How the Pentagon tracked Putin with targeted ads
You and I aren’t the only ones being tracked by targeted ads … so are the world’s top leaders. Turns out the Pentagon’s best-kept surveillance secret isn’t pen cameras — it’s cookies.
Buckle up for the wild story of how the U.S. government used targeted ads to track down its target: Vladimir Putin.
Not-so anonymous
If you have a smartphone, you also have an “anonymized” advertising ID. These are numbers assigned by Apple or Google to track our location and other data.
Corporations spend massive amounts of cash to access this data — and so do governments. Because it’s legally collected and sold by civilian companies, it’s way easier than hacking or getting a court order.
These advertising IDs are technically anonymous, but how we move around the world is as unique as our fingerprints. You could monitor an ID’s daily patterns and easily figure out where they live and work based on how much time they spend in a given location. Super creepy.
Even spies advertise
It’s not worth the effort for companies to triangulate the identities of folks like you and me. But for high-profile marks (like Putin), the juice is worth the squeeze. Pentagon researchers created their own system, called Locomotive, to track advertising IDs and narrow in on world leaders.
All it took was some Russian ID data to pinpoint Putin using the phones of his drivers, security personnel and support staff. They could predict where Putin was headed and who was in his inner circle.
Locomotive is now known as VISR (Virtual Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). It’s used widely by the U.S. intelligence community to solve crimes, track down illegal immigrants and locate border tunnels. All good things, but …
It’s a double-edged sword
The Pentagon realized that if they could easily purchase ID data, so could Russia and China. Locomotive was able to pick up phones at American military locations that were supposed to be kept secret for special operations.
Israeli companies have since built their own versions of VISR and sell the data to public safety organizations worldwide. One company, Rayzone, even has the technology to deliver malware through targeted ads. Yikes.
What does this mean for you and me?
Well, if you use apps with targeted ads, you can just about guarantee that a log of your movement patterns is saved in a data bank somewhere. This data can be accessed by anyone willing to pay for it, including intelligence agencies, foreign governments and even private investigators.
Cheated on your spouse? Checked into rehab? Took a sick day and really went on an interview with a competitor company? The data that tells that story most likely exists. All it takes is someone with a reason to dig it up.
✅ The No. 1 thing you can do: Use a VPN on all your devices. My pick is ExpressVPN.
The next best thing: turn your location settings off. Do it now, for real:
- On iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and slide the toggle next to Location Services to the left.
- On Android, go to Settings > Personal > Location Access.
🤣 Why did Little Miss Muffet buy a GPS for her tuffet? Because she kept losing her whey.
Tags: Apple, Apple iPhone
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