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Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret


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2020 Jan 2, 7:37am   694 views  10 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html

Dozens of companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds. They say it’s anonymous, but the data shows how personal it is.

By JENNIFER VALENTINO-DeVRIES, NATASHA SINGER, MICHAEL H. KELLER and AARON KROLIK DEC. 10, 2018

The millions of dots on the map trace highways, side streets and bike trails — each one following the path of an anonymous cellphone user.

One path tracks someone from a home outside Newark to a nearby Planned Parenthood, remaining there for more than an hour. Another represents a person who travels with the mayor of New York during the day and returns to Long Island at night.

Yet another leaves a house in upstate New York at 7 a.m. and travels to a middle school 14 miles away, staying until late afternoon each school day. Only one person makes that trip: Lisa Magrin, a 46-year-old math teacher. Her smartphone goes with her.

An app on the device gathered her location information, which was then sold without her knowledge. It recorded her whereabouts as often as every two seconds, according to a database of more than a million phones in the New York area that was reviewed by The New York Times. While Ms. Magrin’s identity was not disclosed in those records, The Times was able to easily connect her to that dot.

The app tracked her as she went to a Weight Watchers meeting and to her dermatologist’s office for a minor procedure. It followed her hiking with her dog and staying at her ex-boyfriend’s home, information she found disturbing.

“It’s the thought of people finding out those intimate details that you don’t want people to know,” said Ms. Magrin, who allowed The Times to review her location data.

Like many consumers, Ms. Magrin knew that apps could track people’s movements. But as smartphones have become ubiquitous and technology more accurate, an industry of snooping on people’s daily habits has spread and grown more intrusive

Comments 1 - 10 of 10        Search these comments

1   Ceffer   2020 Jan 2, 11:38am  

My apps are the only ones who pay attention to me any more. I would be nothing without them.
2   Patrick   2020 Jan 11, 2:30pm  

Thing is, to use any location service, the phone generally has to send data back to servers to do the actual heavy number crunching.

Maybe you could get the phone to include constant requests for bogus locations in addition to the valid ones, but it would be hard, especially since phones don't publish all their source code and sometimes don't even work if you have modified the code on the phone. There are checksums to test whether the phone has been rooted, etc.

This phone might be better for privacy than Apple or Google (Android) phones:

https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
3   Booger   2020 Jan 11, 2:48pm  

Turn off location.
4   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Jan 11, 2:56pm  

Unfortunately, it's priced very high to try to futz around with. Though Linux does have Whatsapp and Skype.

Also the products page says 6 month lead time for shipping. I think Pureism is trying to replace a lot of notebook functionality by pimping the phone as an alternative to lugging one around.

https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

But, @Patrick, I did find a lower cost alternative - not sure about the hardware kill switch yet, but it will run linux. It's Pinephone:



https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/11/pinephone-specs-price-release-date
5   HeadSet   2020 Jan 11, 3:22pm  

Solution - leave your smart phone at home and still turned on. Then borrow your buddies phone when you go to the bordello.
6   Blue   2020 Jan 11, 5:06pm  

Booger says
Turn off location.

Does not help. There is one more hidden thing that send the location to mother ship in Android devices.
7   just_passing_through   2020 Jan 11, 11:36pm  

A linux phone with hardware good enough to be able to run android in a sandbox/VM would be great.
8   Tenpoundbass   2020 Jan 12, 8:48am  

I never log in my Google account on any Android phone anymore. I keep the apps pretty much stock if they can't be deleted, and never log into any of them.
Any content on the internet I need to see, I use the Android Browser only. And even then I only use The Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, and Gab.
The Google Commie Fags watching it all back at headquarters must hate me. And the thought of that makes me proud.
9   Patrick   2020 Jan 12, 10:52am  

NoCoupForYou says
Patrick, I did find a lower cost alternative - not sure about the hardware kill switch yet, but it will run linux. It's Pinephone


Thanks @NoCoupForYou

Thinking of ordering this, or maybe waiting for the first reviews from users.
10   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Jan 12, 10:54am  

I'll be ordering it ASAP. It's currently out of stock, the first deliveries of the first run are about now, so we should get some reviews shortly.

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