London Banter - Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

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Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

On 09/09/2017 18:58, Basil Jet wrote:
On 2017\09\09 10:48, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 09/09/2017 10:41, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:23:36 on Sat, 9 Sep
2017, Graeme Wall remarked:

I'm still trying to work out 18 different ways to travel between
the two by tube.

Â*Did you include Mornington Crescent? (Reverse at Camden Town.)

But, traditionally, invoking Mornington Crescent ends the journey.

Or in this case ends the game of trying to think of more odd routes.

Is this where I quote G K Chesterton?

Only if you want us to know what the hell you're talking about ;-)

Chesterton's poem, The Rolling English Road:

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
*The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.*

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

On 09/09/2017 19:15, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:11:52 on Sat, 9 Sep 2017,
Graeme Wall remarked:

Shopping malls have been doing a similar thing to send you "targetted
adverts" as you approach various shops.
Â*How effective is this? Maybe I am unusual, but when I am shopping my
phone is normally in my pocket, so I would not see these adverts. Apart
from incoming (phone) calls, the only time I would look at my phone in a
shopping mall is when sat in a coffee shop or restaurant.

I believe it has only happened in the States so far

They had a trial at Bluewater really quite a long time ago. I can't be
bothered to look it up, but around ten years perhaps?

As long as that? There was a piece about it in New Scientist a few
years back.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

On Sat, 9 Sep 2017 19:50:54 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
wrote:

Graeme Wall wrote:
On 09/09/2017 14:22, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
Graeme Wall wrote:
On 09/09/2017 10:37, Someone Somewhere wrote:

I'm not sure of the relevant legislation but presumably the only way to
avoid this is that each entity having such a system has to have a
different algorithm (or at least key) for anonymising the MAC data so
each data set remains siloised (but would the supplier of the system
still be able to join the different datasets?)

Shopping malls have been doing a similar thing to send you "targetted
adverts" as you approach various shops.

'Send you' by what means?

SMS initially.

That'd be tricky to get from a MAC address, surely? Though as per my other
reply, other mechanisms may exist.

Anna Noyd-Dryver

Gee, there are more 'Shirleys' in this thread than that non-alcoholic
drink ordered in a bar.

Must be some sort of Template.

Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

On Sat, 9 Sep 2017 22:07:40 +0100, Graeme Wall
wrote:

On 09/09/2017 19:13, wrote:
On 09.09.17 19:03, Mark Goodge wrote:
On Fri, 8 Sep 2017 16:07:44 +0100, Graeme Wall
wrote:

On 08/09/2017 14:03, Recliner wrote:

An evaluation of the trial, published today, shows that passengers
used 18
routes to go between King’s Cross/St Pancras and Waterloo, the busiest
stations on the network, with 40 per cent of people who were tracked
failing to take the two fastest routes. The data showed that even
within
stations a third of passengers did not use the quickest routes between
platforms and could be wasting up to two minutes.

I'm still trying to work out 18 different ways to travel between the two
by tube.

The Gizmodo article (which is far more detailed than the newspaper
reports) includes a diagram.

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/09/lon...ficial-report/

And it's not actually 18 different ways. It's 17 different ways that,
individually, have at least 0.1% of the journey traffic, plus
"others".

Mark

Does not Oyster and Contactless help to determine passenger routes and
flows? Isn't that the reason why TfL introduced it?

As the article points out, it doesn't track you through the system, just
the in and out points. The wifi data can follow you from platform to
platform.

Where the WiFi is operative. It quite clearly isn't at e.g. some
Jubilee Line stations or sections thereof.

Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

On Sat, 09 Sep 2017 08:55:05 +0100, Guy Gorton
wrote:

On Fri, 08 Sep 2017 13:03:37 GMT, Recliner
wrote:

From:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transport-for-london-may-track-commuters-via-phones-to-reduce-overcrowding-b0ss982j7?shareToken=d3406a5e9a7b95fb4dd49507b8be3 071

Commuters could be tracked using their mobile phones under plans to tackle
overcrowding and increase revenue from advertising.

Fascinating selection of routes, some of which could be accounted for
by friends/relatives travelling together with different destinations
but on the same general route.

But why do people let the world know where they are? Not using the
device is not enough, It has to be switched off to avoid tracking.
Mine is only switched on when I am willing to accept calls or need to
make a call. That only amounts to a small proportion of my waking
hours so it is more often off than on..

Guy Gorton

You're stepping into gradations of goat-herding

Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

On 10/09/2017 00:25, Nobody wrote:
On Sat, 9 Sep 2017 19:50:54 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
wrote:

Graeme Wall wrote:
On 09/09/2017 14:22, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
Graeme Wall wrote:
On 09/09/2017 10:37, Someone Somewhere wrote:

I'm not sure of the relevant legislation but presumably the only way to
avoid this is that each entity having such a system has to have a
different algorithm (or at least key) for anonymising the MAC data so
each data set remains siloised (but would the supplier of the system
still be able to join the different datasets?)

Shopping malls have been doing a similar thing to send you "targetted
adverts" as you approach various shops.

'Send you' by what means?

SMS initially.

That'd be tricky to get from a MAC address, surely? Though as per my other
reply, other mechanisms may exist.

Anna Noyd-Dryver

Gee, there are more 'Shirleys' in this thread than that non-alcoholic
drink ordered in a bar.

Must be some sort of Template.

Lollipop anyone?

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Tube passengers tracked by phone WiFi

On 09/09/2017 19:12, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 09/09/2017 14:22, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
Graeme Wall wrote:
On 09/09/2017 10:37, Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 08/09/2017 17:34, Sam Wilson wrote:
On 2017-09-08 14:40:46 +0000, Martin Coffee said:

On 08/09/17 15:00, Sam Wilson wrote:
On 2017-09-08 13:18:33 +0000, Martin Coffee said:

On 08/09/17 14:03, Recliner wrote:
[snip]
[TfL] said it was talking to the Information Commissionerâ€™s Office
about its
plans and passengers could opt out by switching their wifi off. It
said
that the phone data was â€œde-personalisedâ€, with nothing to
identify
individuals.

The system works by using 1,070 wifi access points on the Tube
network.
They pick up on a code that identifies each phone, the media
access control
(MAC) address, and track them from point to point.

Each MAC address was â€œirreversiblyâ€ encrypted, TfL said. Prior to
encryption, a random code is added to each to ensure that the
phone cannot
be identified even if the encryption could be reversed. No
browsing data
was collected, meaning that emails and the internet habits of
passengers
could not be shared with third parties.
[snip]
Let's face it.Â* Even if encrypted, you cannot anonymise a MAC
address as it is unique to each phone.

You can turn it into something that can't be (realistically) turned
back into a MAC address that can be used to identify the
phone/tablet/laptop/whatever.

You don't have to turn the "anonymised" back to a MAC address to
de-anonymise the data.Â* You just encrypt a MAC address and identify
the location data in just the same manner as the tracking occurs.
Thus the location can still be re-associated with the original MAC
address.

Sure, if you know a particular MAC address and the encryption
procedure and access to the location data then you may be able (and I
note Dr B's comments in his response) to recreate the key and
therefore track the MAC address.Â* Most of us (and I again I bow to Dr
B) probably can't do that.

Surely the most likely people to want to do this would be criminals
anyway, so criminalising their activities seems slightly pointless.
Deterring casual peepers is probably worth doing.

Surely the problem is if this becomes widespread as eventually you'll
get enough data to identify not just the phone but the individual.

It's fine if it's kept to the tube,Â* but let's take the advertising
angle,Â* presumably the advertisers won't be satisfied with just knowing
what the busiest platform is but would prefer to target their
adverts to
one or more groups of people on that platform.

By hooking up a similar system with retailers they work out that of the
group on the platform at 08:30 a significant proportion are e.g.
Waitrose shoppers.Â* And it then goes on and on until you end up pretty
much being able to identify the iindividual, what they buy, where they
live etc without actually ever using any personally identifiable
information.

I'm not sure of the relevant legislation but presumably the only way to
avoid this is that each entity having such a system has to have a
different algorithm (or at least key) for anonymising the MAC data so
each data set remains siloised (but would the supplier of the system
still be able to join the different datasets?)

Shopping malls have been doing a similar thing to send you "targetted
adverts" as you approach various shops.

'Send you' by what means?

SMS initially.

It can be SMS, it could even be electronic billboards or display
screens. Imagine walking on to a tube platform, to be greeted by a
display with an advert from Boots - "Hey Someone Somewhere - you haven't
bought Preparation H recently. If your arse grapes are still troubling
you, you'll be pleased to know that we currently have 50p off our jumbo
tube" or similar....