How to Track President Trump

Fascinating, but a big piece missing from the article is where this data came from. The linked article [1] is much more clear:

"The data reviewed by The Times Opinion didn’t come from a telecom or giant tech company, nor did it come from a governmental surveillance operation. It originated from a location data company, one of dozens quietly collecting precise movements using software slipped onto mobile phone apps. You’ve probably never heard of most of the companies — and yet to anyone who has access to this data, your life is an open book. They can see the places you go every moment of the day, whom you meet with or spend the night with, where you pray, whether you visit a methadone clinic, a psychiatrist’s office or a massage parlor."

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/locat...

While there’s nothing really new here, maybe this will get average people to start caring about this stuff.

> “Tech companies are profiting by spying on Americans — trampling on the right to privacy and risking our national security,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat running for president, told us. “They are throwing around their power to undermine our democracy with zero consequences. This report is another alarming case for why we need to break up big tech, adopt serious privacy regulations and hold top executives of these companies personally responsible.”

This reporting doesn't support Warren's case. If anything, the big tech companies are relatively responsible collectors and users of location data compared to the smaller location data companies described in [1].

Indeed, whoever leaked this dataset (showing the company's poor data controls and poor culture of respect for users' privacy) got it from a location data company, which "you've probably never heard of".[2]

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/locat...

Any way for software to spoof a GPS location?

Would love to be able to send random coordinates until I make the choice to send an accurate location.

And all this was done without illegal 302's for FISA warrant wiretaps.

I wonder if the title’s reference to “Trump” has prevented this from appearing on the front page and from getting more votes? It’s not a political issue and probably warrants more discussion.

Not sure how best to get dang/sctb’s attention <- aside from hoping they monitor their mentions.