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submitted 19 hours ago by otter@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

Privacy advocates got access to Locate X, a phone tracking tool which multiple U.S. agencies have bought access to, and showed me and other journalists exactly what it was capable of. Tracking a phone from one state to another to an abortion clinic. Multiple places of worship. A school. Following a likely juror to a residence. And all of this tracking is possible without a warrant, and instead just a few clicks of a mouse.

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[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 225 points 18 hours ago

This should be illegal. There is absolutely no good reason this should be available to anybody. It should also be considered unconstitutional; if one of those dots is a person, whether you directly know who the person is or not, it should violate the right to privacy and the right of illegal search and seizure — no questions asked.

[-] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

The solution is to subscribe to these services. Then create a website that offers real-time tracking information, freely to the public, of the most wealthy and powerful people in the country. Every Congressperson should have their location shown freely available to all in real time. You could call it "wheresmyrep.org" or similar. Literally all of them tracked like animals in real time, freely shown for any and all to see. Let them live in the fish bowl they've created for us all.

[-] T156@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Although we already know what would likely happen if someone did that. It would just be made illegal to track the locations of congresspeople (and only congresspeople), like it was made illegal to do so during the BLM protests.

[-] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 points 1 hour ago

Just like how the moment their videotape rental history was exposed, that was when privacy became an absolute must in the case of video rental services.

[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

We’re kind of seeing that with those private jet trackers. But that’s not changing anything except getting those accounts banned from social media.

[-] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

I think those just need to move to have their own independent sites instead of basing their operations on social media. Ultimately what they're doing is entirely legal, but it's way too easy for some asshat billionaire to pull some strings to get them pulled from a platform.

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 91 points 17 hours ago

You are right. And you're fighting against the credit reporting agencies and google, facebook, apple, and all car manufacturers for privacy rights.

This is the result of jurists and legislators who don't understand a single goddamned thing about computers in 2024. For fuck's sake it's been thirty goddamned years since this was obviously going to happen. Take a class, you bastards! Those of you who aren't Heritage Foundation fascists.

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 6 points 10 hours ago

I'm convinced that a good number of legislators understand the implications of this stuff on a cursory level, but are convinced (read: bribed) to not care on the "condition" that it doesn't apply to them or their families. They are beholden to their constituents, and their constituents aren't you and me, as we can't afford them.

[-] TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org 46 points 17 hours ago

It's not getting better either: https://futurism.com/the-byte/gen-z-kids-file-systems

There seems to have been a short window of maybe two decades in the 80s and 90s when computers and the Internet were becoming household staples where almost everyone who grew up in that time period knows what's up, while everyone who didn't is way more ignorant. The older folks are lost because they didn't grow up with computers. The younger kids are lost because they were born into a world of advanced UIs, "plug and play", and software that heavily obfuscates the nitty gritty details of how it works.

Being forced to run command line installers, edit config.sys files, set DIP switches correctly for your front side bus speed and messing with IRQ settings for your sound card and such just to play a computer game will definitely teach you a thing or two. My family's PC came with not only an instruction manual, but an entire language reference for the built in GW-Basic interpreter. Nowadays, you get a laptop with a small pamphlet showing you how to plug it in and turn it on.

this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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