Sneaky ways cops could access data to widely [track anyone] in the US(arstechnica.com)

Sneaky ways cops could access data to widely [track anyone] in the US

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/sneaky-ways-cops-could-access-data-to-widely-prosecute-abortions-in-the-us/

1 comments

Syonykhace 4 años

Title slightly edited because I think the focus on abortion specifically is missing the bigger point - that police have warrant-free access to pretty much "whatever location data they want," via the normal back channels of third party data extraction from apps, data brokers, and companies who won't talk to you if you're not a police department with a checkbook.

If you can draw a box around an abortion clinic and follow phones to and from, you can do that around around literally anything else - a church, a protest, an activist gathering, a crypto meetup, etc.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the weaponization of consumer tech against humans is basically complete - that there's no way to reasonably, safely, privately use much of any part of the modern tech ecosystem that we've (handwave around HN goes here, myself included) have built. And I'm considering what that looks like, since the older systems we used to use are long since gone (even POTS is now high latency digitally encoded stuff in most areas now). I can use VPNs, Tor, Qubes, etc... but at what point is the system I'm attempting to interact with simply not worth interacting with?

I don't have great answers, just something I've been trying to think through.