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Military Unit Conducting Drone Strikes Bought Location Data from Ordinary Apps
- rasengan 6y agoMoral: If anything can be used against you, the adversary who will use it against you can get it and use it against you.
- Threeve303 6y agoThis happens with domestic law enforcement as well. During the lockdown there were several articles about federal agencies relying on private companies for location data. It says something that both the military and federal government have been outmatched in their tracking abilities by silicon valley.
- xxpor 6y agoI wouldn't assume that's unintentional. The Feds probably love having that level of indirection built in. Eases warrent requirements, and you don't get news headlines about government trackers in your devices.
- Proziam 6y agoI take a more extreme view. My confidence that it is absolutely intentional and that significant planning went in to arrive at this point is in the region of 99%.
- virtue3 6y agowhy waste resources when people -voluntarily- give their info up? It would make no logical sense. If the damn thing is free, you're the product :/
- bongoman37 6y agoI used to work for a company that sold location tracking data. It was amazing how cheap this data is and how many sources you can collect it from. We would buy data from 3rd party sources and often have our own data sold back to us, sometimes straight up, and sometimes after randomization added to avoid exact matches. We had a whole system built to compare incoming data against our own data to make sure that we weren't having too much of our own data being sold to us.
- nonameiguess 6y agoThey're not even remotely close to outmatched. The difference is the IC and the military can't collect intelligence inside of the United States. They're perfectly well allowed to use commercial and public data, though.
- rapjr9 6y agoSo all the military, government, police, medical, utility, CEO, infrastructure, and other people also have their location data in these databases. How do they all feel about this?
- MikeUt 6y agoDon't worry about ad tracking - nothing similar could happen here! All the intelligence gathered on you will be used only for more relevant ads, guaranteed. Your employer, the police, military, school system, insurance companies, industry conglomerates, and foreign or domestic governments, won't get or abuse any of it.
- ddevault 6y agoThis is it. This is the end-game of the dragnet surveillance work that employs a significant population of Hacker News. You have literally turned cell phones into an informant which is used to fucking murder the user. You are complicit in this.
- 1996 6y agoThis, so much. People were getting icky a few years ago when I said I was working in crypto, as it if was below what a geek should aspire to - but it felt so much better than the alternative: I was providing something people were asking for, nothing else. There was no ads or engagement issues. I feel sad for all the people who have golden handcuffs (vesting, lifestyle) at a FANG job, basically selling dopamine hits and eyeball time - up to enabling murder in this case. I have very little morals on principles. I copied mine from someone I know: I will not work for the mob / organized crime ie what use violence against people, and that is true in all of its extensions: so that includes the government, the military, and any company that is deeply involved in business with them. Highly suggested for personal happiness!
- ChrisLomont 6y agoLots of crypto burns incredible amounts of electricity, adding to climate change, which also will lead to a lot of deaths. Maybe lots of tech is nuanced.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- yowlingcat 6y agoOkay, well let's engage that nuance then. Is that climate change intrinsic to the concept of crypto or just an implementation detail? Conversely, is addiction intrinsic to the concept of engagement optimization, or just an implementation detail? You could theoretically make arguments both ways, but I think that practically speaking, high burn is an implementation detail for crypto (and one that's actively being deprecated) whereas addiction is an indelible part of the concept of engagement optimization.
- srswtf123 6y agoSure seems like its past time to put down the smartphones, close the social media accounts, and be done with as much of this garbage as possible. I’ve got myself down to < 20 minutes of screen time on my smartphone, daily. Now to see if I can make it the final distance, and be free.
- nine_k 6y agoDo you just print out everything you want to read from the web?
- srswtf123 6y agoI sit down at a desktop, and do what I must there. Edit: To be honest, I made this reply from my phone. I'm as addicted as anyone to these devices, and its why I've put so much effort into curtailing my usage. Edited from a desktop :)
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y agoThis is the only site that I post on. I've deleted all other accounts and blocked the sites on the router.
- srswtf123 6y agoYou give me hope, and a bit of joy since I'm not alone.
- Proziam 6y agoI wonder how much time and effort went in from the side of government to arrive at a point where they can manipulate the free market to help them kill people. Other users have rightly pointed that getting this support from outside sources eases their legal burdens both domestically and abroad. It just seems wrong that a government can bypass its own checks and balances in this way. It violates the principles it was founded on.
- alisonkisk 6y agoThe invasion is the companies selling (or giving for free, in Android's case) your private information to brokers and the government, like Gestapo or Stasi informers.
- bingbong70 6y agoWhen one can print infinite money, publicly traded companies will hand over the data whether they like it or not, eventually...
- gumby 6y agoApart from the other issues discussed here: what about false positives? In the advertising case the cost of a false positive is a misplaced ad. In the case of a military strike the cost is getting the wrong person. Plus the level of security on a commercial product is lower (the risk of losing data is simply an insurable cost). So that false positive could be deliberate insertion of bogus data. If I wanted to get rid of a rival I could pay to have ID info for someone the US doesn’t like inserted into the rival’s home or workplace. Boom!
- ChrisLomont 6y agoI'd doubt the military launched a lethal strike based solely on phone info. More likely this info helps locate a person and then they're identified by more than a geo tag.
- gumby 6y agoOne can hope, but I’m not so sanguine.
- omginternets 6y agoMy experience has been that first-world militaries go to extraordinary lengths to avoid shooting the wrong thing. It’s not that they don’t get it wrong occasionally, but I don’t think your cynicism is warranted.
- voxic11 6y agoThe drone strike program is directed by the CIA, not the military. It was placed under the command of the military briefly during the Obama administration but the Trump and Biden administrations have reversed this.
- omginternets 6y agoFair point. Thanks for the correction.
- upofadown 6y agoA good reminder that allowing unrestrained commercial exploitation of personal data can have serious repercussions.
- drummer 6y agoLibrem 5. Purism needs to get the supplies up faster
- pas 6y agoDoesn't mean much if folks just install all the BestFreeApp and TorchApp and FreePrayerApp on it, which then proceeds to spy on them in real-time.
- dzhiurgis 6y agoMilitary found a way to save your money. Citizens enraged. p.s. I’m sure it’s not as simple as ordering pizza for someone as bin laden get’s them swatted with tomahawk missile.