REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

All that app tracking gets collected into bulk saleable units 'casue you've been sold down the river.

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Monday, August 10, 2020 18:35
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Sunday, August 9, 2020 2:34 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.



U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones

Anomaly Six has ties to military, intelligence agencies and draws location data from more than 500 apps with hundreds of millions of users
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-government-contractor-embedded-softwa
re-in-apps-to-track-phones-11596808801?mod=hp_lista_pos



For the non WSJ subscriber, there's this


Inside One Of Big Brother's 'Location Harvesting' Contractors, Which Tracks 'Hundreds Of Millions' Of Phones

A Virginia-based software company founded by two US military veterans with backgrounds in intelligence has been tracking hundreds of millions of mobile phones across the world, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

The company, Anomaly Six LLC, draws location data from over 500 apps - partly through their proprietary software development kit (SDK) which they've paid to embed directly in some of the apps, while the company gets location data from partner providers. The SDK allows the company to obtain a user's location if they have allowed the apps in question to access the phone's GPS coordinates.

App publishers often allow third-party companies, for a fee, to insert SDKs into their apps. The SDK maker then sells the consumer data harvested from the app, and the app publisher gets a chunk of revenue. But consumers have no way to know* whether SDKs are embedded in apps; most privacy policies don’t disclose that information. Anomaly Six says it embeds its own SDK in some apps, and in other cases gets location data from other partners. -Wall Street Journal
* https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-location-data-is-being-soldoften-wit
hout-your-knowledge-1520168400?mod=article_inline
Your Location Data Is Being Sold—Often Without Your Knowledge


Anomaly Six holds contracts with several branches of the US Government - although they told the Journal that they 'restrict the sale of US mobile phone movement data to nongovernmental, private sector clients,' according to the report. Private sector clients - typically marketing companies or others in the advertising space - buy and sell geolocation data, sometimes 'reselling it to government agencies or contractors' according to the report.

And as the Journal notes, in the case of Anomaly Six, "the direct collection of such data by a business closely linked to US national security agencies is unusual."

Founded by defense-contracting veterans who spent most of their careers in close contact with government agencies, (the veterans) tailored their operation to interface with national-security, according to interviews and court records.

"Anomaly Six is a veteran-owned small business that processes and visualizes location data sourced from mobile devices for analytics and insights," the company told The Journal in response to questions for the article. "We leverage detailed location data from numerous first-party sources to provide insights into groups, behaviors, and patterns."

The company acknowledges the "intense scrutiny" surrounding government access to private location data - but insists they aren't breaking any laws, and that the data it peddles is 'commercially available.'

Anomaly Six said it would support regulation to require more disclosure by apps of how data is collected and used. The exact apps the company partners with couldn’t be determined and the company declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements. The partnerships between data brokers and app makers are typically closely held trade secrets within the world of commercial-data sales. -WSJ

Marketing expert and founder of the Location Based Marketing Association, Asif Khan, says government access to harvested consumer location data has been a longstanding problem for the industry - and has insisted that app-makers provide greater transparency with consumers regarding how their data is used once collected.

"You could argue that the government has the right, just like any commercial entity, to buy the data, if the data is available from a commercial supplier," said Khan, adding "But you also need to be able to clearly say ‘this data could be used by government.’"

That said, the data harvested from apps typically doesn't link to the name of the cellphone owner. Instead, devices are typically identified using an alphanumeric code. Still, the movement patterns of a specific phone over time (such as where it is every night) can allow analysts to deduce who owns it.

Consumers world-wide are often in the dark about governments’ acquisition and use of such data. Despite collecting data from consumer apps, Anomaly Six doesn’t have a privacy policy on its website, nor is it registered as a data broker in California, where a state law passed in 2018 typically requires companies to detail how they are acquiring and using consumer data. The company says it doesn’t meet the definition of a data broker under California law and isn’t required to register. The California attorney general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

According to interviews with numerous people in the industry, there is little regulation in the U.S. about the buying and selling of location data, leading to what one industry veteran called “the Wild West.” Consumers have come to expect free apps, and app makers have turned to selling user data to pay for the costs of developing and running the software, people familiar with the industry. -WSJ


Anomaly Six and its founders been sued by a competitor, Babel Street, which provides social-media monitoring services to the intelligence community and law-enforcement agencies. Of note, two founders of Anomaly Six are former Babel Street employees who left in 2018, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed two years ago, offers insight into the secretive world of location harvesting products used by the US government.

Anomaly Six founder Brandan Huff had managed Babel Street's relationship with the Defense Department. His co-founder, former Army contractor Jeffrey Heinz, also manage Babel Street's relationships with the DOJ, US Cyber Command, civilian federal agencies and the intelligence community according to court records.

For example, one of Babel Street's products, "Locate X," provides access to the location records of millions of cell phones harvested from consumer apps. Babel claims their two ex-employees sought to build a competing product.

Babel Street doesn’t publicly advertise Locate X and binds clients and users to secrecy about even its existence, according to contracts and user agreements reviewed by the Journal. Developed with input from U.S. government officials, according to court records, Locate X is widely used by military intelligence units who work on gathering “open source” intelligence, or information taken from publicly available sources. Babel Street also has contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and many other civilian agencies, federal contracting data shows. Babel Street didn’t respond to a request for comment. -WSJ

What's more, both Babel Street and Anomaly Six products can be used to combine traditionally gathered intelligence - such as social media data, satellite imagery, confidential human sources, consumer data from the private sector and intercepted communications, according to interviews with people familiar with the process as well as documents reviewed by the Journal.

The data is combined into what's known as a "pattern of life" analysis, which allows for a deeper understanding of a potential intelligence target's habits which can possibly be used to predict future behavior.

"It’s really alarming to learn about companies like this that claim to have years’ worth of location data from all over the world. Revelations like this just keep coming," said Georgetown University law professor Laura Moy, who directs the school's Communications & Technology Law Clinic.

"Users have no idea that when they install a weather app, a game, or any other innocuous-seeming app that their private location data is going to be harvested and sold. Apparently that’s what’s happening here, and we have no transparency into the practice."

Copyright ©2009-2020 ZeroHedge.com/ABC Media, LTD
ZeroHedge

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/inside-one-big-brothers-location-
harvesting-contractors-tracking-hundreds-millions



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Sunday, August 9, 2020 2:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:


"It’s really alarming to learn about companies like this that claim to have years’ worth of location data from all over the world. Revelations like this just keep coming," said Georgetown University law professor Laura Moy, who directs the school's Communications & Technology Law Clinic.

"Users have no idea that when they install a weather app, a game, or any other innocuous-seeming app that their private location data is going to be harvested and sold. Apparently that’s what’s happening here, and we have no transparency into the practice."



Alarming? Is it really anymore? Nobody else seems to care.

Put this on the list of things I've been telling people for years that was happening but they just said I was nuts.

Totally not going to worry about it. Especially since I don't have a phone, and if I ever go back it's just going to be a flip phone without any apps.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, August 10, 2020 6:09 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones

Anomaly Six has ties to military, intelligence agencies and draws location data from more than 500 apps with hundreds of millions of users
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-government-contractor-embedded-softwa
re-in-apps-to-track-phones-11596808801?mod=hp_lista_pos



For the non WSJ subscriber, there's this


Inside One Of Big Brother's 'Location Harvesting' Contractors, Which Tracks 'Hundreds Of Millions' Of Phones

A Virginia-based software company founded by two US military veterans with backgrounds in intelligence has been tracking hundreds of millions of mobile phones across the world, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

The company, Anomaly Six LLC, draws location data from over 500 apps - partly through their proprietary software development kit (SDK) which they've paid to embed directly in some of the apps, while the company gets location data from partner providers. The SDK allows the company to obtain a user's location if they have allowed the apps in question to access the phone's GPS coordinates.

App publishers often allow third-party companies, for a fee, to insert SDKs into their apps. The SDK maker then sells the consumer data harvested from the app, and the app publisher gets a chunk of revenue. But consumers have no way to know* whether SDKs are embedded in apps; most privacy policies don’t disclose that information. Anomaly Six says it embeds its own SDK in some apps, and in other cases gets location data from other partners. -Wall Street Journal
* https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-location-data-is-being-soldoften-wit
hout-your-knowledge-1520168400?mod=article_inline
Your Location Data Is Being Sold—Often Without Your Knowledge


Anomaly Six holds contracts with several branches of the US Government - although they told the Journal that they 'restrict the sale of US mobile phone movement data to nongovernmental, private sector clients,' according to the report. Private sector clients - typically marketing companies or others in the advertising space - buy and sell geolocation data, sometimes 'reselling it to government agencies or contractors' according to the report.

And as the Journal notes, in the case of Anomaly Six, "the direct collection of such data by a business closely linked to US national security agencies is unusual."

Founded by defense-contracting veterans who spent most of their careers in close contact with government agencies, (the veterans) tailored their operation to interface with national-security, according to interviews and court records.

"Anomaly Six is a veteran-owned small business that processes and visualizes location data sourced from mobile devices for analytics and insights," the company told The Journal in response to questions for the article. "We leverage detailed location data from numerous first-party sources to provide insights into groups, behaviors, and patterns."

The company acknowledges the "intense scrutiny" surrounding government access to private location data - but insists they aren't breaking any laws, and that the data it peddles is 'commercially available.'

Anomaly Six said it would support regulation to require more disclosure by apps of how data is collected and used. The exact apps the company partners with couldn’t be determined and the company declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements. The partnerships between data brokers and app makers are typically closely held trade secrets within the world of commercial-data sales. -WSJ

Marketing expert and founder of the Location Based Marketing Association, Asif Khan, says government access to harvested consumer location data has been a longstanding problem for the industry - and has insisted that app-makers provide greater transparency with consumers regarding how their data is used once collected.

"You could argue that the government has the right, just like any commercial entity, to buy the data, if the data is available from a commercial supplier," said Khan, adding "But you also need to be able to clearly say ‘this data could be used by government.’"

That said, the data harvested from apps typically doesn't link to the name of the cellphone owner. Instead, devices are typically identified using an alphanumeric code. Still, the movement patterns of a specific phone over time (such as where it is every night) can allow analysts to deduce who owns it.

Consumers world-wide are often in the dark about governments’ acquisition and use of such data. Despite collecting data from consumer apps, Anomaly Six doesn’t have a privacy policy on its website, nor is it registered as a data broker in California, where a state law passed in 2018 typically requires companies to detail how they are acquiring and using consumer data. The company says it doesn’t meet the definition of a data broker under California law and isn’t required to register. The California attorney general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

According to interviews with numerous people in the industry, there is little regulation in the U.S. about the buying and selling of location data, leading to what one industry veteran called “the Wild West.” Consumers have come to expect free apps, and app makers have turned to selling user data to pay for the costs of developing and running the software, people familiar with the industry. -WSJ


Anomaly Six and its founders been sued by a competitor, Babel Street, which provides social-media monitoring services to the intelligence community and law-enforcement agencies. Of note, two founders of Anomaly Six are former Babel Street employees who left in 2018, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed two years ago, offers insight into the secretive world of location harvesting products used by the US government.

Anomaly Six founder Brandan Huff had managed Babel Street's relationship with the Defense Department. His co-founder, former Army contractor Jeffrey Heinz, also manage Babel Street's relationships with the DOJ, US Cyber Command, civilian federal agencies and the intelligence community according to court records.

For example, one of Babel Street's products, "Locate X," provides access to the location records of millions of cell phones harvested from consumer apps. Babel claims their two ex-employees sought to build a competing product.

Babel Street doesn’t publicly advertise Locate X and binds clients and users to secrecy about even its existence, according to contracts and user agreements reviewed by the Journal. Developed with input from U.S. government officials, according to court records, Locate X is widely used by military intelligence units who work on gathering “open source” intelligence, or information taken from publicly available sources. Babel Street also has contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and many other civilian agencies, federal contracting data shows. Babel Street didn’t respond to a request for comment. -WSJ

What's more, both Babel Street and Anomaly Six products can be used to combine traditionally gathered intelligence - such as social media data, satellite imagery, confidential human sources, consumer data from the private sector and intercepted communications, according to interviews with people familiar with the process as well as documents reviewed by the Journal.

The data is combined into what's known as a "pattern of life" analysis, which allows for a deeper understanding of a potential intelligence target's habits which can possibly be used to predict future behavior.

"It’s really alarming to learn about companies like this that claim to have years’ worth of location data from all over the world. Revelations like this just keep coming," said Georgetown University law professor Laura Moy, who directs the school's Communications & Technology Law Clinic.

"Users have no idea that when they install a weather app, a game, or any other innocuous-seeming app that their private location data is going to be harvested and sold. Apparently that’s what’s happening here, and we have no transparency into the practice."

Copyright ©2009-2020 ZeroHedge.com/ABC Media, LTD
ZeroHedge

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/inside-one-big-brothers-location-
harvesting-contractors-tracking-hundreds-millions



My first thought was "Well, DUH!"

Not sure who would bind this interesting after all these years.

"Users have no idea that when they install a weather app, a game, or any other innocuous-seeming app that their private location data is going to be harvested and sold." These users are visiting from what planet?

Any body know the details of how data brokers are not defined as data brokers under CA Law?


I keep hearing idiots say that instead of learning how to use a map, they should have their phone send them on wild goose chases instead, follow some app. My immediate thought to this is MORON - you deserve to be tracked.


Of course, we now know that ReaverBot is in trouble. The government has been tracking his phone ever since it spent all those days in Terrorist Training Camps, with all the other gay terrorists.

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Monday, August 10, 2020 6:35 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.



What I found interesting was the very specific details of HOW.

Because in tracking down the HOW, it exposed
an entire ARMY of WHO is allied against the private citizen in all of this, from private business to think tanks to government spooks .


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