It's never popular when I post this, but I'm just going to do it again:
"No matter the risk, I must carry my smartphone everywhere and install every app. It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, but then wait to do it later until I'm using a real computer. No negative outcome will EVER shake my deep, permanent need to carry a smartphone all the time and use it for as much as possible."
We've done this to ourselves, and we're terrified at even the most minor inconvenience. It's something I can't wrap my head around, but people cannot bear to just wait until they get home to query something on the internet. They MUST have access ALL THE TIME, no matter the downside. It's baffling.
Im probably to last person to defend the entire stack that is the smart phone but this feels a little reductionist.
I use mine as a phone, messaging, podcast player, camera, a banking device, a little email and occastionally the web. Thats it. Some convience is good, too much is very bad. No social media or whatever millions of apps they constantly try to push in your store of (enforced) choice.
In someways we have done this ourselves but also there is a deeper societal issue. As Ellule and Kacsynski both pointed out, technology is voluntary to a point. But when it becomes a tool that you are practially forced to use to merely keep up with others, it is no longer a choice unless you can figure a way without it at your own peril.
For instance my bank has become entirely dependent of their app as the glue between all their functions and authorisation. I can try to avoid this but it becomes very difficult, it goes beyond just convenience at that point. I do not like that at all, I think it is very short term thinking, but here we are.
I try to avoid a lot of various technologies were I can make it work, I do not have a car for that reason, but smartphones have unfortunately become very ingrained in societies expectations at a blinding pace. Try to limit their use were you can, maybe others will follow.
Not with modern cellular and Wi-Fi tech we can't. Base stations literally “steer the beam” to follow you. Precise location spying is essential to the way they achieve such high throughput.
we can't have privacy for mail contents. the post network literally "routes the package" via the address on the box. digging through your mail is essential to the way they achieve such delivery rates
“Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States”
This confuses a technology used for the purpose of optimizing the performance of a technology with tracking for the purposes of selling you crap or keeping tabs on your location for unwarranted reasons. Huge difference. The former does not entail the latter.
Actually it is physically impossible to have any wireless comms at all without giving away a unique identity that can be tracked. Not unless you're going to replace your phone's radio every time you send some data. Every single transmitter has a unique fingerprint that can be identified relatively easily. It's called Specific Emitter Identification. If at any point a fingerprint is associated with your identity, it's trivial for a state actor to know exactly who and where you are every time your phone transmits something. They don't have to know what you're sending. The electromagnetic spectrum is not a private medium.
I'm not confusing anything. I'm saying that even if you completely eliminated the latter, your privacy will still be compromised by the former. When “The Government” is the entity wanting to know where you are, it doesn't matter which private company they compel to participate. They will just go for the path of least resistance, and as long as your location data is recorded by something, somewhere, they will get it.
> They will just go for the path of least resistance, and as long as your location data is recorded by something, somewhere, they will get it.
There is the real problem. It’s not a tech issue. It’s a people problem. Most governments don’t actually _respect_ and _serve_ their people. They see them as cattle to be monitored and manipulated.
You act like looking random facts up is the only thing we do on phones. My phone is a personal computer, I use it to navigate through the world, work, access my bank accounts and other personal information, and communicate with others. And yes, sometimes these can't wait the 10–15 hours I might not be at home.
How about we carry a device with multiple cameras, multiple microphones, and 24x7 connection to the internet that is running an operating system made by an Ad Company, to the most private of places?
There's also the possibility that we, as consumers, demand that the political system solves this issue with robust privacy legilsation that prohibits any entity from tracking our phones.
Democratic ones do. But for 95% of causes it's hard to become so loud that they are forced to respond.
That's exactly why orgs like EFF exist. Most laws also aren't passed because of overwhelming consumer feedback. It's lobbied by special interests. Which sadly took a negative connotation over the last few decades, but lobbies can be for the people too.
We could also demand that the government doesn't use the location data from private companies without a warrant, but elections aren't often granular enough to satisfy individual requirements. Better to figure out a way to create and use a competitor that doesn't do this to you.
> It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up,
It's not popular because this is very reductive and dismissive of the problem almost to the point of dishonesty. Many modern functions need an application and there is little or no alternative.
Some examples:
QR codes - lots of restaurants don't have a physical menu and need a QR code scan. This behavior extends well beyond restaurants as well.
Keys - Lots of cars support lock/unlock and put a ton of features behind an app. While not strictly necessary, it's incredibly convenient if you're in the inevitable (and sometimes very expensive/difficult to remediate) situation everyone eventually faces when you lose your keys, or lock them in the car. Some garages and apartment complexes only support getting in by app, and I've seen this in hotels as well.
Banking - doing many things at banks nowadays requires confirming you are you via push notification to your phone. Lots of MFA is app-based as well. I could not do my job without a phone.
Navigation - I don't always carry a garmin or thomas guide around with me when I'm walking around an unfamiliar city, and it would be pretty ridiculous of me to do so.
Probably could come up with a lot of other things. Without a phone it's not really possible to function in much of the modern world. There is more to the app ecosystem than tiktok, maybe that's the miss here.
Carrying your car key does not count as inconvenient
>Banking
Agreed, and this is a problem, but you can just do your banking at home without carrying around your smart phone. This is a case where the industry is forcing a choice on consumers. I'm considering joining a local credit union for this reason.
We had a map for each county. My wife would switch them when we crossed county boundaries and would give directions. We still got lost. It was romantic.
This is goalpost shifting and ignored much of the point of my post. this same thinking can be applied recursively to “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.”
And you’re flat out wrong about banking, there are things and situations that require you physically entering one. And yes it is a situation where society is forcing the decision, that’s my entire point - I as an individual cannot apply the non remedy of “just do everything on your computer, ldo” because society has stripped that choice from me. unless the prescription you’re giving is to withdraw from society - which is only proving my point.
I’d also hardly describe my job as a minor inconvenience.
I see these types of arguments a lot on this site and I am very confused where they are coming from. It’s almost like the implication is you have no right to complain about the privacy nightmare if you participate in using things that are necessary to participate in society. You can have reasonable privacy and these tools at the same time, it’s not an impossibility.
I appreciate the response, and I would argue that in at least some cases “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.” is totally valid.
With regard to the job, and the banking, I agree. I need to have OTP on my phone and I haven't tried to bank in person for a while. We have two young kids, and once things calm down I'm going to see if we can swap to a local credit union. The decision will be predicated on whether I can do everything in person.
With regard to the phone, I think the softer version of my argument would be that you can install the bare minimum number of apps, and otherwise just set the phone on a table and not carry it around with you. If you're worried about government tracking, power your phone off when you drive to work. Your work itself (and all your logins) will reveal your location, so it's not really as if powering your phone back on once you get to work is much of a detriment. The same is true for banking. Even if you must use the smartphone, just leave the phone off / or in airplane mode and then just do the banking at your desk at home.
In fairness to you, I'm pretty sure I failed a job interview once because I asked if I needed a smartphone for the job. I think my point would be that with the way things are going, it's becoming more and more important to figure out how to avoid as much of the smartphone as possible.
Just one more example here, which I think is a big one for some people - chat apps. Without Whatsapp, Telegram, and Signal, I can't really use my phone as telecommunications tool with friends and colleagues, because everyone is on them. The group chats are where a lot of discussion happens, so I can't just switch to SMS/calls.
That's because you're coming off holier than thou and condescending. Anyone who understands gadgets will say phones are highly trackable and will have told anyone that well over 10+ years ago. It's a trade off of value. Corporations/gov can track me while I have my phone, but turn by turn directions, maps and a camera while wandering around are useful. We could legislate that traceability away in the US to an extent, but that would require our gov be working and right now it is not.
I'm probably going to delete my HN account soon. I'm so disenfranchised with the direction technology is going that I'm finding it really heard to be civil and constructive here. I'm not trying to be sanctimonious, but I am quite angry and perplexed at why people have have backed themselves into this corner.
I hope you don't go! It's clearly a minority position you hold, but that doesn't mean it's a bad one. Or wrong. I've been perplexed by this and many other related issues. I wonder and hope every year, every step in the wrong direction that gets attention, we'll get to that magic 3% that stands up and corrects things for citizen good. No matter how your up or down votes end up in a few hours, know you aren't alone or wrong. At least from my point of view.
People could've done a lot of things to make their lives better. Unfortunately they prefer to get "managed" with all the consequences. No matter what you cancel and where you would go you will find all the same. The fact that one know how how to write b-tree from the scratch means zilch in this department
So print off map quest and carry a disposable like in the 90s. If you don't use social media, the value proposition of a smart phone is incredibly low. I feel we peaked at mobile phones which could call and text.
Encrypted messaging like Signal and Briar is so much more accessible thanks to smartphones. People who would've never touched GPG can get a lot of its benefits thanks to smartphone apps.
(Which doesn't mean we have to give in to big corporations. Gotta love GrapheneOS!)
>If you don't use social media, the value proposition of a smart phone is incredibly low.
Sorry but what are you using your device for? There are many, many tools I use my smartphone for and I currently don't have Insta, reddit, Facebook, typical social media, etc on my device. Dismissing a pocket sized computer with far reaching access to the internet as a low value proposition is misguided. If all you use your device for is social media, call and text that's really too bad and a complete misunderstanding of what those devices are capable of.
Also the fact that most people (the vast majority even) will never be affected by having their location data shared so they just don't care, myself included.
There’s literally a flock camera at basically every street location that one suburb borders another where I live.
There’s really not any legal practical way to avoid ALPRs.
I’m pretty sure the government knows where I am 24/7. I’m not going to worry about targeted advertising by the government anymore and just worry about it the people reselling it to non-governments for use.
I work with Ad Data a lot in my job, and there's a lot of misconceptions about what this data that journalists love to propogate:
The location data in these networks is very inaccurate. Your OS and browser actually do a pretty good job of locking down your location data unless you give explicit permission. It's in the ad network's interests to lie about the quality of their data - so a lot of the "location" data is going to be a vaguely accurate guess based on your IP address.
But also, location data is really important to ads right now because, contrary to common perception, per user tracking is very, very hard. Each SDK might be tattling on you, but unless you give them a key to match you across apps, each signal from each app is unique. Which is why you are often served advertisements based on what other people on your network is searching - it's much easier to just blast everyone at that IP address than it is to find that specific user or device again in the data stream.
Bidstream data in particular is very fraught. You're only getting the active data at the point the add is served, but it's not easy to aggregate in any way. You'll be counting the same person separately dozens or hundreds of times with different identifiers for each. The data you get from something like Mobilewalla is not useful for tracking individuals so much as it's useful for finding patterns.
I think it's pretty telling from the few examples shared about how agencies actually use the data:
>"CBP uses the information to “look for cellphone activity in unusual places,” including unpopulated portions of the US-Mexico border."
>According to the Wall Street Journal, the IRS tried to use Venntel’s data to track individual suspects, but gave up when it couldn’t locate its targets in the company’s dataset.
>In March 2021, SOCOM told Vice that the purpose of the contract was to “evaluate” the feasibility of using A6 services in an “overseas operating environment,” and that the government was no longer executing the contract
Something is going to have to be figured out about this data - realistically the only way is a sunset on customized advertisements. However, I would personally not be worried (yet) that the government is going to be able to identify an individual and track them down using these public sources as they currently are.
At this point, your device is not giving anyone your location without explicit permission. So it really just comes down to your IP Address, which services do need.
I think your is statement is inaccurate to the point of being intentionally misleading:
Many devices, when running, and in some cases even if turned off but connected to their battery, will ping cell towers (maybe even BLE/Wifi) and get triangulated by the network infrastructure (such as cell towers) without actively broadcasting the GPS location.
That's why I don't quite understand why the gubernment needs to have finer grained data (esp around the US/Mexican border). Precision location info would only be needed if you need to track people in densely populated areas.
I worked closely to some of this. There were strict policies in place to never monitor US Citizens. That said i was focused in more kinetic warfare domains and not sure what would've extended past the borders by local law enforcements (DHS typically dictated no-us-soil policies). But, this is a money-hungry data pipeline of resellers and aggregators and they were always eager to sell more.
How do they determine if the person is a US citizen? I've sometimes wondered if my Google account is caught up in mass surveillance of non-Americans because I created my main email address while living in Australia, though I am a US citizen and only a US citizen. I haven't checked in a while, but I know that even in the US, checking my email on the web it would show that it was connecting to an Australian domain.
I can’t respond directly to octoclaw’s dead comment (edit: embarrassingly this was an LLM), but I will just say I agree, it is ridiculous both how cheap this data is and how many people aren’t aware of it. It’s not just governments who can get access, either.
This is another reason why you should not be carrying a phone everywhere except for times where you absolutely need one.
So they say to turn of location permissions and stuff, but what about the network carrier? Any privacy focused cell services that are reasonably priced?
Don't think so - they're all very expensive because cell networks are expensive. You can get a burner phone, only use it as a tethered internet connection for your laptop which runs VPN software.
Phreeli seems to be the privacy promoting MVNO with the cheapest options. Not sure if it’s been audited or what its guarantees are, but anything is probably better than the big carriers.
I get that anything emitting can be tracked and stuff. I'm looking to take a baby step where I'm at least not having every possible detail recorded and sold. That Phreeli recommendation from another user seems like exactly what I want (paired with other things like a VPN of course).
If you cover your phone with an antielectrostatic bag it can't communicate; that is a Faraday cage.
Since people around you will think you are also wearing a tinfoil hard, you had better stick to the phones with hardware switches as sibling comment mentions
We can not trust many "governments". The financial incentives are just too powerful. There are cases of people becoming millionaires after they left politics. Post-retirement payback and kickbacks.
Yep, former prime ministers of Australia Kevin Rudd bought a house for $17 million. Do have to wonder were they got all that cash. And that is nothing exceptional, we see this in all manners of governments the world over.
It's never popular when I post this, but I'm just going to do it again:
"No matter the risk, I must carry my smartphone everywhere and install every app. It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, but then wait to do it later until I'm using a real computer. No negative outcome will EVER shake my deep, permanent need to carry a smartphone all the time and use it for as much as possible."
We've done this to ourselves, and we're terrified at even the most minor inconvenience. It's something I can't wrap my head around, but people cannot bear to just wait until they get home to query something on the internet. They MUST have access ALL THE TIME, no matter the downside. It's baffling.
Im probably to last person to defend the entire stack that is the smart phone but this feels a little reductionist.
I use mine as a phone, messaging, podcast player, camera, a banking device, a little email and occastionally the web. Thats it. Some convience is good, too much is very bad. No social media or whatever millions of apps they constantly try to push in your store of (enforced) choice.
In someways we have done this ourselves but also there is a deeper societal issue. As Ellule and Kacsynski both pointed out, technology is voluntary to a point. But when it becomes a tool that you are practially forced to use to merely keep up with others, it is no longer a choice unless you can figure a way without it at your own peril.
For instance my bank has become entirely dependent of their app as the glue between all their functions and authorisation. I can try to avoid this but it becomes very difficult, it goes beyond just convenience at that point. I do not like that at all, I think it is very short term thinking, but here we are.
I try to avoid a lot of various technologies were I can make it work, I do not have a car for that reason, but smartphones have unfortunately become very ingrained in societies expectations at a blinding pace. Try to limit their use were you can, maybe others will follow.
It's a false dichotomy. Citizens can have useful smartphones while not being tracked by unwanted actors.
Not with modern cellular and Wi-Fi tech we can't. Base stations literally “steer the beam” to follow you. Precise location spying is essential to the way they achieve such high throughput.
we can't have privacy for mail contents. the post network literally "routes the package" via the address on the box. digging through your mail is essential to the way they achieve such delivery rates
Unfortunately also correct: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-ma...
“Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States”
We Await Silent Tristero's Empire
This confuses a technology used for the purpose of optimizing the performance of a technology with tracking for the purposes of selling you crap or keeping tabs on your location for unwarranted reasons. Huge difference. The former does not entail the latter.
Actually it is physically impossible to have any wireless comms at all without giving away a unique identity that can be tracked. Not unless you're going to replace your phone's radio every time you send some data. Every single transmitter has a unique fingerprint that can be identified relatively easily. It's called Specific Emitter Identification. If at any point a fingerprint is associated with your identity, it's trivial for a state actor to know exactly who and where you are every time your phone transmits something. They don't have to know what you're sending. The electromagnetic spectrum is not a private medium.
I'm not confusing anything. I'm saying that even if you completely eliminated the latter, your privacy will still be compromised by the former. When “The Government” is the entity wanting to know where you are, it doesn't matter which private company they compel to participate. They will just go for the path of least resistance, and as long as your location data is recorded by something, somewhere, they will get it.
> They will just go for the path of least resistance, and as long as your location data is recorded by something, somewhere, they will get it.
There is the real problem. It’s not a tech issue. It’s a people problem. Most governments don’t actually _respect_ and _serve_ their people. They see them as cattle to be monitored and manipulated.
You act like looking random facts up is the only thing we do on phones. My phone is a personal computer, I use it to navigate through the world, work, access my bank accounts and other personal information, and communicate with others. And yes, sometimes these can't wait the 10–15 hours I might not be at home.
I think many people don't know about the issue at hand; and many also don't care.
The more tragic thing is that those who care about it, can not do much about it.
You are worried about THAT?
How about we carry a device with multiple cameras, multiple microphones, and 24x7 connection to the internet that is running an operating system made by an Ad Company, to the most private of places?
On the toilet as I'm typing this
There's also the possibility that we, as consumers, demand that the political system solves this issue with robust privacy legilsation that prohibits any entity from tracking our phones.
Not all political systems respond to consumer demand.
Democratic ones do. But for 95% of causes it's hard to become so loud that they are forced to respond.
That's exactly why orgs like EFF exist. Most laws also aren't passed because of overwhelming consumer feedback. It's lobbied by special interests. Which sadly took a negative connotation over the last few decades, but lobbies can be for the people too.
We could also demand that the government doesn't use the location data from private companies without a warrant, but elections aren't often granular enough to satisfy individual requirements. Better to figure out a way to create and use a competitor that doesn't do this to you.
Why don't you "demand" a pony while you're at it?
>There's also the possibility that we, as consumers, demand that the political system solves this issue
This will never happen, but good luck.
do you think that's any less likely than a mass boycott of all smartphone usage by the public?
> It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up,
It's not popular because this is very reductive and dismissive of the problem almost to the point of dishonesty. Many modern functions need an application and there is little or no alternative.
Some examples:
QR codes - lots of restaurants don't have a physical menu and need a QR code scan. This behavior extends well beyond restaurants as well.
Keys - Lots of cars support lock/unlock and put a ton of features behind an app. While not strictly necessary, it's incredibly convenient if you're in the inevitable (and sometimes very expensive/difficult to remediate) situation everyone eventually faces when you lose your keys, or lock them in the car. Some garages and apartment complexes only support getting in by app, and I've seen this in hotels as well.
Banking - doing many things at banks nowadays requires confirming you are you via push notification to your phone. Lots of MFA is app-based as well. I could not do my job without a phone.
Navigation - I don't always carry a garmin or thomas guide around with me when I'm walking around an unfamiliar city, and it would be pretty ridiculous of me to do so.
Probably could come up with a lot of other things. Without a phone it's not really possible to function in much of the modern world. There is more to the app ecosystem than tiktok, maybe that's the miss here.
>QR codes
Those restaurants are worthless
>Keys
Carrying your car key does not count as inconvenient
>Banking
Agreed, and this is a problem, but you can just do your banking at home without carrying around your smart phone. This is a case where the industry is forcing a choice on consumers. I'm considering joining a local credit union for this reason.
> Navigation
How did people manage this prior to 2007?
> > Navigation
> How did people manage this prior to 2007?
We had a map for each county. My wife would switch them when we crossed county boundaries and would give directions. We still got lost. It was romantic.
> How did people manage this prior to 2007?
MapQuest? It sucked.
Google Maps does allow you to download areas to your device that can be used offline, too.
This is goalpost shifting and ignored much of the point of my post. this same thinking can be applied recursively to “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.”
And you’re flat out wrong about banking, there are things and situations that require you physically entering one. And yes it is a situation where society is forcing the decision, that’s my entire point - I as an individual cannot apply the non remedy of “just do everything on your computer, ldo” because society has stripped that choice from me. unless the prescription you’re giving is to withdraw from society - which is only proving my point.
I’d also hardly describe my job as a minor inconvenience.
I see these types of arguments a lot on this site and I am very confused where they are coming from. It’s almost like the implication is you have no right to complain about the privacy nightmare if you participate in using things that are necessary to participate in society. You can have reasonable privacy and these tools at the same time, it’s not an impossibility.
I appreciate the response, and I would argue that in at least some cases “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.” is totally valid.
With regard to the job, and the banking, I agree. I need to have OTP on my phone and I haven't tried to bank in person for a while. We have two young kids, and once things calm down I'm going to see if we can swap to a local credit union. The decision will be predicated on whether I can do everything in person.
With regard to the phone, I think the softer version of my argument would be that you can install the bare minimum number of apps, and otherwise just set the phone on a table and not carry it around with you. If you're worried about government tracking, power your phone off when you drive to work. Your work itself (and all your logins) will reveal your location, so it's not really as if powering your phone back on once you get to work is much of a detriment. The same is true for banking. Even if you must use the smartphone, just leave the phone off / or in airplane mode and then just do the banking at your desk at home.
In fairness to you, I'm pretty sure I failed a job interview once because I asked if I needed a smartphone for the job. I think my point would be that with the way things are going, it's becoming more and more important to figure out how to avoid as much of the smartphone as possible.
Just one more example here, which I think is a big one for some people - chat apps. Without Whatsapp, Telegram, and Signal, I can't really use my phone as telecommunications tool with friends and colleagues, because everyone is on them. The group chats are where a lot of discussion happens, so I can't just switch to SMS/calls.
> It's never popular when I post this
That's because you're coming off holier than thou and condescending. Anyone who understands gadgets will say phones are highly trackable and will have told anyone that well over 10+ years ago. It's a trade off of value. Corporations/gov can track me while I have my phone, but turn by turn directions, maps and a camera while wandering around are useful. We could legislate that traceability away in the US to an extent, but that would require our gov be working and right now it is not.
I'm probably going to delete my HN account soon. I'm so disenfranchised with the direction technology is going that I'm finding it really heard to be civil and constructive here. I'm not trying to be sanctimonious, but I am quite angry and perplexed at why people have have backed themselves into this corner.
I hope you don't go! It's clearly a minority position you hold, but that doesn't mean it's a bad one. Or wrong. I've been perplexed by this and many other related issues. I wonder and hope every year, every step in the wrong direction that gets attention, we'll get to that magic 3% that stands up and corrects things for citizen good. No matter how your up or down votes end up in a few hours, know you aren't alone or wrong. At least from my point of view.
People could've done a lot of things to make their lives better. Unfortunately they prefer to get "managed" with all the consequences. No matter what you cancel and where you would go you will find all the same. The fact that one know how how to write b-tree from the scratch means zilch in this department
So print off map quest and carry a disposable like in the 90s. If you don't use social media, the value proposition of a smart phone is incredibly low. I feel we peaked at mobile phones which could call and text.
Encrypted messaging like Signal and Briar is so much more accessible thanks to smartphones. People who would've never touched GPG can get a lot of its benefits thanks to smartphone apps.
(Which doesn't mean we have to give in to big corporations. Gotta love GrapheneOS!)
>If you don't use social media, the value proposition of a smart phone is incredibly low.
Sorry but what are you using your device for? There are many, many tools I use my smartphone for and I currently don't have Insta, reddit, Facebook, typical social media, etc on my device. Dismissing a pocket sized computer with far reaching access to the internet as a low value proposition is misguided. If all you use your device for is social media, call and text that's really too bad and a complete misunderstanding of what those devices are capable of.
Not me so much as my work and the crappy job search requiring you to be responsive at all times. Add in family if you have one.
I don't think this is right. Most people are just not that curious, so there's no drive to be able to look things up.
People don't want to be bored, so a phone with all the apps provides a reliable source of distraction/entertainment.
Also the fact that most people (the vast majority even) will never be affected by having their location data shared so they just don't care, myself included.
There’s literally a flock camera at basically every street location that one suburb borders another where I live.
There’s really not any legal practical way to avoid ALPRs.
I’m pretty sure the government knows where I am 24/7. I’m not going to worry about targeted advertising by the government anymore and just worry about it the people reselling it to non-governments for use.
Taxpayers' money used to track taxpayers and finance the advertising industry.
I work with Ad Data a lot in my job, and there's a lot of misconceptions about what this data that journalists love to propogate:
The location data in these networks is very inaccurate. Your OS and browser actually do a pretty good job of locking down your location data unless you give explicit permission. It's in the ad network's interests to lie about the quality of their data - so a lot of the "location" data is going to be a vaguely accurate guess based on your IP address.
But also, location data is really important to ads right now because, contrary to common perception, per user tracking is very, very hard. Each SDK might be tattling on you, but unless you give them a key to match you across apps, each signal from each app is unique. Which is why you are often served advertisements based on what other people on your network is searching - it's much easier to just blast everyone at that IP address than it is to find that specific user or device again in the data stream.
Bidstream data in particular is very fraught. You're only getting the active data at the point the add is served, but it's not easy to aggregate in any way. You'll be counting the same person separately dozens or hundreds of times with different identifiers for each. The data you get from something like Mobilewalla is not useful for tracking individuals so much as it's useful for finding patterns.
I think it's pretty telling from the few examples shared about how agencies actually use the data:
>"CBP uses the information to “look for cellphone activity in unusual places,” including unpopulated portions of the US-Mexico border."
>According to the Wall Street Journal, the IRS tried to use Venntel’s data to track individual suspects, but gave up when it couldn’t locate its targets in the company’s dataset.
>In March 2021, SOCOM told Vice that the purpose of the contract was to “evaluate” the feasibility of using A6 services in an “overseas operating environment,” and that the government was no longer executing the contract
Something is going to have to be figured out about this data - realistically the only way is a sunset on customized advertisements. However, I would personally not be worried (yet) that the government is going to be able to identify an individual and track them down using these public sources as they currently are.
Neither the government nor an ad agency needs to know where I am, no matter how "rough" the data is. It's none of their business.
At this point, your device is not giving anyone your location without explicit permission. So it really just comes down to your IP Address, which services do need.
I think your is statement is inaccurate to the point of being intentionally misleading:
Many devices, when running, and in some cases even if turned off but connected to their battery, will ping cell towers (maybe even BLE/Wifi) and get triangulated by the network infrastructure (such as cell towers) without actively broadcasting the GPS location.
That's why I don't quite understand why the gubernment needs to have finer grained data (esp around the US/Mexican border). Precision location info would only be needed if you need to track people in densely populated areas.
I worked closely to some of this. There were strict policies in place to never monitor US Citizens. That said i was focused in more kinetic warfare domains and not sure what would've extended past the borders by local law enforcements (DHS typically dictated no-us-soil policies). But, this is a money-hungry data pipeline of resellers and aggregators and they were always eager to sell more.
How do they determine if the person is a US citizen? I've sometimes wondered if my Google account is caught up in mass surveillance of non-Americans because I created my main email address while living in Australia, though I am a US citizen and only a US citizen. I haven't checked in a while, but I know that even in the US, checking my email on the web it would show that it was connecting to an Australian domain.
It was typically isolated in procurement, only buying data from "outside of the border" - data was packaged by geo regions typically
I can’t respond directly to octoclaw’s dead comment (edit: embarrassingly this was an LLM), but I will just say I agree, it is ridiculous both how cheap this data is and how many people aren’t aware of it. It’s not just governments who can get access, either.
This is another reason why you should not be carrying a phone everywhere except for times where you absolutely need one.
From my experience this data is not cheap from an average consumer perspective.
Not for consumers but cheap for the people (mis)using it in bulk.
It is dead because it is an LLM.
Wow, they are improving. None of the usual tells, fairly accurate. That’s a little concerning.
The full title is:
> The Government Uses Targeted Advertising to Track Your Location. Here's What We Need to Do.
So they say to turn of location permissions and stuff, but what about the network carrier? Any privacy focused cell services that are reasonably priced?
Don't think so - they're all very expensive because cell networks are expensive. You can get a burner phone, only use it as a tethered internet connection for your laptop which runs VPN software.
Phreeli seems to be the privacy promoting MVNO with the cheapest options. Not sure if it’s been audited or what its guarantees are, but anything is probably better than the big carriers.
Thanks! This looks like what I want
Turn off the phone entirely.
I get that anything emitting can be tracked and stuff. I'm looking to take a baby step where I'm at least not having every possible detail recorded and sold. That Phreeli recommendation from another user seems like exactly what I want (paired with other things like a VPN of course).
Most have internal batteries and are still "on" to a certain extent unless the battery is completely discharged.
Use one of the few phones with hardware kill switches or removable batteries.
If you cover your phone with an antielectrostatic bag it can't communicate; that is a Faraday cage.
Since people around you will think you are also wearing a tinfoil hard, you had better stick to the phones with hardware switches as sibling comment mentions
Why we need to use pihole more aggressively.
Israeli malware companies also use targeted ads to use drive-by exploits to infect people's devices using ad networks based on IP addresses:
https://securitylab.amnesty.org/latest/2025/12/intellexa-lea...
The fact that we still just allow arbitrary 3rd party code to run through ad networks is bizarre.
> The fact that we still just allow arbitrary 3rd party code to run through ad networks is bizarre.
It's interesting to imagine how things would change if those ad-networks were legally liable for their role in spreading scams and malware.
I can't help but wonder how much is being spent.
We can not trust many "governments". The financial incentives are just too powerful. There are cases of people becoming millionaires after they left politics. Post-retirement payback and kickbacks.
Yep, former prime ministers of Australia Kevin Rudd bought a house for $17 million. Do have to wonder were they got all that cash. And that is nothing exceptional, we see this in all manners of governments the world over.
After they left? Try 6 months in.