One thing I’m concerned about is recording equipment leaving identifiable information without us knowing about it.
Most modern cars are SIM-enabled and are constantly sending data back to the mothership. But even those that aren’t will still collect data locally and that data will be collected when you send the car to an “official/licenced/authorized” repair shop.
Any proof of this just sounds like BS. Even your source doesn’t proof what you are saying. Echo devices ring doorbells nothing about fire tvs.
No where does it state that customer data is being sent to Amazon. And neither that the technology is implemented in Amazon TVs.
Thanks for giving false info or inaccurate source.
At launch (in 2021) the FireTV was not on the list of Sidewalk-enabled products, but given the fact that Sidewalk was enabled without user consent on many existing devices (and has been found to re-enable itself after being disabled) combined with the fact that FireTV devices all have at least the necessary bluetooth radio (even if not the LoRA part, Sidewalk can use both/either) and thus could become sidewalk-enabled by a software update in the future… I would still say that Sidewalk is a reason (among many) to boycott FireTV along with the rest of Amazon’s products.
The takeaway that Amazon built their own mesh network so that their products in neighboring homes can exfiltrate data via eachother whenever any one of them can get online is not false.
I see. Although none of that was listed in the Wikipedia article
Social graph connections can be automatically inferred from location data. This has been done by governments (example) for a long time and is also done by private companies (sorry I can’t find a link at the moment).
Photos taken by digital cameras are also trackable in a similar way as prints taken from a printer. I recall reading they were trying to identify the device after a Harry Potter book was leaked by someone taking digital photographs.
EXIF data?
Exif data. It can be removed with various apps but its in photos by default on most devices
Youre talking about img metadata right? With the right tool you can strip images out of them
That’s the obvious one. But you can also add data to images by adding tiny values to the pixels, it’ll still look the same to us (same as printer tiny dots).
I don’t know if phones actually do this. Just saying it’s possible.
But many uploading sites optimize the images, so it’ll be gone on reshare, but they could get it on first upload.
No… But i’ve thought about how easy it would be to implement in ebooks and pdfs (e.g. my daily newspaper i can download as pdf). I’ve thought about this when sailing the high seas.
Is it a thing?
Watermarking is definitely a thing. Whistle-blower have to think about that as well.
Yeah - was motivated to do a search :) https://www.lemonink.co/home#start-using
Well just recently learned that some printers exfiltrate data from air gapped networks through ink cartridges.
That ATM cash tracking thing comes to mind
What is it?
Banks can track each banknotes serial number when you receive them from the ATM and when they are returned from the store you spent them at. This data could then be used to create a complete profile of your spending habits.
Doesn’t work very well if you buy something directly from someone. Or if your cash is given out as change. Seems like it would make a wildly inaccurate profile.
Lots of stores also gives bills back out, the system makes zero sense, it can’t track anything at all. Like maybe 5% of bills are used once and then returned to the bank.
Exactly.
ATMs give out $20 bills. In order to get one back as change you’d have to pay with a bill larger than $20. I don’t remember the last time I carried something larger than a 20.
Bank ATMs can give out any denomination.
Given a large enough time frame this can be treated as random noise which is easily filtered out, and this data isn’t necessarily meant to track your supermarket shopping. For example, you can use it to figure out where somebody went who has gone into hiding. They might have cleared out their bank accounts before leaving and with that data you can see where these banknotes are now showing up. Just wait at the store they apparently visit every Tuesday.
That’s completely made up. Most bills are given out to other customers once used in a store, the amount of bills that are used once and returned to the bank would be well under 5%.
Fantastic fabricated story though. Money laundering which has been done for decades would defeat this, it’s a scary story to share that has zero basis on reality.
Netzpolitik recently did an article about that. I consider them a credible source. How often bills are used before there are returned to the bank heavily depends on the denomination. Larger bills don’t circulate as much and at least in my country most stores return their cash income to the bank on a daily basis. People also tend to spend their money around the area where they live, so even if you couldn’t figure out which exact store a targeted person spends their money at due to circulation (which I doubt), you can still quickly find the general area in which they are staying.
Without some type of visual confirmation, it’s all noise.
On my way home from work, I grab $600 from the atm, $300 for my wife’s tattoo, $200 for me, and $100 for wife spending money.
After the appt the tattoos artists wife takes $200 and flys across country that night. I spend my $200 at the peelers, all those go to a dozen different girls and servers. My wife the next day goes shopping at an outlet mall and spends her $100 at 4 stores. The tattoo artist spends his $100 on beer.
We live on the same block and I pulled the money out across town. Who’s is the original takers purchases….?
It’s 95% noise, it’s useless unless you’re an investigator and have boots on the ground.
Again, it’s a fun story to share around the campfire though. Is it possible, yes, can it be done in actual practice, absolutely not. Not without some other information.
It’s like a machine that behaves as a bank teller, kind of automatically.
You’re kidding, Shirley.
Don’t call me surely.
Isn’t it common knowledge? I’ve known about it for at least two decades…
BTW - you can easily work around it. Get someone else to buy your printer for you, or trade with someone who has the same printer… Now, they will still be able to match it to the printer, if they find it at your home, but other that that, you are free…
PS. Don’t use your printer to blackmail FBI or CIA. ;-)
It’s made to trace counterfeit money back.
Pro tip: If you use a pen and paper to blackmail the FBI and CIA, they can’t trace it back to you using invisible yellow dots.
They’ll still identify you by your wax seals. /s
It’d be uncouth to send blackmail without your family’s seal
There is no connection from a random printer you buy somewhere anonymous to you. They can “only” verify something was (not) printed with that printer.
No you don’t get it, if you swap paper with your cousin before printing the feds won’t have a fucking clue.
Ive never noticed this or heard that printers do that.Is this maybe specific to the USA?Edit: TIL, thank you!
It’s not specific to USA… They do it everywhere - with color-printers. Don’t know if they do it with B/W printers.
They claim it’s to track people who try to print money, but if it were, then they wouldn’t really do it on laser printers too…
If you print a photo on a regular paper, and then shine an UV-light on it, you can see it. It’s mostly small yellow dots.
There is software you can use that adds all the other dot patterns to essentially anonymize your printer.
They use yellow ink for that in colour printers.
Its called MIC. Or Machine ident. Code , its all around,
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Aren’t these only produced by laser printers?
Are they in laser as well? This is way older than laser.
