59 ms·

The US government is buying troves of data about Americans

• roarcher 3y ago
  > Such data may be useful, it says, to “identify every person who attended a protest or rally based on their smartphone location or ad-tracking records.” "May"? This is exactly how the January 6th protestors were identified.
  • some_furry 3y ago
    I don't doubt that this technique was used for the people who stormed the capital on January 6th, but I would hesitate to describe many of them as "protestors".
    • roarcher 3y ago
      You're free to describe them however you like, it's irrelevant to my point.
      • phpisthebest 3y ago
        Remember to some people "there are no bad tactics, only bad targets", lots of people are blinded when their perceived political enemies are getting "what they deserve" and fail to understand the powers and tactics used on their political enemies will soon be used on them.... They will then go all shocked pikachu face then the government assault team in their door step taking them way... how can this bee they were the good ones.. they were on the "right side of history"... Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim Doesn't matter if you're red or blue it hates you all
        • hahahasotruez 3y ago
          This is literally what the Seattle populace is now doing after years of screaming "Defund the police". They have come full circle demanding more police presence due to raising crime rates. You get what you protest for or something like it.
      • whoopdedo 3y ago
        It's not irrelevant to point out the false equivalency of putting constitutionally protected speech on the same level as forced entry, assault, and destruction of property.
        • roarcher 3y ago
          It's irrelevant because my entire and only point is that the government has this capability, no "may" about it. Whether my choice of words implied the level of ideological purity that you wished to see has nothing to do with that.
        • coldtea 3y ago
          Any protest march and demonstration worth its salt can be described with terms such as "forced entry, assault, and destruction of property" (and has been)...
        • graphe 3y ago
          I don't see this sentiment for the George Floyd riots that plagued the whole country for longer and did significantly more damage, instead of caring for corrupt politicians why not persecute those who robbed and stole from the common citizen. If a protest doesn't make the news what's the point?
          • thebooktocome 3y ago
            You don't see it because you're not looking for it. Plenty of protest groups were extremely vigilant about minimizing property damage and rooting out violent infiltrators. The George Floyd protests were far more policed: twenty-five protestors died; around 14k were arrested. [1] Hard to say any 1/6er suffered a similar fate, despite their significantly more egregious apparent crimes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests
            • graphe 3y ago
              Do you not see the irony of your post? Did you not see the same at the 1/6? If they were more policed, the fires, and destruction didn't help it make it appear so. I could see the Floyd protests/riots outside. 1/6 affected some .1% of the elite I could care less about. I'm still trying to see a reason why the common man hates that the citizens protest the government, or cares so much for the corrupt elite of either party. The government is not your friend. If the Floyd protests went to Washington it could have been less 1996 and more MLK.
    • rootusrootus 3y ago
      Actually, let's do call them protesters. If you want to get universal agreement on the need for privacy regulations, you need to present it a way that does not immediately turn away your intended audience. When both sides really agree on something, it's amazing how fast it gets done. Which, of course, is why there are people trying to hard to keep both sides from ever agreeing.
      • idiotsecant 3y ago
        On one hand I know that this is true. We have to guard against special pleading that allows oppression of those we disagree with because that inevitably leads to our own oppression sooner or later. On the other hand I understand what the post you're replying to is saying, even if it's not said extremely well. There is an enormous online narrative with a lot of money and power behind it trying to normalize the most violent and anti-democratic parts of the right wing of American politics and using that to drive views, clicks, and votes. I'm normally not someone to clutch pearls and will be the first one to acknowledge that the vast majority of Americans are just decent enough people trying to figure out how to keep fed, healthy, and safe. But the tendency toward fascism in the human animal is something we need vigilance against, as demonstrated over and over again in human history. The people who attempted to violently attack the seat of democratically elected power in this country were not protestors. There were protestors outside, but the people who crossed the line to breaking and entering, assault, and terrorism were not protestors.
        • graphe 3y ago
          [flagged]
          • MisterBastahrd 3y ago
            Yeah, that part where they were breaking down a window of a locked door in an attempt to get into the house inner chambers to attempt to impede the democratic process of the United States was totally a protest and not an insurrection. The folks who were non-violent never made it inside the capital because they were there to protest? They were protestors. The other ones? They were insurrectionists and they all deserve prison.
    • PM_me_your_math 3y ago
      [flagged]
  • wmeredith 3y ago
    Yep. It was also used against Occupy Wall Street protestors.
  • kgwxd 3y ago
    Source?
    • roarcher 3y ago
      https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-is-mapping-cell-phone-location-data-from-capitol-rioters-2021-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-is-mapping-cell-phone-lo...
      • kgwxd 3y ago
        "subpoenaed cell phone data". It's completely justifiable, legally and morally, and been happening since cell phones existed, way before January 6th 2021. The article's claim that it was somehow new to this event shines a spotlight on their agenda.
        • zer8k 3y ago
          Youre either not well informed or being deliberately obtuse. Cell phone data has been used in individual cases for almost as long as cell phones existed. J6 was one of the first cases where mass surveillance paired with ad tracking and tower pings were used in combination for mass arrests. We did not see this when the George Floyd riots occurred Despite the fact federal buildings were attacked yet it was brought out for this. It's very indicative of the existence of a police state that chooses its targets in a politically expedient way. What we saw the government do and the fact the alleged conspirators have largely not been charged with anything but rather left to rot should terrify anyone. Just because you aren't the target today doesnt mean you won't be tomorrow.
          • edmundsauto 3y ago
            I understand it might appear this way to someone who already has specific political leanings, but as someone without a dog in this fight - that does not appear supported by the evidence. Your conclusions reveal more about your priors than anything else.
          • deleted 3y ago
  • weaksauce 3y ago
    doubtful. they were issuing subpoenas to the cell companies for their records of the tower registrations for a certain time frame when crimes were being committed. It doesn't take much to identify the owner of a smartphone via that and then correlate that with driver's license photo ids and correlate that with surveillance camera footage to bring a case. that had nothing to do with peaceful protester tracking but bog standard criminal investigation.
    • roarcher 3y ago
      I posted the source in another comment but I'll put it here as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-is-mapping-cell-phone-location-data-from-capitol-rioters-2021-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-is-mapping-cell-phone-lo... The data came from Google and included GPS data. Either way, I don't think that matters. My point is that tech companies store data that can be used to identify everyone present at a specific location and timeframe, and that data is easily available to the government. There's no "may" about it.
      • weaksauce 3y ago
        sure... I don't disagree with you there. they did need to get a subpoena for that information using all the other evidence that was publicly out there on facebook that the affidavit said. they were using an android device that tracks you if you let it and stores that information on google's servers if you let it. you don't have to have that feature on and just having the phone on you is sufficient to be triangulated by the cell towers. I don't see how this is incompatible with modern society. google didn't just give up the data without going through the judge granting a subpoena. even if they didn't have that cell phone record it's just one piece of evidence of many that would still likely get a conviction. it didn't start at gps data from google... it went from public posts on facebook to the email and phone number account associated with that to the google account associated with that to the gps data associated with the google account. if you show me them using a reach around route to get that gps data and persecute peaceful protestors that haven't been suspected of criminal activity then i do agree it's troubling. if you want me to agree that the government is not within their rights seek evidence via normal, judge approved, subpoenas to investigate/prosecute people storming the capital and doing legitimate crimes then i disagree. you need probable cause and that bar should be fairly high.
• hospitalJail 3y ago
  I'm sure those 5 major companies called out in PRISM are all selling the data, and one of those companies runs advertisements claiming they keep things private and secure. I'm no VIP, so its unlikely anyone would stumble across my name. However that typically can't be used as a defense for such a policy. I suppose it can be used as a defense if you want to claim your device prioritizes privacy and security. Its not a valid defense, but profit doesn't really care about being logically sound.
  • bilbo0s 3y ago
    I'm sure those 5 major companies called out in PRISM are all selling the data Um, "selling"? That's an, uh, interesting, characterization of what's likely going on. I'm not sure companies have a lot of choice in what's going to happen to their data here in the US despite what they tell us. (In fact, I'd bet they don't have much of a choice what happens to their data in any country they do business in.) Maybe a few of the hardcore companies take it to court. But, OH! That's right! In the US we've got FISA courts for this kind of thing, so it's illegal for us to know anything about any of that either. Oh well. Pity that I guess. Carry on citizens. Nothing to see here. On a serious note, never put anything on the digital record that you would be unwilling to have entered as evidence against you in open court. Full stop. I don't care what assurances you get from companies about security, or privacy, or end to end encryption. You just shouldn't do it. It helps to think of it this way, if it touches your phone or the internet in any way, it's part of the public record. No matter what app you were using. So be cognizant of that, it can come back to bite you 10 years later in ways you never would have imagined.
    • falcolas 3y ago
      FWIW, also selling. As an example, a company called Dataminr sells views of Twitter to a bunch of government entities. Those views include things like fires, flash mobs, explosions, riots, etc.
    • wefarrell 3y ago
      It's a loophole, the 4th amendment prohibits the government from seizing data, however the government can legally purchase data from a third party.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  They are purchasing information that is for sale. Worrying. What's more worrying is that we can assume this information is also available to every US adversary. Tangentially, it's interesting that the US declassifies things and they become publicly available.
  • friend_and_foe 3y ago
    Where can I buy this information? I'd like to track some politicians.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
      They list Thomson Reuters CLEAR, LexisNexis, Exactis, PeekYou
    • sweetbitter 3y ago
      If you're serious about it, check out this article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/nepxbz/i-gave-a-bounty-hunter-300-dollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile https://www.vice.com/en/article/nepxbz/i-gave-a-bounty-hunte... What you need to do is pick an entity that has the information you desire, and recursively enumerate the graph of all business deals which involve the sale of that information (their downstreams, effectively). After that, you do OSINT to map out all of the employees of every organization that has access to these databases. After you have mapped out these tens of thousands of individuals and their likely social graphs, all you have to do is pay one of them a relatively small sum to do a query on your behalf.
• majormajor 3y ago
  The government couldn't do it this easily if it wasn't for sale. It being for sale means anyone can be doing it which might be a framing that would be more alarming to the law-and-order types. But really you need a two prong solution: 1) restrict this from being collected and compiled in the first place, eliminate the ability to default to this tracking unless someone opts out 2) restrict the government's ability to use or acquire through non-market-based means. The claim here is that there's already restrictions on this vs directly surveiling, but I haven't seen directly which specific restrictions those are for buying off-the-shelf info and the article doesn't specify. There are very really no companies that I trust to keep my data safe for 10, 20, 50 years. Leadership changes, ownership changes, etc. We have to cut it off at the source.
  • AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    > It being for sale means anyone can be doing it which might be a framing that would be more alarming to the law-and-order types. How about "more alarming to the lawmakers?" Someone could show that movement info, for example, is available for sale on a legislator. Or a legislator's spouse or child. Now do you see the problem, oh you who write the laws?
    • rootusrootus 3y ago
      > Someone could show that movement info, for example, is available for sale on a legislator. Or a legislator's spouse or child. Surely someone is already doing this? It wouldn't be especially expensive, but even if it were we could probably crowdfund it easily enough.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • thumbuddy 3y ago
        It's being done, and has been done for around a decade now. New York times did a good piece on how every civilians cellphone gps data has been for sale a long time ago. Bounty hunters buy this kind of data all the time is my understanding.
• mjfl 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • antonvs 3y ago
    Shouldn’t you be wearing khakis and marching in a protest somewhere?
• walterbell 3y ago
  https://cybernews.com/news/france-senate-surveillance-cameras-microphones/ https://cybernews.com/news/france-senate-surveillance-camera... > In France, the Senate just approved a controversial provision to a justice bill that would allow law enforcement to secretly activate cameras and microphones on a suspect’s devices. This type of surveillance would be activated without notifying the owner of the device. The same provision would also allow agencies easier access to geolocation data to track suspected criminals ... Critics are urging French parliamentarians to dismiss the controversial provisions. And it’s not too late – the update to the bill must still be approved in the National Assembly, the more powerful lower house of the Parliament. Any startup employees working directly on technology trade secrets or otherwise non-public intellectual property should enable iOS Lockdown Mode. Thanks to years of invasive online targeting, bulk data breaches and mobile phone network structural insecurity, it has never been cheaper to screen for higher-than-average-value targets with digital assets that can be exfiltrated. Since targeting costs have fallen, it is profitable to target employees below the C-suite, e.g. those in strategic or development roles who routinely need to access sensitive information and digital assets. This applies to enterprise, mobile and WFH environments, e.g. leveraging mobile phone foothold to reach other devices like a home router.
  • Aerbil313 3y ago
    iOS Lockdown Mode? Ever heard of PRISM?
    • walterbell 3y ago
      Which mobile phone and operating system would you recommend?
      • Aerbil313 3y ago
        If you are an American citizen who is not against American interests, sure, go with iOS Lockdown Mode. They won’t come after you. If you’re not, then you can get an open-source OS device like GrapheneOS, be careful not to emit any information to the internet except without over anonymity networks like Tor, and use E2E messengers in your day to day comms for your baseline security for today. I don’t know what will happen when AIs will be able to identify any person from a paragraph of text they’ve written. Best to move to a place where no technological State exists and live self-sufficiently then, maybe. Still you’ll be visible to satellites and thus targetable for States, unless you live on hydroponics in an underground mine or something. For people who are targeted or in risk of being targeted by three letter agencies, it’s a different story. It’s so easy for any three letter agency to install a mole or buy someone in those open-source projects like GrapheneOS, for example to publish compromised binaries. The best option is always to not use anything connected to the cell (GSM, 4G, 5G etc.) network and carry all comms encrypted over internet, with pre-exchanged secret keys and preferably over a network like I2P and over public Wi-Fis. You can use I2P outproxies to connect to visible (normal) internet. I do NOT recommend Tor, there were reports of Tor being compromised and it’s too suspiciously popular to be trustable IMHO. Pay attention to CCTV cameras as well, don’t sit in a mall to connect its public Wi-Fi. All these things obviously introduce a lot of friction to your communications, but if you are such a high-value person you should have set up your network of people accordingly beforehand as well, to relay messages and such. QubesOS is a good OS for such people. If you have the means, custom device solutions to communicate over radio with encryption is by far the best option you can have, especially for receiving critical comms on time. This only leaves the risk of triangulation when you transmit, but you must be a really high value target for this to happen. And you can always still use internet as I described to transmit. Don’t ask how I know all this.
• blueridge 3y ago
  https://archive.is/GB5oS https://archive.is/GB5oS
• whartung 3y ago
  Not talked about in the article, is that this report is actually trying to move progress forward to addressing the issues surrounding the new, abundant, and detailed information and how the current framework of 4A legislation isn't really appropriate in the new data market. From the conclusion: U) Third, as part of this set of policies and procedures, and/or as a complement to it, the IC (Intelligence Community) should develop more precise sensitivity and privacy-protecting guidance for CAI (Commercially Available Information). Again, we offer several suggestions for the development of such guidance. So, in some light this should be considered progress, not the 800lb gorilla in the room.
  • phkahler 3y ago
    Rules or guidance just serves to legitimize it. Hey, it's OK as long as we follow the rules... oops sorry we didn't follow the recommended practice there... quite different than getting caught breaking a law.
• johnea 3y ago
  +1 for the article actually mentioning the 4th ammendment, even if it was only in a quote from Sen. Ron Wyden: “I’ve been warning for years that if using a credit card to buy an Americans’ personal information voids their Fourth Amendment rights, then traditional checks and balances for government surveillance will crumble,” Ron Wyden, a US senator from Oregon, says. I continue to try to highlight the degree to which the 2nd ammendmennt is quoted versus the 4th ammendment The 4th being much much more relvent to the current state of affairs.
  • aksss 3y ago
    The 2nd Amendment receives a lot of coverage, yes. Broadly speaking, for a 2A advocate, every 2A conversation is also a conversation about 4A, 1A, 9A, etc. For example, the track record of the government on the Bill of Rights is seen as a rationale for staunchly protecting 2A. And the inverse: they feel the elimination of 2A will only clear the way for the complete disregard of the other Amendments. Broadly speaking, those opposed to 2A think it highly unlikely that the state would ever side against the people in a "developed" nation in any meaningful way* (in contradiction with not just the history of states across time, but very contemporary examples in other countries). But as Adam Michnik said, "the crucial distinction between systems...was no longer ideological. The main political difference was between those who did, and those who did not, believe that the citizen could - or should - be the property of the state." This observation from the 80's(?) in Eastern Europe becomes more relevant to the United States as the years go by, it seems. I'm writing this comment in a post about the US government building a massive data warehouse on its citizens, while coming out of the experience of the COVID years and in the context of the expose of the US government using the media corporations for public discourse censorship. * Yes, I know there are grey areas in the middle and nuances to arguments, principally boiling down to moderation ("we just want common sense regulation"), gaslighting ("nobody wants to take your guns"), and futility ("you need an F-15 not an AR-15 to fight the government"), etc. Again, the comments above are intentionally broad to illustrate the contrast in political philosophy. But yes, as a strong 2A advocate, I agree that the incursions on the other Amendments need more coverage. I would go so far as to say it's part and parcel to every 2A conversation.
• rootusrootus 3y ago
  Quick, someone put up a web site where I can click on any legislator's name and read everything there is to know about them which can be commercially purchased. Maybe have a button to contribute to a fund to buy it so it can be published.
  • _r4nc 3y ago
    Next week: "Congress passes bill banning sale of US Gov employee data."
• donalhunt 3y ago
  And if they are doing it to citizens, they are almost certainly doing it for non-citizens (most of the existing "protections" specifically state they don't apply to non-residents which always caused me to raise an eyebrow). :/
• ofslidingfeet 3y ago
  There was a time when it was incredibly obvious to virtually everyone in the country that if you start throwing the Bill of Rights away, this is the result.
• teelelbrit 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • cmilton 3y ago
    Maybe this place you dream of does not yet exist. I, like you, wish there was such a place where everything just worked. Everyone got along. I think we all long for such a place.
    • teelelbrit 3y ago
      I've been to a number of countries that by GDP are "poor" compared to the US. They have perfect roads, very little crime and far fewer cultural problems that plague america. Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands all seem to be getting along just fine.
      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        > far fewer cultural problems Do most people in those countries look the same?
        • teelelbrit 3y ago
          yes - as an american I take the uncommon position of not making prescriptive judgements on how other countries should conduct their affairs.
          • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
            What does that mean?
            • teelelbrit 3y ago
              I don't think Switzerland is "problematic" because they prioritize laws and policies that benefit the Swiss for ex. Same for iran etc. I don't see what the skin color or cultural diversity of the country really has to do with anything.
• ConanRus 3y ago
  [dead]
• beezle 3y ago
  I believe this is the report in its original form: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-De...
  • contingencies 3y ago
    Named providers... Reuters CLEAR has no clear opt out and is being sold as "prevention" (precog). https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/clear-investigation-software https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/clear-investiga... LexisNexis https://optout.lexisnexis.com/ https://optout.lexisnexis.com/ Exactis has no clear opt out. https://www.exactis.com/about-us/ https://www.exactis.com/about-us/ PeekYou https://www.peekyou.com/about/contact/ccpa_optout/do_not_sell/ https://www.peekyou.com/about/contact/ccpa_optout/do_not_sel...
    • graphe 3y ago
      Are the opt outs worth it? I don't see the benefit of giving them my real name, my info and telling them to delete it if they figured out it was me. Would it be easier to just change your name every once in a while legally?
      • janalsncm 3y ago
        Not sure what the play is here. By changing your name you are telling the government about your new name. So they will just search for all of your names.
        • graphe 3y ago
          Good luck looking though all the John Smiths. If the government can fuck up because they didn't check Firefox instead of internet explorer I'm hoping there's little human errors that will make it harder. I'm sure they have electronics checks but I'm sure there's human error too.
          • 3y ago
• rashkov 3y ago
  Where can I buy my own information? I’d like to know what info I am leaking so I can make adjustments to limit what I’m sharing
  • graphe 3y ago
    It's bulk. You are going to be buying a lot of information. I'm sure it includes triangulation information.
    • rashkov 3y ago
      I assume it’s also somewhat anonymized too? But easily de-anonymized?
      • graphe 3y ago
        I have never processed this data. You can find patterns for triangulation, and see where the cells are as this or this hour. Then you look at the calls and the texts (not using data, sms and phone calls) and determine their links. Mix this with credit card information and banking info and you have their names, shopping patterns, location and who that are in contact with through calls and texts (off the top of my head). With the data, you can see people's sites they visit from the ISPs, but with https and SSL not get everything, but you can get a very good idea from that.
        • janalsncm 3y ago
          There was a good NYTimes piece about it a few years ago. It’s easier than you’d think. If you know the target’s home address you can track the devices that come from there, and everywhere they go. On weekdays they’re probably going to work, which is also quasi-public info.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
• 60secs 3y ago
  I can only read that title literally
• aliasxneo 3y ago
  I wish I could read more reporting like this. Incredibly relevant to the average American, devoid of any political nonsense, and pretty straight to the point. The loopholes being abused by surveillance branches is truly alarming.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    I suppose it's relevant but (devil's advocate) how does it affect/harm you? The reason the public doesn't seem to care is because it's benign.
  • lern_too_spel 3y ago
    The reporting is also wrong. (No surprise: the same reporter also hilariously misreported PRISM.) Luckily, it links to the report, so any motivated reader can get the real story.
• h2odragon 3y ago
  lose yer phone. if your computing devices have cameras and microphones, disconnect them. do not use credit cards or online payment systems. cash, grass, or ass. ... and they'll still know anything they care to about you; and failing that will make up anything they need, should anyone with access to the levers of power decide that you are a worthy target, for whatever reason.
• graphe 3y ago
  What exactly is being sold here? Triangulation information, texts and calls? If so it's been there forever, this isn't new. It's been happening for over a decade. Who remembers lifelog from DARPA? Killedhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog Who's giving them information? You are (on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc).
  • aksss 3y ago
    Don't forget the people including you in photos that go up on Facebook, Insta, etc. You may not have accounts there but rest uneasy that unless your family and friends respect your privacy and right to informed consent, photos of you are getting processed for face recognition and location without you having to do much other than say "queso" for the photos.
    • graphe 3y ago
      I wonder if we can get our own information someday it would be fun to see how right and wrong they get this information. I've seen stuff like socialblade and aggregators guess, and they're always way off. With AI it's time to poison the well. :)
• underbluewaters 3y ago
  I'm curious what would happen if a privacy-focused nonprofit tried to purchase this bulk data and were refused. If it's only truly available to 3 letter agencies then they are acting more like contractors and the legal rationale might unravel.
  • autoexec 3y ago
    This assumes that three letter agencies care about the law at all. They'll either come up with some other legal rationale that sidesteps the clear intent of the laws which would otherwise protect the rights of the American people or they'll just ignore it. I'd actually prefer it if at this point they just openly admitted that they were going to grossly violate our rights than this game where they smile and tell us how free we all are while they continue to come up with insane legal theories, imaginary guardrails against abuse, and toothless regulations which ultimately let them get away with doing whatever they want anyway. A little honestly would be very refreshing.
    • d10486fa91eb46 3y ago
      I agree with this. I'd rather them drop the pretense and say that we are spying on all of you, we don't abide by our own laws, and we have shown the inability to self-police, hold accountable, or be transparent about our methods and bad actors. However, that would go against the illusion of "democracy" that is sold to the people to make us feel that we still have agency.
  • aksss 3y ago
    It's a tangled mess. If the companies are voluntarily cooperating, it's not as simple as calling them contractors. Look at all the covid/Biden subject matter censorship that was going on for an example. These companies invited the agencies in for reasons; they became willing tools of government censorship. There's no crime in it unless the government is coercing them. If you've interacted with the agencies, you know that coercion can be very subtle and light-touch. It can also be unofficial bargaining to the look the offer to look the other way or the threat to look intensely in one direction or another. Point is, you're rarely going to see a demand letter on the record requiring compliance outside of the warrant system (including FISA). The agencies know they can't compel private companies or state governments to do their work legally, so they work within the gray areas.
• ripe 3y ago
  One thought that occurred to me, regarding how to stop this kind of data being available: First, a question: how does the government (or any buyer) determine that the data they are buying is genuine? Second: Assuming that there's really no good way, then there's something you can do. Somebody could simply run lots of ChatGPT style models to generate a flood of nonsense but plausible-looking data about everyone on the planet. Flood the Internet with it. Compile it into lists and offer them for sale. Cheap! Once there's so much nonsense data out there, then provenance becomes more valuable. It becomes less useful to just buy random data. Doesn't solve the actual problem of privacy, but it might help in the short run.
• noman-land 3y ago
  Hello, does anyone know where an average, every day Joe would buy this same data? I want direct links.
• twiddling 3y ago
  Where is my old TIA presentation from Adm. Poindexter?
• lamontcg 3y ago
  Wonder what it is being actively used for and how it is influencing our politics? They're not going through all this effort just to sit on all the data.
• Havoc 3y ago
  Are those paid data scrubbing services any good? The ones that delete you off databases
  • moneywoes 3y ago
    How can we verify they work if these databases are inaccessible
• moneywoes 3y ago
  Curious do we know much they charge?
• raincom 3y ago
  Add this to the cashless world, which govts everywhere are trying hard to push. Total surveillance state. Stasi would love to have such tools.
• throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  I remember at like the third HOPE conference hearing a PI talk about all the data he can get about anyone from all kinds of sources, for pennies. That was 23 years ago. There's never been (to my knowledge) any law preventing the USG from using the same services. And why should they be prevented? If a random stalker can pay for info about you, shouldn't your government be able to? Why cripple the state and enable the creeps? Profiling has always been interesting to me from a commercial perspective, too. I used to have access to a database that would tell me if a certain sports fan was a gay republican, because the cookie-based mass-site-collection profile-generator needed to be able to tell advertisers what kinds of users they were selling ads to. I thought it was wild that you never needed to create an account for us to mostly-uniquely identify you. And that was 15 years ago. Don't like it? A small handful of states have data privacy laws now. Tell your reps your state needs one too, and a federal one for good measure.
• Timber-6539 3y ago
  Would have preferred Wired provided a pdf of the report instead of writing a fluff article about it.
• RadixDLT 3y ago
  that's not the title.. "The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens" and now you know what microsoft windows is for
• kkfx 3y ago
  Now try to add the recent French law allowing remote access to vulnerable devices, Tesla employees who share videos recorded by someone else cars etc and think about a thing: the meaning is simple private companies have such possibility. The cure is simple: software WITH ANYTHING AROUND (toolchains, docs, interfaces for the hw etc) must be open by law. So government in Democracies if Citizens allow that can potentially do something accepted by the majority BUT there are no black box on sale. Secondly remember a thing: if someone can do something, anyone potentially can, anyone means also the enemy of the one doing something in the first place.
• therealdkz 3y ago
  United Stasi of America
• ransackdev 3y ago
  I was once approached by a company located in a major city in Ohio. They were pitching me to come work for them but the role required getting clearance to do the work, because they were contracting for the federal government. Without said clearance, all they could tell me was they scraped the open internet and built profiles on citizens, and then would surface this info in an easily searchable interface. I declined getting clearance and going deeper than that. If some random ass company in Cleveland is doing contract work equivalent to the things Snowden exposed, it’s happening everywhere else, and nobody has a damn clue. This was after Snowden exposed Prism. We’re fucked.
  • 0zemp3c 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • thumbuddy 3y ago
    It's been going on for a long long time. Why people are only concerned about it now is probably the most surprising part for me personally. It's not like this has been a secret, there have been articles about it for years. The stuff those profiles, etc include though, and what they try to determine about us citizens... That's for us to never know. Could be, vulnerable subjects for psychological experiments, predictions as to whether someone is a criminal, terrorist, etc, could be blackmail for purposes of gaining leverage, probably all fueled by some janky ass ML algorithms. Who knows, that's the joy of it I guess, we never will.
    • mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Information and knowledge are emergent, meaning they have to be repeated over and over again before spreading to a majority of the populace. Most of which are not particularly interested.
• DirectorKrennic 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • laylower 3y ago
    "Let me say that what the US government is doing wouldn't even be controversial in 99% of the world, including probably 90% of democracies" Really? I'd say perhaps you need to back your estimates with some sort of hard data but these numbers are really plucked out of thin air... Your whole post reeks of whataboutism and classic fallacies. To address: 1) US agencies can track 'dormant terror cells' from adversaries without hovering up everyone's data. 2) And let's not forget about Chinese drones. If your assumption that they were indeed launched from onshore agents, US agencies can triangulate data and get a few POIs under surveillance - not every single person, everywhere, all the time. 3) The drug carters points is laughable.
  • oilchange 3y ago
    Media propaganda talking points checklist. 1. Iran. Check. 2. Russia. Check. 3. China. Check. 4. Mexican drug cartel. Check. You hit all the propaganda talking points in one comment. Usually such comments stick to one talking point. "China, china, china" or "russia, russia, russia" or ... > Let me say that what the US government is doing wouldn't even be controversial in 99% of the world, including probably 90% of democracies. That's a problem for most of the world. Not the US. > People in other countries are much more clear eyed and pragmatic about these things. Most of the people around the world don't have any problems with iran, russia, china and mexico. Maybe we should look into why we have conflicts with people all over the world.
    • flerchin 3y ago
      You're not wrong about the propaganda talking points. >Most of the people around the world don't have any problems with iran, russia, china and mexico. Maybe we should look into why we have conflicts with people all over the world. In fact, most liberal democracies are at odds with Russia, Iran, China, and nearly everyone is concerned about Mexican Drug Cartels.
• AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Much like the “every device is tapped” heuristic of security, There’s a simple heuristic for data: If you create data anywhere, assume some govt will eventually get a copy In reality that data will sit there unreviewed in 99.9999% of cases. Just hope you’re not in that 0.0001%
  • silviot 3y ago
    > In reality that data will sit there unreviewed in 99.9999% of cases. I believe AI and LLMs will change that, unfortunately.
    • gjsman-1000 3y ago
      I joke, ruefully, what would happen if we had another Stalin or Mao now. Vacuuming up dissidents would be easy - for many of them it’s probably been on their Facebook at least once. And if it’s not, check what people bought from certain businesses. Then use AI to analyze and weed out the rest.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    • AndrewKemendo 3y ago
      Believe it or not we’ve had the technology a long time to “look” or “track” everyone all the time. At this point it’s simply a political decison not to. The leadership of the PRC with help from sensetime and other industrial leaders have a working and well tested comprehensive domestic individual tracking system in production. It’s been working well over a decade at this point.
      • uoaei 3y ago
        Palantir is politically involved enough that I don't think we can raise any hackles about PRC that don't apply equally in practice to USA.
• fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  Every single person working in the adtech industry is complicit in this. Joseph Cox’s reporting on the geolocation/tracking shit the US Gov buys up really highlights the direct link between consumer tracking (to sell them shit) and government intrusion into privacy.
  • asylteltine 3y ago
    [dead]
  • lesuorac 3y ago
    > Every single person working in the adtech industry is complicit in this. Please let me know how to buy bulk consumer data from Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/etc-ad platform. Ad-Tech isn't the ones selling data; they want to be high up in the value chain. Your ISP/phone company _is_ literally selling your geo-location and data (internet) usage.
    • soared 3y ago
      https://www.placeiq.com/licensing/ https://www.placeiq.com/licensing/
      • lesuorac 3y ago
        How does one place ads on PlaceIQ? This doesn't seem like an ad-platform. I'm not disputing a data broker sells data; I'm claiming that ad-platforms don't.
        • soared 3y ago
          Placeiq is a third party data vendor that usually integrates with a demand side platform (dsp) like google’s dv360, the trade desk, xandr, etc. But you can use their data in other ways outside of dsps for things like measurement or maybe whatever the gov is doing.
        • majormajor 3y ago
• tonmoy 3y ago
  I don’t blame them for buying. Whoever is collecting and selling this data is the main culprit in my eyes.
  • systems_glitch 3y ago
    There's probably incentivization to collect in the first place, though. Either direct incentives ("if you collect this kind of data we will definitely buy it from you") or less direct ("there is an understanding that we'll let you get away with this collection").
  • sailfast 3y ago
    I blame them for buying. This goes against the rules they were founded on - to be focused EXTERNAL to the United States. It's technically within the letter of the law but not the spirit and we should pass a law preventing access (and preventing tracking but that's a whole other deal)
  • caskstrength 3y ago
    > I don’t blame them for buying. Whoever is collecting and selling this data is the main culprit in my eyes. Why not both?
  • lost_tourist 3y ago
    You should blame them, they all took an oath to uphold the constitution, and this clearly is not that.
• infamouscow 3y ago
  These agencies completely failed to prevent every school shooting in the last decade. These are not impressive people.
  • uoaei 3y ago
    Bombings, public shootings, etc., too. In some cases, they even furnished the assailants with their weapons and encouraged them to refine their plans and follow through on them.
    • CyberDildonics 3y ago
      That's a pretty heavy accusation, do you have a source or any evidence for why you believe that?
  • shadowgovt 3y ago
    I'm sure they would have dozens of (law-violating) suggestions on how to improve their access to firearm acquisition patterns and online activity to enable them to prevent more school shootings.
  • FormerBandmate 3y ago
    How would you prevent every school shooting without literally going through everyone's private communications? They're not criminal conspiracies or even planned, they're some guy using a gun to shoot people at a school. This is America, tons of people are buying ungodly amounts of guns and ammo right now. Only like 0.1% of them will ever shoot up a school (95% of them will just use it on deer and shooting ranges, and 5% will either kill themselves or have it stolen by criminals who will use it for carjackings), and courts will strike down the FBI going after people for buying ammo
    • 908B64B197 3y ago
      > without literally going through everyone's private communications? Most shooters had mental issues that went ignored or were swept under the rug by the adults that were supposed to help. > Only like 0.1% of them will ever shoot up a school This is still at least two orders of magnitude larger than the real number. It's what the people who wants to take legally-owned firearms away want to the public to think.
• krunck 3y ago
  Corporations use governments to get around laws and regulations. Governments uses corporations to get around the constitution. They each get what they want and the people get screwed.
• user3939382 3y ago
  The privacy Americans previously enjoyed came for free and so contemporary Americans don't value it. The government OTOH places tremendous value on it so the natural result is what we see. It will continue to be eroded. Unfortunately from what I see in history it's not usually until people are having trouble feeding their families that the people seize power back from government and short of that nothing will change. Ideological movements not related to our Maslow's-hierarchy-of-needs do come up and cause change but they're the exception and I'm not holding my breath. HN crowd is more enlightened than most and I still see widespread hook-line-and-sinker consumption of 100% corrupt corporate media narratives on here.
  • redmand 3y ago
    I have to sadly agree. An earlier article talking about the erosion of privacy was met with more "what's the big deal" commenting than I am comfortable with in an environment such as HN. For me, it illustrated a direction in technology workers' attitudes that is frightening. I expected better. People -- and I will call out my fellow Americans in this -- don't seem to really care until it directly affects them and in significantly adverse ways. Up until that point, the attitude seems to be "I can still get by" and by the time that's not true, it's generations too late. But, hey, as long as you got yours, why should you care about your neighbor, right?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • ilyt 3y ago
      I've seen too many people complaining how annoying dealing with GDPR is and how it is not government's business to regulate that. Well, if you don't exactly this happens. But somehow when there is minuscule effort required to keep your freedoms there are always a plenty of people wanting to throw it away instead.
    • ROTMetro 3y ago
      TLDR: "Others have a different opinion than me so I'm going to decide their motivations for them and attack them instead of defending my opinion".
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• jonahlyn 3y ago
  Link to the report mentioned in the article. https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2023/item/2389-odni-senior-advisory-group-panel-declassified-report-on-commercially-available-information https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/...
• systems_glitch 3y ago
  ...this is surprising? It's probably the cheapest way to get it!
  • sailfast 3y ago
    I think the main issue here is that they cannot actually do this themselves because it would violate their remit as agencies focused outside the United States for good reason, but somehow buying the same data makes it "OK" from a compliance / constitutionality perspective. It smells.
    • lern_too_spel 3y ago
      It doesn't make it OK from a compliance / constitutionality perspective to access non-publicly available data on Americans without due process by buying it. That's a misreading of the report. Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36302666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36302666
    • systems_glitch 3y ago
      Ironically this is what's referred to as "open source" in their business.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
  With the Cloud Act they don't need to buy anything, who is this news article for?
  • angio 3y ago
    The difference is that they can't legally collect data _on americans_, so they need to outsource it to private companies. Non americans have no rights so they can just spy on them (through the cloud act for example).
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• robbywashere_ 3y ago
  This is awesome!
• czbond 3y ago
  Is this why that TikTok act opened the door for illegal use of VPN's?
• johnea 3y ago
  > the marketplace is loosely regulated in the U.S., which has no comprehensive national privacy law. Well, except of course, the US constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects
  • omniglottal 3y ago
    I have that right. But I'm not secure in these categories as a direct result of the government's patronage of private companies who make me insecure. This applies to all US citizens - they are not secure either. This has been the case, increasingly so, for my entire life and has driven my passion to join this industry to fix this insecurity which can technically be fixed, but the model is off where TPMs instead treat the device owner as the "untrusted" party. So.... now what?
• walterbell 3y ago
  Remember to enable Lockdown Mode on iOS devices, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36300410#36301058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36300410#36301058
• janalsncm 3y ago
  Are there any countries which have the capabilities to spy on their citizenry that do not? I think there’s this idea of American exceptionalism, that spying on citizens is something that happens elsewhere but not in the good ‘ol US of A. But that’s probably more propaganda than fact. The US gov has trampled on essentially every right we were taught about in 4th grade schoolhouse rock. They infiltrated and spied on Muslims in Minnesota [1] and before that had an entire program of spying on any activist at all. Before that they put entire races (Germans and Japanese) in internment camps and SCOTUS said it was fine. Hell, they even bombed people in Philadelphia. My point is, exploiting the 3rd party doctrine to spy on Americans might be out of step with your conception of America and what you think it should be, but it’s not out of step with the historical reality of America. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/magazine/fbi-terrorism-terry-albury.html?unlocked_article_code=cBpnZAY_Sd2HH80iAOmIkmLfGxb3efV_kXuEM7huRvP6VkeTOMFrHhN4-rNHfsP_4oEvNoLFGVfX2tzOqz2Uae4j30iJwBGgdqdu1rRGBvc78J4C31mI-7u-yk-fB9-moBM2n_xakiYwbsnax98OSTwiv9Ggs6HVaGW4aPMReI3fpJoHB4vCBvaBK74Bda9CzfMkH3DJTFbUJDLL71474rpWvnmRUm3jZU3ulosiI_8KiH67aAIQulojHP0BBft6ESN0y-NBib_eyb6Q_5XXuiNgwkjL7cOsJDE6Su0tO47k36R8GI0N6r-rO2Y_mD88EFgIm6F8LCW9-USxMzktyZHvUXqM&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/magazine/fbi-terrorism-te...
  • heikkilevanto 3y ago
    I think the EU is at least a bit more aware of this kind of tracking, and trying to do something to stop it. If I became aware of some (EU) company collecting my location info on that scale, at least I have the right to get to know what data they have on me, and to ask them to delete it. Of course I don't believe all is perfect in the EU, nor that all those rules are always followed, but at least we are trying...
    • janalsncm 3y ago
      I like GDPR but that relates more to corporate data collection than government surveillance. Mass surveillance facilitated by third party corporations is only one kind of mass surveillance. Supposedly China has ramped up regulations on corporate surveillance recently, implementing new restrictions on data that companies can store. That doesn’t mean the Chinese are free from surveillance. What protections against mass surveillance does a person in the EU have?
• cbsmith 3y ago
  A decade after Snowden's leak, and this still constitutes "news".
  • activiation 3y ago
    Already a decade... Can't believe it... We need a new leak to see how much they expanded.
    • cbsmith 3y ago
      Yup. The only thing we know for sure is they've developed new tactics/strategies/tools.
• hunglee2 3y ago
  Unpopular opinion: this is a theoretical problem and practically, no big deal. What is US Gov actually going to do with the data? Worse case very small numbers of citizens might be quietly leaned on to stop whatever proscribed behaviours they're engaged in; of the very very few who might continue to persist, I guess they may be dealt with in some other way - terrible of course, but the absolute numbers of these citizens must be small...therefore a price worth paying if everyone else on aggregate has increased security? Lets not forget that these spy agencies report to democratically elected politicians who are ultimately public servants we can vote out. This is not like one of those authoritarian states
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    I disagree with your first point (people are extrajudicially "leaned on") but agree with your last point. People act like these things are not accountable to anyone. In reality- we are able to read about them because of transparency, they are accountable to Congress whom we directly elect, and they are checked via the courts. We are reading about this now because of publicly released self reporting, that's oversight!
• cma 3y ago
  It's insane we have such strict wiretapping laws but they don't apply nearly as strongly to internet service (most major ISPs sell your data).
• RajT88 3y ago
  It occurred to me there is an easy way to pressure the government to stop doing this: Make it a huge PITA to keep this kind of data in the first place. If everyone nationally submits a FOIA record to every agency which might be keeping data on them, it quickly will become un-economical to keep data on anyone but persons of interest. https://www.foia.gov/how-to.html https://www.foia.gov/how-to.html