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A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta

A bit of context for non-Norwegians: The government owned media NRK bought location data from Tamoco worth approximately 3,400 USD. The NRK subsidiary NRKbeta has "connected the dots" from that data set. In this article they present how they could track down military personnel visiting restricted military sites in Norway, including the disputed radar installation in Vardø, close to the Russian border.

Foxboron 6y ago
A bit context on NRKbeta from their website. "NRKbeta is NRKs sandbox for technology and media. We write about media, the internet and new technology with a focus on you as the user, and what we at NRK do in this field. We call it a sandbox because we want to test things out, be curious and find out how things change. And bring you, the users, with us on this journey." https://nrkbeta.no/ https://nrkbeta.no/ EDIT: I also think it's important to contextualize this journalism with the current debate around the Norwegian contact tracing application. The application has been heavily criticized for the collection of GPS data for research usage and track behaviour when new guidelines are announced. They claim this data is going to be "anonymized", but alter clarified it would only be "pseudonomized". It is also unclear if the data collected is going to be deleted in December, when the app is set for deletion by the current regulation from Stortinget.
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  Is december a realistic end date for the epidemic control it is supposed to provide? Herd immunity by vaccination at that point is extremely unlikely...
  - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
    If you are using it for data instead of control, well, that's months of data about how people move around with varying restrictions. It is enough to refine policies and note how different sorts of restrictions change people's behavior. For example, if no one really follows x mandate, well, you either drop the mandate, change it, or come in with some fairly heavy-duty force. Now, other uses might require more time. If you really need to see where the person has infected others and this is your tool, it might not be enough time. It is too early to tell, though, and I'm not sure how well phone inspections would go here in Norway nor how many people would download the app. It would make me more likely to leave my phone at home if, you know, I had much life outside of home.
- hhjinks 6y ago
  They picked a dumb name. As a Norwegian, I was under the impression that they've actually got a beta version of some supposed new site functionality for the longest time.
SiempreViernes 6y ago
This reminds me of this rumour about how someone used tinder to triangulate opponent units during an exercise and arty them to shit. Supposedly Finns outwitting Norwegians, but is a anon text so who knows: https://imgur.com/gallery/bySUH https://imgur.com/gallery/bySUH
- skocznymroczny 6y ago
  "Hot missile silos in your area are waiting for you"
- csiegert 6y ago
  Reminds me of a story I heard: In a conflict, Russia sent SMS to the mothers of Ukrainian(?) soldiers, informing them of their son’s death (pretending to be the Ukrainian government/military). The mothers, distraught, called their son’s cellphone. The increased, clustered cellphone activity near the frontline gave away the unit positions. Shortly after, Russian bombs dropped.
  - matt_the_bass 6y ago
    This is sinister genius. Do you have a citation link? I’d love to read more.
    - sitkack 6y ago
      That same "sinister genius" has and is still playing out in our elections right now.
      - celebrant 6y ago
        Are Macedonians still putting out a tiny number of low quality Facebook ads?
      - Dahoon 6y ago
        Sure why not? The US does that same thing so what is the problem?
santamarias 6y ago
perhaps useful to replace the wording "track down" with "identify"?
belorn 6y ago
It is surprising that this is not illegal. It should be illegal under GDPR as sufficient anonymized data should not allow you to connect the dots to do anything like tracking military personnel. Transporting sensitive military information over the Norwegian border sounds also very illegal under Norwegian law. Back when Wikileaks released the Afghan War Diary, I wonder what would have happened if rather than a whistleblowers we would have people buying data collected from soldiers smartphones in order to reconstruct the material. It should be pretty easy to identify colaborators by which smartphone gets into contact with someones else smartphone thus reconstruct who is working with who.

Foxboron 6y ago

A bit context on NRKbeta from their website. "NRKbeta is NRKs sandbox for technology and media. We write about media, the internet and new technology with a focus on you as the user, and what we at NRK do in this field. We call it a sandbox because we want to test things out, be curious and find out how things change. And bring you, the users, with us on this journey." https://nrkbeta.no/ https://nrkbeta.no/ EDIT: I also think it's important to contextualize this journalism with the current debate around the Norwegian contact tracing application. The application has been heavily criticized for the collection of GPS data for research usage and track behaviour when new guidelines are announced. They claim this data is going to be "anonymized", but alter clarified it would only be "pseudonomized". It is also unclear if the data collected is going to be deleted in December, when the app is set for deletion by the current regulation from Stortinget.

SiempreViernes 6y ago
Is december a realistic end date for the epidemic control it is supposed to provide? Herd immunity by vaccination at that point is extremely unlikely...
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  If you are using it for data instead of control, well, that's months of data about how people move around with varying restrictions. It is enough to refine policies and note how different sorts of restrictions change people's behavior. For example, if no one really follows x mandate, well, you either drop the mandate, change it, or come in with some fairly heavy-duty force. Now, other uses might require more time. If you really need to see where the person has infected others and this is your tool, it might not be enough time. It is too early to tell, though, and I'm not sure how well phone inspections would go here in Norway nor how many people would download the app. It would make me more likely to leave my phone at home if, you know, I had much life outside of home.
hhjinks 6y ago
They picked a dumb name. As a Norwegian, I was under the impression that they've actually got a beta version of some supposed new site functionality for the longest time.

SiempreViernes 6y ago

This reminds me of this rumour about how someone used tinder to triangulate opponent units during an exercise and arty them to shit. Supposedly Finns outwitting Norwegians, but is a anon text so who knows: https://imgur.com/gallery/bySUH https://imgur.com/gallery/bySUH

skocznymroczny 6y ago
"Hot missile silos in your area are waiting for you"
csiegert 6y ago
Reminds me of a story I heard: In a conflict, Russia sent SMS to the mothers of Ukrainian(?) soldiers, informing them of their son’s death (pretending to be the Ukrainian government/military). The mothers, distraught, called their son’s cellphone. The increased, clustered cellphone activity near the frontline gave away the unit positions. Shortly after, Russian bombs dropped.
- matt_the_bass 6y ago
  This is sinister genius. Do you have a citation link? I’d love to read more.
  - sitkack 6y ago
    That same "sinister genius" has and is still playing out in our elections right now.
    - celebrant 6y ago
      Are Macedonians still putting out a tiny number of low quality Facebook ads?
    - Dahoon 6y ago
      Sure why not? The US does that same thing so what is the problem?

santamarias 6y ago

perhaps useful to replace the wording "track down" with "identify"?

belorn 6y ago

It is surprising that this is not illegal. It should be illegal under GDPR as sufficient anonymized data should not allow you to connect the dots to do anything like tracking military personnel. Transporting sensitive military information over the Norwegian border sounds also very illegal under Norwegian law. Back when Wikileaks released the Afghan War Diary, I wonder what would have happened if rather than a whistleblowers we would have people buying data collected from soldiers smartphones in order to reconstruct the material. It should be pretty easy to identify colaborators by which smartphone gets into contact with someones else smartphone thus reconstruct who is working with who.