Big Brother Social Media

Someone Planted a Bug and It’s My Phone

You know the story. You get a new phone and go through the process of setting it up, downloading some apps, and possibly saying YES to many requests to allow this or that app to provide you with “an enhanced user experience.”

I started by saying "NO" to anything that wanted to track my location but later I did agree to this for a few apps. Don’t we all? Then this happened:

The coffee crew I usually meet at McD’s each morning had talked about trying a favourite all day breakfast spot. A couple of us “Googled” the location. About 2 weeks later we met there for about 1 ½ hours and enjoyed a humongous feast.

That afternoon I received a “notification” on my phone. It asked how I enjoyed my visit to the Greasy Greasy restaurant this morning (name changed). Huh? What? How did “THEY” know? I will use the nebulous THEY going forward.

The answer was pretty obvious. My phone, turned on, was stationary at the exact location of the dining room in the Greasy Greasy diner. I did use it there once. I had also looked up the location 2 weeks before. THEY knew this as well. It was probably the call or the time spent dining that gave me away. I didn’t complete the survey - intended to but something terminated abnormally.

Do you ever really think about this? Do you even know what permissions you have agreed to on your phone and all of its software? Do you know what can be tracked even if you don’t give any such permissions?

Here are a few things that THEY know about me now:

1. EXACTLY where I live. Never mind me never entering an address. My phone “lives” in the same spot every night and most of the day. THEY know the exact street address.
2. Probably everything there is to know about my phone - brand; identification; operating system; what apps I chose; how much or little I use it; obviously exactly WHERE I use it.
3. What websites I visit and what numbers I call.
4. What news stories I read.
5. Who I text and what I say and what is said to me.
6. If I use my phone for finance, where I use it and what I buy. I don’t buy with my phone but many people do.
7. What financial institutions I use and what cards.
8. Assuming I shut off and charge my phone, what time I go to bed and what time I become active again.
9. LOTs of other things I am not considering.
10. 
    

Now each item might not represent much but all together THEY know a lot about me.

Some of this is good. I can say “Hey Mona - where is the nearest gas station” or even name a brand of gas. If I am injured and alone authorities can find me via GPS. I can make a reservation. I can use my phone instead of cash. I can text. I can, let us not forget, actually phone someone. I can take and store thousands of pictures - not sure why I would but I could. Then I can send them to 500 people I don't really know. Make their day!

Someday a doctor will diagnose me via my phone. There are lots of potentially helpful things here.

Now think about these items:

1. If you spend time in places like strip bars, the racetrack, casinos, do you turn off those permissions first? Probably not. Do you turn off your phone? Same answer.
2. Would it make any difference? I am assuming that when a phone is turned off it can’t be traced but is that true?
3. Just like the breakfast, if you spend time in the same location - like a lover’s - too long including overnight do you want anyone to know that?
4. Does the coffee house you visit almost every morning track you? Will it pay THEM to send messages to you if you are absent saying “We missed you today!”. Will you be pleased or angry?
5. Do you lock your screen after a short period so that all of this is not available to anyone who finds your lost phone?
6. Are you set up to have your provider locate your phone and inactivate it until you retrieve it?

All of this was predicted to begin happening by 2004 but now Big Brother can indeed watch me and listen to me - 724 if I allow it.

Someday soon they will probably smell me. In the meantime, I smell a rat.

The Brewster