The NSA is tracking us

I meant to write "Verizon voice over LTE" which is VOIP - voice that is simply internet data.

VOIP is literally Voice over Internet Protocol which is a higher level than LTE or Long-Term Evolution. Internet Protocol is just as it states, the protocol used to exchange information using the Internet. LTE is a wireless protocol which is lower on the standard 7 layer protocol stack and provides the basis for other layers to operate. IP would be carried on LTE. There are similarities as both are designed to be digital and LTE currently has not matured to the level where you can have a true VoLTE. What is currently offered is an application running on LTE that handles voice packets between two compatible devices, but each carrier's implementation is different. A Verizon Wireless customer cannot establish a voice over LTE connection to anyone other than a Verizon customer. To go from one carrier (or medium such as wireless) to another you have to go through a media converter.

The title to the lead off post is... "NSA Is Tracking Us".

In my case, seeing my wife is always telling me "where to go" ......, at least I'll have someone other than her letting me know where I've been once I get there!

I'm not really lost.... just temporarily misplaced!

Nuvi1300WTGPS

My wife could teach them a trick or two! She always seems to know just where I am!

I live in the Philadelphia, PA area. There are cameras of all types everywhere. You can turn your phones and computers off but you'll still be tracked, well sort of. With facial recognition software if someone wanted to find you they probably could in the technology age we've been in for years.

I've seen quite a few news stories how a store gets robbed and it's not only the store surveillance systems that "catches" the perps, like I said, cameras are everywhere.

Add to that debit cards, credit cards, bonus cards (shopping), the days of true anonymity are over, at least in the built up sections of the world.

I really don't let it bother me, it is what it is as the saying goes, not going to let it keep me from doing what I do.

That's what the serious money does ... and so should you.
Everything else is pretense & diversion of attention.
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You are registered to vote in November & plan to do so, right?

That horse has left the barn decades ago.

Even a dumb phone that is off can be tracked, unless the battery is out of it. In my mind, we are far beyond being able to stop this flow of information to the Gov. So, you might as well just use your smartphone, and get the benefits from it because it doesn't matter.

The current level of surveillance in the world is unprecedented, and even world leaders are getting caught out in the dragnet.

There seems to be this automatic reaction that it is (only) the "Government" that is tracking us.

It makes better posts because the "Government" is thought to be the source of all that is wrong.

But - most of the information collected about us is in the hands of "Corporate America".

Perhaps it has happened and kept secret (what else would one expect from the "Government"?), but I have never heard of "DATA" from the "Government" being hacked - can you say "credit card and social security numbers.

As this is a GPS-related web site, perhaps it is worth adding a specifically GPS comment to this thread. A pure GPS receiver is receive-only, so not transmitting your location to anywhere else. (disregarding possible nearfield interception of operation noise).

The concerns voiced in this thread might lead some users to prefer to get their position from a standalone GPS unit rather than a smart phone--the communication platform of which inherently transmits, and the computing platform for which is probably an easier and certainly a more fruitful target for malware to transmit position when that is not requested.

Gov has directed the corporations to have a complete access to information, including tapping in to fiber optic cables.

As for the Gov not being hacked, you need to catch up on the news more often. They've been hacked a lot over the last while.

Can you provide a source for that allegation? If anything, at least in the US, some elements of the government are attempting to reign in the amount of data collected and shared by corporations.

I agree

conspiracy thread?

Just Google Snowdon, and Assange, and you'll see what info those leaks provided. The same with the Gov being hacked.

As for Gov reigning it in, it comes after public outrage at the level of spying on the public from the leaks. All of them are doing damage control now. MS, Google, etc.

The problem is even worse than you state. I know of an on-line forum that runs monthly posts titled something similar to "Keep the NSA Alive - Your Last Trip?" where people post information about where they have been to help make the NSA's job a lot easier.

Interesting!

Too funny!

I am already sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo doomed it doesn't matter at this point.

I'm on more lists than I can count.

NSA would get quite bored monitoring me. If I get concerned, I'll look up how to make a tin foil hat on the web.

This thread is a good reminder of an advantage of a standalone GPS rather than a cell phone for navigation.

verifies the concept of Big Brother.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Aluminum-Foil-Hat/

They'd be bored with pretty much anyone.

Walk down the street, shop in almost any store, use your computer, phone or whatever you do you are being scrutinized by someone!!!!

It also tracks associations to people. You know Mary, Tom, Paul, and others. Who do they know? Did you know them as well?

Think the "Six degrees of separation" concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

I thought it was 'Six degrees of Kevin Bacon'.

Unless you have "checked the box" that gives permission for Garmin to receive your tracks. Then they too, know where you have been whenever you connect the GPS to get new maps, firmware, etc.

I am now back to a basic(not smart) ten year old Verizon flip phone - using Page Plus.

Page Plus sells plans on Verizon's 3G network. So, if one has a smart phone with page plus, then the data speed will be slow.

I purchased $80 worth of minutes which expire in one year. Talking minutes are 4 cents per minute, and texts are 5 cents per text. So, I have approximately 2000 minutes/texts. Since I don't really talk/text very much this should last me one year.

I do miss not being able to read the news on the internet, read all the junk mail, and check out the babes on okcupid.com But, I can do that at home where I have a PC and internet.

This makes it even more important to keep my Garmin 750 up to date with poi-factory.com's speed camera database, since I can not use trapster nor waze.

They track us using credit cards too

I'll buy more ammo

That stating what you are planning to purchase in your message is one of the keywords that cause your messages to be scanned in depth don't you?

... Now I don't have to risk the NSA discovering that I searched for 'tin-foil hat' on teh Googles ...

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it's the dog's fault

No need to waste good tinfoil, just use the Tor Browser.

https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

Edit - Oh yea, for encrypted text messages, MMS, and video, try Wickr. https://www.wickr.com/

Android, and iOS apps are available.

do I care? If stating that I will engage in a perfectly legal activity causes this government to scrutinize me, or worse, then this is not the country in which I grew up nor to which I have taken the oath to uphold and defend the Constitution on 6 separate occasions...I was fully aware when I typed the response and feel confident that if that simple statement causes someone to come to my door the response they meet will be less than cordial. I do not live in fear of the government; I am a citizen, not a subject.

Glad most of my stuff is done through VOIP.

Cell phones are only truly off when the battery is removed.

I don't see it getting any better, the horse as they say left the barn years ago.

Don't forget license plate scanners that are becoming prolific with many different agencies and departments.
Seems you can't even go for a Sunday drive without being tracked!

I don't particularly mind. I might end up being the one off the road under a snowdrift some day.
I can always pull the battery if I am up to something

You Know the song that go Private eyes they are watching you.....

Well that you have it..

I guess their tracking cars now I read were cameras set up to copy license plates to track where it goes.
so I guess they read your email, listen to your phone call, track how much you spend, where you go. privacy in this country is a myth, and as for congress doing something about it good luck they are owned by lobbyists who get this information from the government

A little short story...

When my uncle (born 1939) was a boy, he attended a state fair. Unbeknownst to my grandparents, he signed up at a table for a communist newsletter thinking it would be a neat thing to do. A few months later, he received a newsletter in the mail and my grandmother immediately cancelled it telling them he as a minor and didn't have her permission to sign up. Many years later, he was in the USAF and going for his top secret clearance and they brought up this incident.

So, yes, the government's been keeping tabs on things for a long while.

Yes, but now Garmin and others are having to link them to your smartphone to make them "relevant" so the masses will still buy the product instead of using their phones. So, for many people, their phone will still be on, so it doesn't matter if they're navigating using a standalone GPS or phone.

I Agree too.

@geo334,
can you please cite some sources to support your claim that "lobbyists" are getting information from the "government"?

People's opinions on this range from "I don't care" to obsessively paranoid.

Have you ever been somewhere and just "knew" someone was watching you and then you turn around and sure enough, somebody was?

Now consider a subset of the 350 million people in this country who might be already a bit unstable mentally. Add to this the paranoia, fear, irritation (or whatever) that comes with constant surviellance by the government as well as with cameras recording just about everything these days.

Is it a stretch to think there is a link with the rise in horrible shootings that are in the news all the time? People lashing out, but they don't know how or who to aim their reactions at???