Many hedge funds have started to consume this type of data.<p>There is a piece in WSJ that discusses how one fund, two sigma, uses cell phone tracking data, as well as many other sources of data to build trading signals.<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-computers-trawl-a-sea-of-data-for-stock-picks-1427941801" rel="nofollow">http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-computers-trawl-a-sea-of-dat...</a><p>In fact, I think the biggest funds are putting more effort into this type of big data exploration from funds than they are into trying to glean more information out of the time series data provided by the exchanges data feeds.<p>10 years ago, being able to scrape the web was a competitive advantage for funds, 5 years ago it was real time sentiment analysis of news reports.<p>Today, its being able to consume 100's of disparate data feeds and build alpha generating signals from it.
I've been trying to think of a practical, effective way for smartphone end users to protect their confidentiality. This is the simplest solution I've come up with, but I'd appreciate any feedback:<p>Hardware:<p>* Tablet, or smartphone with baseband disabled.<p>* Cellular-wifi router (i.e., wifi hotspot), prepaid so the provider doesn't need your personal info.<p>.<p>Software:<p>* Android with per-app permissions controlled by user (e.g., user can enable/disable access to location data for particular apps). This could be a fork of Android or maybe there is security software that could be installed, such as on a rooted phone.<p>* VOIP app on phone<p>* VPN<p>.<p>By decoupling the baseband from the handheld computer (i.e., by keeping the tablet and cellular connection on different devices), using the cellular service without providing identifying info, and sending only encrypted data over the cellular connection (via VPN), you would protect your confidentiality from the cellular provider.<p>Because your phone number is decoupled from your cellular service (because you use VOIP over a VPN), nobody can tie your phone number to your location.<p>Of course someone who is determined could track you down. Your identity needs to be tied to your phone number or nobody will know how to call you; and your VOIP vendor could point someone to your VPN provider, who could point them to your cellular provider, who could figure out which hotspot you use. But I think it does protect you from everyday mass surveillance.<p>Any thoughts on how practical or effective this would be?
I would consider this illegal wire tapping. Just because the carrier has the location data as part of its operations doesn't mean it can use that data for any other reason besides providing service.<p>I am glad this story is out, I have seen airsage data and it is easy to deanonymize. This company shouldn't be in business.
I can understand that when people are using a free service, they are the product. But mobile contracts are by no mean free. I find that amazing that the TelCos would even contemplate charging their customers and at the same time using them as products.
It's crazy. I was at a big data conference and had a sales person tell me that they are a broker for several of the large telcos and that you could use the real world data of the as a datapoint for your programmatic ad buys. His example was horrible—but he said that they found that diaper companies had a shot at advertising to dads and getting moms to try a new brand so they used cell data to look at porn usage, browsing patterns that show that they have a child to do programmatic buys. It's getting way too creepy for me.
I am always surprised that ad block users do not also refuse to use smartphones.<p>If you ask me, I'd rather Amazon retarget a bag of chips at me via a 300x250 display ad than Verizon sell my location breadcrumbs to some unknown entity.
Yeah, privacy is dead and gone.<p>The other day I was in UK at a Tesco open doors event. They talked mainly about tribes and agile, but also demoed a couple of new technologies.<p>Turns out they have face tracking operational on all their petrol stations. And they have, in lab, cameras and software that does face recognition and eye tracking. They plan to send targeted ads and coupons, based on what shelve products caught customer's attention.
Somewhat ironically, given many people's feelings about Google and tracking, Google's Project fi might be the best network for privacy. Yes, Google targets ads based on some portion of your profile, but they do not sell your data to 3rd parties like the carriers.<p>Edit: I got curious and it looks like fi excludes call data from being shared with other Google services. <a href="https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6181037?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6181037?hl=en</a><p>Disclaimer: I work for Google (not of fi) so take my opinion with whatever size gain of salt you feel is appropriate.
I'm surprised that HN readers would find this surprising. It's well known that cellular providers track user locations, Internet usage, and probably other things. It's well known that a very widely used strategy is to collect as much information as possible about end users by businesses for targeted sales and marketing, and by governments for security/control (to varying degrees depending on where you live, but it's even spread to poor nations such as Sudan [1]).<p>Why is this story a surprise? I assumed it has been happening for a long time.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/10/african-states-hop-tech-surveillance-bandwagon/122876/" rel="nofollow">http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/10/african-states-...</a>
One of my problems with this is how there is such a huge lack of alternatives for some people. I dropped having a cell for almost a year, and it was wonderful, in that I felt more secure about my privacy, but It also greatly affected my interaction, observation, and awareness of my surroundings. After meeting someone and getting a job that required on call though, it's now hard for me to imagine how I could go back to that again. To me, it's one more way that technology is evolving faster than people are keeping up with, but the kicker is that it's ripe for abuse by negarious entities. As Thomas Drake says, the Stasi's would have wet dreams about this tech today, and although you may not thing the $currentpower is so bad, what happens when the next guy uses the prescedent, forces the telcos to share, and dissapears anyone who disagrees about $policy? Oh, and now he has enough data to walk the cat back a few years and ex post facto you to $blacksite?
Google gets into "fiber," which is a strategic threat to carriers.<p>Carriers get into analytics, which is a strategic threat to google.<p>The headline is misleading- I think the carriers have been pretty upfront with their shareholders about their intention to get into this space.<p>In a world with facebook, google, et.al., writing an article like this without that context is incredibly cynical.
<a href="https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#bernstein" rel="nofollow">https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...</a><p>DJB's hilarious talk on this topic. ("I <i>AM</i> the man in the middle!")
Telcos are using deep learning to cluster and classify users, and model and detect ab/normal behavior for everything from ads to fraud detection. Some are using us: <a href="http://deeplearning4j.org" rel="nofollow">http://deeplearning4j.org</a>
See this paper "Header Enrichment or ISP Enrichment?
Emerging Privacy Threats in Mobile Networks":
<a href="http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2015/pdf/papers/hotmiddlebox/p25.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2015/pdf/papers/hotmi...</a><p>For example Orange in Jordan adds an HTTP header with the phone number of the client to every connection. And there are technical people out there still saying HTTPS/TLS should not be mandatory…
This says "Telcos" and then lists specific names. Do we know for sure that any telcos (my concern is US-based) who do <i>not</i> do this?<p>e.g.: T-mobile? I have less hopes for AT&T...
Sure, but it's short term. Calls and messages are dropping every month, even on developing markets. The raise of WhatsApp and similar messengers (FB, Hangouts) is exponential, no hyperbole.<p>Telcos are dead and they don't want to admit it. I'd bet my money on super cheap mobile ISPs raising soon. Based on a completely different technology and making better use of the mostly empty spectrum.
How do telcos get GPS or wifi-level accurate location information? Are the phones sending that (easy enough to disable with software changes) or some other mechanism?