I’ve been asking where the hell these companies are getting our data to begin with for awhile because it has to be through shady means, even if technically legal.

Tracking a user and selling that data should not be able to be slapped deep down in some TOS that grants intrusion into your life at that level. I wish laws would be changed to require explicit tracking requests for this type of data, that has to be conspicuous and separately authorized in addiction to any TOS.

I wonder if these are all shell companies to hide the “origin server” for this CDN of unauthorized surveillance data.

I’m also curious how many of these are just middle men that do nothing but markup and resell, vs how many of these companies do anything to enrich the data before flipping it.

Wouldn’t it be funny if someone were to use these systems to get the location information for the executives at all of these companies, and it ended up online everywhere? I wonder if they would change their opinions on technical loopholes allowing the tracking of people without consent

The answer is in the comment you replied to, "directly from telecommunications services providers".

Still doesn’t answer my question of where my PII was acquired.

I don’t understand your question. Your telecom provider has your PII.

I’d like a definitive list which contains the source for each piece of data, the means that source acquired it, when they acquired it, and proof of my consent for it to be collected, stored, and sold to other parties who then sell it off to the highest bidder.

“It came from teleco companies” is not due diligence enough for me, and it shouldn’t be for you. That answer isn’t an answer and the lack of accountability is how the companies continue to violate our right to privacy and flourish.

Your cell phone company knows your name, address, and can infer where you've been based on the cell towers your phone checks in with. So that one's a given.

Here's a sampling of others:

Mastercard sells information on your purchases.[^1] (Based on the info Oracle had on me, I suspect they might be one of the sources for Oracle Advertising.[^2])

Equifax, who gets information from your bank, your car insurance company, your cable company, and loads of other places, makes a nice profit off selling your info.[^3][^4]

ISPs know who you are, can infer a lot about you from unencrypted DNS queries and HTTPS SNI snooping, and they're happy to sell information about you.[^5]

Then there are several tiers of companies that buy information from various other companies, aggregate it, and then sell that off. A veritable snowball rolling down a hill of privacy violation.

[1]: https://www.wired.com/2012/10/mastercard-data-mining-holiday...

[2]: https://datacloudoptout.oracle.com/request-your-data/verify-...

[3]: https://www.inc.com/associated-press/equifax-data-money.html

[4]: https://www.equifax.com/about-equifax/why-equifax/differenti...

[5]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93b9nv/internet-service-prov...

And for completeness, here’s an article about the telecoms themselves: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/19...

Just to clarify my point I’m not condoning this at all, but the telcos themselves have been selling live location data of their subscribers to aggregator services for years.

It’s really infuriating to me that people say Google or Facebook are “selling their data” (they’re not, they hoard data and sell targeted ads) when Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T literally sell your live, personally identifiable, non-aggregated, location data to third parties, hiding behind their subscriber agreement legalese.

One of many sources: https://www.fiercewireless.com/regulatory/t-mobile-to-fight-...

Just google it, more examples are easy to find.

> “It came from teleco companies” is not due diligence enough for

I never claimed this. I replied to the question about how a telecom provider would have PII. My mobile provider knows my legal name and other details. They obviously know which tower is closest to my phone at all times or my phone would not work. That it is terrible of them to sell this data was not in question.

Our gerontocracy is unprepared to deal with issues related to technology and privacy. I don't think these data brokers need to hide at all. We already see how legislators (failed to) comprehend issues related to technology in the many of unproductive congressional hearings over the past few years (Google, Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook... all brought before congress with nothing to show for it now). I think issues of technology and privacy are moving too fast for our gerontocracy to possibly keep up.

And I think our legislators show their ass in the case of the Tiktok hearing; effectively stating oh it's fine if the data is being bought and sold by a US company (Oracle).

If our legal system isn’t prepared to properly handle such things then it should default to being illegal to collect and sell data until the legislation is created to properly protect the rights of those who put them in office and pay their salaries.

The default of “you will be violated until we get to it, if we are able to comprehend it” is a dystopia I hadn’t imagined, yet here we are.

The cellphone companies have been selling the realtime location of all subscribers since at least 2018. It doesn't depend on whether you have location enabled either, since it figures out your location from the towers! On top of that, one of them had an unauthenticated API, meaning anyone in the world could track the realtime location of any US phone #[0].

If all of this bothers you, contact your state legislators. Most state privacy laws don't protect against ISPs selling your location & browsing info, even though that would be the common expectation. Maine's law is simple and does a good job[1][2].

0: https://www.wired.com/story/locationsmart-securus-location-d...

1: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/maine-s-new-internet-pr...

2: Maine's law survived a federal challenge, and ISPs have dropped their appeals: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/377285/broadb...

> It doesn't depend on whether you have location enabled

It's even better: the location can be enabled through a network initiated request. This is because A-GPS works "both ways". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS#SUPL : SUPL Position Calculation Function (SPCF) lets the client or the server ask for the client’s location.

As part of the FCC’s updated 911 requirements, where cell phones (with no set location) are required to be routed to the correct 911 center, aGPS was developed to not only help GPS get a faster TTFF (time to first fix), but to transmit location data to the carrier (and to anyone else who can intercept the data)

> If all of this bothers you, contact your state legislators

If you don't like that and want a quick fix, on android devices check /data/vendor/agps_supl/agps_profiles_conf2.xml for ni_request="true": this is the Network-Induced Location Request functionality, where the network asks for the GPS position. Change that to false.

Personally, I believe 911 AGPS is of limited use: if I'm unconscious and can't dial, the phone 911 AGPS working won't do me any good. If I'm conscious and I can dial, I can also open a map app.

Still, if you want to keep the 911 stuff, just change reject_non911_nilr_enable="false" to true (because yes, by default, everything goes - 911 or not)

There's also lpp_enable="true" (LTE Positioning Protocol, yet another method by which cellular providers can pinpoint your location via aGP S), imsi_enable="true" (which transmit a unique identifier along with the AGPS request!)

Check also /data/vendor/agps_supl/agps_profiles_conf2_prv.xml

This is very interesting - thank you for sharing your knowledge. Any other related rererences - the tech that enables this sort of tracking?

> Any other related rererences - the tech that enables this sort of tracking?

It's everywhere in mobile devices. It's better not to use them.

If you must use one, you must at least have root to disable AGPS + add stringent iptable rules to disable any outgoing communication by default: you should only enable connections per app, or per IP/domain for what you need.

Still, that'll be of a limited help since the baseband manages connections (3GPP profiles etc) and does the equivalent of NAT to your device.

For all I know, the baseband could tell android "location disabled? sure thing!" while still getting GPS fixes + sending the position by UDP packets processed by the baseband OS: Android won't even see it! Yet by virtue of sharing the same IP (or being "enriched" with your IMSI as you can see above), you will be totally trackable.

Doing anything more requires running free software on the baseband: there're now free-software firmwares like https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk (I'll submit that for discussion)

It started from initiatives like https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/hflat0/pine... but now you even have a free software bootloader for the modem (see https://github.com/Biktorgj/quectel_lk)

If you want, you can also recover the stock firmware (https://github.com/Biktorgj/quectel_eg25_recovery), but the ability to audit from top to bottom to disable data exfiltration requires a 100% free software solution.

> Personally, I believe 911 AGPS is of limited use: if I'm unconscious and can't dial, the phone 911 AGPS working won't do me any good. If I'm conscious and I can dial, I can also open a map app.

For what it's worth, new phones can detect car crashes and initiate a 911 call if you don't actively stop that.

What if you're not unconscious, but badly concussed or otherwise dazed? You can't count on having a clear and level mind in the aftermath of an unspecified emergency.

If I don't have a clear mind due to being "badly concussed or otherwise dazed", what makes you think my mind would be clear enough to place a call?

Because 911 is relatively simple and has been drilled into people since they were kids? I don't know man, I think being able to dial 911 is a lot simpler than being able to read your location off a map. Trying to find street names on google maps can be hard enough when my brain is working correctly.

> If all of this bothers you, contact your state legislators.

Hoping this is a joke because in no world will that have any effect at all.

If this is true, one wonders how Maine managed to implement such a law.

Having an effect is not easy. This does not mean it is not possible, or that not trying is a good policy.

this reads like a supply chain of a drug cartel

there were rumors of gray market identity traders in the 2000 times, within the USA. What changes is accuracy, timeliness, noise levels and verifiability, off the top of my head... Apparently completely legal identity document sales have gone on since the 1950s at least, around driving registration, home address, employment and related things. Since that is in the USA, with newer laws and an alleged emphasis on citizen rights, I can only imagine that other large political powers have had this for centuries.