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Tackling Data Brokerage Threats to American National Security
A news story used brokered location data to track military personnel—illuminating a considerable threat to national security.
This specific story isn’t an operation by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) or Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU)—it’s a joint effort by Wired, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Netzpolitik.org showing just some of what can be done with more than 3 billion phone location pings gathered (and sold) by a U.S. data broker. Fundamentally, though, it’s a congressional problem (again, more on that below)—meaning Congress should hold hearings with experts beginning next year to better illuminate and understand the data security threats ahead of writing the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). As part of the Wired story, the reporters were able to “map key entry and exit points, pinpointing frequently visited areas, and even tracing personnel to their off-base routines” by examining aggregated geolocation data on U.S. military facilities.
Or read this on r/technology
