"U.S. forces deployed to war zones have ​been targeted using commercially available location data"

Just like I, @johnnyryan and others warned.

US Senator Wyden says it's time to "start treating the adtech industry as a national security threat". Agreed.
reuters.com/business/media-tel…

Jordan reshared this.

in reply to Wolfie Christl

Here's our 2023 report on how "data about American defense personnel and political leaders flows to foreign states and non-state actors":
iccl.ie/digital-data/americas-…

In a letter, Wyden and other congress members write that the DoD "has not taken basic steps to protect U.S. military personnel from the serious … threat posed by the collection and sale of personal information". Instead, it has "encouraged the growth of this industry by buying location data" from data brokers:
documentcloud.org/documents/28…

in reply to Wolfie Christl

Their letter is quite explicit about Apple, Google and Chrome:

- Both Apple iOS and Google Android were "designed" to "assign a unique tracking number to each smartphone for use by the advertising industry and data brokers".

- Google Chrome, as a web browser that is "designed to facilitate data collection", must be removed from all US military devices.

reshared this

in reply to Dark Phoenix 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈

If I know anything about our armed forces, its mostly 18-22 year olds who've just been given both a decent pay check and zero consequences if they blow it all on dumb shit.

Its why they all have stock Dodge Chargers and Mustangs. Its why they're tracked so well by adtech.

in reply to nagaram

@nagaram
wait.
You think $25k a year is a decent salary? Here, it will barely cover rent.
Before Trump, maybe, but with the cuts in safety nets (one of the largest groups who receive SNAP are military.)
Unfortunately, the cars are real, but that is because car salesmen know that the new recruits are, in general, more gullible than the average American.
in reply to Dark Phoenix 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈

I thought they made closer to $30-$35k a year.

Base Army salary according to GoArmy is $28k so roughly $13/hr assuming full time hours.

That's pretty good when you consider most recruits are coming from rural areas where they'd be lucky to find anything over $10/hr and anything full time.

in reply to Wolfie Christl

@Wolfie Christl
It's always baffled me how trackers of any kind on the internet are not illegal. If someone were to keep tabs on you in the real world by constantly monitoring where you shop, what you look at, and generally what you get up to all day, nobody would think twice about condemning them as a stalker. However, if a business or government does the same thing under the guise of marketing, security, or child safety, there seems to be no issue~?
@Johnny Ryan
in reply to Wolfie Christl

until a systemic fix is put in place, do you have any reliable sources on how to browse safely preventing this data capture? For example, I'm using Firefox with Privacy Badger and Adguard on a stock Pixel phone, is that enough or would I need to flash a custom ROM? I'm not particularly concerned about 100% watertight protection personally, but would be good to get an idea what's a reasonable level of protection. Looks like for some people this knowledge would be a matter of life and death though...