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GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
kalberts27-May-20 23:56
kalberts27-May-20 23:56 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
Nelek27-May-20 22:09
protectorNelek27-May-20 22:09 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
super27-May-20 22:57
professionalsuper27-May-20 22:57 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
Nelek27-May-20 23:33
protectorNelek27-May-20 23:33 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
Sander Rossel27-May-20 22:45
professionalSander Rossel27-May-20 22:45 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
Nelek27-May-20 23:28
protectorNelek27-May-20 23:28 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
Richard MacCutchan27-May-20 22:48
mveRichard MacCutchan27-May-20 22:48 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
kalberts27-May-20 23:40
kalberts27-May-20 23:40 
Three weeks ago, the Norwegian public broadcaster (NRK) published a story: For 3500 euro (NOK 35,000), they bought "anonymous" tracking data for 140,000 smartphones for ten months of 2019, more than 400 million positions.

The phne owner was not identified, but when data shows a phone located at the same location every night, you can look up in the phone direcory who lives there. You can see its location eight hours every weekday, revealing where the owner works. Look up the "suspect" in Facebook, and you can have your guesses confirmed (and hook it up to a lot more infor about the owner).

The NRK guys picked one phone as a case study. They found the identy of the guy from were he slept and worked, and made a detail survey of his movements for more than half a year: Were he went with his family in the weekends, which restaurants he had been visiting. They saw that he had spent a lunch break to drive to the address of a competitor in the same trade (and a few weeks later, he started spending working hours at that location). NRK made contact with the guy, who was truly shocked by the detail level, but was willing to participate in a TV program to discuss the disclosures.(Maybe NRK had asked others that refused to participate; they obviously do not tell about that.).

The data also identified several persons as army officers with the highest security clearance: Their phones were traced from their homes into the top security parts of a military installation.

They also identified 8300 phones visiting hospitals, violence shelters etc. Most were clearly employees, but a fair share were temporary visitors, who e.g. arrived on a Friday night without returning to their normal residence until a couple of days later, possibly after a visit to the police station. (For obvious reasons, none of these were asked to participate in the TV program.)

This story has caused quite some uproar, both in the military establishment, at the violence shelters, among politicians and common people. It is still hot in media, after three weeks.

When you see how much can be deduced about your private activities from "anonymous" data that anyone can buy for a moderate sum of money, registering your phone number with the restaurant is like a drop in the ocean. As long as you carry your smartphone with you, anyone can buy information revealing how much time you spent there, how you traveled to the restaurant, where you spend the following night etc.

In theory, you can deny GPS access to all apps. That could severely limit the app's functionality. Some developers choose to depend all functionality on GPS access: One bank insisted that telling the location of their nearest branch office at all times was so essential to their "image" that the entire banking app blocked if you denied GPS access. And: Most of us want to reveal our position to e.g. Facebook friends. We give up this information voluntarily! If you loose your phone, or it is stolen, you want to find/trace it using the associated web service. You want the map app to show your current postition. ... You asked for it, you got it.

Even if you delete all apps, the OS may report your position to the OS developers. Even if you have no smartphone but an old plain GSM phone, it is continously traced by the base stations. Precision is a lot poorer than with GPS, but in city areas with a dense mesh of GSM bases, it may reveal which streets you are walking, tolerance down to +/- 10-20 meters. This info is known only to the network operator, but authorities (police) has the right to access it - and they regularly do.

Your only way to evade continous tracing is to leave your phone at home, or completely turned off. As long as you carry your smartphone with you: Stop worrying about revealing your name, phone number, home address, employer... Those are trivialities. If the spy doesn't know yet, he can easily deduce all of that from the GPS information continously reported by your apps.
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
GenJerDan28-May-20 0:47
GenJerDan28-May-20 0:47 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
kalberts28-May-20 9:50
kalberts28-May-20 9:50 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
GenJerDan28-May-20 21:14
GenJerDan28-May-20 21:14 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
abmv28-May-20 1:29
professionalabmv28-May-20 1:29 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
obermd28-May-20 3:26
obermd28-May-20 3:26 
GeneralRe: Little bit surprised !!! Pin
DerekT-P28-May-20 6:11
professionalDerekT-P28-May-20 6:11 
GeneralMinneapolis Pin
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz27-May-20 19:41
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz27-May-20 19:41 
GeneralRe: Minneapolis Pin
Nelek27-May-20 21:16
protectorNelek27-May-20 21:16 
GeneralRe: Minneapolis Pin
Amarnath S27-May-20 22:15
professionalAmarnath S27-May-20 22:15 
GeneralRe: Minneapolis Pin
Richard MacCutchan27-May-20 22:47
mveRichard MacCutchan27-May-20 22:47 
GeneralRe: Minneapolis Pin
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz28-May-20 7:59
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz28-May-20 7:59 
GeneralGoing full 'Murican! Pin
Super Lloyd27-May-20 18:19
Super Lloyd27-May-20 18:19 
GeneralBreaking changes Pin
PJ Arends27-May-20 18:15
professionalPJ Arends27-May-20 18:15 
GeneralRe: Breaking changes Pin
Super Lloyd27-May-20 18:30
Super Lloyd27-May-20 18:30 
GeneralRe: Breaking changes PinPopular
Daniel Pfeffer27-May-20 20:05
professionalDaniel Pfeffer27-May-20 20:05 
GeneralRe: Breaking changes Pin
k505428-May-20 3:32
mvek505428-May-20 3:32 
GeneralRe: Breaking changes Pin
Daniel Pfeffer30-May-20 20:41
professionalDaniel Pfeffer30-May-20 20:41 

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