ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨tonytins@pawb.social⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.404media.co/ice-to-buy-tool-that-tracks-locations-of-hundreds-of-millions-of-phones-every-day/

Archive: archive.is/wfmdL

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NoodlePoint@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Yeah, doing everything they can to make “land of the free” whiter.

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treadful@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Thanks for including the mirror, OP.

Companies that obtain mobile phone location data generally do it in two different ways. The first is through software development kits (SDKs) embedded in ordinary smartphone apps, like games or weather forecasters. These SDKs continuously gather a user’s granular location, transfer that to the data broker, and then sell that data onward or repackage it and sell access to government agencies.

The second is through real-time bidding (RTB). When an advert is about to be served to a mobile phone user, there is a near instantaneous, and invisible, bidding process in which different companies vie to have their advert placed in front of certain demographics. A side-effect is that this demographic data, including mobile phones’ location, can be harvested by surveillance firms. Sometimes spy companies buy ad tech companies out right to insert themselves into this data supply chain. We previously found at least thousands of apps were hijacked to provide location data in this way.

I really despise these practices. I don’t know how people can build these tools with a clear conscience.

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- otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  That’s easy. You just ignore your conscience because money speaks louder to these people.
  
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  - Venator@lemmy.nz ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Or you use confirmation bias to tell yourself it’s an innocuous use case that won’t hurt anyone.
    
    Or you use the bandwagon argument of “everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we”
    
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- gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s the same for anyone who works for Meta or MS or Google or Anduril or whatever these days: you look at your comp package that’s worth roughly half a million annually, and you say
  
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  They have been paying people to not have morals for quite a while now.
  
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- Cruxifux@feddit.nl ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Jesus fucking Christ. Time to delete the two games I’ve ever downloaded. Dunno if that even helps at this point.
  
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  - Beacon@fedia.io ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It's not specific to games, it's all apps that have ads
    
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  - SL3wvmnas@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I switched to /e/ a while ago, they have a feature called advanced privacy. commercial Lemmy clients like Connect and Raccoon have trackers embedded and are blocked automagically. ^I use Jerboa btw^
    
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- grue@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  I don’t know how people can build these tools with a clear conscience.
  
  Have you seen the job market for programmers lately? It feels like it’s almost all for AI slop, abusive rentier middleman business models that add no real value, ~~defense~~ war contractors, or all of the above at once.
  
  That’s not to say that it’s acceptable for people to work those jobs with a clear conscience; it’s to say that for a bunch of people the only ethical options would be to remain unemployed or leave the industry.
  
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  - njordomir@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’ve been seeing exactly that. Reading through these job descriptions is a bit depressing. I can’t virtue signal my lack of morality and unthinking subservience to my potential employer hard enough to make cutoff to become “Director of AI Shilling” or a “Dark Pattern Consent Violation Engineer”.
    
    I know the kind of environments that won’t work for me. This will always limit the jobs I can and can’t work and I’m generally okay with that. I would love some of that bountiful defence contractor money, but I can’t ethically justify doing work that harms others or limits their freedom. Advertising tech would have been a good fit for me… if I had no sense of ethics.
    
    It’s a tough realization that my gaming consoles, GPS Smart Watch, and fancy modern over-engineered car only became possible because tons of money was poured into building out related tech for defence and surveillance.
    
    I imagine the cognitive dissonance must be really strong in someone working for some of these companies that have monetized governmentally sanctioned or corporately opportunistic civil rights abuses. Then again, we’re often kept apart, working in our own little areas where we’re safe from having to see the whole horrifying machine.
    
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- interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  build these tools with a clear conscience.
  
  Because if they don’t their masters they will become destitute and starve while homeless
  
  And all social interaction happen at veiled gunpoint
  
  Under these conditions it is no surprise at all that conscience plays no role whatsoever, it is just a savage free-for-all for survival happening under our cursed star, an insane 10 billion years long churning of thinking meat, consciousness behind birthed into the wreckage, screaming uncomprehendingly at what is happened until it soon it is just as easily, mercifully and meaninglessly snuffed out again.
  
  Fortunately we have a shot at scorching the surface of this planet thanks to global warming and really the question is, can we make it happen before we genocide ourselves, leaving this planet’s biosphere still capable of sustaining the horrors of life ?
  
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  - treadful@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    You should really talk to some real in-the-flesh people.
    
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altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Time for meshtasctic? Or nothing. How about never using our phones again?

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SlippiHUD@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If the government had a right to that data they wouldn’t need to pay for it, they could just subpoena it. But they don’t, so instead they’re paying middle men to circumvent our rights.

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barnaclebutt@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
A proper Linux phone cannot come soon enough

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- StefanT@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  As much as I would love to have a Linux phone, it will not fully help with privacy. The devices are logged into a cell tower and have a unique ID. This alone makes them trackable.
  
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  - Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    A removable physical or electronic SIM on a system that has full control of inbound or outbound traffic (linux phone) would still be a whole lot better than nothing. Imagine having a switch to reliably sever any heartbeat signals between the tower and the device at any time.
    
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  - barnaclebutt@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    If the spyware/tracking started and ended at the cell tower it would be a good start. I’m not sure the sensor data would be sent to the tower either. It would just be a general area.
    
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  - mostlikelyaperson@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yup, the baseband modem does what it’s firmware tells it to, and that’s entirely independent from the phone’s software. And open baseband modems to my knowledge don’t exist.
    
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- Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The pinephone released years ago. Flip phones with removable batteries have existed for decades. At this point its on you.
  
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Formfiller@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Trump’s executive order just made anyone who is critical of his administration criminal conduct a terrorist by royal decree. We all should be armed and prepared to defend ourselves and our families against tyranny. They’re “disappearing” people without accountability. The pedo king literally declared war on citizens for not conforming to his dictatorship.

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- DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Nope.
  
  He should be tried and executed for treason, but those in leadership positions in our country have betrayed their oaths. That means we all need to be armed to the fucking teeth as soon as possible.
  
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betanumerus@lemmy.ca ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This appears to show that smartphone makers (Apple, Google, etc.) are violating privacy agreements and selling our private data. Has anyone read their privacy agreements lately?

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- LordCrom@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Not just phone makers, but the telecom companies. Even if your phone shares no location data, it still checks in with a cell tower constantly. As you move around, so does your registration at a tower. It’s accurate to about 2 miles. Match that with your known home address or work address and your location is easily guessed
  
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  - Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    They don’t need the cooperation of telecom providers. They receive the same signal you send to the cell tower. Even if the signal is encrypted so they can’t see what you are sending, they can identify that you are sending.
    
    With enough receivers listening, they can identify your location to a pretty high accuracy.
    
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- interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Everyone knows Apple said they would never do that and that one time defied the FBI about it. Are you saying Tim Cook would just ~lie~ let a false impression stand ?
  
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  - Garbagio@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    They have since capitulated, and have done so prior to the trump admin.
    
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- Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Privacy policies are irrelevant here. They are picking up unique data as your phone communicates with a cell tower. You can do it with a $15 RTL-SDR receiver.
  
  Get a hundred receivers and you can pinpoint anybody in a city.
  
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ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So they will know where I have been? Even though I am not American… I remember when the British government demanded that Apple give them that kind of information on all iPhone users all over the world and Apple told them to go fuck themselves.

This is some real bullshit.

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- cyberwitch@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  techcrunch.com/…/uk-government-tries-again-to-acc… they don’t know when to quit
  
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  - ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Because they will never quit. Ever. We need to get lucky and stop them every time (and I feel powerless beyond signing some petition online and maybe making a donation), but they need to get lucky once.
    
    And I cannot recall a single time that such laws were ever repealed. The patriot act has had some questionable efficacy and now ICE and the Trump administration want so many more additions that there is just no going back.
    
    Even in Canada, which never had an issue with terrorism, has passed many laws heavily infringing on people’s freedoms and are trying to pass the biggest one yet with Bill C-2, even though it actually weakens border protections and gives American companies far, far more ability to surveil Canadians than ever before. This is when violence and terror threats have been greatly diminishing for years (and not because of some BS laws).
    
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sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Bro…my weather app is selling my data? 😦

I just wanted up-to-date travel conditions in a convenient widget. My taxes already pay for the meteorology, why do they need to sell my data too??

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- Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Because greed.
  
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  - sadfitzy@ttrpg.network ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    And useful idiots like /u/alaknar.
    
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  - Alaknar@sopuli.xyz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Show me one weather app that’s state-sponsored (therefore: paid by taxes) that sells data to boost income.
    
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- Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  My taxes already pay for the meteorology
  
  Yeah, but it got privatized, so now you need to pay more money to a 3rd party to access the services you are already paying money to access.
  
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  - 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    And pay a 4th party to go around removing you from data broker lists, is the expectation
    
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- lemonySplit@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Plenty of FOSS weather apps out there that don’t sell your data. I like Breezy Weather
  
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- Alaknar@sopuli.xyz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  If you want the weather info sponsored by your taxes, use the browser.
  
  If you want a convenient widget, someone needs to make it, and the developer who made that widget needs to eat too.
  
  You can either buy an app or pay with your data.
  
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  - sadfitzy@ttrpg.network ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    and the developer who made that widget needs to eat too.
    
    He can eat without selling people’s data.
    
    This isn’t about putting food on the table and you’re a dipshit if you believe otherwise.
    
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  - ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    You can either buy an app or pay with your data.
    
    No this implies you get a choice, which you don’t. You can get it for free and sell your data, or you can pay for it…and still also sell your data. The real money is in the data, they won’t give that up…ever.
    
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  - frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    If my taxes can pay to develop a website, they can pay to develop a widget.
    
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  - dafta@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Breezy Weather
    
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portuga@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Is it me or are these ice goons getting fatter everyday? Are they eating the immigrants?

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- Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Meal Team 6, Fatstapo, etc.
  
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DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This reminds me of something… What was it… Hmm…

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- tonytins@pawb.social ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  And that was before the NSA leaks.
  
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  - DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    And in case it wasn’t already clear enough how absurd this all is, the creeps at Palantir are now actually so brazen as to officially call one of their mass surveillance systems “Project Gotham”…brave new world.
    
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betanumerus@lemmy.ca ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This will not help sale of smartphones.

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- jve@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  This will not affect sale of smartphones.
  
  FTFY
  
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- filcuk@lemmy.zip ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It will not hinder it either. People will give up many things before their smartphones.
  
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  - southrydge@lemdro.id ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I wish I could but feels like every job requires me to have some sort of app
    
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Teal@piefed.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Some choices to help would be to avoid using precise location for weather apps. Course is usually very good unless you’re a weather tracking hobbyist. If you’re not using ad blocking it’s never a bad time to start.

Ad blocking in browser is good but combined with a DNS service that offers block lists like Hagezi’s options it’s great. These lists can block a lot of tracking and telemetry data and not just the ads themselves. ControlD and NextDNS are two solid options. NextDNS doesn’t offer Hagezi Threat Intelligence Feeds specifically but have their own proprietary version. The company claims it covers much of Hagezi’s lists but I haven’t compared.

ControlD has a 30 day free trial period with two plans either $20 or $40 per year. The $40 per year option has a future called Redirect. Their description “Spoof various web services, apps and platforms to geo-distributed proxy locations and appear to be in a different country”.

NextDNS has a free plan that can be used on multiple devices. Paid is $20 per year for unlimited. The catch to the free plan is it’s good for 300,000 queries per month. If you get close they email a warning and if you go over the service will still work as a DNS but without the blocking. It will automatically start again the next cycle.

Here’s the Hagezi GitHub but other lists are good too like OISD and AdGuard lists.

https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists

I use Ultimate but that may be too restricted for some. It will break websites and apps like FaceBook, WhatsApp, Instagram. If you use those a slightly less strict list a better choice. You’ll still get protection but there’s a balance to everyone’s needs so do read up on each list and what makes sense for you.

All that wrapped in a trusted VPN and you’re doing pretty well. Nothing is perfect and if a government power wants to know where you are this isn’t going to stop them. For me that’s not what this is for. I use this stuff against the ads and tracking crap everywhere. I’m not trying to hide and can’t really offer much regarding that.

I’m maybe a bit over the top compared to some. If this all sounds crazy a simple ad blocker (AdGuard, uBlock Origin) in browser and course location for weather and anything else location based that makes sense is a solid start. You can always whitelist websites you wish to support via ad revenue if that’s an interest.

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- modus@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Can I upload these lists to my PiHole?
  
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  - Teal@piefed.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yes they can be used with a PiHole. I don’t use one so I can’t offer much for set up. On the GitHub page each list version has various links depending on the format needed for where it will be used. For example, PiHole is under the Adblock format which works with (Pi-hole, AdGuard, AdGuard Home, eBlocker, uBlock Origin, Brave (only in aggressive mode), AdNauseam, Little Snitch Mini).
    
    In my research about this stuff I saw many people talking about these lists for their own home DNS set up. Good luck!
    
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brachiosaurus@mander.xyz ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They already have it

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance

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ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Ever wondered what it would have been like if the gestapo had real-time awareness of every citizen’s location at all times? You’re about to find out.

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nucleative@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Looking forward to joining you guys in the upcoming rebellion.

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- Holytimes@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  But I am le tired
  
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  - ReginaPhalange@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Ok take a nap…
    
    But then fire ze missiles!
    
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Sam_Bass@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Next we’ll be reading how android has removed the ability to disable location

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Arondeus@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Hmm can’t seem to load the archive site so haven’t read the whole thing. Anyone know details of how this works? Are we all fucked if we have a phone or is staying off social media and hardening security with something like Graphene OS enough to keep you out of their system?

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- Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  GrapheneOS already runs google play services in a sandbox that doesn’t have core access to the device’s functionality (you can lie about giving apps storage access or location data, for example), and because you already have alternatives to ad-based services (CoMaps, Thunderbird, etc…) you should be safer from telemetry often hidden inside of popular apps like Google Maps.
  
  Nothing’s bulletproof, of course, but the difference with GrapheneOS is that you can see what’s going on, grant permissions selectively to certain apps, or opt out entirely by only installing F-droid apps or using Graphene’s FOSS suite. You don’t have pre-baked telemetry at all, so nothing for them to harvest.
  
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minorkeys@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Their job is to track, find, abduct, imprison and deport people. That skillset and logistic apparatus is as effective against everyone as it is immigrants.

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- AngryRobot@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The American Gestapo.
  
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andallthat@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I track the location of hundreds maybe thousands of phones every day for minutes at the time. I see people using them while I commute. Where can I collect my fee from the US government for my services?

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- betanumerus@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I own my data so let’s meet where you can pay me what you owe me.
  
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MrSulu@lemmy.ml ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I think we all need to spend time on the privacy and security channels here. There are ways to resolve this data leaking. Also simple settings on your devices

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ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
And they say there’s never any good news.

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three@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
As someone with nothing to hide, I’m ok with this.

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- crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Cool, let me see all your usernames and passwords then.
  
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- YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
  
  [Cardinal Richelieu]
  
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- ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Scrolling through your comment history I see at a glance you’ve deleted several of your own comments so you have at least something to hide
  
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- themurphy@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That’s legal today might be illegal tomorrow. Short sighted comment.
  
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- wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Take your clothes off then, and burn them, if you’ve ‘got nothing to hide’. Let’s see your address and ssn. Where do you work, and what position do you hold?
  
  Oh, suddenly you have changed your stance on the matter… funny how that works.
  
  Try searching for yourself and let the realization and dread set in that most of those hypothetical questions I just asked, I can find out, without needing to ask you directly - because you’ve given them away, while having ‘nothing to hide’.
  
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- TommySoda@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Alright, then show me your text messages and location data over the past year. If you have nothing to hide then it should be no big deal, right?
  
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  - three@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Show me your badge; identify yourself as a law enforcement officer and we got a deal.
    
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SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Good luck buying your spyware with a frozen budget

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