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Oil traders are watching workers’ phones to spot problems at refineries
- exhilaration 8y agoI'm confused, throughout the article it mentions contractors being in oil facilities. But it also says "Orbital receives location data without any personal identification information and aggregates it." So how do they know these people are contractors? Or are they just measuring the raw number of people in the oil facilities?
- SiempreViernes 8y agoThey could get gps traces for each unique phone within the confines of the plant but labelled by random uuid. Then you can tell if a new one shows up, but with only locations inside the refinery you can't really say more.
- sroussey 8y agoOr the weather app is selling their location data to one or a hundred data brokers every 5 minutes. Mobile monetization via third party SDKs is a big thing. Likely 100k different SDKs to choose from (a number that came from a data aggregator). Add in mobile operators, etc, and recombine the anonymous ids with the help of LiveRamp et al and it’s just a simple data problem.
- eloff 8y agoIf you have lots of location data say in Houston, and then suddenly in a refinery that's not in their normal day-to-day location data you could assume it's a contractor being called into investigate an on-site problem. or if you detect increased activity from devices that don't have a history on-site. Not 100%, but then they're not going for 100% either.
- kbenson 8y agoStep 1: Get list of recent past problems at different refineries from news or people there after the fact or any number of ways. Step 2: Get past location data that includes these periods (but spans a much larger time). Step 3: Analyze what's different about the problem times compared to normal operation. In some cases, it might actually be as simple as X% of work force doesn't come in for normal shift on what is otherwise a normal day.
- torqueTorrent 8y agoThe discoveries through big-data analysis and visualizations can be endlessly counter-intuitive, mindblowingly unpredictable but also dynamic and powerful, even visceral when you have massively voluminous data that can be fed into systems like Tableau where you can actively tweak data queries, aggregations, transformations and visualization types. The result can often be something akin to: "wow, who could have ever predicted that this data would extrapolate out to show such a unique visualization or trend"
- ozzyman700 8y agoSeemingly a contractor would be a person who is not typically at the oil field but stays for an entire work shift. Other people would be on tours or probably execs. They are buying this data off ad providers and getting an ad id and geo coords, this is what leads me to believe they are just going off volume of users in the location
- jhayward 8y agoThe article doesn't specify, they could be just looking at patterns of "usual" vs "unusual" ad ids showing up. However, re-identification of "anonymous" ad ids is extremely common, and they could easily be using a service that gives them, for instance, a home address and email account associated with the phone via re-identification methods.
- onychomys 8y agoContractors might have specialized skills related to refineries, so you could look for phones that spend small-to-medium amounts of time at refineries belonging to different companies. You'd probably catch some inspectors and the food truck guy and whatnot, but for the most part it should only be contractors moving around between companies like that.
- johnrgrace 8y agoYou don't really need to know they are contractors, they are looking for a jump in the number of people onsite because access is controlled. A major turnaround or outage will bring in hundreds of extra contractors for days at a time.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoWell, I must say I didn't expect big corporations would get their "privacy" violated by tacking apps. Do you think it's cheaper to just buy back the data or to set up their own cell towers and block the app traffic?
- C1sc0cat 8y agoOr just buy a load of cheap burner phones and fake out the data - use some cheap drones to make them move around :-) A bit like some people hire actors to pretend you have more employees.
- nitrogen 8y agoA bit like some people hire actors to pretend you have more employees. Could you expand on this or link to an example? It seems like this wouldn't be cost effective (or useful).
- jfim 8y agoThis is done to simulate popular launches (eg. hire people to wait in line when your new store or restaurant opens, to give the impression that the new place is hot) or for faking headcount metrics for investors (eg. hire people for a day when the investors come, so they can gawk at the open office full of people). It's ethically dubious, but if it's done for a day or two, it's not that expensive compared to actually hiring that many people on a full time basis.
- walshemj 8y agoYou do it when trying to get investment have fake employees come in to make it look like you have more employees.
- ozzyman700 8y agoI don't think either of your proposed options are legal/possible. afaik this geo data isn't sold to a single party, and is collected through so many various channels purchasing them all would be quite expensive. As far as making your own cell tower, I would love to know if this is even something a non telco company can do. I doubt creating any blocks for specific content would be possible or legal as well. How would you block https traffic, and how would you determine who is an employee and who is not? This tracking is a result of allowing visitors to bring personal devices on prem. As long as they are personal devices administered by their owner I don't know what could be done to mitigate this. The problem still exists if all phones are put into a faraday cage when they arrive at the site. Instead of tracking users at the plant they just track users who 'go offline' at the drop off site. Getting employees to stop bringing personal devices is the only way to actually quell this fear. Even the US military has an issue with Strava run logs leaking data about the movement patterns in their bases.
- blantonl 8y agoHow are they gathering this data? Are they placing detection equipment at/near the target locations to monitor for cell phone signatures in the vicinity, or are they gathering from mobile apps who resell location data to aggregation firms?
- Redoubts 8y agoProbably just buying it from carriers directly. https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/us-cell-carriers-still-selling-your-location-data/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/us-cell-carriers-still-sel...
- whorleater 8y agoYou can buy location data from companies that buy it from carriers, some weather companies, and some advertising companies. If you're an oil trader, you almost certainly have the resources required to accept all these feeds and clean + cross ref them for a couple hundred locations.
- AznHisoka 8y agoGoogle “Thasos Group”. They are one of the big providers
- dustindiamond 8y agoDo you know what the pricing is like? I assume there is a geofencing API call that returns a bunch of GUIDs and another that takes a GUID and gives a location with last time seen?
- djsumdog 8y agoYea that wasn't clear. The article made it sound like they're aggregating data from various sources that collect location data (probably from those app metric providers like Tune and others). So if someone ran an open source phone with F-Droid or just installed zero apps with metrics (and Google isn't one of their sources), they wouldn't ever show up in this data set. I'm guessing location data comes from the Apple/Google location APIs that can map peoples aprox locations based on their proximity to Wi-Fi points (I think they register Wi-Fi points and then the first GPS signal the phone gets after; like when someone walks outside, and use a set of those to get approximate triangulation for indoor Wi-Fi APs).
- C1sc0cat 8y agoWhy would you allow a mobile phone with its spark hazard any where near an oil refinery.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 52-6F-62 8y agoPretty sure the field teams aren't allowed them. Maybe in the foreman's trailer? Otherwise, as far as I understand, they can use them back in the cafeterias and locker rooms.
- samfisher83 8y agoThere are different zones. In Zone 0 or Zone 1 area you can't have any of that. Also there are special phones that can be used in those zones. Those things are basically bricks.
- CamperBob2 8y agoProbably because no one has ever actually documented sparks caused by mobile phone RF emissions, at least any in current use. That was essentially a bunch of pseudoscientific FUD. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fuelish-pleasures/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fuelish-pleasures/ Power switches with mechanical contacts on older phones might be a different story, but again, there's no smoking gun (or flaming refinery) that points to this having ever been an issue.
- FireBeyond 8y agoMy thought was that it was always older style cellphones with detachable batteries, and careless user dropping phone, detaching battery, and -that- caused a spark, not RF emissions.
- robocat 8y agoAside: Mobile phone spark risk at petrol stations is a myth: http://i.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3909468/Petrol-station-phone-ban-myth http://i.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3909468/Petro... - Dr Kruszelnicki said the forecourt warnings were more about service station owners "covering their arses from a legal point of view". Of course, a refinery needs to be more careful of batteries.
- sevensor 8y agoI've heard from a friend who used to work in Houston refineries, that it's not unusual for refinery workers (who do carry mobile phones, by the way) to call their brokers immediately when they hear an explosion or see an unexpected plume of smoke from a neighboring refinery. Also smoking on the job is apparently much more common at refineries than I would have expected. Edit: this comment reflects the state of the industry 20 years ago, second hand. Take it for what it's worth.
- maxerickson 8y agoOf course people smoke where it doesn't make much sense. I mean, think about it for a second.
- akadeb 8y agoI thought about it and couldn't figure out why it's obvious. Care to share some light on that?
- btgeekboy 8y agoRefineries are flammable. Cigarettes burn intentionally. Not saying it’s the best joke, just explaining the meaning.
- francisofascii 8y agoNot the OP. Two thoughts: Working in an environment that could explode at any minute requires some relief to combat stress. Kind of like a war zone. OR Smoking doesn't make sense, so of course people who choose to smoke would do so where it doesn't make sense.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 8y agoSmoking a cigarette has its downsides no matter how flammable the greater surrounding environment happens to be.
- burger_moon 8y agoI wonder if there's companies who sell ELD info similar to other examples listed in here about carriers and apps selling user info. Having ELD info from truckers around refineries and drill sites would give you a pretty good insight as to what's going on.
- BrandonMarc 8y agoELD info?
- caprese 8y agosounds like what they really need is an app with 6 choices, and subheading on when to use the choices BUY OIL when explosion or war constricts the supply SELL OIL when new resource is found increasing the supply BUY OIL COMPANY when new resource is found increasing the supply AND when the company increases its ability to sell more oil at higher margins SELL OIL COMPANY when explosion happens on company property BUY OIL PRICE ETF when you want to go long oil but are too poor/risk averse for futures contract SELL OIL PRICE ETF when you want to go short oil but are too poor/risk averse for futures contract
- darksaints 8y agoI'm not surprised in the least. The industry is full of stories that started out as rumors but have ended up proven as true about the lengths they will go for more or better information. I've heard an apocryphal story that I'm still waiting for truth on. It was of a soybean prop trading firm quant who reverse engineered a cross-town rival's trading strategy, allowing them to front run their strategy. The way that they did it was taking a number from the firm's name, and using it as a random number seed, and then using that seed to find the randomized order sizes would result from their iceberg order algorithm. They would use those sizes to match to l2 passive limit order flow to try to identify activity coming from the firm. Once they discovered the direction the firm was going, they'd place a huge market order and suck up all of the liquidity that the competitor was trying to acquire passively, effectively moving the market before their competitor could fill their position. Stuff like this still blows me away, but it's just crazy enough to be true.
- lykr0n 8y agoIt's just like how HFTs can make massive amounts of money just by making transactions milliseconds faster than the people next door. Stuff is insane
- heavenlyblue 8y agoSounds smart, but also sounds quite like an urban legend.
- gamblor956 8y agoI heard that story from a quant friend. However, the way I heard the story, the targeted firm found out about their rival's attempt to game their strategy, and faked a bunch of activity. The rival's algorithm acted on the activity and placed a large market order...in the wrong direction.
- doovd 8y agoThis is called spoofing and is illegal.
- 8y ago
- stcredzero 8y agoI've envisioned an application like the following for construction sites and industrial installations: There would be a "supervisor" app with a schematic 3D model of the site, with dots or tags indicating the location of smartphones of workers, who have installed a satellite app. There would be messaging between the satellite apps and the supervisor app, and a worker with a satellite app could stream video or post pictures to their tag, which could then be accessed from the supervisor app. There could also be a VR/AR version of this. No video stream would take over the POV of the VR/AR users. Rather, the streams would be available as pop-up "screens" from the location tags on the schematic model. For bonus points, interface this with CAD/CAM, so that not only the schematic model can be imported, but the design details can be accessed and drilled-down, and relayed to the workers on-site. The purpose would be to provide answers and clarifications to workers very quickly, as well as providing contextual information localized in the 3D space of the design to supervisors, architects, and engineers. Is there already something like this?
- etskinner 8y agoYou're loosely describing BIM (Building information modeling)[1], but you definitely bring up some novel points that aren't covered by existing BIM softwares, to my knowledge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_information_modeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_information_modeling
- stcredzero 8y agoyou definitely bring up some novel points that aren't covered by existing BIM softwares, to my knowledge What exactly are those, might I ask?
- ghostly_s 8y agoYeah, this is pretty much what a plethora of punchlisting platforms do currently, but in the form of annotated photos captured on an iPad and automatically tagged to the site plan rather than realtime video feeds (which is both more practical and preferable from a liability standpoint, as the GC and architect both have incentive to maintain a paper trail of who approved X change, etc.) The AR angle certainly sounds cool but even aside from the HW not being there yet, I'm not sure how it would add much value.
- ComodoHacker 8y ago'Humans as sensors' could be the next tech "big thing". And 'human body as power source for gadgets' will follow. We are closer to The Matrix with each year passed.
- onlyrealcuzzo 8y agoHow are you sure we aren't already in The Matrix?
- AznHisoka 8y agoAnd the next step in this race will be oil refineries buying a bunch of put options, then intentionally getting a bunch of strangers with smartphones into their refineries to trick hedge funds that there is something wrong, then watching those put options skyrocket. Would that be insider trading?
- lolc 8y agoSoooo 1. Generate fake phone profiles of a made-up disaster crew 2. Wait for minor disaster at random refinery 3. Feed trackers with location data showing your fake crew moving into that refinery 4. Repeat 2, 3 to associate your profiles with disaster 5. Short some fine $refinery stock 6. Move your crew to $refinery 7. Profit I wonder whether this has already been pulled off :-)
- mateo411 8y agoThat sounds like a great plot for an episode of Billions.
- tantalor 8y ago8. Indicted for fraud
- lolc 8y agoWhat about it is fraud?
- tantalor 8y agoThe parts between "fake" and "profit".
- sansnomme 8y agoIt's no different than beating an opponent's bot in HFT
- dchichkov 8y agoIt is actually illegal to beat an opponent's bot in HFT. It is regulated. One is not supposed to release a strategy on the market, which goal is "to beat an opponent's bot". There've been precedents of that (i.e. bot of a pension fund figured out and beaten by algorithmic trading company bot) and the resulting trades were reversed, fines imposed by regulators. Source. 4 years of R&D at HFT company that traded around $10^10 during that time :)
- xigekznutdcbfba 8y agoThis is just capitalism's moral and efficient Invisible Hand guiding the market towards an optimal outcome! Meanwhile the only known ecosystem in the universe is headed towards complete collapse. edit: big lmao at getting flagged for being critical of capitalism or mentioning global warming on an article about oil refineries.
- pongogogo 8y agoWouldn't it be quicker and more accurate to just survey contracting firms? Seems massively over engineered and not very reliable.
- httpz 8y agoThey are traders not oil refinery managers. If a trader has the knowledge that a refinery is having a problem minutes or even seconds before other traders they can use that to their advantage and maybe make profit in the market.
- rando444 8y agoA clever person could defeat this entire system in a day. If you look at the graph, currently we're talking about a fluctuation of about 7 devices. All you'd have to do is set up a handful of devices (or emulate them and spoof the GPS).. download some sketchy apps, or look for apps that have ties to this company, to bump the location information up. Then turn the devices on or off, so that there's never any change. If I was the oil company I'd probably set up a shell company to buy the data feed as well so I could get it perfect.
- jedberg 8y agoIf you're the oil company you probably don't care one bit if a trader is making money on the price of oil, because it isn't coming out of the oil companies profits. It's coming from other traders.
- mlevental 8y agoif that were true they would just publicize their production numbers
- jedberg 8y agoThey still don't want their competitors to know how well they're doing or their suppliers, who might increase their prices if they know the company is doing well.
- ravibala1 8y agoAlmost single major oil company & refinery has a team of traders that directly participate (or use the investment banks / futures brokers) in the crude oil and refined product futures / options markets. This is both for hedging and speculation. If a refinery knows when it's going down for (un)planned, it lets it's traders know and they do trade on that info. In commodities markets, this is legal and does not constitute insider trading.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- audiometry 8y agoSatellite companies also track shale drilling rigs. There are a few 'stages' in the lifecycle of drilling rig, with a focus on "DUP" rigs -- drilled but uncompleted -- which can be brought online on short notice(). The various stages of development require crews of different experience or expertise. I was told that some/a company is able figure out the phone numbers of crews accustomed to (I think) bringing DUP wells fully online. Then they are able to monitor as they move around the permian or bakken and assess how many wells are brought online. I'm not sure that they know phone number (333)2920-2920 is Frank Jones the Expert, but they do know that the arrival of (333)2920-2920 and a cluster of other numbers is associated with a DUP well turning on production shortly after. ()I'm not very familiar with the shale fracking process, so don't jump on me for technical inaccuracy. Also there are many tongue-in-cheek or naive comments about refineries feigning problems, or knowledge of refinery issues being licenses to print money in futures. It's not even close. Many of the important refineries in the US are monitored 24/7 by third party companies (eg. Genscape) who stare at refineries with thermal cameras. These immediately notice potential problems, as flaring occurs, or some unit dramatically changes temp (gets hotter or cooler), updating subscribers in moments. There are similar services that scrape all the public-warning systems that refineries must use to inform residents when they have emissions or problems. Finally, while no doubt there are times when refinery upsets (particularly for major gasoline-producing refineries) occur there is an immediate, clear, exploitable move in futures markets [in fact recently], there are also many times when that knowledge would have been swamped by some other force. *I recall reading a few months ago that someone analysed a literal insider traders' trade history and realized they weren't able to exploit to nearly the level you'd expect. It just turns out that markets are absurdly complicated.
- drozycki 8y agoI think many people will agree with me that this kind of data collection is creepy and unfortunate, but if it's the world we live in then we should try to use it for good. I'm struggling to think of a way that a non or for-profit could use aggregate data to predict events in a way that would generally be considered a net positive to society. Does anything come to mind?
- retube 8y agoPerhaps I am being horribly naive, but how is this relocation data being sourced?