Sprint

June 19, 2018

Verizon to Stop Sharing Customer Location Data With Third Parties

This post was originally published on this siteIn the wake of a scandal involving third-party companies leaking or selling precise, real-time location data on virtually all Americans who own a mobile phone, the four major wireless carriers have responded to requests from a U.S. senator for more details about how the carriers are managing access to this extremely sensitive information. While three out of four providers said they had cancelled data sharing agreements with some of the offending companies, only one — Verizon — pledged to terminate all of them and initiate a wholesale review of their location data-sharing practices. […]
June 22, 2018

Supreme Court: Police Need Warrant for Mobile Location Data

This post was originally published on this siteThe U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the government needs to obtain a court-ordered warrant to gather location data on mobile device users. The decision is a major development for privacy rights, but experts say it may have limited bearing on the selling of real-time customer location data by the wireless carriers to third-party companies. Image: Wikipedia. At issue is Carpenter v. United States, which challenged a legal theory the Supreme Court outlined more than 40 years ago known as the “third-party doctrine.” The doctrine holds that people who voluntarily give information to […]
August 16, 2018

Hanging Up on Mobile in the Name of Security

This post was originally published on this siteAn entrepreneur and virtual currency investor is suing AT&T for $224 million, claiming the wireless provider was negligent when it failed to prevent thieves from hijacking his mobile account and stealing millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies. Increasingly frequent, high-profile attacks like these are prompting some experts to say the surest way to safeguard one’s online accounts may be to disconnect them from the mobile providers entirely. The claims come in a lawsuit filed this week in Los Angeles on behalf of Michael Terpin, who co-founded the first angel investor group for bitcoin enthusiasts in […]
September 12, 2018

U.S. Mobile Giants Want to be Your Online Identity

This post was originally published on this siteThe four major U.S. wireless carriers today detailed a new initiative that may soon let Web sites eschew passwords and instead authenticate visitors by leveraging data elements unique to each customer’s phone and mobile subscriber account, such as location, customer reputation, and physical attributes of the device. Here’s a look at what’s coming, and the potential security and privacy trade-offs of trusting the carriers to handle online authentication on your behalf. Tentatively dubbed “Project Verify” and still in the private beta testing phase, the new authentication initiative is being pitched as a way […]