Digital signs in Brookline are collecting data from your phone as you walk by

Re:Digital signs in Brookline are collecting data from your ... by HeavyFeather on Thursday March 28, 2024 @12:00AM (#39847643)

> The signs also collect IP addresses.

Uh, false? What IP address? This sentence is meaningless, users don’t connect to the sign, so there’s no IP to it.

This article is just scaremongering by people who don’t know technology.

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Re:Digital signs in Brookline are collecting data from your ... by ryanjshaw on Thursday March 28, 2024 @01:48AM (#39848136)

Agreed, there is no IP address to collect, so this part of the article is inaccurate.

The rest of the article is not necessarily scaremongering, but they don't explain the issue well: it's not just a "giant clicker" as described, because it collects personally identifiable information (cellphone MAC address) without permission. This would be illegal in many other countries.

Additionallu, they claim the data is "encrypted" but since it's not an open algorithm it's possible that it's flawed, either because it's deterministic or reversible.

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Re:Digital signs in Brookline are collecting data from your ... by voidUpdate on Thursday March 28, 2024 @04:09AM (#39848759)

I mean, all encryption is reversible, that's sort of the point :P I'd much rather it was hashed instead

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Re:Digital signs in Brookline are collecting data from your ... by aembleton on Thursday March 28, 2024 @04:37AM (#39848900)

> personally identifiable information (cellphone MAC address)

On many phones they rotate. Are they still PII?

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