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It's important everyone becomes educated about the fact that virtually every mobile app sells some part of your data that leads to some private company possessi
by ramoz 4y ago
It's important everyone becomes educated about the fact that virtually every mobile app sells some part of your data that leads to some private company possessing the ability to draw a circle around your house on map and then detect all patterns of life without any PII.
I don't think it's fair to pit this as a US gov't surveillance problem. It's true though - the Government missions involved, where this type of data is relevant, face rather compelling offerings especially in complex times; e.g. immigrant/refugee surges where understanding the flow of people up to the border is important for stability.
All of this data comes from Big/Small/all tech; usually branded as "ad tech" or "mobility data". And the supply chain is rather murky, masked, and rebranded/repackaged numerous times between a network of data providers & downstream businesses.
Working close to Government... I've never seen any mission specifically seeking large-scale citizen-based tracking capabilities. US government in recent timeframes have seemed adamant about not purchasing any US-based location data & are cautious even for non-US based monitoring; especially as they learn more about the origins & scale of mobility data.
- ReactiveJelly 4y ago> virtually every mobile app Reminder to readers to use F-Droid
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sfmike 4y agonaive question, if you use f droid and you have location services on, use a bunch of social apps, have google maps on it, use it normally, what extra layer will f droid have with all of those leaks anyways?
- Z_I_F_F 4y agoAlso curious of this
- kornhole 4y agoF-droid is an app store that carries only FOSS apps that do not have any Google API's. These apps are generally safe. Some may require your location such as maps to function. The difference with most of these mapping apps based on OSM.org is that they do not transmit your location anywhere. You can still install other proprietary location harvesting apps on your phone. If you do so, you are just minimizing the number of data harvesters. To ensure nobody but you knows where you are: 1. Have only safe apps installed. 2. An OS that does not send your location to Google, Apple, or others 3. Your SIM must not be transmitting to the Telco's. This means no SIM or airplane mode.
- taneliv 4y agoYou can make emergency calls without a SIM card. The phone identifies itself to the network (with IMEI), even if there is no SIM. The telcos, obviously, map IMEIs to SIMs. (Perhaps needless to say, but for basic operational purposes they have to quite efficiently triangulate your position, to know which cell tower to instruct your phone to use.) Having no SIM does not help you conceal your phone's location at all, only perhaps to make it harder to map it to your identity. I don't know if any location data might leak in airplane mode, but I would not be surprised if some did, for example, through NFC or Bluetooth.
- Semaphor 4y ago> I don't know if any location data might leak in airplane mode, but I would not be surprised if some did, for example, through NFC or Bluetooth. Not sure about NFC, but at least BT gets disabled in airplane mode.
- pessimizer 4y agoNone. F-Droid is just an app store whose apps tend to be very safe. It isn't a program to protect you from apps that you installed from other stores, or from google.
- fsdffvsdsdfb 4y agoIt Depends. Any f-droid app that depends on location uses the standard android location APIs. That means you're submitting what RF networks (mobile and wifi) are visible, and Google then passes back an approximate location. Once you have a good GPS lock, the same data is submitted to Google again for inclusion in their database. If you avoid installing Google Play services, you'll have to use a framework like microG that re-implements the Google APIs. microG lets you plug in a number of backends, with a default of sending the same data to Mozilla Location Services instead of Google. You can easily turn this off and use local-only location providers that either build their own database any time you have a GPS lock, or use downloads from opencellid.
- Ruthalas 4y agoUnified-nlp is another option to replace the Google location backbend. It similarly allows you to select location options or build your own local database.
- pretext-1 4y agoAre the apps different if I download them from F-Droid? For example if I download Signal, is it different then the Play Store version?
- avhon1 4y agoIn the case of apps that are available on both f-droid and on the play store, the difference is that the f-droid versions will be compiled without google play services. This can limit functionality (for example, receiving notifications while the phone is asleep), but does increase privacy somewhat. Significantly, there is very little overlap in the apps available on f-droid and the apps available on the google play store. Most play store apps siphon data, and most f-droid apps don't.
- mmerlin 4y agoF-Droid then DNS66
- hzmixi 4y agoi suggest you download netguard and block all apps from accessing internet https://netguard.me/ https://netguard.me/
- 5350-uiop-1130 4y agoi think a state level actor would find it much easier to compromise f-droid and its app then the play store. at least with google play you know they're selling your data so can adjust your behaviour accordingly.
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoAnd now you are the weird outlier that doesn't have the same data spewing forth instead of Average Joe making Average Data.
- juunpp 4y agoExactly. Bruce Schneier - Data and Goliath.
- janandonly 4y agoOr on iPhone, switch "location services" off.
- feet 4y agoI don't trust Apple either
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Spooky23 4y agoThese sorts of things are compartmentalized. The FBI, ICE and DEA absolutely do scaled collection. DEA/ICE was known (ie NY Times article) to be tracking cars via LPR/camera a decade ago up and down I95, for example. Individual cities and other jurisdictions share LPR and camera data. Things like fusion centers and drug task forces probably get access to various forms of intel. Civilian government is different - they are subject to lots of controls and audit, and usually take data protection seriously.
- SoftTalker 4y ago> usually take data protection seriously Do we need to list the number of government data breaches/leaks over the past 20 years? My own PII has been in several. They may take it seriously, but their actual track record isn't really that great.
- pmoriarty 4y agoWe need to start facing the fact that PII just isn't private. It's not necessarily personally identifiable either (considering all the different ways to fake it, make mistakes, the inability to correct mistakes once the information is out there, and the unreliable methods used to verify identity)
- 29083011397778 4y agoSpoken like someone that's never had a partner with impulse control or anger issues. Keeping PII private is, IMO, like freedom of speech or privacy: it may seem trivial and unimportant when you don't need it, but it sure as hell matters to some people, and can keep them safe.
- pmoriarty 4y agoIt matters to me a great deal, but I've just come to face the fact that much of what I and the various organizations who collect PII from me consider private is effectively publicly accessible, no matter what lip service to privacy these organizations give. Our SSN's, names, ages, address, phone numbers, emails, locations, habits, interests, political opinions and affiliations, sexual orientations, medical histories and countless other "private" and identifying information are in countless databases and available to those willing and able to pay for, spy on, or steal them
- ErikVandeWater 4y ago> Working close to Government... I've never seen any mission specifically seeking large-scale citizen-based tracking capabilities. They tend to keep those kinds of things pretty secret. We didn't know about all kinds of spying they do on us for even decades after the spying started.
- throw827474737 4y ago> Working close to Government... I've never seen any mission specifically seeking large-scale citizen-based tracking capabilities. Further and rarely understood, but it never is about what the government currently does, but what it could do when change occurs.. like the Nazis could exterminate the dutch jews (was it then?) better because they had those registers.. like what if the next Putin/Orban/Trump takes over and wants to take some more steps.. General principle of data economy is one pillar for civil rights! Its abuse by companies right now is an super annoying but comparably small issue.
- johnisgood 4y ago> what if the next Putin/Orban/Trump takes over and wants to take some more steps.. What are you implying here by bring up those names?
- whyagain1885 4y agoI always get annoyed how these programmers can have a good sleep at night given what they have done. Note that blaming it on the marketing VP is not fair. If even 50 % employees have a thought this tracking can be stopped.
- philderbeast 4y agothe programmers sleep at night because doing this is the only thing that lets them feed there families. like it or not, there are always people who will see this as the lesser evil because of their personal circumstances don't give them other options.
- mkmk3 4y agoTrue, as long as there's money in it, but I'd bet the majority of people in adtech aren't in terrible positions, so I don't think that's the root of this. Do people generally care about acting ethically without circumstances forcing them to? Beyond paying lip service. And if you think so, do you think they generally care in the context of surveillance, where most of us haven't had first or second hand experience of any obvious cost?
- benwad 4y agoI'd agree if we were talking about low-skill work where people are just scraping by. Programmers have the luxury of choosing from a wide range of places to work. We're all in a position where we can refuse work we find unethical, even if it means taking a pay cut.
- tibbon 4y agoYes, but… I’ve seen that it is often just shades of bad. There are so few morally pure companies out there- they are all willing to do bad things for money. Or the vast majority of them. And it is hard to evaluate that upfront. Even the most virtuous will bend privacy for the right stakeholders I should go work for Google? Because they clearly value privacy?…
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
- themitigating 4y agoBoth are bad situations but the government has more power and control than tech companies.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago