Fine, we'll force companies to allow a small little box to be added to their data center. Don't worry about what it does, but you cannot disconnect network/power to it once it is installed. Once it is operational, you'll no longer need to think about it ever again, and we recommend that you don't. You should also not talk about this box to users/customers/clients. In fact, you'd be better off if you didn't talk to your employees about it either.
Specifically, these big companies revenue share with app companies who in turn increase monetization via selling your private information, esp via free apps. In exchange for Apple etc super high app store rake percentage fees, they claim to run security vetting programs and ToS that vet who they do business with and tell users & courts that things are safe, even when they know they're not.
It's not rocket science for phone OS's to figure out who these companies are and, as iOS / android os users already get tracked by apple/google/etc, triangulate to which apps are participating
> consumer apps embed ad SDKs → those SDKs feed location signals into RTB ad exchanges → surveillance-oriented firms sit in the RTB pipeline and harvest bid request data even without winning auctions
Would you ban ad supported apps? Assuming the comment you're responding to is realistic, I'm not sure how the OS is to blame.
Just as importantly, apps aren't allowed to remove functionality if the user says no.
You need additional permissions to do things like access location data or scan local networks for device fingerprinting.
General Motors sold driving data to data brokers including LexisNexus. Anyone, private or government can buy data from LexisNexus.
That stupid game you installed a year ago, that's what gets you.
If you have a smartphone keep a very sharp eye on your location services, and whether they're in the state you expect them to be in. Also a great way to save your battery.
As if I had a choice.
As if politicians of any party care now, in a meaningful way.
As if news orgs were ever interested in security experts who sounded the klaxons (for years and years and years).
Even the "reasonable person" standard for court would probably conclude that most people would never read it.
For example you can have a truthful statement: “all of the apps that you have are constantly spying on you”
And the rejoinder is “ any given app is not specifically selling my data to specifically the FBI and so therefore it is not spying”
To which the response would be: “that is correct however the aggregate data is bundled and sold off to specifically the FBI or intelligence agencies and so there cannot be a logical differentiation between apps.”
By that point the person has downloaded another rewards app and added their drivers license to it.
And consent needs to be granted explicitly for each party that might get access to my location, you can't just get blanket consent to sell my location to anyone, especially not with real-time identifiable location data.
Don't deliberately write a loophole. No need for this part.
[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
This is very different from buying your data from a company especially when the user consented to their location being tracked.
Too many people in these threads jumping to anti-Trump when the real issue is how quick we are to give up our our privacy to use technology and then quickly turn to shock in anger when it’s used against us.
I would love for investigative groups to target the auto industry’s data collection practices and have meaningful legislation created and implemented as a result.
No, it's not 'very different'. When you sign a cellular contract you consent to all sorts of tracking and data collection, but it still requires a warrant for government to obtain.
If you consented, no warrant would be required.
If the SCOTUS case merely said "needs a warrant to access historical data"... it didn't say "only if acquired via specific means" (like a subpoena), right?
[1] https://ij.org/press-release/fbi-caught-trying-to-sweep-its-...
edit: downvoters, is this not true? this is a historic problem with the agencies. This doesn't mean it's not also a problem with this administration. Two things can be true at once. I like pancakes and waffles.
Every administration needs to deal with the conflict of protection versus privacy. They all do things that privacy advocates wish they didn't.
But not since the early 70s has one been so explicit that it wants to use the justice system to punish their enemies, without even the pretense of a criminal charge.
So I think you're being downvoted over the perception of both-sidesism.
https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-wir-wissen-wo-dein-auto-steht-vo...
Sure, you can get a burner, but you have to make sure you never use it anywhere near anyone you know, that the sim is obtained anonymously, that you're never imaged by any of the ubiquitous cameras, etc. Merely having it powered on provides enough metadata to establish a shadow profile, and it's nearly impossible for a person to secure two separate identities. There's also the superman problem - the burner phone would only ever appear when anonymars is missing, and vice versa, creating a real and exploitable pattern if anyone like the FBI wanted to root around in your life. All they'd have to do is query which shadow profiles match the temporal gaps correlated with your disappearance from tracking.
There's really no escaping it. The only fix is legislation - outright banning mass surveillance, with lethal corporate penalties and long prison terms for C-Suite responsible for violations. Short of that, we live in a world that is implicitly compromised and insecure unless you have nation state level resources.
This is nonsense. By your logic, people go 'missing' any time they are not using a computer, whether they're reading a book, in the shower, or asleep in bed.
And by doing this they stop a terror attack?
One more thought - if they buy just data for specific people related to an investigation, the seller of the data is tipped off. If they just buy all the data, then there is no potential tip-off to the target.
Then again, what I _really_ want is for the FBI to prevent crime. If their only solution is to let crime happen and then use a giant dragnet to put people in jail then they are less than worthless... they are actively dangerous to democracy.
And by doing this they stop a terror attack?
Fuck off. This is just trying to manipulate people with fear of undefined bad thing.
The FBI is violating the spirit and original intent of the 4A by creating an entire industry out of the “3rd party doctrine” bypass to the 4A. That doctrine was whole cloth created by SCOTUS and Congress has been too happy to avoid credit or blame for it to not enshrine it in statute.
No:
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
Many retail sites have a "find a nearby" store function. They often outsource this to a third party...for something as silly as geolocation and geographical lookups. This third party is the one that offers its services for a discount but also siphons up your location data to sell.
I know. It’s strange. I don’t agree with them. Generally, I think unless a judge and jury reliably witnessed a crime with their own eyes they shouldn’t convict and that prison is an evil place to dispossess the poor of what little dignity they have left after online advertising has raped their senses and datacenters have stolen their water (and don’t forget the atrocities in Gaza) but some other people have these views.
EDIT: why are you downvoting me, guys? I agree with you. Rittenhouse, Zimmerman et al. were good precedents. Trump’s presidential pardons are another thing that keeps free humans with dignity from prison but he hasn’t gone far enough. Regardless, his actions for Jan 6 protestors is one of the best actions for us to free people. These are all good things, even if they are incomplete and therefore imperfect.
"This article explains what these 13 potential effects of punishment are and how they have been theorized. It further reviews the body of available empirical evidence for each of these mechanisms."
The government is supposed to follow the law, be accountable, transparent, and must operate within a constrained, circumscribed zone of activity which is debated and discussed. That's at least how it's supposed to work.
Private companies are understood as amoral sharks who have no obligation to do anything other than operate in their narrowest self-interest, and the law is used as a club to beat them back from what they so clearly want to do, and will do if at all possible. They are unaccountable to anything other than the legal system and their share price. Suggesting that they might have any further obligation is tantamount to questioning whether capitalism should exist. It happens all the time on HN.
So of course the FBI would like to keep their hands mostly clean by having one of those accepted-to-be-horrible companies gather this data and then buy the resulting trove.
Unless you're saying Apple is selling the location information they may have directly?
They could also better enable network traffic inspection on device, so we could tell where data is going. LittleSnitch on iOS would be great.
Yet they can't write a law to make this basic practice illegal.
Why do I feel like I'm not being represented _at all_?
If you're lucky, it's pseudo-anonymous. Of course it's actually not - aggregated location data is inherently not anonymous.
https://www.wired.com/story/jeffrey-epstein-island-visitors-...
Might be cheaper than round the clock SWAT teams https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/us/politics/kash-patel-gi...
And then it turns out the video took place in Dallas.
We like to think there are all these barriers to bad things happening where we live. "I'm sure someone (not me) would stop that." But it turns out there isn't as much bulwark as we think. Or we're the bulwark, so if it isn't us, then there is nobody else.
I think in years past people would have objected to sale of personal location data. But that was before people had videos of groups of lawbreakers overwhelming laws through organized efforts.
You're saying organized crime is new? Or videos of it?
Also, isn't this breaking the constitution? It bypasses needing a warrant respectively having a objective suspicion.
I don't think that's been of much concern as of late.
Nope.
Your personal information, when given to others, is now trash on the curb (in a literal sense, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_v._Greenwood )
Buying it just clears up the chain of custody as opposed to the NSA stealing it and reverse engineering your warrant -- OR -- using the good ole stingray.