Category Archives: Spying

Pure Evil: “AP Exclusive: Google tracks your movements, like it or not”

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The sole purpose of Android is to spy on its users. Researchers discover that even when you disable location tracking services throughout Android, Google continues to track your every movement.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.

Source: AP Exclusive: Google tracks your movements, like it or not

Google revised their old motto of “Don’t be evil” to “Do be evil”.

Google repeatedly insists, when caught spying on people, that data collection was due to a software error or that they do not store the data. All of their errors are on the side of collecting more data, never the reverse.

Up through Android 7, you could easily swipe down from the top notification bar and click to turn Location off. Android 8 removed that feature and you must now go into Settings, page down, find location and then turn it off. Google intentionally made it harder to disable their spying service.

In the past, Google was found tracking users who had no SIM card in their phone. Google was collecting tracking data and then uploading to Google when the device connected to Wi-Fi.

The user interface in Android to disable all the features to – presumably – reduce Google’s tracking of you is convoluted and not a quick “turn it off”. It’s easier to go to a web browser on your computer and go to the Google Dashboard (just search for that), and then look for the Search Activity item on the right hand side of the screen, click the down arrow icon, then click on Go to Web & App Activity. Here you can change settings (I turn most of them to off).

And while on this page, you can delete Google’s past history by selecting “Delete Activity by”, and then select “All Time” and “All products”.

Select Other Google Activity – here you can see online comments you have posted, and view your YouTube Likes and Dislikes. It used to be impossible to delete your Liked video selections as you had to go to each and every past Youtube video and unlike the video. Now there is an option labeled “Delete All”.

Does this actually delete the records? We have no idea. It might, for example, merely hide the data collection from you so that it looks like it was deleted but it actually remains on the Google servers.

“Likes” on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are the *primary* method used to analyzer your interests. All of these services use your collection of Likes to discern what products or services you may like, even what your political affiliation is (Facebook datamined my likes and friend’s list to identify me as both a Democrat and a Republican, simultaneously, even though I do not belong or affiliate with either political party).

Each time you innocently click on Like, you are adding data to the dossier that they maintain on you, specifically. Consequently, Likes are a primary “currency” of their global surveillance operation.

You will also need to go to the My Activity tab and delete everything there too. Google makes it some what cumbersome to delete their spying records.

Detailed voter information and profiles for millions of American’s leaked to the web

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Social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google attempt to discern our interests and voting profile by interpreting the text we write, the texts we receive, the posts we like and share, the web sites we visit, and combine that with data purchased from third party companies that collect our credit card purchases and store loyalty card purchases. Google is just as bad as Facebook.

This information is compiled into a dossier on each of us and is sold to others for the purpose of influencing us – usually to buy something but also to adopt someone else’s ideology. Many of the conclusions are based upon unverified assertions – and are often not true.

However, this data is widely distributed. Unfortunately, one company stored the information in an unsecured cloud (they believe they inadvertently marked it as “public” rather than “private”) and now these detailed profiles of millions of Americans, including their name, address, phone number, salary and estimated wealth, political affiliation, hobbies, interests and more has been leaked.

Some of the files, which were primarily Excel spreadsheets, contained details about specific voters that went far beyond information that is publicly available through voter rolls compiled by state governments, which often include name, address, phone number, and party affiliation.

 

One spreadsheet described voters in the Bronx with labels such as “Fragile Families” and “Meager Metro Means.” Another estimated the net worth and annual income of individual Floridians. Others listed specific hobbies and interests for each voter, such as NASCAR, woodworking, and scuba diving. Several noted whether or not someone owned a gun.

Source: Millions of U.S. Voter Records Exposed on Robo-Call Company RoboCent’s Poorly-Configured AWS Cloud Storage – IEEE Spectrum

This data is collected by third parties. We have no control over the data they collect nor any way to correct assertions that are wildly inaccurate or out of date. Facebook, for example, believes I am both a Republican and a Democrat, simultaneously, but in reality I belong to neither party.

Essentially all data about each of us – including the assertions that may not be true – has been released to the wild due to numerous security leaks at multiple services. Hell, earlier in July 2018, Dignity Health emailed me, in the clear, the 101 page medical history of one of their patients. Information security is viewed as a suggestion, not a mandate. RoboCent, who leaked the voter records, does no business with the people it impacted – thus, the people are powerless to provide a market-based response to the incompetent leadership of RoboCent.

UK government says Facebook’s friend of friends data was accessed from Russia and other countries

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Not surprisingly, the leaky data sieve that is Facebook, had its trove of personal data accessed from Russia and other countries (which likely includes the U.S.?):

The now infamous Facebook data set on tens of millions of Americans gathered by a Cambridge University scientist for a firm that went on to worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was accessed from Russia, a British member of parliament tells CNN.

Source: Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook data was accessed from Russia, MP says

As noted in the story, access appears to have been made from many countries. The headline focuses on Russia because that’s a hot bottom media meme right now (lots of accusations without supporting evidence).

The bigger issue remains that Facebook is a global surveillance network that tracks everyone’s online activities and has been buying offline consumer purchasing data to integrate into their own database. Facebook, historically, gave third parties access to this data – including allowing apps to gather data on friends of friends who never gave permission. Facebook has leaked this data like a sieve leaks water. Everything we’ve ever done on FB should be assumed as having been collected by numerous third parties.

Russian intelligence may have access to US Facebook user data

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A Russian internet company with links to the Kremlin could have had access to the Facebook data of millions of people in the US without their knowledge, CNN has learned.

….

“What this means is that all data that Facebook users shared through this agreement with Mail.Ru is now available to the Russian intelligence services. All of it. And that is incredibly troubling,” Carpenter said.

Source: Russian company could have accessed Facebook data on millions of Americans, source says

We presume that U.S. intelligence agencies already had access. Of interest, Facebook is building out an enormous data center almost next door to the NSA’s huge Utah Data Center.

Facebook and mail.ru deny any collection of data. Facebook has, in the past, frequently denied direct and indirect data collection only to reveal later that data was collected by third parties.

Smart TVs track everything you watch, and link that to your computer and smart phone connected devices too

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Once enabled, Samba TV can track nearly everything that appears on the TV on a second-by-second basis, essentially reading pixels to identify network shows and ads, as well as programs on Netflix and HBO and even video games played on the TV. Samba TV has even offered advertisers the ability to base their targeting on whether people watch conservative or liberal media outlets and which party’s presidential debate they watched.

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Samba TV can also identify other devices in the home that share the TV’s internet connection.

Source: How smart TVs in millions of U.S. homes track more than what’s on tonight :: WRAL.com

The primary business of the Internet is surveillance and propaganda.

Google is misleading people about “we don’t read your email”

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Google has been a little more careful than Facebook when it comes to protecting your privacy. For example, the company stopped using contents of user emails on Gmail to personalize its ads back in 2017.

But if you’re not careful about granting permissions in Gmail to third-party apps, your emails could still theoretically fall into the wrong hands. To check which third-party apps you’ve allowed to access your Gmail, go to myaccount.google.com and click on “Apps with account access.”
In the post, Frey also points out that “no one at Google reads your Gmail.”

Source: Google says no one is reading your emails, except…

Except for artificially intelligent software systems that are, in fact, reading and interpreting your emails and creating databases of information based on the email content.

This is easily proven as I show in this post and is documented in their privacy policy (a.k.a. anti-privacy policy).

Technically, they are correct that “no one [humans] at Google reads your Gmail” – they have offloaded that task entirely to AI software systems that simulate humans reading your email.

Google argues that it discloses this in its privacy policy. However, Google also scans email that you receive, sent to you by people who never consented to Google reading their email.

WSJ: #Google let’s most any software company read your #Gmail

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Software developers scan hundreds of millions of emails of users who sign up for email-based services. Disclosures are often buried in user agreements.

Source: Tech’s ‘Dirty Secret’: The App Developers Sifting Through Your Gmail – WSJ

They also let employees of those companies personally read your email: this is “common practice”.

As already suggested on this blog, they data mine the hell of our emails, logging your purchases, financial records, travel records and more.

For companies that want data for marketing and other purposes, tapping into email is attractive because it contains shopping histories, travel itineraries, financial records and personal communications. Data-mining companies commonly use free apps and services to hook users into giving up access to their inboxes without clearly stating what data they collect and what they are doing with it, according to current and former employees of these companies.

Any Android app can request Inbox access and once given by the user, can read all of your emails. It’s that simple!

There is much handwaving about the wording in privacy policies (which are anti-privacy policies intended to protect the corporation, not you) – but there is no auditing of third parties who are rummaging through your email.

no human reads your email to target ads or related information to you without your consent.

The don’t need a human to read your email. AI software is now the equivalent of a human looking over your shoulder, reading your email, taking notes and making assumptions and interpretations about you. All of this is collected to create a detailed dossier about you – your lifestyle, your income, your interests, your politics – everything they can discern. This profile is then sold to advertisers who wish to target ads to specific individuals.

As we have shown on this blog, these dossiers are also inaccurate.

Shouldn’t every user be told when an AI artificial person or an actual person has read their email and for what purpose?

Facebook shared user data with 52 tech companies

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This is a fake resolution statement:

It has already ended deals with most of them.

Source: Facebook shared user data with 52 tech companies

First, they already have the data.

Second, in numerous cases on Android phones, the original code is installed on the device and without root access (which is the situation for most users), the code is not removable. Thus, in spite of the “ended deals”, the data collection will continue until users gradually replace their phones and tablets.

#Facebook logs everything about you, including much that you would never expect them to collect

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In a document provided to Congress by Facebook we learn that Facebook is a massive spying operation recording everything about you, including the names of files on your device, data about other devices on your network or near to you (including from people who never gave Facebook permission), and records things you buy from other web sites (meaning, not on Facebook – see note)... literally, everything. Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly lies about the massive spy operation conducted by Facebook.

1. information from “computers, phones, connected TVs, and other web-connected devices,” as well as your “internet service provider or mobile operator”
2. “mouse movements” on your computer
3. “app and file names” (and the types of files) on your devices
….
6. information “about other devices that are nearby or on their network”
….
11. “purchases [users] make” on off-Facebook websites
12. contact information “such as an address book” and, for Android users, “call log or SMS log history” if synced, for finding “people they may know”

….
14. “location of a photo or the date a file was created” through the file’s metadata
15. information through your device’s settings, such as “GPS location, camera, or photos”
16. information about your “online and offline actions” and purchases from third-party data providers
17. “device IDs, and other identifiers, such as from games, apps or accounts users use“

Source: Here Are 18 Things You Might Not Have Realized Facebook Tracks About You

Note

When I visit Amazon.com, a total of 25 “trackers” are invoked, including from DoubleClick, Yahoo, Advertising.com, Taboola, Adobe and many, many more.  A visit to Walmart indicates Facebook Custom Audiences are tracking us. Target shows Bing advertising tracking, Google tracking and many more in use.