30 ms·

Throwaway account. I work in location / mapping / geo. Some of us have been waiting for this to blow (which it hasn't yet). The public has zero idea how much p

• tekstar 8y ago
  Is this happening with iPhone as well, or primarily android due to the third party nature of the hardware?
  • matwood 8y ago
    The problem is once it's at the cell carrier level it doesn't even matter if you use a dumb phone. They know roughly where you are based on tower triangulation.
    • crankylinuxuser 8y ago
      As an amateur radio operator, I would expect nothing less for carrying a highly networked radio transceiver with loads of sensors including geopositioning. Simply put: don't want to be tracked? Put your phone in a lead sealed box or leave it at home. Tracking only tracks the phone , not your person.
      • sp332 8y ago
        Yeah they know where you are at any given moment, but they don't have to record it. And they especially don't have to sell it to third parties. That's what we mean by "tracking".
      • codedokode 8y ago
        So basically either give up your right for privacy or don't use any new technology? That doesn't look practical. A better idea would be to ban cell carriers (and anyone else) from using location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law, like help in emergencies or conducting investigations.
        • mindcrime 8y ago
          A better idea would be to ban cell carriers (and anyone else) from using location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law, like help in emergencies or conducting investigations. That doesn't do anything to protect your data from being accessed by the State, which is actually the bigger problem.
          • ad-hominem 8y ago
            That doesn't mean banning corporations from exploiting your location is a bad idea, even if it's not the optimal privacy-enabling solution.
            • mindcrime 8y ago
              I don't think we want an outright ban. I certainly have the right to allow a corporation to access my location if I choose to. There may be cases where an individual would judge it in their interest to allow a corporation to have such access. The problem with the current setup is that we don't know who's gaining access, when they're gaining it, what they're doing with it, etc. Once the cell carriers have it, there's no easy way of knowing who they are selling the data to, and who that entity sells it to in turn, and so on. Sadly, I don't see a good way to resolve this at the moment. If you use a cell-phone the carrier can always get your (at last approximate) location through triangulation. And regulation only makes sense if you trust the State, and I would like to think we've all learned better than to do that by now. So what do we do?
    • e_proxus 8y ago
      Not my area of knowledge at all, so perhaps someone who knows radio better could chime in: Would it be possible to fool the triangulation from the device, by arbitrary (or intelligently) delaying the mobile radio signals? Or are they too dependent on timings and such to work?
      • sangnoir 8y ago
        > Would it be possible to fool the triangulation from the device, by arbitrary (or intelligently) delaying the mobile radio signals? Not without messing up your ability to make and receive calls. Cell towers use precise timing and power-level measurements in order to do things like decide which cell-site is best, and to hand-over your call from one tower to the next without breaking your call or glitching. Edit: Even if you were to play around with timing of responses of the radio signal, you have no control over how it radiates in free space. The time-delta between reception of the same signal by 3 towers at known locations is enough to triangulate your position. Maybe a unidirectional antenna pointing to just one tower might work, if there are no other towers within the beam behind it and no sideway leakages.
      • superkuh 8y ago
        There are no available cellphone radio baseband computers/transceivers that allow you do do things with that. You would literally have to implement the entire cell baseband from scratch with a software defined radio. It would be a very non-trivial project. And it'd be useless unless you had many of these custom transmitters faking your signal spread out over large physical distances.
        • namibj 8y ago
          OsmocomBB and LimeSDR would like a word with you. Yes, the former is limited to GSM, the latter doesn't come with a TX amp and you'll need to supply suitable mid-power RF (no cooling for passives, carefull cooling of actives) antenna circulator/filter/switch, if you want to use your new amp. The hardware should be under 2k$ manufacturing in single-unit quantities, but it is HF design, including some distributed-element filters and power-handling at low GHz frequencies. Nothing particularly trivial to design, though the requirements in precision are not too stringent, so you won't need someone who can demand >100$/h while working outside of a major metropolitan area. TLDR: GSM+LTE open-source SDR/hacked dumbphone baseband exists, suitable hardware is COTS for sub $2k.
    • stef25 8y ago
      That's always been common knowledge, the shocker is that it's being transmitted to "everyone and their dog" or even being sold. Afaik that was never the case with dumb phones.
      • fixermark 8y ago
        A dumb phone can be localized by cell triangulation. The US military disclosed that it was using such a technique in Afghanistan to locate Al-Qaeda targets (they disclosed this because Al-Qaeda had gotten so paranoid about he accuracy of US military operations that they had assumed they had human spies on the ground feeding the US information and began killing civilians on suspicion of spying).
        • forapurpose 8y ago
          > A dumb phone can be localized by cell triangulation. The US military disclosed ... In the U.S., aren't dumb phones (or 'feature phones') locatable for E911 service?
          • joe5150 8y ago
            if it doesn't have GPS, it doesn't have GPS
            • CamperBob2 8y ago
              There are several ways to implement E911-like service, and at least one of them doesn't require GPS. Your phone can usually be seen by multiple cell sites, so it's just a matter of accurate timing.
            • PeterisP 8y ago
              Using your phone's GPS requires cooperation from your phone, however, triangulation by timing is not only possible, but even required by the GSM standard, the signal continuously measures and encodes your "latency" to the tower needed so that you'll start transmitting your block slightly earlier if you're farther away so as not to overlap with the time slot possibly allocated for some other device. It's not as accurate as GPS, but it gives a solid estimate of your location that neither you nor your phone can prevent unless you totally disconnect.
  • random6547545 8y ago
    It's android for the hardware manufacturers and OS crapware getting location data. For iOS, assume every app using your location is selling the data. That means every app using a map or location smoothing SDK (GPS jumps around, there are services to smooth it out), since the map SDK providers (and there's not many) are selling your data even if the app itself isn't. Google, Apple, Microsoft etc are pretty careful for good reason. Anyone below that is probably selling it.
    • chatmasta 8y ago
      Every app that has access to nearby WiFi SSIDs (or even just the one you’re connected to) can also turn this data into location data. In fact I don’t think that is even a gated permission on iOS.
      • gergles 8y ago
        This isn't a user-gated permission but an Apple-gated one. Apps can't retrieve the nearby SSID list unless they have the "Hotspot Helper" entitlement from Apple. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/nehotspothelper https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/n...
        • chatmasta 8y ago
          Good to know, but that’s only marginally better, as a malicious app developer only needs to come up with a legitimate reason for the entitlement.
• avoutthere 8y ago
  How can one prevent this and still carry a cell phone? Would keeping one's phone in a faraday bag defeat this constant tracking?
  • random6547545 8y ago
    Yes. But switching off location will probably do it too.
    • chinathrow 8y ago
      No switching off location would not do it - why would it? Cell tower data is sold at the carrier as per the article.
      • random6547545 8y ago
        I'm focused on GPS data which is a free for all. Sure, cell towers have location too just not quite as accurate.
    • SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      Carriers will still be able to track you via the cell towers you're connected to. I'm sure they can triangulate based upon signal strength, and that's strictly using your cellphone as a dumb phone.
    • xtrapolate 8y ago
      > "But switching off location will probably do it too." Wrong. Phones can be triangulated by the carriers regardless.
    • mszkoda 8y ago
      It may help in regards to your exact location via GPS, but cell companies can still triangulate your location based off how strong your signal is to certain towers in the area and which towers you have connected to recently.
    • sevensor 8y ago
• gruez 8y ago
  >It's not just your cell carrier. Your cell phone chip manufacturer, GPS chip manufacturer, phone manufacturer and then pretty much anyone on the installed OS (android crapware) is getting a copy of your location data. Usually not in software but by contract, one gives gps data to all the others as part of the bill of materials. so what's the flow here? is it something like this?: phone gps -> manufacturer installed crapware app -> crapware server -> (various third parties) wouldn't this be mitigated if you use a custom ROM like lineageos?
  • dude123456 8y ago
    some of crapware can be avoided by using custom ROMs, but not all of it. For example: Qualcomm IZat location services and other location-based trustzone applets remain running even on custom ROMs.
    • random6547545 8y ago
      Hopefully this shows people how deep it is.
      • mickael-kerjean 8y ago
        If all that is claim in here isn't conspiracy, how can it stay a secret? Isn't it the reason wikileaks was created in the first place?
        • Filligree 8y ago
          How is it a secret? We're talking about it right now.
          • Romanulus 8y ago
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf5FRPfGiC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf5FRPfGiC8
        • godelski 8y ago
• Darthy 8y ago
  This is a problem with the GSM/UMTS standards themselves. Carriers always know where you are, but one could create a standard where they wouldn't have to know unless you make a call. With enough encryption and effort, I'm pretty sure one could even create a standard where carriers would never know where you are, even while you are using services.
  • sp332 8y ago
    They have to know your location if you want to receive a call.
    • jakeogh 8y ago
      With the current setup, sure, but that's by design. The cellular modem could stay off until you decided to take the call if there was a nationwide page circuit listening, the user would get the ring, see the number the page sent, and if desired, answer, which powers on the modem, hits a tower and connects to a backend system that sent the page which took the incoming call. Page messages are in-the clear, but that's fixable by (gasp) OTP.
      • sp332 8y ago
        You want every single cell phone call in the world to send out a signal over every single cell tower?
        • mdhardeman 8y ago
          No. But at a certain point, with the high speed modulations we have today, it is totally feasible to broadcast these passively to a multi-state region encompassing a radius of hundreds of miles. There's not a legitimate engineering reason that the network needs to maintain constant fine-grained location data for each registered device at this point. The scope of the registration can be far more widely cast. This would even have upsides for the devices and users. As check-ins to the network in which the device must transmit to the network would be far reduced, battery life improvements can be had. Yes, this increases the amount of "broadcast" traffic, but honestly, even for some of the busiest telco switches in New York or LA, those data streams don't even approach the throughput requirements of a single HD Youtube stream...
• sydd 8y ago
  And how can I buy this realtime data? Also > Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go. Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?
  • throwawaymath 8y ago
    Pinsight is a big one. But there are too many to name. In 2018, you should assume that any free service (Unroll.me), web/mobile SDK (Slice), email client (Airmail), personal finance tracker (Mint), integration API (Plaid), geolocator (Foursquare), etc is monetized by selling your data en masse for market research. It's not just location data. Dig into the TOS of free services you use. It's your receipts, your transactions, your subscriptions...all are "anonymized" to varying degrees of success. Even Meraki, the network router/switch company, sells location data.[1] ____________________________________________ 1. https://meraki.cisco.com/technologies/location-analytics https://meraki.cisco.com/technologies/location-analytics
    • adamson 8y ago
      Hasn't Foursquare been doing this and nothing but this for ten years now?
      • heurist 8y ago
        Foursquare is selling business services based on the data they collect, not the data itself (as far as I know).
        • throwawaymath 8y ago
          They sell direct location analytics: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290543 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290543 This is mostly a distinction without a difference, because for firms that do this, one of those "business services" is providing a thin layer of analysis over the underlying data.
• wpietri 8y ago
  For those who want to try out LocationSmart, you can use it here: https://www.locationsmart.com/try/ https://www.locationsmart.com/try/ They were about two blocks off, and located me by cell tower. Apparently they don't have (or at least don't admit to having) A-GPS level data for me.
  • dmichulke 8y ago
    I'm somewhat weary. This might be the final missing piece to connect your mobile phone number to your mobile browser user agent, or even worse, your desktop browser agent.
    • tome 8y ago
      *wary
      • RobotCaleb 8y ago
        Or leery
        • tome 8y ago
          Interesting. I wonder if the mistaken use of "weary" comes from a combination of "wary" and "leery"! I always assumed it was because "wear" is pronounced the same as the first syllable of "wary". Unfortunately "weary" is already a word and "I'm wary of X" has a different meaning from "I'm weary of X", but similar enough that a lot of confusion could result.
    • lotsofpulp 8y ago
      If the mobile carriers are selling your real time location data, I don't think there is much stopping them from also selling your browser user agents.
      • tome 8y ago
        I believe that dmichulke means that when the phone number is linked to the user agent it's much more dangerous than when they are sold without that connection being known.
• jandrewrogers 8y ago
  I can confirm this is happening, I designed some of the analysis systems used. Contrary to what many people assume, this is not just a US thing. It is done throughout the industrialized world to varying degrees, including countries where most people believe privacy protections disallow such activity. Governments tacitly support it because they've found these capabilities immensely useful for their own purposes.
  • Mononokay 8y ago
    Do you feel guilt over creating them?
    • 394852034 8y ago
      I know TV and movies have imparted upon people that there is some kind of feeling of immense guilt, or maybe you are just dishing the ubiquitous passive aggressive shaming as a weak attempt at social control, but fact of the matter is that today's devs (yes, many if not all of us here) have exponentially less qualms about what we do and support and develop (let alone even fully understand the ramifications, as has become apparent to me) on a day to day basis, than any of the soldiers or henchmen or perpetrators of the favorite historical villains we are trained to hate from early on. Reality is that to the vast majority of people that are swept up in the cult mania and are essentially blindly and instinctually following their most basic herding impulses, the actions they are taking and the things they are doing are just fine as they say "it doesn't look like anything to me". We have thoroughly entered a pathway with an ever more narrow set of possible outcomes, none of which are good, but just as all the other past events that all the "smartest" people were warned about well in advance and who self-magnanimously proclaim how the inevitable outcomes "could not have been predicted" in to protect, at all and any cost necessary, the most important thing there is ... something so important and sacrosanct that reality and fact and intellect and rationality will be suffocated and smothered and exterminated and sacrificed the very microsecond it potentially could even maybe rear its head .... their ego and incomprehensible notion of having to admit fault or infallibility. It is utter hubris that will be bringing about the inevitable next calamity that will, due to the ever growing and expanding size of the house of cards, collapse under it's own self-deluding weight. Remember kids, tech fraud valuations were based on sound business and house prices could only go up; and those were just the early tremors of what is to come ... unfortunately. All manias invariable are followed by crashes, regardless of how they manifest themselves. What goes up must come down and down, farther and harder, it will come crashing the higher it climbed into the sun. Lest us forget Icarus Icarus (IK-uh-rus) Son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman's genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea. The folly of Daedalus to not be mindful of the foolish youth of Icarus. But, do tell us of how the young of today will not cause the calamities of past generations of young who thought the too were infallible from their unearned privilege, pampered, and hedonic existence.
• jakubp 8y ago
  What specific data about the person is traded alongside their location history in the... schemes that you describe? (name? Some govt ID number? Phone number? Address? ....)
• stef25 8y ago
  Allow me to ask some questions :) > It's not just your cell carrier No reason to think this is only US right? > cell phone chip manufacturer, GPS chip manufacturer How & when is this transmitted and what other data apart from lat & long? > pretty much anyone on the installed OS [...] is getting a copy of your location data You mean the devs of whatever app is installed on the phone? The outgoing data should be visible in things like Charles proxy, right? Is this analogous to FB data being available to any dev that gets permission to access your profile? > It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go Whaaa ... ? Do explain, fascinating. Can this all be mitigated by those smartphones-hardened-for-criminals type devices?
  • com2kid 8y ago
    > Whaaa ... ? Do explain, fascinating. The stock trading I've heard of, and even seen news articles about before. Location tracking lets stock traders know how well a store is doing well before public results are announced. If foot traffic is down at a store, time to sell off (or short) the stock before it becomes publicly known.
• heurist 8y ago
  I'm in the space as well. I've tried telling my congressmen but they ignore me. I'm waiting for the backlash, especially will all the recent privacy issues. It hasn't happened yet and the problem is so large that I honestly doubt whether the public will ever truly grasp what the scope. The advice I always give when this topic comes up us to be very careful with what you install on your phone. The least expensive mobile location data tends to come from random apps collecting the data to sell it, and ad networks. Permission to use your GPS is permission to track you until you uninstall the app.
  • gcb0 8y ago
    that's only the low end. app gps usage shows up on the UI. the article discusses when the ISP/telco sells the data that you have zero visibility on. there's no way to get around this. btw, apple and google ad spyware process (google play service) will collect gps and wifi data without any user visible UI, not to mention download ads in the background.
    • willstrafach 8y ago
      > btw, apple and google ad spyware process (google play service) will collect gps and wifi data without any user visible UI, not to mention download ads in the background. Would be nice to see actual proof of this. I am very familiar with all network traffic an iOS device may emit and do not know what you are referring to here.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • ethbro 8y ago
    If you're willing to have your name attached to this, if / when it does finally blow up, please make an effort to talk to news organizations about who and when you initially reached out to congress people. If you're not comfortable with your name being publicly attached, at least give news orgs the information and request confidentiality. Part of the reason congress people can punt is that the cost of inaction < cost of action before it penetrates media. A big part of shifting that equation is starting to publicize "You had all the information available now on X date and did nothing" as loudly as possible. Naming and shaming has been healthy for vulnerability disclosure.
• vertexFarm 8y ago
  Making a cell phone out of a pi with a sim card and gps daughter board is sounding less and less crazy each day. Really looking forward to when the librem phone starts shipping. I wonder if they've really been thorough enough vetting hardware for those bare-metal security issues. This is at once staggering and completely unsurprising that companies would violate user trust in such a way and sell data without proper vetting that exploits people and could potentially put them in danger. Yet another episode in the misadventures of techno-illiterate regulation and totally unread TOS agreements.
  • xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
    Even a RPI won't help you unless you can build all of the software for the microprocessors which drive the wireless stack. Even then, vendors (e.g. Qualcomm) will already have their software on the chip when you get it. A completely open spec, open source set of components is what the community has desired for a long time. As standards get more complex and evolve faster, 4G and beyond, it becomes less possible to keep up in the open.
    • vertexFarm 8y ago
      True, but at least you'd have somewhat more granular control and be able to do things like put a hardware switch on the transceiver. Crude, but it would at least work for when you're not actively using it. I guess that's no different than a faraday pouch though.
  • trophycase 8y ago
    And the complicit employees letting them get away with it.
• foobaw 8y ago
  Ah yes I've personally seen this while working at an OEM. There are a lot of other insane things happening on a phone like CIQ. FYI, listening to users via microphone is one thing that actually does not happen.
• raesene9 8y ago
  if you want to get it to blow up then (based on past experience of what seems to catch regulator/legislator interest) I'd say that someone tracking the locations of a load of politicians for a while, finding things of interest about places they've visited and then publishing on a news outlet would do the job.
  • fhood 8y ago
    Good way to loose your job very quickly. I don't think we should have to rely on somebody sacrificing themselves to make a difference.
    • throwaway413 8y ago
      Why not? How do you think change comes about, by complaining about it on a tech forum?
      • fhood 8y ago
        I you are willing to be blacklisted than more power to you. I wouldn't want to force that on someone.
        • throwaway413 8y ago
          I agree, wouldn't want to force that on someone either. However I am sure there are plenty of people willing to sacrifice for the "greater good" (such as myself - I have quit a job before citing ethical reasons). People have different risk tolerances, and also current life situations - understandable. Just don't think the expectation should be set that change will come around from anything less than drastic action.
    • mLuby 8y ago
      Not if precautions are taken, and even if someone did, such a patriotic disclosure (if done responsibly a la Snowden) would put that person is very esteemed company.
• cryoshon 8y ago
  okay, so, to cut to the chase here: how do we disrupt or destroy the companies doing this? it isn't acceptable that they are taking advantage of us in this way. we can't expect any political solution to the problem, which leaves us to pursue other means if we want to protect ourselves. is there a way to introduce fake data or noise? what about opting out? is there a law being broken here that we can make into a lawsuit? i wonder if there is a precedent regarding restraining orders or unwanted surveillance by private entities...
• L_Rahman 8y ago
  How much of this data is archived and searchable? Most of the descriptions of the service so far indicate a real time or near real time feed. I'm curious if it's possible to go take a phone number and ask "give me location data for this person around xx:xx at yyyy-mm-dd."
• rinze 8y ago
  > This data is sold to whoever wants it. Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go. This isn't fantasy, it's what happens every day. I initially thought this was too far fetched but then I started duckduckgoing* and found this: https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/regulators-campaigners-sound-alarm-over-hedge-funds-data-use-20170904 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/regulators-campaigners-sou... * If 'googling' is a verb, why not this.
  • hbosch 8y ago
    I read just recently that one of Foursquares biggest revenue slices is selling their users check in data to hedge funds. On a previous HN post, one commenter claimed the app Robinhood sells their order flow through clearing houses, which the net result is hedge funds and other such firms trade off of — under the assumption that Robinhood investors are emotional rather than educated. Hedge funds in general seem like a major consumer of retail data, which makes sense. Home Depot just announced earnings: imagine if you knew exactly how many people went into Home Depot, walked out empty handed, and then went to Lowe’s... how you could profit off that data in the market.
• justaguyhere 8y ago
  Is it this bad in other countries too? Or just U.S?
  • dcreemer 8y ago
    The article mentions Canadian carriers too.
• jiveturkey 8y ago
  i’m not quite following. are you saying that individual,identifiable location data is being collected and sold?
• baxtr 8y ago
  Wow, thanks sharing. Does it make a difference if I use an Android phone vs the iPhone?
• JTbane 8y ago
  These days it seems like you need to remove all the batteries from your phone/smartwatch/assorted botnet devices to get any sort of privacy. And then you'd still have a half dozen CCTV cameras on you.
• ddtaylor 8y ago
  Likewise ISPs are selling sensitive DNS data like crazy and most users probably think the green lock keeps them safe from that.
• throw000013 8y ago
  Defense contractors have been using this capability for competitive intelligence for the last few years. Namely performing surveillance of contractors both internal and external to their company. Private investigators are using the same capability for similar purposes, especially for litigation support. “How” is never required to be revealed in court because the primary purpose is to find information that will “encourage” the other party to not go to court. If there was a way to audit queries/lookups performed against specific telephone numbers I think a lot of people would be shocked.
• nerdponx 8y ago
  > This data is sold to whoever wants it. Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go. This isn't fantasy, it's what happens every day. Honestly, this is the least bothersome part of the whole thing. The only problem is that there's no way I trust anyone involved to properly anonymize and secure the data in question.
• 205guy 8y ago
  The original article seems to be saying that the carriers track and sell phone location by cell triangulation ("less accurate than using GPS, but cell tower data won't drain a phone battery"). This is less accurate, as seen by the example of "within a city block." The parent comment seems to be saying that the OS and apps use the internal GPS data to get a much more accurate location, which is then freely transmitted somehow and shared and sold. My question is to clarify that this more accurate data, needed to enable the "walk into specific store" scenario, can only be obtained via data (eg 3G, LTE, or wifi)? Therefore not buying a data plan or turning off cellular data manually should prevent the GPS-accuracy tracking, but the only way to prevent the less accurate cell-tower tracking is to use a faraday cage.
  • mr_toad 8y ago
    Or just turn off location services when you’re not using them. Turning off Google Now & location services will radically improve battery life on standby.
    • thsowers 8y ago
      The tracking seems to be happening below that level. I had all location services turned off, it dropped a pin on the very room of the house I was in
    • bgw 8y ago
      That has no affect on this tracking.
    • tomaskafka 8y ago
      No. Search this thread for Qualcomm, QSEE or IZat.
• joshdance 8y ago
  I agree some of this is happening but some things don't add up. Is there a huge delay in this data? Because why don't law agencies use it to find criminals? Like I have 2 crimes at these two locations. Who was around these 2 locations at these times etc. But if hedge funds are trading on it, they need very low latencies?
  • reverend_gonzo 8y ago
    > But if hedge funds are trading on it, they need very low latencies? Not quite. Hedge funds aren't trading real time on this data. They use this data to essentially figure out how a business is doing before they announce that information. Essentially, if x% of our data went to Chipotle in 2016 and y% went in 2017, and y >> x, then we expect Chipotle's earnings to be higher.
  • nlowell 8y ago
    You might be confusing hedge funds in general with the strategy of high frequency trading. Not all funds trade at high frequency.
  • Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
    Law agencies are using it, with some controversy: https://www.wral.com/Raleigh-police-search-google-location-history/17377435/ https://www.wral.com/Raleigh-police-search-google-location-h...
• Ntrails 8y ago
  > That's why Apple is trying hard to restrict it without scaring off consumers. Do you have any details on this?
  • willstrafach 8y ago
    No, that is an entirely different matter regarding far more precise location information.
• satariano 8y ago
  I'm a journalist interested in learning more. Please reach out. Will keep confidential. adam.satariano@nytimes.com
  • robk 8y ago
    ^^^ this is what to do if you've got info relevant
• totalrobe 8y ago
  >Almost every web/smartphone mapping company is doing it Are you aware of any device vendors and/or providers that aren't doing this?
• yawz 8y ago
  Isn't this covered under CPNI [1]? Something that consumers can opt out? [1] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Customer_proprietary_network_information https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Customer_proprietary_network_inf...
• polishflash 8y ago
  I am a journalist for a major news organization and would like to know specifics about hedge funds and the like and how they use this data. Reach me at sfrancisbjr@gmail.com
• sfrancisbjr 8y ago
  I am a journalist and would like to know more. Reach me at sfrancisbjr@gmail.com if you can help.
• sfrancisbjr 8y ago
  I am a journalist and want to know more about how hedge funds use/abuse this. Please get in touch if you have first-hand knowledge: fbajak@ap.org.
• Aging_Engineer 8y ago
  RE: "That's why Apple is trying hard to restrict it without scaring off consumers" Don't you understand why Apple V-2 (the one who works for shareholders, not users as Apple V-1 did) is trying to restrict APPs from selling your information? Its because they are competing with Apple, who is trying to sell the same information for maximum revenue. Everything at Apple V-2 is driven by greed and profit. If looking good publicly is needed to generate sales, they'll also try to do that. But what happens behind closed doors doesn't necessarily match the promoted image. (yes I'm cynical. I've been around long enough to recognize the BS happening).
• sfrancisbjr 8y ago
  I'm a journalist and would like to know more. Please contact me at fbajak@ap.org