espionage

Fitness tracking company Strava is to share four billion pieces of user data. Unlike previous glitches, it's a deliberate action designed to help urban planners. The news came to light as Strava sent an email to customers to remind them that its ... user agreement gives it the right to share and sell user data as long as it is in completely anonymized form. Users can opt out, but their data is collected by default. The company is bundling the data, which includes details of walks and cycle rides, as a commercial product called Metro. The idea is that buyers such as urban planners and cycling ... (view more)

A judge has blocked a Department of Commerce ban on a Chinese messaging app. The judge said there wasn't enough specific evidence against the app to override free speech complaints. The department introduced the ban on WeChat (along with video app ... TikTok) following an executive order from the President. The ban meant it was illegal for app stores to distribute or update the apps in the US. The ban also outlawed US use of WeChat's mobile payment facility, which is hugely popular with American citizens of Asian descent. One estimate puts the number of US users at 19 million. In both cases, the ... (view more)

Apple wants to patent a technology that would make it harder for police to track people's location through their phone. The technology wouldn't make messages and calls secret, but rather make it harder to prove who owned the phone in question. The ... patent is for end-to-end encryption for the mobile subscriber identification number (MSNI). That's part of a longer number that also identifies the country and mobile network a phone is registered to What's important here is that the MSNI identifies the specific handset. Police could then force a mobile carrier to hand over the ... (view more)

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has banned military staff from using geolocation tools such as GPS-enabled fitness trackers in "operational areas." The move follows fears such data could be unintentionally public and threaten security. Earlier ... this year fitness tracker company Strava published a worldwide map showing the most popular routes for its users to run and carry out other exercise activity. The map showed routes in increasing levels of brightness depending on their popularity. Middle East Bases Unintentionally Mapped Several users then spotted several routes in countries such as ... (view more)