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An Amateur Rap Crew Stole Surveillance Tech that Tracks Almost Every American
- elipsey 8y agoHow quintessentially American, to persuade us to finally secure our industrial surveillance systems because "gangs" will steal them.
- dfee 8y agoJust wait ‘til you hear about the rest of the world.
- gcb0 8y ago"Though it was designed to hunt child predators" it is amazing that people still fall for that.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 8y agoIt's what NPC's do.
- lewisinc 8y agoI don't think anyone fits that description.
- npc2 8y agoI do
- EchoAce 8y ago/r/beetlejuicing
- giancarlostoro 8y ago'Non Playable Characters' he meant procrastinators who do nothing about the ridiculousness of the law makers and law enforcement. People who think "well I'm not doing anything wrong, I got nothing to hide" yeah well, except they can't keep your private information PRIVATE... So when the wrong people get a hold of it, what then? Oh look, you have plenty to hide from all these criminals...
- hnaccy 8y agoIt's a 4chan meme.
- exabrial 8y agoThe headline reads exactly like the plotline of the last fast and furious movie
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ObsoleteNerd 8y agoSystems like this make it seem so futile to care about online privacy. Not that I'll ever stop trying, but still. It's hard to compete with this level of power/surveillance/etc.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 8y agoYou have to concentrate on anonymity instead of privacy.
- fweespeech 8y agoYou have to live in the world and resist anonymously.
- rch 8y agoThere were a few quotes in the article from EFF people, but I thought the EFF was more ambivalent about private companies like TransUnion selling access to data like this. Am I incorrect or are they only critical due to the potential for abuse by law enforcement?
- thrmsforbfast 8y agoThe EFF is run by/employs/takes advice from a lot of people, who probably don't all agree with one another: https://www.eff.org/about/board https://www.eff.org/about/board https://www.eff.org/about/special-counsel https://www.eff.org/about/special-counsel https://www.eff.org/about/advisoryboard https://www.eff.org/about/advisoryboard
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gumby 8y agoTIL the government can get access to nest cams.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 8y agoTechnically, and legally, speaking, the GUBment can get access to any data if it isn't air-gaped and encrypted.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Finnucane 8y agoDoes this surprise you?
- atomi 8y agoAnything "in the cloud" also known as other people's computers is fair game for the government right now.
- CaptSpify 8y agoI'm legitimately curious as to why you only learned this only today. We've known that governments have been taking data like this from companies for a long time. All access that Google has is pretty much up for the government to grab.
- nyolfen 8y agothis is absolutely begging for regulation
- Reelin 8y agoEntertainingly, this is already regulated in an inconsistent manner in some states. In Virginia, for example, the government has some fairly broad restrictions on collection and retention of personal data, but to the best of my knowledge no civil counterpart exists. See this recent case on the matter: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/location-tracking/virginia-supreme-court-sees-through-police-claim-license https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/location-tracki... In fact, they're so worried about government abuse there that another bill seeking to severely limit retention of license plate reader data passed both the house and senate before being vetoed by the governor over "public safety concerns". Article about it: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/virginia-passes-shortest-limit-in-us-on-keeping-license-plate-reader-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/virginia-passes-... Bill details: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+sum+SB965 http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+sum+SB965 Best quote ever: > Senator: "I wasn't a criminal suspect, so why are they taking pictures of me?"
- alphabettsy 8y agoThis shouldn’t exist. The fact that some company I’d never do business with can have basically every single data-point about my life without my permission is the stuff of dystopian nightmare novels, but here we are.
- r00fus 8y agoLegislation signed in the late 90s that allowed companies to copyright and sell databases about things they did not own (i.e. Our personal data/habits) was a big death knell for common sense.
- Kiro 8y agoHow so? In my country all that data is public information for anyone to access and HN normally sees the very same country as the role model.
- HillaryBriss 8y agoI'm trying to understand what you mean. Can you give us some specific examples of information that is public about people in your country? I mean, are any of these things actually public in a government database about an individual: * a history of their past addresses? * the types and dates of medical treatment or surgery? * their grades in high school? * the number of times the person has reported a crime to police? * the cars they have owned? * the items they have purchased from a drug store? * their favorite type of restaurant? * etc
- codezero 8y agoThey briefly touched on how this company also buys up all the public images of license plates and sells it as a location log for any license plate you want to find.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoI remember a comment here on HN about how identity theft is the wrong name. Your wife and dog dont stop recognizing you. It is financial fraud and it really should be the entire responsibility of creditors to fix. The second you report it you should be able to have it sorted or be fully capable of suing them for defamation of your identity e.g. claiming you went on a credit card binge when you did not... We need an overhaul on privacy and our credit system. I am even much more concerned about the latter since it affects peoples lives much more dangerously.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zkms 8y ago> a surveillance technology that police and debt collectors use to track most of the United States’ 325 million inhabitants via their Social Security numbers, license plates, address histories, names and dates of birth. The mass-monitoring tech, called TLO, is a product of the Chicago-based credit reporting giant TransUnion, which last year had revenues of nearly $1.9 billion. One brochure for the service promises access to a startling amount of personal data drawn from myriad sources: more than 350 million Social Security numbers of dead and living Americans, 225 million employment histories and four billion address records. Add to that billions of vehicle registrations and call records and you have one of the largest commercial surveillance databases in existence. > It’s used not just by cops but also by debt collectors and private companies carrying out background checks. Private investigators use it to track cheating spouses. Honestly that this database exists at all is a serious problem in itself.
- narag 8y agoIn my country such a database has existed for a long time. It's the national id database. It's controlled by national police. Everyone of us owns an eight digits number. As for me: identity is a right, not some secret that I want to hide. What doesn't make sense is that people are afraid of USA government having much needed data, while private organizations have them already.
- Latteland 8y agoWe should outlaw all tracking for car licenses and cell phones. I am not naive enough to think this would pass Congress but it should. Otherwise there is basically ubiquitous surveillance of everyone available to everyone who looks.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- samstave 8y agoIt's not just tracking by cops. Private companies are installing license tracking cameras on their corporate facilities and tracking all cars that drive by them on public roads and are then reporting these activities back to city and state governments. Municipalities are even requiring companies to do this. Also, isn't it interesting how dark papantir went after all these things came to light. Notice you never see techs commuting on Bart or Caltrain any longer with palantir bags or shirts on any more.
- megablast 8y agoNot for car plates, cars are killers and should be tracked everywhere. 40,000 people are killed due to cars every single year in the US, a million around the world. They are worse than guns.
- mdpopescu 8y agoDo you have any sort of evidence that tracking them prevented / reduced those deaths?
- downandout 8y agoI wish the article weren’t so light on details about the purchasing of license plate reader data. Does anyone know who is supplying this data? I suppose it’s possible that they went to every 7-11 in the country and asked them if they can buy a feed of their external cameras, but that seems haphazard at best. Is there some central clearinghouse where private security camera feeds are being aggregated? I can’t think of an upside for any business to participate in such a thing.
- Reelin 8y ago> Is there some central clearinghouse where private security camera feeds are being aggregated? I can’t think of an upside for any business to participate in such a thing. Given the current legal climate, the potential upsides are incredibly numerous and downsides few (for now at least). Which ones actually exist in practice will naturally vary based on information I don't have access to. A few that immediately come to mind: * Direct compensation. Give us your data (which you already have to collect for security purposes) and we'll give you money. * Access to a marketplace. Turn over your data, and you'll gain the privilege of purchasing other data that we have (or some variant on this). * Access to generalized queries instead of raw data. Turn over your data, and we'll give you a discount or perhaps not even charge you for answers to various questions about the world that you might have. The possible uses of (and thus temptation for) such data access are incredibly vast. I distinctly remember this being one of the business scenarios presented by a cubesat startup a few years ago. Consider: * Information about your clients. What other interests do they appear to have, based on the other places they go? How much expendable income do you estimate them to have, based on the part of town they commute to for work every day? In light of such information, which new products should you consider stocking? What should you get rid of? What political stances on your part would be likely to please or offend them? * Information about your competitors. Does the family that owns a particular vehicle also shop at your direct competitor? Do people who visit your competitor's storefronts spend more or less time there? * Information about where to do business. Assume that you obtain a list of people (or cars, or other database entry) that utilize you or a competing business. Assume that you then query the routes these people typically travel to determine commonalities. Now you can make a very well educated guess about what future retail locations are most likely to be successful. * Information critical to business strategy. Is your competitor struggling, or is their business booming? How full are their parking lots compared to yours? How is their supply chain doing - how frequently are deliveries being made to their stores? If your competitor is a middleman, who are their clients? That is to say, where are their vehicles regularly stopping off? If they're an online distributor, how many shipments do you estimate they're sending out each day? This list could go on just about endlessly, so I'm going to get back to pretending to be productive now.
- olivermarks 8y ago'There were warning signs that things were going to get real'...'rappers'...odd framing of an article that is essentially about theft of personal information from databases with inadequate security and oversight run by giant corporations who know everything about us
- macawfish 8y agoBlame it on the rappers
- fipple 8y agoWeird framing as a “rap crew.” This was a sophisticated organized criminal enterprise whose members liked to record some music on the side.
- hnzix 8y ago>Weird framing as a “rap crew.” Studio time is expensive. Puffy, 50cent, Jay-Z all used drug profits to kickstart their music careers.
- eponeponepon 8y agoI'm not sure it would've been mentioned quite so often if these guys had also been a barbershop quartet in their spare time.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- heartbreak 8y agoThey each talk extensively about it themselves. It’s not others belittling their careers. > When I was talking Instagram, last thing you wanted was your picture snapped.
- physicsyogi 8y agoP-Diddy sold drugs for literally two days. http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.10271/title.diddy-opens-up-about-his-short-lived-career-as-a-drug-dealer http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.10271/title.diddy-opens-up-about...
- joejerryronnie 8y agoYeah, I had the same thought reading this article. It's like they went out of their way to keep mentioning "rap crew".
- scoggs 8y agoAnything to make them look worse, I'd say. It's really a shame because they were definitely savvy there. How many people can claim to have taken out a fraudulent $30,000 loan and got away with it for a decent amount of time? Seems without the Google Nest cameras they might have gotten away with a few of these schemes, as well.
- hnaccy 8y agoWe should seek to reduce the asymmetry, currently only our masters and their minions get to watch us. If networked dash cams and home security cameras become common there should be crowd sourced public tracking of every LEO, politician, etc.
- hyperdunc 8y agoLet's go a fit further. We know that power corrupts and therefore the powerful often cannot be trusted. So the power a person/institution has should be be inversely proportional to the amount of privacy they enjoy. We can start by only voting in politicians that wear personal cameras a la 'The Circle'. (Some police already do this while on duty.) Of course the irony is it would take a kind of power to make this happen.
- BerislavLopac 8y agoWell, elections resemble reality TV more and more, perhaps that is an angle that could work...
- angry_octet 8y agoC.f. Aeon Flux S03E01 "Utopia or Deuteranopia?" where our autocratic hero Trevor Goodchild institutes a program of radical transparency. https://youtu.be/f5Au5Z_NbOY https://youtu.be/f5Au5Z_NbOY (Forgive the Content ID jamming.)
- wool_gather 8y agoDavid Brin has a very interesting (non-fiction) book on this premise called The Transparent Society
- d--b 8y agoWe need more of this. People think privacy is not an issue because “they got nothing to hide”. But the real privacy problem is that data about you that falls into the wrong hands is very dangerous. And it’s not only identity theft. It’s making burglary easier if someone knows when I’m on vacation. It’s making kidnapping easier if someone knows where my kids go to school. It’s easier to lure me into some scam if someone knows What I am into...
- INTPenis 8y agoThis was inevitable. I don't think they're overly sophisticated, they were just att he right place at the right time. Because when you have this "tool" that is used by anything from postal workers to private investigators to bring up info on millions of citizens then obviously it's a matter of time before it ends up in the wrong hands.
- Cort3z 8y ago1984
- pmorici 8y agoIs there any way to see what information TLO has collected on you similar to how some people search websites let you look yourself up and request removal of your personal information? I couldn't find anything on their site.
- mjmj 8y agoProbably not without signing up, I posted my process below. In my experience if you’re in the US they have nearly every past address, licenses, license plates, social, credit history, name and phone number (landline and cell) that you’ve ever used and a list of mostly incorrect email addresses. You’re whole family tree living and deceased and all their data. All sorted by date and searchable off any one or more piece of data. It’s fairly frightening. Plus a bunch of low confident guesses of data that ‘might’ be yours. And pictures of some people if they’re on certain lists iirc.
- maaaats 8y agoSuddenly GDPR is not so bad, eh?
- laurentl 8y agoThis whole thing is a poster child for GDPR. Step 1: hi TLO, what information do you have on me? Step 2: right, delete all of it.
- mjmj 8y agoI’ve been through the process of signing up and acquiring access to TLO. I called them up and stated I wanted access, I’m a real estate developer and simply wanted to cold call landlords. They said they’d sign me up but I couldn’t specifically use it for unsolicited calls, I said ok and then still proceeded with my account creation. Scheduled a required on site visit, where an very unfriendly Russian woman came into my apartment and checked that the following was in place 1) My computer had a password 2) I had a locking file cabinet 3) my office door locked 4) I had a business license 5) Paper shredder worked 6) dedicated office with no bed (I setup a mock office in my guest room and slide my guest bed into my master room moments before she arrived) also she didn’t catch that neither the lock on my file cabinet nor my office pocket door actually locked) TLDR: Nearly anyone without a criminal record owns a computer, a business license and a bedroom can get an account. We sat in the living room and signed some papers and that was it. I signed in and was amazed, TLO data is very accurate and up to date. It’ll even show people on various government watch lists, registered sex offenders, etc. The only thing it’s bad at were email addresses, at least for my target audience they were almost always wrong. Phone numbers have confidence percentages next to them. I would get very surprised calls when cold calling people like that. Some people run very profitable enterprises in that manner. There are also FB groups of PI and ‘skip tracers’ and you can fairly easily befriend and ask to pull records for you for a price as to not have to sign up for TLO. Although this is expressly against their TOS.
- bogomipz 8y agoI think the contrast of these two passages are quite telling: >"Barnett says she and Asher worked together to ensure there was no abuse of TLO. Onsite visits would be made to clients, who would undergo a strict vetting process. Only those who passed muster were given a login, Walters says. “We were very selective.” and >"It’s used not just by cops but also by debt collectors and private companies carrying out background checks. Private investigators use it to track cheating spouses." So giving access to debt collectors and PIs investigating cheating spouses is selective? I'm guessing the selection criteria is simply whether the customer has the $1,500 a month. The other interesting part I thought was the levels of data weaponization going on: >"Just as the crooks turned the turbo-powered TLO software on its head, cops used the Nests against their owners. In June last year, Postal Service investigator Berkland obtained a warrant ordering Google to hand over all the data related to those cameras. The company complied, shipping surveillance footage back, along with personal details of its owners." Both sides in this piece seem to be thugs. TLO just appears to be a gatekeeper, they get to decide which thugs are the "good guys."
- archi42 8y agoI expected them to have stolen physical stuff, like a GSM sniffer or stuff like that. This is more like Wannabee Gangstas Gained Illicit Access to Database that Tracks Almost Every American.
- w_t_payne 8y agoAnd this is (close to) the crux of the issue. How can we prevent malicious actors from abusing our numerous and diverse surveillance technologies (law enforcement; ad-tech; pretty much every 'smart' device) whilst also allowing authorised, regulated, controlled, legitimate uses. (And is it worth it?). What processes and assurances are enough? (Formal methods, I'm looking at you).
- krishicks 8y ago> “He was, in my humble opinion, a technology genius, a computer math genius,” says Martha Walters Barnett, a former TLO chief privacy officer. “He was among the first to acknowledge … that insignificant, unrelated pieces of data, when put together in the right way, could become a powerful tool.” Hmm. David Burnham published The Rise of the Computer State (ISBN-10: 0394514378) in 1983. In the "Data Bases" chapter, he writes about how transactional data (when you swipe a credit card, when you pay a bill) that used to exist on paper only was then starting to be stored in databases by different companies which, with the rise of cheap and fast networking, could then be quickly and easily combined in previously unfeasible ways. He specifically calls out credit reporting agencies TRW and Equifax, and warns that "the astounding power of these records is not appreciated by the public, the courts or Congress." It's a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it.
- gcb0 8y agohis other publications https://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81100305105&coll=DL&dl=ACM&trk=0 https://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81100305105&coll=DL&dl...