Posted on 04/07/2023 6:55:01 PM PDT by bitt
Ping
Watching the Alex Murdaugh trial, I learned just how much information your cell phone records. It’s insane. They couldn’t have more info on you if you had a crew of FBI agents watching you and taking notes, 24/7.
Last summer we took a vacation trip from Michigan to Denver CO. We stopped for gas right after we entered Iowa, just a couple of miles before we got to the “Iowa 80” gas station, which we had seen on several billboards. A couple of days later, while driving around Denver, listening to XM Sirius radio, we heard an ad for the Iowa 80 gas station. I seriously doubt that an individual gas station in the middle of nowhere would be advertising to EVERY XM radio receiver in the country. This had to be an ad targeted to only our Sirius registration number. In my life, I’ve never heard another Iowa 80 gas station radio advertisement, ever.
For that to happen, though, Google would have to know our gas purchasing history, and, at least, our use of Sirus on our XM radio in the car, and then give that information to Sirius, all without our knowledge. That’s quite a feat.
Bookmark.
I suppose that if I was a criminal I wouldn’t want it though.
Just wait until they redefine the meaning of ‘criminal’ and crimes.
If they can do it to Pres Trump..........
A friend coming home from work saw the neighbor on a new riding lawn mower. They chatted for awhile and the friend commenting that he was thinking of getting one.
They finished chatting and he went inside. Pulled his phone out of his pocket to check his emails. It already had an ad for riding lawn mowers (and he continued to get them). The idea of a new mower had just occurred to him while talking with the neighbor. He figures the phone is listening in all the time.
I suspect that might have happened to me too.
Sounds like the best option to me. I don't use my cell phone for anything other than calls and the occasional text from my doctor, and mail pharmacy. I turned off the majority of the apps on my iPhone when I got it. I never used the Maps app on it, so there wasn't any saved locations or recent ones either. I turned off my location on it quite a while ago, as someone else had posted a similar thread about turning it off.
It’s not just your phone. It almost every late model car with whatever variant of On-Star your vehicle manufacturer uses. Have a Lo-Jac anti-theft type of device on your car? It tracks and records every movement and catalogs where your car has been.
For starters, if you value your personal security and privacy, don’t use anything made by G**gle. Using ANYTHING with the G**gle name on it is as much as begging for a proctological exam every time you use it. All G**gle services are created on the principle of collecting any and all information on you that they can, any way that they can.
Android can be made less intrusive but you have to be cleverer than the evil geniuses at G**gle who created it (requires rooting, installing android firewall [AFWall_Plus], Magisk [with MicroG module], yadd, yadda, yadda), but that involves a heavy investment in time to mod your phone and then scrounge for solutions to the inevitable bugs and glitches.
A simpler solution is a 3rd-party ROM. Android is ‘open source’ and there are a number of 3rd-parties who have created de-G**gled Android and make it available free. The oldest and best developed is LineageOS, the modern descendant of Cyanogenmod, but they LineageOS doesn’t make ROMS for every phone, and mostly just higher-end stuff (lineageos.org for details). LineageOS ansd MicroG parted ways over philosophical differences but you still can get LineageOS with MicroG built in (from MicroG) but their offerings cover even fewer devices than LineageOS does.
https://www.xda-developers.com/most-popular-custom-roms-android/
If Mark37 can make a go of it, more power to them. Regarding their statement, “the planned obsolescence economy is a fraud and should be stopped,” be advised that if you buy a phone with a non-removable battery, that in itself is “planned obsolescence” because it puts a hard limit on a phone’s lifespan. And $400 is pretty spendy for a used phone that’s already chewed through some undisclosed portion of its battery life.
And BTW, GPS isn’t the only thing that gives away your location. You phone is constantly ‘pinging’ cell towers to remain aware of which ones are closest. And it records the identity of those towers, which can be used to track your location.
If you don't want to be tracked AND not be flagged into a category of "Suspicious people who encapsulate their phones in metal cases until they want to use them", don't carry your phone with you everywhere you go... AND DO NOT THINK BECAUSE YOU TURNED OFF YOUR PHONE THAT IT IS REALLY OFF.
While you are at it throw the TV, the thermostat, the web cam, the ring camera, and the refrigerator in there, they are monitoring too.
A few years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere. She had her cell phone with her but wasn’t talking on it. During the drive, I happened to mention that Adirondack chairs were more comfortable than they look. I hadn’t said anything at all about Adirondack chairs for years, and probably hadn’t even thought of them. Within the hour, we were getting email ads for, you guessed it, Adirondack chairs, and we kept getting ads on the phone and on our home computer for months.
I know damned well that phones listen all the time, and so do all sorts of “smart” appliances. If they ever come to get me for wrongthink, there’ll be plenty of evidence.
We still don’t own an Adirondack chair.
bump
Almost impossible.
A message from the boss:
04/07/23 | Jim Robinson
Wouldn’t it be great if we could complete this FReepathon in under 60 days? Please get your donations in early and let’s get ‘er done! Thank you very much! Your support is greatly appreciated! God bless you.
That’s happened to me before also. Just talking about something and BINGO! there’s an ad for it.
Wow...they know my wife?
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