Deputy US Marshal abused Securus phone tracking system to track personal contacts. Requested "all her [victim's] social media data, call history, text messages, and cell phone location data 24/7-365 without any restrictions". #privacy https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7bqew/us-marshal-securus-phone-location-tracked
Securus buys location data from one data broker (3Cinteractive) who bought it from another broker (LocationSmart) who bought it from AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon. This abuse of customer data is why we made AweSIM. #privacy
@batalanto @thornedu All three US carriers collect and sell customer data, abuse privacy, and have plenty of other problematic practices, but they are the only choices for cellular networks in the US.
The goal with AweSIM and SIMple is to protect personally-identifying customer data from whatever upstream network the service happens to go over.
@kyle @thornedu @batalanto Those carriers are not equal in the slightest. It’s like saying “Amazon, Microsoft & Mozilla are all bad corps so we pick Amazon”. AT&T’s #Fairview & VZ’s #Stormbrew both *voluntarily* leaked user data to the feds *without warrant*. T-Mobile has no such scandal. When a PI tried to buy tracking data from the 3 carriers VZ refused. AT&T is like the gestapo by comparison.
@batalanto @thornedu @kyle #ATT was also caught in the #cloakroom project, where they spent $100k to get a backroom arranged meetings with US republican Congressmen, in secrecy to sponsor corruption. It’s quite revolting that #librem would align with and financially support an ALEC member like this. T-Mobile is like Starbucks compared to the others; you have to dig deep just to find something minor.
@bojkotiMalbona @batalanto @thornedu For what it's worth we'd like to offer TMobile as a network option when we can, it's just not possible at the moment.
@kyle @thornedu @batalanto I spend a lot of time researching these companies in depth. Consumers don’t. Consumers trust Librem to make smart decisions that align with their values. It’s a betrayal that Librem isn’t on Tmobile by default in the US. Librem should be boycotting AT&T and also blogging a long statement as to the rationale, so current AT&T consumers can become informed as Librem earns trust.
@batalanto @thornedu @kyle AT&T also has the ability to grab content (incl. photos) directly off customer’s phones. Neither VZ nor Tmobile have that surveillance capability on offer to snoops. AweSIM can’t protect users from that when AT&T exploits it. Also note AT&T’s 7 year data retention. https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vqkv/how-fbi-gets-phone-data-att-tmobile-verizon
@thornedu @kyle “Coverage: AT&T backbone.” Yikes! #Librem have chosen the most privacy abusing anti-consumer carrier of the 3 possible US carriers. https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/5774#issuecomment-485276884 #ATT is also a far right #ALEC member. What a shameful #hypocrisy.