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US military disables ad trackers on troops’ phones amid security fears (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@infosec.pub to c/privacy@programming.dev

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US military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by the US senator Ron Wyden and ⁠statements given to Reuters.

The development follows reports that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East.

The air force told Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two ⁠months ago. US Special Operations Command said in a separate letter that it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices. The army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year

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[–] bitteroldcoot@piefed.social 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh, but it's perfectly safe for everyone else.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 points 1 week ago

Depends on your definition of 'safe', but by their definition, yes, it's safe for us but not for them.
Whether or not it is actually safe (it's not) is irrelevant to them.

[–] ArsonButCute@programming.dev 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh I see, the military is allowed to have ad-tracking disabled but when I have an adversarial noise generator running to produce alternative ad profiles and obfuscate my person from my device I'm a "terrorist" and "won't be allowed back in the country if I leave"

[–] 4TBHMeCCL@suppo.fi 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What are you using for your adversarial noise generator? The one I'm using isn't constantly putting out noise.

[–] ArsonButCute@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago

Fauxx I often have to make sure it's still running because I have a custom config that keeps me disconnected from cell service, the device can't even make emergency calls, but if you're device is a standard "always online" configuration it should keep running ad infinitum. On first run, it gives you a survey to determine what not to put in the ad profile it generates for you. It will make a new one every week at least. It still peppers in accurate data and whatnot to ensure that your real data doesn't show up as a hole in the ad profile, since if you hide too well your absence will be noticed.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Why does any military, anywhere, allow any software on its devices that it doesn't have the source code for, including ability to compile and modify it?! Disabling "advertising trackers" is a small first step, yeah…

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

Because military leadership largely have no idea what the fuck is going on outside of their tiny military flavored bubble, and they're allergic to admitting when they don't know something

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

We don't have a military, just 379743 subcontractors in a trenchcoat.

[–] exdor@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I cant believe how all these officials just have random malware android.

Like, GrapheneOS is free XD

[–] IceFoxX@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

https://youtu.be/fM5w7bFNvWI At some point in the video, there's also something about the U.S. military and plaintext, hehe