Category Archives: geolocation

Identifying People Using Cell Phone Location Data

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The two people who shut down four Washington power stations in December were arrested. This is the interesting part:

Investigators identified Greenwood and Crahan almost immediately after the attacks took place by using cell phone data that allegedly showed both men in the vicinity of all four substations, according to court documents.

Nowadays, it seems like an obvious thing to do—although the search is probably unconstitutional. But way back in 2012, the Canadian CSEC—that’s their NSA—did some top-secret work on this kind of thing. The document is part of the Snowden archive, and I …

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Differences in App Security/Privacy Based on Country

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Depending on where you are when you download your Android apps, it might collect more or less data about you.

The apps we downloaded from Google Play also showed differences based on country in their security and privacy capabilities. One hundred twenty-seven apps varied in what the apps were allowed to access on users’ mobile phones, 49 of which had additional permissions deemed “dangerous” by Google. Apps in Bahrain, Tunisia and Canada requested the most additional dangerous permissions.

Three VPN apps enable clear text communication in some countries, which allows unauthorized access to users’ communications. One hundred and eighteen apps varied in the number of ad trackers included in an app in some countries, with the categories Games, Entertainment and Social, with Iran and Ukraine having the most increases in the number of ad trackers compared to the baseline number common to all countries…

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Water Level Sensor Does Not Use Water Level Sensor

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When interfacing with the real world, there are all kinds of sensors available which will readily communicate with your microcontroller of choice. Moisture, pH, humidity, temperature, location, light, and essentially …read more Continue reading Water Level Sensor Does Not Use Water Level Sensor→

FTC Sues Data Broker

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This is good news:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Kochava, a large location data provider, for allegedly selling data that the FTC says can track people at reproductive health clinics and places of worship, according to an announcement from the agency.

“Defendant’s violations are in connection with acquiring consumers’ precise geolocation data and selling the data in a format that allows entities to track the consumers’ movements to and from sensitive locations, including, among others, locations associated with medical care, reproductive health, religious worship, mental health temporary shelters, such as shelters for the homeless, domestic violence survivors, or other at risk populations, and addiction recovery,” …

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Most top mobile carriers retain geolocation data for two years on average, FCC findings show

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Only seven of the companies explicitly mentioned protecting that data with encryption.

The post Most top mobile carriers retain geolocation data for two years on average, FCC findings show appeared first on CyberScoop.

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