Texas State Police Gear Up for Expansion of Surveillance Tech

https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-cobwebs/

by OhMeadhbh • 2 years ago

116 82 2 years ago

texasobserver.org

morninglight• 2 years ago

All the surveillance is done with American made hardware and software.\s

hsnewman• 2 years ago

So glad I left Texas after 65 years.

moate• 2 years ago

If you think Texas is the only state/federal law enforcement jurisdiction contracting with these types of services, I have terrible new for you…

xmzx• 2 years ago

Even all surveillance being equal, Texas has demonstrated it uses its powers in vastly more nefarious ways against marginalized groups, notably women and Latinos and that's just in these past few months.

anonfordays• 2 years ago

So glad I moved to Texas after 65 years.

dylan6045• 2 years ago

"Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products."

It's these type of examples that show just how bad tracking and data harvesting is being used beyond the described use by whatever is doing the hoovering of data. The fact this is something that can be sold is beyond ridiculous. If you collect it for internal use is totally different from collecting for the explicit purpose of selling to others.

advael4• 2 years ago

I don't think it's possible to craft regulation such that companies collecting data for "internal use" can't abuse it. It's so easy to create plausibly deniable ways to move data around. In ML research we get a lot of "anonymized" data for example, which is ridiculous because even pretty primitive statistical methods can usually use such data to uniquely identify people, let alone the inference techniques in widespread usage in industry today

In theory it could be different, in practice it simply isn't. If we want any kind of privacy law, "internal use" or "legitimate interest" or whatever nonsense the data brokers deploy to pretend there's some way to do this that isn't unethical is a smokescreen and a loophole in every context, and we should ban the harvesting of that data regardless of its intended use

dylan6045• 2 years ago

I'm much less concerned about if 'you collect it, you use it' situations. It's the companies that build an app with a psuedo purpose whose real purpose is to collect data for reselling later. Collecting data for the sole purpose of selling to others should be regulated into oblivion.

MetaWhirledPeas• 2 years ago

I don't think it's possible to craft regulation such that companies collecting data for "internal use" can't abuse it.

Actually, the regulatory language is easy. "You may not buy or sell user data."

The friction comes from the fact that a large part of our economy is highly dependent on the ability to buy and sell user data.

CuriousSkeptic2• 2 years ago

GDPR is pretty clear on anonymisation requirements https://www.edps.europa.eu/system/files/2021-04/21-04-27_aep...

So somewhat possible?

throwaway484762• 2 years ago

This data is also used by cartels to kill people. Mass surveillance has a blood price.

notduncansmith2• 2 years ago

This certainly seems within the realm of possibility but can you link to a source?

kurthr2• 2 years ago

Don't collect any large scale data on your public (customer?) you don't want adversaries to have.

You quickly become the weakest link.

tmpz222• 2 years ago

This is how Astrology Apps and similar genres work. They prey on a gullible demographic and then extract as much data as possible: contact lists, location, and more. Apple is complicit because even the dumbest reviewer knows an Astrology App doesn't need constant location access (but we need to lookup their star signs! We couldn't possibly just ask for a one-off zip code!).

dylan6045• 2 years ago

Haha, and why would my contacts be necessary to tell me my reading?

The fact that the walled garden isn't preventing this type of behavior is pretty good evidence of why it's no where near as safe as they tout it.

ideashower4• 2 years ago

It's actually travel apps (non-navigation/maps) that collect the most.

Maybe astrology apps fit under "lifestyle" which is #2. It's much more widespread than we think.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...

qingcharles• 2 years ago

The frustrating thing with this is, that if you have naive friends, family, and professional associates your contact info is getting harvested from their phones without you having to do anything.

They just install one of these scummy apps and click OK to it vacuuming up all their contacts, which includes everything they know about you.

declan_roberts• 2 years ago

$1 million a year for 5 years? They probably spend 10x that just on their gmail storage in a year.

I was expecting some big scary number or software, but it's pretty boring technology and contract.

mojomark2• 2 years ago

As a U.S. Citizen who's spent stints in Texas over the course of several decades, while I jave friends there, it's clear that they are following in the footsteps of China. They are welcoming an autocratic surveillance state. Stripping freedom of movement and rights to your own body, one by one.

It'd be healthy if they just ceceded. Kind of like the a reverse Taiwan situation. Sorry Chip and JoJo, I think you're about to slip off the USA map, nit that the rest is much better.

fastball• 2 years ago

Which state do you live in that is doing better?

karmajunkie• 2 years ago

well just one data point, but i left texas for california, which may not do much better on the surveillance front (i haven’t really checked) but definitely does on the personal autonomy and movement front (at least, i haven’t heard of any cities in CA trying to adopt sanctuary-city-for-the-unborn laws restricting the use of their roads). we’re just a couple af clicks away from TX trying to mandate pregnancy tests to leave the state at this point.

michaelmrose7• 2 years ago

Washington is doing a lot better despite not being the biggest route into our largest trading partner or flush with oil money. Texas is among the worst states in the union.

Texas is one of the worst for human rights to the point where I wouldn't even drive through. They had to make a law that their police have to stop searching drivers buttholes without cause and yet they keep getting sued for doing random cavity searches. The last run through my parents got the third degree with implication that they might be immigrants. My fathers roots are in England/Scotland and both families have lived here for longer than the US has been the US.

It is the among the worst for reproductive rights with lawmakers wanting to punish women for abortions obtained in other states, punish women who even drive through anti abortion counties on their way to leave the state, and let any interested party including woman's rapists collect a bounty on the head of their victim in a brazen attempt to avoid getting the law thrown out.

Because of this and other factors its drastically short of doctors having almost the worst ratio of doctors to patients in the US

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/rankings-and-ratings/s...

It has more people without health insurance than any other state and its getting worse in recent years.

https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/pe...

It is among the worst for law and order. It's AG is a criminal several times over.

https://apnews.com/article/paxton-indictment-texas-d5e57fc6c...

It allows a certain county judge selected by Trump handle all the most insanely biased cases that nobody in their right mind would take handing out rulings binding citizens in other states. These cases are so ridiculous that the 6v3 conservative Supreme Court has to keep stepping in to put down this court's militantly stupid decisions.

It is among the worst for democracy. It is working to try to pass a law that all statewide offices would have to be held by candidates who won the majority of the majority of its counties not its population. For reference Texas has 256 counties some with as few as a few dozen people and the majority of the majority could constitute as little as 4% of its population. It wants to enshrine rural republican rule at the expense of anything else.

It filed a lawsuit last go round asking the surpreme court to literally throw out everyone's votes and essentially appoint Trump President.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/11/texas-lawsuit-suprem...

Despite being hard on crime its murder rate is slightly higher than average while its incarceration level is much higher than average.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/us-criminal-justi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate

mojomark2• 2 years ago

Delaware.

edward28• 2 years ago

Are you just going to ignore the federal patriot Act.

michaelmrose7• 2 years ago

It wouldn't be healthy to have a large potential enemy next door with a chunk of resources that used to accrue to our benefit nor to abandon the 45-47% whose wishes are in accord with the majority of the nation we all live in but who aren't in line with the majority of the state.

Furthermore demographic changes suggest that the majority will be in some decades in accord with the rest of us if we don't blink now.

More importantly it would create a legal precedent that if allowed would fracture the US utterly diminishing our global power and likely leading to long term conflict which we may lose.

Anyone want to see civil war v2 with the new Confederacy aligned with China and Russia?

Conflict with China and Russia seems increasingly likely already in the long run and as China's star rises they have less reason for restaint.

Traditionally the rising star wars with the existing powers when supremacy is in doubt and that would very much be the case if we split in 2 or 3 and allegiance to eachother were in doubt.

There is every reason to believe that the US will defeat the fascist threat presented by Trump and come through it whole. If we allow seccession we will instead likely see the US split into the US and Trumpistan with TX only the first domino to fall. Doubtless other red states would follow probably into a loose confederation of states itself in danger of splintering further.

The best case would be ending up the EU with major economic ties preventing conflict between China and Russias aspirations crushed in Ukraine.

This is however a massive dice roll with no guarantee that it goes so well especially for women, liberals, and minorities in the red states.

oldpersonintx• 2 years ago

we have your oil, F35 production pipeline, and best access to your #1 trading partner (Mexico)

remember our much-maligned "disconnected" grid when you think you are turning the lights out on us

akira25012• 2 years ago

It'd be healthy if they just ceceded.

It'd be expedient. An entire generation of people have had such bad experiences in politics they've apparently just entirely given up on them and then have mistaken their position for one of rationale.

It'd be healthy if we fixed whatever caused this type of banter to be accepted.

michaelmrose7• 2 years ago

What you are seeing now is the death knell of the klan and their sympathizers. There basically isn't any "fix" for it other than to keep rejecting their ideology and keep moving our country on one funeral and one election at a time.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41405789

kevinventullo• 2 years ago

Isn’t this stuff fairly easy to circumvent as an individual by disabling location services on your phone? There’s still wifi positioning, but at least on iPhone I think that’s opt in. That leaves cell tower triangulation which I believe is only good to within a mile or so, right?

I guess if you really don’t want to be found, put your phone on airplane mode or get a burner.

flanbiscuit• 2 years ago

A mile or so in a big congested city might make it difficult to find someone, but we're talking about spread out rural areas near the Texas/Mexico border where there are less people per square mile. But even the DFW area is huge and spread out. Maybe it's plausible?

akira25012• 2 years ago

What you really want is noise. You want your phone to generate a bunch of additional fake data. So much so that anyone who collects it will have no ability to tease out the real data from the fake data.

maronato• 2 years ago

When your phone downloads stuff, their servers can see your IP. While IPs may not give very specific locations by themselves, the fact that your IP may change as you move around helps a lot to narrow it down.

Collect data for a few days to learn schedules, throw in some more specific data purchased from ISPs, other fingerprints, plot it on top of an actual map with roads and buildings, and you’ve got a very good guess of where specific people are, where they live and work, and how they move around.

Correlate that with other people’s data and eventually you’ll be able to guess who they live and hang with.

maxclark• 2 years ago

Reminds me a a city in the PNW using outdoor APs to track people. Doesn’t matter if you’re on the free WiFi they still get your movement.

FollowingTheDao4• 2 years ago

Yes. Carry a cell sized Faraday bag.

eslaught• 2 years ago

You don't trust your own phone's airplane mode to shut the cell modem off?

advisedwang3• 2 years ago

Kinda defeats the point of having a cell phone tho

morkalork• 2 years ago

Many cities have scanners that track cellphones via Bluetooth for monitoring traffic congestion.

pnw• 2 years ago

I don't see how this system can track a modern iOS device given Apple's deprecation of IDFA. Likewise, the Wifi MAC address on iOS is randomized by default. The only non-randomized identifier is Bluetooth AFAIK.

What am I missing?

mu53• 2 years ago

Browser fingerprinting is insanely sophisticated, and I am sure that apps have sophisticated techniques as well. When you pool the data together, it’s easy to correlate.

Plus, IMEI numbers can be used by carriers, and that is a very solid identifier per phone. When you operate at that level, tracking is very easy. ATT has been selling this data for years

advisedwang3• 2 years ago

A few possible sources:

- malware on phones (even though apps are supposed to only get anonymous information, there are ways to workaround it. For one a app can just ask your name and many people will put it in.)

- cell phone companies selling the data (see for evidence they do this https://www.vice.com/en/article/i-gave-a-bounty-hunter-300-d...)

Bear in mind these companies advertising a capability doesn't mean it works on every target.

WhyNotHugo3• 2 years ago

Last year I downloaded a payment app (Alipay) which required me to sign up. My phone number was pre-filled in the registration screen.

Clearly iOS was providing the app with some API to query my current phone number, and was disclosing it without my explicit consent.

FollowingTheDao4• 2 years ago

It seems the place to focus is on the telcos and the cell phone makers. Boycott? But how?

Next phone will have GrapheneOS or e/os. But that is just me. Seems like most people don not know about all this or are so locked into to a platform it is impossible to get them to change.

The Government is so controlled by corporations we cannot depend on the politicians either.

Might be time to just sit back and watch.

arnaudsm• 2 years ago

Many banking apps won't work on custom roms, which can be painful. Open source OSes are getting cornered. Just like self hosted email servers that are getting blocked by many email providers nowadays

hellojesus2• 2 years ago

The issue is that a lot of apps are starting to require Play Integrity (used to be SafetyNet). Thankfully my banks haven't made the move, and I happily use grapheneos with a secondary profile that has Google play services installed.

xyst• 2 years ago

Cobwebs Technologies, which was founded in Israel in 2014 by three former members of Israeli military special units

TX lege been very friendly towards Israel government. Israeli government also has tight controls over who has access to their tech (ie, no sales to non friendly entities).

In wake of Roe v Wade repeal, TX “trigger law” on abortion, and Project 2025. We all know this is really going to be used to track “abortion traffickers”. Let’s hope this election doesn’t go that way though.

beefnugs• 2 years ago

What a load of wrong: pegasus was specificly proven to be sold to all the wrong people, even israel enemies

smrtinsert• 2 years ago

Surveillance will be the death of the cell "phone". What are the arguments for bringing your phone with you? I'm imagining a future where politicized geofencing has observed people gathering together and is prosecuted precisely becaused it was geofenced. It's mindboggling and there has to be other solutions convenience technology that do not sacrifice privacy.

snakeyjake• 2 years ago

Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web.

Ah. A scam.

Texas State Police Gear Up for Expansion of Surveillance Tech

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