they know what you are doing

[micjer]

Your smartphone can be tracked even if GPS, location services are turned off


According to Princeton researchers, the smartphone user wouldn't even know their phone was being tracked.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/your-smartphone-can-be-tracked-even-if-gps-location-services-are-turned-off/


The only way to get around this was to take the battery out of your phone.

Well I just got a new blackberry.  You cannot take the battery out of it. (without damaging something)  It is glued in so you have to pry it out.  

[Irene]

Your smartphone can be tracked even if GPS, location services are turned off

According to Princeton researchers, the smartphone user wouldn't even know their phone was being tracked.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/your-smartphone-can-be-tracked-even-if-gps-location-services-are-turned-off/

The only way to get around this was to take the battery out of your phone.

Well I just got a new blackberry.  You cannot take the battery out of it. (without damaging something)  It is glued in so you have to pry it out.

Hi Mic,

I guess we all pretty much knew this already.

Good reminder that we are under The Big Eye at all times. 👍
Irene 

[space otter]

have you ever felt you were being watched/ followed?  yikes !!!


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/air-marshals-have-conducted-secret-in-flight-monitoring-of-us-passengers-for-years/ar-BBLeKPO?li=BBnb7Kz

The Washington Post
Air marshals have conducted secret in-flight monitoring of U.S. passengers for years
Missy Ryan, Ashley Halsey  44 mins ago

Federal air marshals have for years been quietly monitoring small numbers of U.S. air passengers and reporting on in-flight behavior considered suspicious, even if those individuals have no known terrorism links, the Transportation Security Administration said on Sunday.

Under a sensitive, previously undisclosed program called "Quiet Skies," the TSA has since 2010 tasked marshals to identify passengers who raise flags because of travel histories or other factors and conduct secret observations of their actions — including behavior as common as sweating heavily or using the restroom repeatedly — as they fly between U.S. destinations.

The Boston Globe first revealed the existence of the Quiet Skies program on Sunday. In response to questions, TSA spokesman James O. Gregory offered more details of the program's origins and goals, comparing it to other law enforcement activities that ask officers to closely monitor individuals or areas vulnerable to crime.

"We are no different than the cop on the corner who is placed there because there is an increased possibility that something might happen," Gregory said. "When you're in a tube at 30,000 feet . . . it makes sense to put someone there."

The TSA declined to provide complete information on how individuals are selected for Quiet Skies and how the program works.

According to the TSA, the program used travel records and other factors to identify passengers who will be subject to additional checks at airports and, sometimes, be observed in flight by air marshals who report on their activities to the agency.

The initiative raises new questions about the privacy of ordinary Americans as they go about routine travel within the United States and about the broad net cast by law enforcement as it seeks to keep air travel safe.

Gregory said the program did not single out passengers based on race or religion and should not be considered surveillance because the agency does not, for example, listen to passengers' calls or follow flagged individuals around airports.

But during in-flight observation of people who are tagged as Quiet Skies passengers, marshals use an agency checklist to record passenger behavior: Did he or she sleep during the flight? Did he or she use a cellphone? Look around erratically?

"The program analyzes information on a passenger's travel patterns while taking the whole picture into account," Gregory said, adding "an additional line of defense to aviation security."

"If that person does all that stuff, and the airplane lands safely and they move on, the behavior will be noted, but they will not be approached or apprehended," Gregory said.

He declined to say whether the program has resulted in arrests or disruption of any criminal plots.

Hugh Handeyside, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, called on the TSA to provide more information about the program to passengers.

"Such surveillance not only makes no sense, it is a big waste of taxpayer money and raises a number of constitutional questions," he said. "These concerns and the need for transparency are all the more acute because of TSA's track record of using unreliable and unscientific techniques to screen and monitor travelers who have done nothing wrong."

The TSA, which was created soon after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, screens on average more than 2 million passengers a day.

While the agency is tasked with a weighty public safety mission, it has at times been publicly rebuked for being intrusive and abusive at airport checkpoints. It has been accused of doing little to enhance security while subjecting passengers to searches or questioning.

In 2015, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general found that undercover agents were able to slip fake bombs past TSA screeners about 95 percent of the time. A year later, the flying public was in an uproar over long lines to move through security screening.

But TSA officials have said that ensuring public safety while keeping passengers moving has made their work difficult.

"We have a no-fail mission," former TSA administrator Peter Neffinger told members of Congress in 2015.

The agency has also been criticized for its treatment of Muslims and other minorities who have complained of being profiled while traveling.

Earlier this year, media reports revealed that the agency had compiled a secret list of unruly passengers.

Passengers may be selected for Quiet Skies screening because of their affiliation with someone on the government's no-fly list or other government databases aimed at preventing terrorist attacks.

"This program raises a whole host of civil liberties and profiling concerns," said Faiza Patel, co-director of the New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice.

Critics say the TSA's databases are overly broad and include outdated and erroneous information.

The no-fly list, for example, grew from about 16 people in September 2001 to 64,000 people in 2014.

But Patel, an attorney, said that law enforcement officials are generally free to surveil individuals as long as they do not do so based on criteria such as ethnicity.

[Irene]

I'm sorry. This is incredibly funny to me. I'm fat and I drink a lot of tea, so I get overheated when everyone else is freezing and I use the bathroom a lot, although not on airplanes.

I guess I'm a terrorist.

Then there are the spot security checks of the TSA types. They routinely fail to find dummy guns and bombs, and even real guns.

And, in 1997, my sister and I did a horseback trip, Bisbee to Tombstone, so we were dressed for the saddle the whole time in Arizona.

Flying out, these geniuses swabbed our bags for bombs. I offered to open mine right before they did it and they freaked out like I was going to blow them to Kingdom Come.

I near peed my pants at the comedy show.

This really is a joke to me. Most people don't know their ass from a gopher hole when it comes to human behavior.

[Shasta56]

I don't even know what I'm doing sometimes.  I know I suffered through the Blood Moon eclipse.  I had my first experience treating a gunshot wound.  I got mooned twice, cause the guy got shot in the ass.

[The Seeker]

Over the last 8 years I have flown close to a 100 times, traveling around the country for the company I worked for, and the amount of bullshit I had to endure varied from one airport to the next; I have a lot of metal in my body, which tends to put their scanner on tilt, so I have run the gamut from being patted down, hand wanded, and in 2 cases strip searched.

I would just about guarantee that the air marshal on a lot of those flights was informed of my seat number so they could give me the hairy eyeball...

Sorry I had to disappoint them 

[space otter]

https://qz.com/1349446/facebook-wants-your-banking-information-too/

Facebook wants your banking information, too
By Hanna KozlowskaAugust 6, 2018

Facebook would like to peek into your bank account.

The social network approached several major US banks to let customers access their account balances or get fraud alerts on Messenger, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Aug.6). This would mean that detailed customer information, including credit card purchases, would be shared with the tech platform.

Over the past year, as it was facing a storm of criticism over privacy issues, the company asked banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup to discuss cooperation, according to the Journal.

Big US banks were hesitant and had privacy concerns over sharing customer data with Facebook, the Journal reported. But in other countries, banks haven't had the same qualms. In Singapore, Citigroup already offers a Messenger bot that lets you check your
account balance, for example. A South African bank recently introduced a feature that allows users to check their account balance on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.

"Facebook has told banks that the additional customer information could be used to offer services that might entice users to spend more time on Messenger, a person familiar with the discussions said," the Journal wrote.

Facebook told Quartz that it disagrees the Wall Street Journal's characterization of its talks with the banks, and pointed out that it already offers similar services in the US, with PayPal and American Express. An Amex bot, in fact, can track your purchases, and allows you to check your balance.

Facebook says that a "critical part" of these partnerships is to keep
"people's information safe and secure." But when a platform is built on amassing user data and using it for advertising purposes, it's only natural for questions of exploitation and privacy—particularly after the Cambridge Analytica scandal—to arise.

"A recent WSJ story implies incorrectly that we are actively asking financial services companies for financial transaction data—this is not true. Like many online companies with commerce businesses, we partner with banks and credit card companies to offer services like customer chat or account management," the company said in a statement. "Account linking," as Facebook calls it, lets users get keep track of transactions, balances, or shipping updates on Messenger, and it's an opt-in feature, it added.

A spokesperson for Facebook clarified that the company specifically disputes any suggestion that it asked for data, or that it would use it for anything else—like advertising—than just the experience on Messenger. However, the financial information would have to pass through Facebook's servers, the company confirmed.

The financial services industry is worried about competition from tech companies, which keep introducing new ways of making payments through their platforms, Quartz reported last year. Barclays CEO Jes Staley said that banks likely have the "richest data pool" of all sectors, and they should learn how to use it themselves to help fend off the ambitions of Silicon Valley. If platforms like Facebook have control of payment systems they will know "every single thing you do," Robert Kapito, president of the asset manager BlackRock, said during a banking conference.

[space otter]

as much as i dislike social media bs  when they get rid of it all - then i will be worried

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45183041

Google tracks users who turn off location history
By Jane Wakefield
Technology reporter
4 hours ago

The study found that users had to turn off another setting in order to disable location being recorded

Google records users' locations even when they have asked it not to, a report from the Associated Press has suggested.

The issue could affect up to two billion Android and Apple devices which use Google for maps or search.

The study, verified by researchers at Princeton University, has angered US law-makers.

Google said in response that it provides clear descriptions of its tools and how to turn them off.

The study found that users' whereabouts are recorded even when location history has been disabled.

For example:

Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you open the Maps app
Automatic weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where a user is
Searches that have nothing to do with location pinpoint precise longitude and latitude of users
'Pretty sneaky'
To illustrate the effect of these location markers, AP created a visual map showing the movements of Princeton researcher Gunes Acar who was using an Android phone with location history turned off.

The map showed his train commute around New York as well as visits to The High Line park, Chelsea Market, Hell's Kitchen, Central Park and Harlem. It also revealed his home address.

To stop Google saving these location markers, users have to turn off another setting called Web and App Activity, which is enabled by default and which does not mention location data.

Disabling this prevents Google storing information generated by searches and other activities which can limit the effectiveness of its digital assistant.

"You would think that telling Google that you didn't want your location to be tracked by disabling an option called "Location History" would stop the internet giant from storing data about your location," writes security researcher Graham Cluley on his blog.

"It seems pretty sneaky to me that Google continues to store location data, unless you both disable "Location history" and "Web & App Activity.""

In response, Google told AP: "There are a number of different ways that Google may use location to improve people's experience, including: Location History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services.

"We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time."

Corporate practices
Facebook and Google use 'dark patterns' in privacy settings
Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws
Gmail messages 'read by human third parties'
Following its research, AP created a guide to show users how to delete location data.

Presented with the evidence of the AP study, Democratic senator Mark Warner accused technology companies of having "corporate practices that diverge wildly from the totally reasonable expectation of their users".

Democratic congressman Frank Pallone called for "comprehensive consumer privacy and data security legislation".

In the UK, a spokesman for the Information Commissioner's Office told the BBC: "Under the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, organisations have a legal duty to be open, transparent and fair with the public about how their personal data is used.

"Anybody who has concerns about how an organisation is handling their personal information can contact the ICO."

Technology firms are under fire for not being clear about privacy settings and how to use them. In June, a report from the Norwegian Consumer Council found evidence that privacy-friendly options are hidden away or obscured.

Location-based advertising offers big opportunities to marketers. According to research firm BIA/Kelsey, US brands are poised to spend up to $20.6bn (£16.3bn) on targeted mobile ads in 2018.

Since 2014, Google has let advertisers track the effectiveness of online adverts with a feature based on footfall data, which relies on location history.

[Pimander]

I noticed Google maps finding my location whenever I search for a place.   If often returns a map showing the place AND my location so it knows where you are whenever you search for a place using Google.  That is different to recording it but...

If you want to search and not reveal your location then use this TAILS.

https://tails.boum.org/

[space otter]

08/25/2018 08:01 am ET
India's Biometric Database Is Creating A Perfect Surveillance State — And U.S. Tech Companies Are On Board

The Aadhaar program offers a glimpse of the tech world's latest quest to control our lives, where dystopias are created in the name of helping the impoverished.

By Paul Blumenthal and Gopal Sathe

Big U.S. technology companies are involved in the construction of one of the most intrusive citizen surveillance programs in history.

For the past nine years, India has been building the world's biggest biometric database by collecting the fingerprints, iris scans and photos of nearly 1.3 billion people. For U.S. tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, the project, called Aadhaar (which means "proof" or "basis" in Hindi), could be a gold mine.

The CEO of Microsoft has repeatedly praised the project, and local media have carried frequent reports on consultations between the Indian government and senior executives from companies like Apple and Google (in addition to South Korean-based Samsung) on how to make tech products Aadhaar-enabled. But when reporters of HuffPost and HuffPost India asked these companies in the past weeks to confirm they were integrating Aadhaar into their products, only one company ― Google ― gave a definitive response.

That's because Aadhaar has become deeply controversial, and the subject of a major Supreme Court of India case that will decide the future of the program as early as this month. Launched nine years ago as a simple and revolutionary way to streamline access to welfare programs for India's poor, the database has become Indians' gateway to nearly any type of service ― from food stamps to a passport or a cell phone connection. Practical errors in the system have caused millions of poor Indians to lose out on aid. And the exponential growth of the project has sparked concerns among security researchers and academics that India is the first step toward setting up a surveillance society to rival China.

A Scheme Born In The U.S.
Tapping into Aadhaar would help big tech companies access the data and transactions of millions of users in the second most populous country on earth, explained Usha Ramanathan, a Delhi-based lawyer, legal researcher and one of Aadhaar's most vocal critics.

The idea for India's national biometric identification team wasn't unprecedented, and in fact, it has strong parallels with a system proposed for the United States. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison, offered to build the U.S. government software for a national identification system that would include a centralized computer database of all U.S. citizens. The program never got off the ground amid objections from privacy and civil liberties advocates, but India's own Ellison figure, Nandan Nilekani, had a similar idea. The billionaire founder of IT consulting giant Infosys, Nilekani conceptualized Aadhaar as a way to eliminate waste and corruption in India's social welfare programs. He lobbied the government to bring in Aadhaar, and went on to run the project under the administration of Manmohan Singh. Nilekani gained even more influence under current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who moved to make Aadhaar necessary for almost any kind of business in India.

The first 12-digit Aadhaar ID was issued in 2010. Today, over a billion people (around 89 percent of India's population) have been included in the system ― from India's unimaginably wealthy billionaires to the homeless, from residents of the country's sprawling cities to remote inaccessible villages. While initially a voluntary program, the database is now linked to just about all government programs. You need an Aadhaar ID to get a passport issued or renewed. Aadhaar was made mandatory for operating a bank account, using a cell phone or investing in mutual funds, only for the proposals to be rolled back pending the Supreme Court verdict on the constitutionality of the project.

As Aadhaar identification became integrated into other systems like banking, cell phones and government programs, tech companies can use the program to cross-reference their datasets against other databases and assemble a far more detailed and intrusive picture of Indians' lives. That would allow them, for example, to better target products or advertising to the vast Indian population. "You can take a unique identifying number and use it to find data in different sectors," explained Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, an American public interest research group. "That number can be cross-walked across all the different parts of their life."

Microsoft, which uses Aadhaar in a new version of Skype to verify users, declined to talk about its work integrating products with the Aadhaar database. But Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, has publicly endorsed Aadhaar and his foundation is funding a World Bank program to bring Aadhaar-like ID programs to other countries. Gates has also argued that ID verification schemes like Aadhaar in itself don't pose privacy issues. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has repeatedly praised Aadhaar in both his recent book and a tour across India.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment, but according to a BuzzFeed report, the company told Indian customers not uploading a copy of Aadhaar "might result in a delay in the resolution or no resolution" of cases where packages were missing.

Facebook, too, failed to respond to repeated requests for comment, though the platform's prompts for users to log in with the same name as their Aadhaar card prompted suspicions from users that it wanted everyone to use their Aadhaar-verified names and spellings so they could later build in Aadhaar functionality with minimal problems.

A spokesman for Google, which has its own payments platform in India called Tez, told HuffPost that the company has not integrated any of its products with Aadhaar. But there was outrage earlier in August when the Aadhaar helpline was added to Android phones without informing users. Google claimed in a statement to the Economic Times this happened "inadvertently"

Privacy Jeopardized For Millions
But the same features that are set to make tech companies millions are are also the ones that threaten the privacy and security of millions of Indians.

"As long as [the data] is being shared with so many people and services and companies, without knowing who has what data, it will always be an issue," said Srinivas Kodali, an independent security researcher. "They can't protect it until they encrypt it and stop sharing data."

One government website allowed users to search and geolocate homes on the basis of caste and religion ― sparking fears of ethnic and religious violence in a country where lynchings, beatings and mob violence are commonplace. Another website broadcast the names, phone numbers and medical purchases — like generic Viagra and HIV medication — of anyone who buys medicines from government stores. In another leak, a Google search for phone numbers of farmers in Andhra Pradesh would reveal their Aadhaar numbers, address, fathers' names and bank account numbers.

The leaks are aggravated by "a Star Trek-type obsession" with data dashboards, said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society. Many government departments each created an online data dashboard with detailed personal records on individuals, he explained. The massive centralization of personal data, he said, created a huge security risk as these dashboards were accessible to any government official and in many cases, were even left open to the public.

Authentication failures have led to deaths among the poorest sections of Indian society when people were denied government food rations.

And much like the tech companies, some local governments are using the system to connect data sets and build expansive surveillance. In the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, there's a war room next to the state chief minister's office, where a wall of screens shows details from databases that collect information from every department. There are security cameras and dashboards that track every mention of the chief minister on the news. There's a separate team watching what's being said about him on social media and there are also dashboards that collect information from IoT [Internet of Things] sensors across the state. 

Court Ruling Could Halt Rollout
Those issues around privacy are why the dreams of government bureaucrats and large tech companies to build a perfect surveillance apparatus around Aadhaar may ultimately fall apart. The Supreme Court of India is set to decide on a case that could decide the future of the program. 

The court is set to review 27 petitions, including whether requiring an Aadhaar for government subsidies and benefits makes access to these programs conditional, even though the state is constitutionally bound to deliver them. The petitioners include lawyers, academics and a 92-year-old retired judge whose petition also secured the right to privacy as a fundamental right in August 2017. Petitioners also argue that the ability for Aadhaar to be used to track and profile people is unconstitutional.

In its judgment, due any day now, the court will rule on all 27 petitions together. It will decide not only the fate of the Aadhaar Act of 2016, but likely the future involvement of some of tech's biggest companies in one of the world's most ambitious and divisive IT projects.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/india-aadhuar-tech-companies_us_5b7ebc53e4b0729515109fd0

[fansongecho]

I heard an excellent quote the other day on one of the YT channels - cant recall which one, but it was something to the effect .. "we live in an electronic gulag"

seems about right to me 

[zorgon]

I heard an excellent quote the other day on one of the YT channels - cant recall which one, but it was something to the effect .. "we live in an electronic gulag"

Pretty much true...

Microsoft was sold by Bill Gates... now in the hands of Satya Narayana Nadella from India.
Satya Narayana Nadella (born 19 August 1967) is an Indian American business executive. He is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014.

Windows 10 is a nasty spy program that automatically updates against your will and changes your settings and even deletes programs...  I found a fix that requires regedit but it works.   But a few weeks ago Cortana took over ny computer... I was shut out for 6 hours. When I got back in there was the Cortana screen over riding everything.... I had to use an earlier restore point and since then Win 10 no longer gets in.  Cortana and Windows collects a TON of data on you and can listen in if you have microphone and camera.  Stores it at Microsoft  You supposedly can go in and erase it and block it. Tried that... they said I need to wait 30 days before I can access it "for security reasons"

Microsoft techs online take the attitude that they are doing YOU a favor protecting you from yourself.  They are all from India.  Since India still has the caste system, you are dealing with a group mind...... So they were no help stopping the updates. I found a geek site that gave me the registration codes to change.  LOL I posted that solution in the Microsoft forum  Many people said thanks... techs were pissed off

Most tech support on the phone and customer service redirects to someone in India that barely speaks English and goes by the book with pat answers. They are told to pass you on if you get angry. They say "I will inform the other dept of your problem"  you hear some typing, then they forward you... only to have to explain it all to the next one again.  They do this hoping you give up. 

Don't give up... become a pain in their butt and they will eventually give you to a supervisor who will fix it to get rid of you

[ArMaP]

Windows 10 is a nasty spy program that automatically updates against your will and changes your settings and even deletes programs...

It's only a spy program if you let it, like most other programs today. Smartphones are worse, and people don't complain that much.
And no, it does not delete programs in its normal working, only when something foes wrong. I have more than 1000 items on my start menu and I never lost one.

But a few weeks ago Cortana took over ny computer... I was shut out for 6 hours.

I have Cortana disabled, so no problems with for me.

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

I know I really shouldn't say this, but here goes. I've never had a problem with Windows 10....Now damnit, I'll wait for it to crash.

[ArMaP]

I know I really shouldn't say this, but here goes. I've never had a problem with Windows 10....Now damnit, I'll wait for it to crash.

Neither have I, and I installed it two days after it was made available.