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Find out if you're accidentally sharing your location with Google, Apple apps and services blog.google, support.apple.com When mobile apps first hit the scene, many were designed to make our phones more useful. This included new tools for productivity, as well as apps for entertainment. Many of today’s apps, though, are packed with sneaky permission requests and hidden trackers. These tactics are legal because app developers (and the companies behind them) have to give you a choice to opt in or out of these tracking permissions. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to do that … or the developers make it really...

Portions of the San Fernando Valley will get an extra set of eyes to help fight crime, as 100 automated license plate readers are going up in the northwest area. Earlier this year, L.A. Councilmember John Lee allocated $500,000 to purchase, install and maintain the cameras to help combat crime in the Valley. The ALPR cameras assist law enforcement in tracking and recording license plates as they pass through, to narrow the search for vehicles tied to crimes. The system then uses optical character recognition to compare the plates with hot vehicles of interest. Data stored can also help connect...

How many are repeats from the other rallies? Good question, 6122

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Wednesday prompted by a decade-long CBS News California investigation into California's newborn genetic biobank. We still won't know who is using your DNA for research, or what the research is for, but the California Department of Public Health must now reveal the number of newborn DNA samples that California is storing and the number of DNA samples that the state sells to researchers each year. In response to our decade-long investigation, lawmakers introduced several bills this year that were intended to shed light on how the state is amassing and using California's newborn DNA...

An excellent roundtable discussion among five military veterans involved in the communication security and communication exploitation aspects of communication tradecraft. The discussion focuses on how modern electronic devices can be used against citizens by unscrupulous actors and governments. This video will help people recognize vulnerabilities in their everyday habits when using computers, smart phones and even vehicles. Many people will be surprised. Length is 1:35:36, bookmark and watch on your schedule.

BREAKING: The Georgia State Election Board just voted to accept a proposed new rule that requires the Postal Service to provide tracking for mail-in ballots and chain of custody for undeliverable ballots So if/when fraud happens, we can now track it. AMAZING! "The board of registrars or absentee ballot clerk shall maintain for public inspection pursuant to O.C.G.A. 50-17-70 U.S. Postal Service tracking records for each ballot mailed to electors." This rule was proposed and presented to the board by election integrity expert @GAballots, who was surprised to see the board actually vote 5-0 https://x.com/BehizyTweets/status/1821230278330785921

Hidden deep within the new omnibus bill is a secret provision to allow the federal government to electronically track all cattle in the United States. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) warned about the hidden provision on X, stating that lobbyists will receive $15 million in taxpayer funds to unleash the electronic tracking grid on the nation’s meat-producing cows and bison. As stated directly from the omnibus, the agreement “directs the Department to continue to provide the tags and related infrastructure needed to comply with the Federal Animal Disease Traceability rule (9 CFR 86), including no less than $15,000,000 for electronic identification...

The Treasury Department banned the maker of spyware used to target government officials, reporters and activists, deploying “first-of-its-kind” sanctions against sellers of commercial spyware. The U.S. government deployed sanctions against Greece-based spyware vendor Intellexa on Tuesday and the company’s leadership after targeting U.S. officials. “Today’s actions represent a tangible step forward in discouraging the misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly present a security risk to the United States and our citizens,” Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said. The Treasury Department targeted two individuals and five entities associated with Intellexa for their...

The hurricane season's next tropical depression or storm is expected to form from a disturbance in the Atlantic by tonight as we also track two other systems with a lower chance of tropical development. W​here these systems are now: We're watching three tropical disturbances spread out from near Mexico to off the African coast, as depicted in the map below. The one expected to form into a tropical depression, and likely tropical storm, in the short-term future is Invest 95L in the central Atlantic. An "invest" is a naming convention used to identify disturbances that are being monitored with specialized...

States are seeking out ways to recoup losses from lost gas tax revenue. California, which relies on gas tax and other fuel tax revenues to support its roadway maintenance, is piloting the idea of a "road charge," which would charge drivers based on the number of miles they drive rather than how much gas they purchase. The pilot program was initiated due to the fact that the collection of gas tax revenue is estimated to decrease in the coming years, according to the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA). CalSTA officials told FOX Business that a bill, signed in 2021, established...

In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, the UMD team said they found that in addition to exposing Russian troop pre-deployment sites, the location data made it easy to see where devices in contested regions originated from. “This includes residential addresses throughout the world,” Levin said. “We even believe we can identify people who have joined the Ukraine Foreign Legion.” They also shared a written statement they received from Starlink, which acknowledged that Starlink User Terminal routers originally used a static BSSID/MAC ...Rye said Apple’s response addressed the most depressing aspect of their research: That there was previously no way for anyone...

We've all heard before that our cellphones are listening to us and monitoring our every move. While this has been debunked (or, at least, explained), the fact of the matter is that data tracking is standard practice by the most popular mobile carriers these days. **SNIP** If you don't want your mobile carrier to have so much overarching access to your data, there are ways you can stop them. The problem is that most mobile carriers aren't going to broadcast this information because it's beneficial for them to maintain this access. However, that's why we're here to help. Managing your...

Google's Chrome web browser will soon include a warning that "private" browsing does not prevent users from being tracked, a move that comes months after Google settled a related privacy lawsuit. In December, Google settled a $5 billion privacy lawsuit, which alleged that it spied on people who used Chrome's private browsing — or 'Incognito' — mode. A pre-release version of the browser has been found to include an updated privacy warning that addresses a key piece of evidence in the settled lawsuit — that users "overestimate" the privacy protection features in Chrome. When the change is rolled out, users...

My partners and I have been lifetime data scientists. We own the digital ID of every mobile device/computer in the U.S. and have indexed and archived every IP address in the world. Our extensive experience in big and deep data, including geotracking and geolocation makes our dozens of data companies the top authority for providing data to corporations, law enforcement and U.S. government agencies like the CIA, NSA, DoD, DIA, NGA, NRO, FBI, as well as Interpol and foreign intelligence organizations. There are a number of videos documenting these ghost buses as well as a number of mostly nondescript DOJ...

a report from 404 Media, written by cybersecurity journalist Joseph Cox: In the mid-afternoon one Saturday earlier this month, the target got on the New York subway. I knew what station they entered the subway at and at what specific time. They then entered another station a few hours later. If I had kept monitoring this person, I would have figured out the subway station they often start a journey at, which is near where they live. I would also know what specific time this person may go to the subway each day. During all this monitoring, I wasn't anywhere...

New York officials have announced the end of the state’s COVID-19 vaccine passport app, as demand has dried up for the pandemic-era relic that critics call discriminatory. The plug will be pulled on the Excelsior Pass Plus (EPP) on July 28, amid plummeting demand for access to digital test and vaccine records and as the COVID-19 public health emergency has ended. First launched in 2021, the app costs New York state around $200,000 per month to maintain, according to the Times Union of Albany. The app stored a person’s COVID-19 vaccination status and was used to demonstrate compliance with vaccine...

The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois. Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation,...

Through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, intrepid journalists at The Epoch Times have uncovered a previously secret CDC program to tag and track unvaxxed and “undervaccinated” (apparently meaning people who took one or more shots but did not get their so-called “boosters”) U.S. citizens. Via The Epoch Times (emphasis added): Medical codes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to show when people are unvaccinated or undervaccinated for COVID-19 are being used to track people, the top U.S. public health agency has confirmed.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the confirmation in emails that The Epoch Times obtained...

Through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, intrepid journalists at The Epoch Times have uncovered a previously secret CDC program to tag and track unvaxxed and “undervaccinated” (apparently meaning people who took one or more shots but did not get their so-called “boosters”) U.S. citizens. Via The Epoch Times (emphasis added):Medical codes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to show when people are unvaccinated or undervaccinated for COVID-19 are being used to track people, the top U.S. public health agency has confirmed.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the confirmation in emails that The Epoch Times obtained through...

It’s no secret anymore. Nearly everything you do online is tracked or recorded and used to learn more about you. Many of your data points ends up on creepy people search sites. You’ll be shocked to find your full name, address, relatives, phone number, and more. Here’s a list of sites where you can opt out of this invasion of privacy. On your phone, apps are likely watching — and reporting — more than you realize. Take back control with just a few minutes in your settings. Navigation apps use your phone’s GPS location to determine exactly where you are....