How a “location API” allows cops to figure out where we all are in real-time | Hacker News Reader

How a “location API” allows cops to figure out where we all are in real-time

arstechnica.com

114 pointstechrede37 comments

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17046632

Here is the demo for tracking the current location of your phone: https://www.locationsmart.com/try/ . Note that the demo requires granting "consent", but is not 100% clear if the consent applies beyond the scope of the one-time demo.

If you've opted out of your carrier's privacy preference for "share location with advertisers", and this still works, what will the carrier say if you show them a screenshot of this third-party site providing your live location?

That site also claims to provide the location of Wi-Fi mac addresses.

So if I move to the EU can I send a letter asking for them to remove all my data?

you definitely can do that. Doesn't mean that anyone will care about this letter, though. If the data aggregation company doesn't provide services and has no presence within EU, then they aren't affected by your letters. At this point, good luck figuring out where it all aggregated from and trying to chase for sources.

Wouldn't it be like two wrongs making a right, not to mention deliciously ironic, if these people and other personal data aggregators got prosecuted under FOSTA/SESTA. “...a fine, a prison term of up to 10 years, or both—on a person who, using a facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, owns, manages, or operates an interactive computer service (or attempts or conspires to do so) to promote or facilitate the prostitution of another person."

So, question for the Cryptocurrency (and/or Tor) crowd:

The situation described from the article is bad enough as it is - but currently at least all the intermediaries are registered businesses with people behind them. With some effort, a jornalist (or investigator) can track them down, find some humans behind the operations and confront them.

The businesses, in turn, can't get away from that because payment probably still happens in dollars (or another fiat currency) and can be tracked.

In the world crypto advocates are envisaging, Securus, 3CInteractive, LocationSmart etc presumably wouldn't registered businesses at all - they'd just be anonymous web services ran by some people living anywhere in the world, taking payment via Bitcoin. They wouldn't even need legal excuses like Securos' "authorization documents" because it wouldn't even be clear which jurisdiction applies - not even talking about actually prosecuting anyone. They could simply grant anyone access who pays.

So, if all the hopes of the crypto community came true, how would we shut down (or even just "opt-out") of a service like this one?

Don't use a smartphone. There are already numerous people who disavow their use because of security concerns. Join their ranks.

And once they find another way of tracking me, let's say by identifying my face on any kind of photo or video feed they can purchase, the solution is obviously not having a face, or what?

Also, what does any of this have to do with my original question?

Smartphone vs featurephone vs dumbphone isn't relevant here. All have potential to be geo-located by a service like this.

How would anonymous services obtain location info from telcos?

Is there a way to opt out of this?

Turn your cell phone off when you don't need it. I used to turn my phone off more, and should probably resume that habit.

A.k.a. never be available for any kind of call or message?

Besides, even then they can track you whenever you do need your phone.

That profile might not be realtime but it will still be sufficient to find out where you live, where you work and whether or not your on a trip.

Would activating airplane mode be sufficient?

How do you know it’s off?

If you really need to be sure, you have to get a phone with a removable battery.

But also make sure to discharge those capacitors.

Or turn it off and wrap it in tinfoil.

This is a funny use case. Like, obviously I don't want my location tracked, but clearly I have just accepted that it's happening in exchange for being able to text my girlfriend.

But, I'm trying to think of when this would actually be useful in my life. Maybe if I've been accused of a crime and the jail sentence is really steep, I become a fugitive and run away to live in the woods. But I still want to watch videos and take photos on my device offline? So i keep my phone in tinfoil when im using it?? haha

Yes, if you use some more tinfoil, you can wrap it around yourself and your phone, and you'll be able to still use it. If you'd wrap the tinfoil around you and your gf, then you'd be able to text each other over wifi. You can also include e.g. family for even greater utility.

Have a Google Voice number as the one you share with people and forward it to your cell phone. That should stop casual stalkers and warrantless searches, since they would need to get Google or your cell provider to disclose the real number.

Get a faraday bag for your phone is the easiest and most certain.

...or use airplane mode. but both methods is pointless because nobody will be able to call you.

Given the scenario we're talking about (ensuring your phone does not emit location signals) using airplane mode is placing a significant amount of trust in the phone manufacturer.

And whoever made the software (Google, Apple, etc). Part of reason is you don't know what it'll log whilst its offline.

A hardware kill switch the Librem 5 will have, but apparently they're using some kind of GTK UI.

The best solution is IMO not having your phone, or leaving it at home. Bruce Schneier already wrote about this on his blog and his latest book (Data and Goliath). Every time we take our phone with us, we make the decision to be tracked by a myriad of organisations. We need to be conscious about this decision because we do have a choice here: the choice to keep the phone home.

Use a device without a radio.

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