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Texas State Police Gear Up for Massive Expansion of Surveillance Tech

In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.

WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.

Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher and digital rights activist based in Vienna, Austria, argues that data collected for a specific purpose, such as navigation or dating apps, should not be used by different parties for unrelated reasons. “It’s a disaster,” Christl told the Observer. “It’s the largest possible imaginable decontextualization of data. … This cannot be how our future digital society looks like.”

Archived at web.archive.org/…/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-c…

qooqie ,

This is something that was going to happen eventually it’s just kind of ironic that it’s a deep red state going for government surveillance like this

IrateAnteater ,

Nothing says “small government” and “freedom” quite like mass surveillance.

TimLovesTech ,
@TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social avatar

They need mass surveillance to put down the protests for freedom … errr to protect freedom (white people freedom rich white people freedom).

SlopppyEngineer ,

Red states have more poor, desperate people with guns so better keep them from getting uppity.

TexMexBazooka ,

Every accusation is a confession. Always.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Totally on brand really. Republicans want to eliminate white collar crime (by never prosecuting it) and catch 110% of blue collar crimes.

LifeInMultipleChoice ,

Should gather Abbott’s device id and his families, and post all of their data in a constant stream of location, search results, and such. Soon as his and his families families data is being posted they’ll rethink it as a privacy issue.

tacofox ,

But doxing is illegal 🤪

yeather ,

Not doxxing, just tracking and auditing a public servant.

Bacano ,

Ahh yes, the freedom loving state. Texas. That’s right.

Flocklesscrow ,

As a reminder, Texas has been Republican controlled for roughly 28 years.

Texas doesn’t have Texan problems; it has Republican ones.

MyOpinion ,

Big brother in action. Got to keep those women in line. /s

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

I know what you mean by /s but seriously that’s gotta be one of the drivers behind this decision. If Republicans control the state after the next gubernatorial election I could totally see a new law to punish the patient of a abortion (it just targets doctors for now).

ArmoredThirteen ,

Remember that one time in Batman where they built a mass surveillance program using phones and decided it was so morally objectionable they immediately destroyed it after?

ATDA ,

Will they finally see or hear me say

FUCK GREG ABBOTT

I hope they can, I’m doing it as hard as I can …

swab148 ,
@swab148@lemm.ee avatar

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/a1be74e7-c831-451f-86d7-549ecf1e6d3e.jpeg

fubarx ,

EFF recommendation on Ad Tracking: eff.org/…/how-disable-ad-id-tracking-ios-and-andr…

Gerudo ,

I’m fairly in tune with my privacy but didn’t even know about this one. I assumed I had disabled all this when I setup my phone.

CosmicTurtle0 ,

Is there anyway we can open source this technology? I’d love to surveil police and politician phones if possible.

index ,

Government know people love to keep track of police and politicians so they are making it illegal.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_security_law

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.

WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices.

As if you needed more reasons to use an ad-blocker.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

This one should be such a goddamn no-brainer to make illegal.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

This is why I’m so adamant about privacy. The govt has already been caught several times buying up data from data brokers for “predictive policing”. They’ve been using it in Pasco County, FL to harrass people day and night into either committing a crime so they can arrest them or leaving town. Once you put that data out there, there’s no getting rid of it.

TropicalDingdong ,

Weird ass fcking state. Can we pawn this one off to Mexico?

jaggedrobotpubes ,

Jesus just bomb them if you hate them that much.

TropicalDingdong ,

Yeah thats true. I love Mexico. I shouldn’t wish a fate like sending Texans upon them.

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

nobody has ever said “remember that good thing that came out of texas”.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

If it’s not food, then yeah, we’re setting all the wrong precedents.

BeardedBlaze ,
@BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world avatar

Y’all aren’t exactly known for great food either lol

yessikg ,
@yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

100% correct

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA ,
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world avatar

My dude, they do some decent ribs.

BeardedBlaze ,
@BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world avatar

BBQ didn’t originate in Texas, my dude.

index ,

Make sure to support the government in the next elections so they can spend more public money on “security”

Telorand ,

And they’ll “catch” just enough “criminals” (read: non-white people) to give Fox News some metrics they can blow out of proportion for the gullible, rural rubes.

doodledup ,

Isn’t the US already a surveillance country?

BassTurd ,

Not to this extent.

anarchrist ,

NSA: AM I A JOKE TO YOU??

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

It is, but mostly at the Federal level and depending on who’s in the Whitehouse they’re not apt to share that data with the states.

anarchrist ,

Alt title: Texas to spend $5 mil on software that is easily defeated by not bringing your cell phone to a riot.

NocturnalMorning ,

You’re missing the point. This is a gross violation of privacy rights.

anarchrist ,

It can be a waste of money and an invasion of privacy rights. The two are not mutually exclusive.

NocturnalMorning ,

That’s not what you said…

anarchrist ,

Sorry if there was confusion. My main point: leave your narc device at home when doing crimes. Have a good day!

NocturnalMorning , (edited )

Do you think committing a crime is the only time this matters?

Edit: Imagine being trans, gay, a minority, or just the wrong political party, and the police decide to go after you.

anarchrist ,

No, also probably when the AI pattern matches your behavior to a criminal’s behavior because you live in the same neighborhood.

Again I’m not saying this isn’t bad, I’m saying Texas has no idea what they bought or how to use it. The only practical way to use it is the way the feds do, and if they try the AI shit it will likely fuck them legally speaking at the federal level OR orange Julius wins and the NSA starts just giving this shit to Texas, so this will all be moot.

I think they got grifted out of $5 mil by AI hucksters.

NocturnalMorning ,

I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about. This is exactly the kind of thing AI is good at, pattern recognition.

anarchrist ,

OK explain then. The AI flags you as a criminal and the cops give you a ticket for looking like a crim? The burden of proof is on the state. Now they have more 2x more shit to investigate which means more cop hours. Idk like I also hate the privacy aspect it this but it seems like a boondoggle that will also waste lots of taxpayer money and it would be good to attack it from two rhetorical angles.

NocturnalMorning ,

The burden of proof is on the state

Do you like know anything about how our system works? People get slapped with frivolous tickets and lawsuits every day, and cops don’t have to deal with shit from it.

31337 ,

In the Texas counties I’m most familiar with, if you’re arrested and they don’t have a good case, they just keep resetting court dates for years instead of going ahead with the process. If you can’t afford a bond, you’ll be in jail that whole time (which pressures people to take plea deals), if you can secure a bond, you’re out, but with limited rights and a whole lot of hassles to deal with.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Good at avoiding false-negatives, not so good at avoiding false-positives. IMHO a 1% false-positive rate is unacceptable when the result is ruining someones life.

Angry_Autist ,

Because of stupid fucking memes and whiny furry ‘artists’ all of lemmy thinks the greatest danger of AI is someone not getting paid for their drawn porn getting scraped.

The REAL danger is AI can piece together nearly every aspect of your schedule, personality, income, pregnancy status, class, social circle, race, and medical history just by correlating anonymous data.

It’s already happening, hell it already happened 15 years ago and now they are just that much better.

But every FUCKDAMN top comment in this thread is a fucking joke or sarcasm

NuXCOM_90Percent ,

I mean, this is texas.

Imagine being a perfectly normal cishet woman.

NocturnalMorning ,

Sad, but true

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Not too long ago Texas was trying to charge parents of trans youths with child abuse.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Correlation is not causation. This only indicates a person is in the general area [during a crime] and not that they perpetrated it. People go to jail, wrongfully, with less evidence than this.

Angry_Autist ,

they’re not going to use it as evidence in an arrest, they are going to use it to target social dissidents, which in Texas’s case, is everyone who isn’t a fascist.

They know they can’t use it as evidence, but they also know ten thousand other cruel and vicious things they can get away with.

Angry_Autist ,

Almost no one in this thread cares and they are all memeing like this is an ‘ow my balls’ clip.

Frankly I’m starting to think we deserve this

SteveFromMySpace ,

Everyone brings their phones to protests because they have cameras and it’s how they communicate with others. Riots are also rarely planned in the US so so I doubt even a majority of the participants will remember not to bring a phone with them.

I understand you’re being somewhat tongue in cheek, but the flippancy of your statement downplays the chilling effect this can and will have on protests and other gatherings. It also impacts one of the most powerful tools we have for accountability: the cameras on our phones.

Notice that Louisiana just banned filming police officers within I believe 25ft. These governors/legislators aren’t stupid. This is all a very deliberate, coordinated effort.

anarchrist ,

I guess? I mean the feds were already doing this to the capital insurrectionists, but yeah it does suck that Texas is now doing it too. I suggest everyone who’s getting pissed at me reevaluate their threat models instead and maybe go get a DV handycam from goodwill

14th_cylon ,

Riots are also rarely planned in the US so so I doubt even a majority of the participants will remember not to bring a phone with them.

It also impacts one of the most powerful tools we have for accountability: the cameras on our phones.

Airplane mode

SteveFromMySpace ,

When you’re talking about massive groups of people you need to accept that a lot of them won’t.

14th_cylon ,

I am not talking about other people, I am saying that any individual who happens to become part of some unplanned ethical riot, has a chance to not be tracked through their phone and still use its function which don’t require any external connection, like camera.

Whether they decide to use it or not is really up to them.

SteveFromMySpace ,

Have you been in a riot or a protest that escalated enough to provoke swift/decisive police response?

I’m not challenging your activism bona fides here to be clear. But i am trying to say that it is very difficult to work through a mental checklist when shit starts to get rowdy and one should never bank on making a series of proactive decisions while under duress/in a time crunch/in really any stressful scenario.

Instead of telling people “just be careful and do X, Y, and Z” you should be pushing back against the laws and practices that make you want to tell people that to begin with.

14th_cylon ,

you should be pushing back against the laws > and practices that make you want to tell people that to begin with.

I am not disputing this part - I am just saying, there is something you can do even when the situation is not planned. I am not saying it is easy or anything, I am saying you are not without options.

I am not advocating for state survaillence.

SteveFromMySpace ,

I wouldn’t be so shitty as to grossly mischaracterize you as advocating for state surveillance, don’t worry. My point is you make it sound like a much simpler issue than it is and we should not be shifting the onus onto the general public in a situation like this.

14th_cylon ,

we should not be shifting the onus onto the general public in a situation like this.

If we are talking about how we would design our utopia (no sarcasm here) we absolutely shouldn’t. I am just pointing out that even in less than ideal reality you are not without options.

NuXCOM_90Percent ,

That is the real (overall) goal of shit like this.

Prevent people from using communication devices so that we can’t coordinate. It is a lot easier to go around busting heads if people aren’t recording you (or running over from the other street to fight back…). Same with the constant war on encryption.

And useful idiots (or incompetent plants) will love to talk about how the real problem is people are bringing those evidence collection boxes to protests and are coordinating rather than acting as a sea of individuals.

anarchrist ,

Yet again I’m not saying this isn’t bad, I guess I’m just surprised people are just catching on to this shit. Look into meshnets. Get a DV handycam. Keep it secret keep it safe. Practice good op sec. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

SteveFromMySpace , (edited )

We aren’t just catching on. You’re letting your smug cloud your judgment here. This is not some revelation for the rest of us that you are already wise to.

This is a new tool that ratchets up these practices. It’s also not a 3 letter federal agency but a wildly partisan state government. This makes the problem worse. No one thinks it’s new.

NuXCOM_90Percent ,

No. What you are doing is trying to act smug while spreading the exact same end goal of isolating people.

A hidden gopro does not stop cops from beating you to death and saying you had a gun. A bunch of phones that are recording “to the cloud” does that. Similarly, a hidden camera does not let you communicate with other protesters and just isolates you and weakens the movement as a whole.

Please listen to others rather than being a useful idiot for the fascists.

Angry_Autist ,

Do you think that’s the only fucking time they’ll use this?

We are in the middle of the most dangerous liberty encroachment in our living memory and literally none of you are thinking beyond your own little frameworks and by the time we get some advocacy on this it’ll be too late.

PriorityMotif ,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

I just learned you can delete you device id on Android 12 or higher under privacy settings.

redditReallySucks ,
@redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Is this the same as the advertising id?

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

In my phone it said “Advertising ID”. Just deleted mine. Really annoyed this was on by default. Are Linux phones a thing yet? I’m tempted to get the most basic bitch phone for work (they’ll never support a rooted phone or things like that) and a different personal phone that I have TOTAL control over.

sunzu2 ,

Custom ROM?

Zetta ,

Linux phones are coming along, Posh is very promising and helping make Linux on mobile possible en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosh

Petter1 ,

I prefer the GNOME-Mobile DE on phone 😃 but I think goid hardware (like, not 2015 specs) is more the problem than good software right now

redditReallySucks ,
@redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Im planning on getting a pixel phone next time I switch and will install grapheneos on it. Fuck safetynet compatibility. I’m tired of all the bullshit I have to endure on my Samsung phone.

jeffro256 ,

Get a Pixel phone and flash GrapheneOS onto it. Best out-of-box privacy and security experience that currently exists still with great usability IMO. Does not have an advertising ID or even Google Play services by default. Also, it actually has better battery life in my experience.

Snapz ,

Freedom rations are going up this week from 10 to 8!

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