Category Archives: robert xiao

Verizon to Stop Sharing Customer Location Data With Third Parties

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In the wake of a scandal involving third-party companies leaking or selling precise, real-time location data on virtually all Americans who own a mobile phone, the four major wireless carriers have responded to requests from a U.S. senator for more details about how the carriers are managing access to this extremely sensitive information. While three out of four providers said they had cancelled data sharing agreements with some of the offending companies, only one — Verizon — pledged to terminate all of them and initiate a wholesale review of their location data-sharing practices. Continue reading Verizon to Stop Sharing Customer Location Data With Third Parties→

Mobile Giants: Please Don’t Share the Where

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Your mobile phone is giving away your approximate location all day long. This isn’t exactly a secret: It has to share this data with your mobile provider constantly to provide better call quality and to route any emergency 911 calls straight to your lo… Continue reading Mobile Giants: Please Don’t Share the Where→

LocationSmart bug allowed for leak of location data for nearly any U.S. phone

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A company that provides other companies with cell phone location-tracking services had an API on its website that inadvertently allowed anyone to freely look up the location of almost any cell phone in the United States. The bug was in a demo that the company, LocationSmart,  posted on its website. The demo was to show people that it could approximate their phones’ locations using nearby cell towers. A report published Thursday by independent security journalist Brian Krebs shows that it would have been easy for someone to abuse the demo to secretly locate nearly any U.S. phone. LocationSmart is a location-as-a-service company that gives its customers the ability to “track assets, connect with employees and engage with customers through one secure interface,” according to its website. The demo sent a text message to a device to get permission from its owner before pinging the nearest cell phone tower in order to send […]

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Continue reading LocationSmart bug allowed for leak of location data for nearly any U.S. phone→