Everyone knows your location
timsh.org
How I tracked myself down using leaked location data in the in-app ads, and what I found along the way.

An amazing bit of digital detective work here. Seems like Linux mobile is your only off ramp from being exhaustively tracked

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    8·
    3 days ago

    I think it’s more: “Don’t use a smartphone”. It’ll send those requests through any internet connection. No matter if it’s a VPN or Tor.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Google hardcodes DNS into their hardware appliances…
      So you’d need to block outgoing DNS requests except for your DNS server and god forbid you change location with a smartphone.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        I think this is about apps and not the operating system. But yeah, the stock ROMs also phone home to Google. You’d need to patch that. For example like custom ROMs like GrapheneOS do. I don’t see another viable alternative. But that still leaves you with the issues with the apps mentioned in the article.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          7 hours ago

          I wouldnt be surprised if Google hardcoded DNS servers even if you override it with a “private dns”

          • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
            1·
            4 hours ago

            I think it’s unlikely that they mess with people’s DNS settings. That would just break lots of stuff and internet would stop working for a small amount of people. But there are things like certificate pinning and probably similar things for DNS. We nowadays often circumvent DNS servers and use DOH on an application level. Plus there are things like connectivity checks (made for public wifi portals etc), AGPS… that all connect to Google servers… Well, unless you have that changed, as I said. But that’s not something the user can change. You need the whole operating system re-built with different servers in place.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        5·
        2 days ago

        Same, same. But the occasional app refusing to work due to missing Play services, all the Instagram posts everyone except me took notice of, and all the hoops I have to jump through, kind of remind me of that regularly.

          • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
            1·
            12 hours ago

            Just comes with the downside that I can’t take part in every day life, talk to my friends, stay connected with old friends, borrow an electric bicycle, transfer money easily… I have to drive to a shop only to see it’s closed and they posted that on Instagram… I mean there’s a whole world out there which I don’t just want to disconnect from and become some sort of hermit…