7 ms·

Federal agencies use cellphone location data for immigration enforcement

black_puppydog 7y ago
1. Why would I care? I actually like having more relevant ads. 2. Why should I care? If they're gonna have a border we should equip them to protect it. 3. Why should I care? I haven't done anything wrong. 4. No seriously, I swear I didn't do anything wrong. I never went to those Union meetings. You can check my track!
- conanbatt 7y ago
  I think the poison here is government, not the tool. It makes sense for a government to look for location data to persecute its declared enemies.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    Government is just doing what government inherently does - attempting to exert control over anything legible to it. The underlying problem is the longstanding insecurity of cell protocols that creates these irresistible databases of everyone's location in the first place.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      How would you design a cell protocol that prevented signal triangulation? Seems essentially impossible.
      - mindslight 7y ago
        Hiding the location of a radio itself is likely infeasible (with sector antennas, each tower actually knows a signal strength and a rough vector). However, what is avoidable are fixed IDs like IMSI and IMEI that allow persistent tracking of the "same device" or "same user" across every tower. The routing functions of IMEI could easily be replaced with a nonce that changed for every registration. The billing functions of IMSI could be replaced with blinded tokens. And the persistent identity of phone numbers could be provided by independent parties like with email, ideally over a (non-wireless) mix network.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    Declared *processes. Calling targets enemies is editorializing at best.
  - black_puppydog 7y ago
    Welcome to step number two... :/
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post generic ideological comments to HN. It leads to generic ideological discussion, which leads to repetitive flamewar, which is tedious, which is off topic here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  - jdhdhshs 7y ago
    I don't see how this is ideological but the other top comment in this thread isn't. They both convey an emotional sentiment without any real information or substantive insights. Why do people who make blunt but direct posts get chastised while people who are parroting alarmist talking points without adding citations or evidence get a pass? It seems like an obvious enforcement bias.
    - black_puppydog 7y ago
      Hmmm... I'm not sure if you're attacking or defending my statement here. :P But I'd like to say I disagree with the "without any real information" part of your argument. Looking at these things without taking into account prior similar cases will lead to sub-optimal decisions, because if you don't take into account that similar stories have played out before, you'll have to take the industry's word for it that "this data will only be used to sell you stuff." And later you'll have to take the government's word for it that "we'll only use this to defend the border." And so on. But we have seen these things play out before. That is why "First they came for..." was written. We can already predict how this going to go from here. And personally, I don't like the way it's going.
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    This comment seemed like generic "doesn't affect me" flamebait at first; after a 2nd reading I'm not sure if that's the right interpretation. The format of 3 repeating dismissive statements followed by a final statement about falling victim to the previously dismissed problem could be interpreted as a variation on Martin Niemöller's famous poem "First they came ..."[1]. In this interpretation, the comment in line #4 about "those Union meetings" might be a clever reference to "Then they came for the trade unionists" in original poem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...#Text https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...#Text
throw90210bb 7y ago
Today came the news that people who testified against the President are being fired: including Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland. This is an out-of-control administration. They may well use cellphone location data to track movements of political opponents as well. These are scary times.
- quackernews 7y ago
  One more time for the people in the back: WE. HAVE. A. FASCIST. IN. THE. WHITE. HOUSE. I don't know how anyone sleeps soundly knowing an orange buffoon is tearing the country apart by the seams.
- bassman9000 7y ago
  Were they fired because they testified against the President? Do you have any source?
  - catcalendar 7y ago
    Even if they were, I don't see the general problem in this instance. If a staff member disagrees with a President so vehemently that they're willing to participate in an impeachment then there's little reason to assume that they're going to simply return to work and do as instructed from then on. Even if they operated entirely in good faith, nobody in politics just says "Well schucks, I guess my gut was wrong on this one. My bad."
    - throwaheyy 7y ago
      Thanks to non-separation of head of state and head of government, a protest against unethical behavior by the president can be conveniently claimed to be insubordination when it suits him. Examples: Yovanovitch, Vindman. Gotta love the rationalization too. “Oh we allowed your data to be sold on the public market so we’ll just get it there”
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/2kPaU https://archive.md/2kPaU
datashow 7y ago
After reading the story, I feel the main point is not about immigration enforcement. The main point here is that the government agencies bought anonymized marketing data and used them for law enforcement purpose. On the one hand I do feel the danger here. On the other hand, it seems there's no legal barrier to prevent government agencies from purchasing data available for regular corporations.
- black_puppydog 7y ago
  IMHO, the scandal here is not that the data was sold or bought. That's bad, but that was going to happen as soon as it had been collected. So the collection is the real scandal here, and it's a harder problem to solve too, because the responsibility is distributed on thousands of people and companies, and because to some degree the users are actually complicit (through wilful ignorance, or through knowingly accepting it for whatever reasons). The good news is there would be technical fixes for this problem. "Simply" don't use any of the currently infringing apps. Which -- yes -- means fundamentally changing the way we build, distribute, and fund mobile and web apps. It's not easy in practice, but the technical aspect of it is not complicated. It's gonna be harder to avoid carriers from triangulating a coarse location, but that's an "easy" think to regulate since there are not so many of them. Again, "easy" in big quotes, because of course politically that's gonna be difficult. The regulators want this information to be collected.
no_opinions 7y ago
I think the government has the right to identify someone and know their citizenship status. There are tragic consequences to unlawful entry. If one of these people were to get sick, who is the next of kin? Do they contact the consulate for their country? Well - it's offensive to even ask for citizenship. But proper procedure would be to reach out to the consulate in their country for help. Having the surveillance tools and infrastructure in place is analogous to having fire hydrants. We don't use them all the time, but they're there when it counts. However: > doesn’t include cellular phone tower data, is not ingested in bulk and doesn’t include the individual user’s identity,” > People familiar with some of the efforts say it is used to generate investigative leads about possible illegal border crossings and for detecting or tracking migrant groups. The thing I'm a bit concerned about is people tend to view turning their head from illegal border crossings as if it's a form of charity or humanity. Asylum are supposed to go to the port of entry and declare asylum and begin their process in immigration court. Here's why I'm skeptical of illegal border crossers being assumed asylum seekers: If it were me and I were in a dangerous situation in South America/anywhere else seeking asylum in US, I'd be going to the US embassy closest to me and giving them a dossier about myself, my life, my hopes and dreams and fears, my passport, about how I love love love USA, baseball and Tom Cruise (heh), family photos, my DNA sample and fingerprints, my birth certificate. I am there to demonstrate I am waiting in line, I am who I am, and at the very least, you know me. I'd let them know to expect me at X date, at X port, And I'd arrive at port of entry in USA. It's not known for the unlawful entrant is - a terrorist, spy, drug trafficker, carrying prohibited wildlife / plants / etc. or someone just dodging a custom fee. What other choice does the gov have? What are they supposed to think? How can it be done better?
redis_mlc 7y ago
Just for those unaware, the first cases of cellphone "tower dumping" for triangulation was for bank robbery cases. It was used to find unknown suspects who were near cases across time. Fast-forward to today, where selling access to LEO is a 7-figure business for all of the telcos. Never underestimate how lazy LEO are.
- jerzyt 7y ago
  I don't underestimate that, but I'm amazed how many crimes still go unsolved with criminals leaving their digital crumbs. I highly doubt that many criminals are smart enough to simply leave the phone behind when committing the crime.
hatenberg 7y ago
A self-important and auhoritarian Leader effectively above the law...check A completely submissive party apparatus of spineless functionaries nodding of presidential decrees. Unrestricted access to everyone cellphones records... check ensure all communication is monitored by pressuring tech companies with regressive laws to drop end to end encryption ... check Facial recognition AI provided by tech companies... check A dedicated presidential TV channel broadcasting official spin and fictional realities ... check Aggressive enforcement action and internment camps for minorities ... check Whistleblowers being intimidated and retaliated against ... check China sure is looking bad these days /s

1. Why would I care? I actually like having more relevant ads. 2. Why should I care? If they're gonna have a border we should equip them to protect it. 3. Why should I care? I haven't done anything wrong. 4. No seriously, I swear I didn't do anything wrong. I never went to those Union meetings. You can check my track!

conanbatt 7y ago
I think the poison here is government, not the tool. It makes sense for a government to look for location data to persecute its declared enemies.
- mindslight 7y ago
  Government is just doing what government inherently does - attempting to exert control over anything legible to it. The underlying problem is the longstanding insecurity of cell protocols that creates these irresistible databases of everyone's location in the first place.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    How would you design a cell protocol that prevented signal triangulation? Seems essentially impossible.
    - mindslight 7y ago
      Hiding the location of a radio itself is likely infeasible (with sector antennas, each tower actually knows a signal strength and a rough vector). However, what is avoidable are fixed IDs like IMSI and IMEI that allow persistent tracking of the "same device" or "same user" across every tower. The routing functions of IMEI could easily be replaced with a nonce that changed for every registration. The billing functions of IMSI could be replaced with blinded tokens. And the persistent identity of phone numbers could be provided by independent parties like with email, ideally over a (non-wireless) mix network.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  Declared *processes. Calling targets enemies is editorializing at best.
- black_puppydog 7y ago
  Welcome to step number two... :/
dang 7y ago
Please don't post generic ideological comments to HN. It leads to generic ideological discussion, which leads to repetitive flamewar, which is tedious, which is off topic here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- jdhdhshs 7y ago
  I don't see how this is ideological but the other top comment in this thread isn't. They both convey an emotional sentiment without any real information or substantive insights. Why do people who make blunt but direct posts get chastised while people who are parroting alarmist talking points without adding citations or evidence get a pass? It seems like an obvious enforcement bias.
  - black_puppydog 7y ago
    Hmmm... I'm not sure if you're attacking or defending my statement here. :P But I'd like to say I disagree with the "without any real information" part of your argument. Looking at these things without taking into account prior similar cases will lead to sub-optimal decisions, because if you don't take into account that similar stories have played out before, you'll have to take the industry's word for it that "this data will only be used to sell you stuff." And later you'll have to take the government's word for it that "we'll only use this to defend the border." And so on. But we have seen these things play out before. That is why "First they came for..." was written. We can already predict how this going to go from here. And personally, I don't like the way it's going.
- pdkl95 7y ago
  This comment seemed like generic "doesn't affect me" flamebait at first; after a 2nd reading I'm not sure if that's the right interpretation. The format of 3 repeating dismissive statements followed by a final statement about falling victim to the previously dismissed problem could be interpreted as a variation on Martin Niemöller's famous poem "First they came ..."[1]. In this interpretation, the comment in line #4 about "those Union meetings" might be a clever reference to "Then they came for the trade unionists" in original poem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...#Text https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...#Text

throw90210bb 7y ago

Today came the news that people who testified against the President are being fired: including Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland. This is an out-of-control administration. They may well use cellphone location data to track movements of political opponents as well. These are scary times.

quackernews 7y ago
One more time for the people in the back: WE. HAVE. A. FASCIST. IN. THE. WHITE. HOUSE. I don't know how anyone sleeps soundly knowing an orange buffoon is tearing the country apart by the seams.
bassman9000 7y ago
Were they fired because they testified against the President? Do you have any source?
- catcalendar 7y ago
  Even if they were, I don't see the general problem in this instance. If a staff member disagrees with a President so vehemently that they're willing to participate in an impeachment then there's little reason to assume that they're going to simply return to work and do as instructed from then on. Even if they operated entirely in good faith, nobody in politics just says "Well schucks, I guess my gut was wrong on this one. My bad."
  - throwaheyy 7y ago
    Thanks to non-separation of head of state and head of government, a protest against unethical behavior by the president can be conveniently claimed to be insubordination when it suits him. Examples: Yovanovitch, Vindman. Gotta love the rationalization too. “Oh we allowed your data to be sold on the public market so we’ll just get it there”
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

neonate 7y ago

https://archive.md/2kPaU https://archive.md/2kPaU

datashow 7y ago

After reading the story, I feel the main point is not about immigration enforcement. The main point here is that the government agencies bought anonymized marketing data and used them for law enforcement purpose. On the one hand I do feel the danger here. On the other hand, it seems there's no legal barrier to prevent government agencies from purchasing data available for regular corporations.

black_puppydog 7y ago
IMHO, the scandal here is not that the data was sold or bought. That's bad, but that was going to happen as soon as it had been collected. So the collection is the real scandal here, and it's a harder problem to solve too, because the responsibility is distributed on thousands of people and companies, and because to some degree the users are actually complicit (through wilful ignorance, or through knowingly accepting it for whatever reasons). The good news is there would be technical fixes for this problem. "Simply" don't use any of the currently infringing apps. Which -- yes -- means fundamentally changing the way we build, distribute, and fund mobile and web apps. It's not easy in practice, but the technical aspect of it is not complicated. It's gonna be harder to avoid carriers from triangulating a coarse location, but that's an "easy" think to regulate since there are not so many of them. Again, "easy" in big quotes, because of course politically that's gonna be difficult. The regulators want this information to be collected.

no_opinions 7y ago

I think the government has the right to identify someone and know their citizenship status. There are tragic consequences to unlawful entry. If one of these people were to get sick, who is the next of kin? Do they contact the consulate for their country? Well - it's offensive to even ask for citizenship. But proper procedure would be to reach out to the consulate in their country for help. Having the surveillance tools and infrastructure in place is analogous to having fire hydrants. We don't use them all the time, but they're there when it counts. However: > doesn’t include cellular phone tower data, is not ingested in bulk and doesn’t include the individual user’s identity,” > People familiar with some of the efforts say it is used to generate investigative leads about possible illegal border crossings and for detecting or tracking migrant groups. The thing I'm a bit concerned about is people tend to view turning their head from illegal border crossings as if it's a form of charity or humanity. Asylum are supposed to go to the port of entry and declare asylum and begin their process in immigration court. Here's why I'm skeptical of illegal border crossers being assumed asylum seekers: If it were me and I were in a dangerous situation in South America/anywhere else seeking asylum in US, I'd be going to the US embassy closest to me and giving them a dossier about myself, my life, my hopes and dreams and fears, my passport, about how I love love love USA, baseball and Tom Cruise (heh), family photos, my DNA sample and fingerprints, my birth certificate. I am there to demonstrate I am waiting in line, I am who I am, and at the very least, you know me. I'd let them know to expect me at X date, at X port, And I'd arrive at port of entry in USA. It's not known for the unlawful entrant is - a terrorist, spy, drug trafficker, carrying prohibited wildlife / plants / etc. or someone just dodging a custom fee. What other choice does the gov have? What are they supposed to think? How can it be done better?

redis_mlc 7y ago

Just for those unaware, the first cases of cellphone "tower dumping" for triangulation was for bank robbery cases. It was used to find unknown suspects who were near cases across time. Fast-forward to today, where selling access to LEO is a 7-figure business for all of the telcos. Never underestimate how lazy LEO are.

jerzyt 7y ago
I don't underestimate that, but I'm amazed how many crimes still go unsolved with criminals leaving their digital crumbs. I highly doubt that many criminals are smart enough to simply leave the phone behind when committing the crime.

hatenberg 7y ago

A self-important and auhoritarian Leader effectively above the law...check A completely submissive party apparatus of spineless functionaries nodding of presidential decrees. Unrestricted access to everyone cellphones records... check ensure all communication is monitored by pressuring tech companies with regressive laws to drop end to end encryption ... check Facial recognition AI provided by tech companies... check A dedicated presidential TV channel broadcasting official spin and fictional realities ... check Aggressive enforcement action and internment camps for minorities ... check Whistleblowers being intimidated and retaliated against ... check China sure is looking bad these days /s