. When you operate at that level,
| tracking is very easy. ATT has been selling this data for years
| advisedwang wrote:
| A few possible sources:
|
| - malware on phones (even though apps are supposed to only get
| anonymous information, there are ways to workaround it. For one
| a app can just ask your name and many people will put it in.)
|
| - cell phone companies selling the data (see for evidence they
| do this https://www.vice.com/en/article/i-gave-a-bounty-
| hunter-300-d...)
|
| Bear in mind these companies advertising a capability doesn't
| mean it works on every target.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| It seems the place to focus is on the telcos and the cell phone
| makers. Boycott? But how?
|
| Next phone will have GrapheneOS or e/os. But that is just me.
| Seems like most people don not know about all this or are so
| locked into to a platform it is impossible to get them to change.
|
| The Government is so controlled by corporations we cannot depend
| on the politicians either.
|
| Might be time to just sit back and watch.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| Many banking apps won't work on custom roms, which can be
| painful. Open source OSes are getting cornered. Just like self
| hosted email servers that are getting blocked by many email
| providers nowadays
| xyst wrote:
| > Cobwebs Technologies, which was founded in Israel in 2014 by
| three former members of Israeli military special units
|
| TX lege been very friendly towards Israel government. Israeli
| government also has tight controls over who has access to their
| tech (ie, no sales to non friendly entities).
|
| In wake of Roe v Wade repeal, TX "trigger law" on abortion, and
| Project 2025. We all know this is really going to be used to
| track "abortion traffickers". Let's hope this election doesn't go
| that way though.
| beefnugs wrote:
| What a load of wrong: pegasus was specificly proven to be sold
| to all the wrong people, even israel enemies
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Surveillance will be the death of the cell "phone". What are the
| arguments for bringing your phone with you? I'm imagining a
| future where politicized geofencing has observed people gathering
| together and is prosecuted precisely becaused it was geofenced.
| It's mindboggling and there has to be other solutions convenience
| technology that do not sacrifice privacy.
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