From
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/10/the-global-surveillance-free-for-all-in-mobile-ad-data/ >The Mobile Advertising ID or MAID — the unique alphanumeric identifier assigned to each mobile device — was originally envisioned as a way to distinguish individual mobile customers without relying on personally identifiable information such as phone numbers or email addresses.
>However, there is now a robust industry of marketing and advertising companies that specialize in assembling enormous lists of MAIDs that are “enriched” with historical and personal information about the individual behind each MAID.
>Some vendors offered only a handful of data fields, such as first and last name, MAID and email address. Other brokers sold far more detailed histories along with their MAID, including each subject’s social media profiles, precise GPS coordinates, and even likely consumer category.
>How are advertisers and data brokers gaining access to so much information? Some sources of MAID data can be apps on your phone such as AccuWeather, GasBuddy, Grindr, and MyFitnessPal that collect your MAID and location and sell that to brokers.
>A user’s MAID profile and location data also is commonly shared as a consequence of simply using a smartphone to visit a web page that features ads. In the few milliseconds before those ads load, the website will send a “bid request” to various ad exchanges, where advertisers can bid on the chance to place their ad in front of users who match the consumer profiles they’re seeking. A great deal of data can be included in a bid request, including the user’s precise location (the current open standard for bid requests is detailed here).
>The trouble is that virtually anyone can access the “bidstream” data flowing through these so-called “realtime bidding” networks, because the information is simultaneously broadcast in the clear to hundreds of entities around the world.
>The result is that there are a number of marketing companies that now enrich and broker access to this mobile location information. Earlier this year, the German news outlet netzpolitik.org purchased a bidstream data set containing more than 3.6 billion data points, and shared the information with the German daily BR24. They concluded that the data they obtained (through a free trial, no less) made it possible to establish movement profiles — some of them quite precise — of several million people across Germany.This guy tried to track himself:
https://timsh.org/tracking-myself-down-through-in-app-ads/ (this post has lots of links and resources). He says you can even access free samples - if you can prove the vendors you have the money. And shit is expensive for normal people, but not for big pockets…
Here, the same guy teaches you how to intercept comms from apps you run in your phone to ad networks to check the data being sent
https://timsh.org/everyone-knows-your-location-part-2-try-it-yourself/Here, some german researchers tracked german glowies through intelligence, military and police sites:
https://interaktiv.br.de/ausspioniert-mit-standortdaten/en/index.html>This location data is from a vast trove of data that we, BR and netzpolitik.org, have evaluated – long tables with coordinates, timestamps accurate down to the second and identification numbers known as advertising IDs. Expressed as a series of letters and numbers, advertising IDs are used by the advertising industry to serve targeted advertising to select smartphones. But the location data can also be used for other purposes: If you have all the location data for a specific advertising ID, you can create a movement profile for an individual person.
>Such datasets are sold on the internet – on a marketplace headquartered in Berlin for example. When approached by netzpolitik.org, a vendor there made a sample dataset available free of charge in the hopes of securing a new customer. The data includes 3.6 billion individual location datapoints from smartphone apps. Our reporting shows that the data makes it possible to establish movement profiles – some of them quite precise – of several million people across Germany.
>Such movement profiles reveal personal, even intimate details about smartphone users: Where do they work? Where do they live? Where do they do their shopping? Do they sometimes spend the night elsewhere? Do they make frequent visits to the hospital? Or to a psychiatrist? Or perhaps a brothel? We found all of that in the dataset we were provided.
>And we are in fact able to learn, with the help of our dataset, private details about the person who regularly drives to the building in Bad Aibling: including family relationships, preferred supermarket and weekend activities.
>We can even see where in the BND complex this person spends most of their time – in a building that made global headlines several years ago.
>The person frequently heads for a building that played a role in the documents made public in 2013 by whistleblower Edward Snowden: a structure with a metal roof and no windows that BND agents allegedly referred to as “the Tin Can”. According to the documents made public by Snowden, the U.S. intelligence agency NSA used the building for internet surveillance.
>We can also see in the data that the person also spent time at other U.S. military bases in Germany and at a different BND site. It is possible to link the person’s home address with the U.S. military.>>29410Think MAID is GAID on Android:
>In the past, when Android users opted out of personalized ads, their GAID was still available but could not be used for ad targeting or retargeting. >GAIDs will now be 100% zeroed out when users opt-out of ads personalization on Android. >This was initially rolled out to users on Android 12 in late 2021, and it is coming to Play Store Services on all versions of Android on April 1, 2022.>This way of limiting GAID access brings Android to parity with Limit Ad Tracking on iOS from a few years ago.To spoof other IDs
https://github.com/Android1500/AndroidFaker >>29404I imagine operating systems that employ this only offer to disable it as a plusebo, it's better to find OSes that haven't implemented it at all.
>>29420There's pine phones and such, as well as making your own phone.
>>29424It all depends on who your threat actor is, in my case my main concern is the government knowing I'm a die-hard communist (for when the purge happens) but it's impossible to organize or agitate without using mainstream digital media so I do to a limited extent, the pros outweigh the cons and anyway I'm already probably on a list the moment I sign up for a leftist organization but at least they don't know my exact opinions which I share as privately as i can. In countries that already ban communist symbols and ideology most criminal procedures are for "apology for terrorism" for praising Stalin on twitter on some shit, they have little way to prove I have done it or at least not without spilling out their treacherous ways to the public
This means jackshit if we descend into fascism but at that point I'd already be dead or ready to die fighting
For the average Joe I think he could see benefit from privacy, less targeted advertising, but ultimately will go where he feels is right. Like a kid would prefer to kick a rock than a shiny toy you bought him no matter how expensive, he doesn't understand. Kids grow out of this but the average person has no concept of digital presence and fearmongering is stupid (unpopular opinion but the "i have noting to hide" is a good argument). Freetards don't get this. The focus should be on leading a technological vanguard and sure study all the tools available but know how futile it all is
But of course if you're doing illegal activities or are being personally targeted by someone you'd like to take the extreme measures
Yes, it sure is hard being a non-tech-savvy person who doesn't want to participate in all the bullshit.
>just don't run that on your phone
Well, tell the average joe how he can simply opt out of all that. Apple wants $1,000 for a phone, and Android phones won't even activate without a Google account. Average Joe me isn't going to break out the tiny screwdrivers and take apart a phone. He's not going to plug it into some computer and run safe mode or whatever and reassign directories or "break", "crack", "unlock", "root", or anything else because I'm not able to understand ANY of that. Even the simplest of those kinds of tutorials assume a great deal of tech knowledge, interest, and experience. I do have some interest but at my age it's not easy to dive in and learn how everything works.
I'd just like to have a flip phone with a keyboard on it. That's it. I don't want internet or GPS but everyone makes me text and I have to, even for work. I hate texting but there's just no getting out of it.
Every smartphone makes you sign up with software people outside of the phone network. They made these fucking side deals so you can't just use the phone without tying your entire identity to your number and some online presence. They want you to sync all your shit together. They want your phone and television and all your addresses and everything in a cloud somewhere. And we've already seen how this can be exploited. And yet 99% of people just do what they're told.
>nothing to hide
Well then come right in!!! Have a look and a listen!! Because me not having anything to hide is the exact same as being an exhibitionist you can watch and hear as better to advertise to. Sure, it's not anyone real actually listening. So who cares that the technology is there? It's such a blessing for ME that something is always listening for me to address it for MY benefit. What a beautiful future we have. I guess I'm supposed to be impressed. I guess I'm supposed to feel like Tony Stark with Jarvis there to assist me. Record me, LEARN from me so you can better serve me. Is that something I'm supposed to be okay with or even excited about??
Fuck all of this. I hope there's a massive EMP and we have to start over. Really rather we just voluntarily freeze technology anywhere between the 1970s and 2000. That'd be just fine by me. In fact, just eliminate the internet altogether. At this point I see more cons than I do pros. Not the board to have that opinion on I'm sure, but in the end I just preferred the world without it. Or at least when it was a place you went to leave the world, not the fucking world itself.
>>29694THIS
I fucking hate the "it's a you problem" retards. thinking in terms of individual actions doesn't make sense (and I find it odd to hear this in a lefty forum). they are tracking the whole population. if someone wanted to go after you and you had all the measures in the world to avoid tracking, they could go through your family, friends or coworkers. your careful use of your phone would be of no use.
>>29385this is also why the "passkey" shit that pushes biometric identitification is promoted so hard.
and normoids will all willingly queue up to give their biometric data away and then in 10 years act like this was such a surprise???!!?! omg muh privacy!! why isn't someone doing something??!?!