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U.S. Intelligence Has Amassed 'Sensitive and Intimate' Data on 'Nearly Everyone'
- sss111 3y ago>"Through location tracking, your phone knows where you sleep every night. " I'm sorry what?
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoWait until they find out about the correlation between information on driver's licenses and where people sleep.
- m463 3y agoI would say maybe 50% of people in semi-serious relationships correlate with their driver's license, but closer to 100% correlate with their phone.
- xattt 3y agoNot only sleep, but where they shit and how long too.
- sixothree 3y agoAnd almost certainly pictures of them in the act. Though no platforms will admit to surreptitiously capturing photos.
- GenerocUsername 3y agoWe have a baby cam that sees in infrared and my wife's iphone is legit snapping photos every few seconds clearly visible in there... I've read the official reasons why it does this... But it's eery to watch in real time. Absolutely looks like a duck and walks like a duck, but the official docs say it's a dog
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoPretty sure that's for face unlock. I don't know iPhones - is it possible to unlock your phone by bringing it up to your face without first hitting the power button?
- sixothree 3y agoThere was a time in 2005 era when webcams were expensive. But somehow, every single laptop produced included a webcam. And it wasn't optional. I feel like manufacturers were facing pressure from government agencies around the world.
- rationalist 3y agoI don't have an iPhone, so what is the official reason you read?
- yetihehe 3y agoIt could be IR sensor checking if your phone is near your face. But should be disabled when screen is off. Making a photo every several seconds would drain battery pretty fast.
- GenerocUsername 3y agoIt's while in use. It's always checking if you are looking at it...
- oilchange 3y agoPeople usually keep their phone near them. Even when they sleep. So if you know where the phone is via tracking, then you know where the owner of the phone is. And ultimately where the owner of the phone sleeps.
- aaomidi 3y agoSo does the registered address of the person.
- doubled112 3y agoI didn’t change my address every time I moved during college. My phone went with me though.
- kaliqt 3y agoFar worse, it's very easy to know when a person is going to be asleep even with no more data. You can use location in part, yes, but health tracking can sort out your patterns very well and determine exactly what you are next likely to do without having any further data points (if you turned off and took off all devices). It's all trainable.
- blueridge 3y agoPractically speaking, what can we do to avoid this? I don't have Google accounts, I browse with a handful of privacy extensions to block ads and trackers, I use custom DNS, my iPhone is mostly a brick, my old car is also a brick, I don't have any smart home devices, I'm mindful about what I sign-up for, I make a point to cancel accounts I'm not using, I don't have an Amazon account, I don't shop with my phone in store to avoid the Bluetooth beacons, etc. But I still use a credit card, I pay bills, I have Comcast service, I buy things online, I use GPS, I still have a handful of subscriptions, and who knows what happens to personal information when applying for jobs—I'm sure it changes hands over and over via the ATS company. For those of us who care about maintaining a sense of privacy—what are some things people can do to meaningfully minimize their footprint? Or am I not thinking about this the right way? It feels like a losing battle. Maybe that's the point: a "sense" of privacy is as far as one can get.
- itairal 3y agoThe privacy war is already over and everybody knows the good guys lost. If you google that line, that is the best you can do in a sense. It is a message encoded in a sea of absolute noise. Fool the sky to cross the sea.
- jkepler 3y agoCash is king for privacy. Pay with cash as often as possible. Walk or bicycle. Write paper letters, mail them with cash-purchased stamps. Looks tuff up at the library. Use an analog film camera, physical maps and a compass to navigate. If you need to type, get an old mechanical typewriter, and lots of paper for when you mistype and have to redo the entire page... Or, learn encryption and prefer open/free software solutions as much as possible.
- notjulianjaynes 3y agoWhile this report seems like a convenient thing to cite when someone calls me paranoid for putting a pebble in my shoe before going grocery shopping, its reccomendations are less than comforting. >[The intelligence community] "should develop a multi-layered approach to catalog, to the extent feasible, the acquisition and use of CAI across its 18 elements." The problem isn't that this data isn't organized well enough... I'm not sure what these 18 elements are but found something involving HIPAA which uses the same phrase: https://privacyruleandresearch.nih.gov/pr_08.asp https://privacyruleandresearch.nih.gov/pr_08.asp
- lsllc 3y agoIf I may -- what does putting a pebble in your shoe before going grocery shopping do? Is the intent to change the way you walk to defeat some sort of gait analysis based surveillance? (you'd imagine facial recognition was far more effective!).
- GenerocUsername 3y agoI think it's to prevent loligagging and therefore reduce time and money spent on trivalties. It forces you to get what you want efficiently and get out.
- notjulianjaynes 3y agoIt was a joke but yes gait recognition was what I was the reference I was shooting for.
- lsllc 3y agoAh, thanks. Speaking of "shooting" I also wondered if it was a technique to help disguise a CCW carry (supposedly secret service agents are trained to spot the gait of someone carrying a concealed firearm).
- rationalist 3y agoNo, pebbles in the shoe would just draw attention to you by people looking for someone with an unusual gait. While I don't know if that detail about the U.S.S.S. is true (it probably is), there are "tells" if someone is consciously or subconsciously thinking about a firearm on their body.
- rationalist 3y agoDoes anyone know of any guides or place with guides for analog privacy (not digital like PrivacyTools.io or the replacement site that popped-up when PrivacyTools.io sold out)? Stuff like: this is how to register your house/car/cellphone etc in a trust, how to avoid giving out your SSN for utilities, how to avoid the medical industry from sharing your data, etc? Is there a better way to ask or describe what I'm talking about?
- theknocker 3y ago[dead]
- deafpolygon 3y agoSo what's next? Go live in the mountains?