December 21, 2019

The NYT "took only minutes — with assistance from publicly available information — ... to deanonymize location data and track the whereabouts of President Trump."

So we are told, in a piece titled "How to Track President Trump," in what feels to me like too much of a prod to readers to do it yourself.

Here's how the article is promoted on the front page of the NYT website (where the image is animated, giving the impression that you can follow the President around in real time if you learn this how-to advice):



Notice the title at the bottom left: "Why Is Trump Finding More Protection Than Nixon Did?" That's not an article about the personal, physical protection of the President from violence, but you don't know that until you click through to the article, and I see no good innocent reason to use the word "Protection" in that headline. Even if the potential to stimulate of violent ideation was purely accidental, it should have been noticed and changed. The "How to Track President Trump" image was already creepy (especially in the animated version, where the dot moves quickly across a GPS image).

The "Protection" article elaborates many differences between the facts relating to impeachment for the 2 Presidents.

The "How to Track" article raises an alarm that it's too easy to track the President (and anyone else). It ends with a plea for more regulation: "The sources who provided the trove of location information to Times Opinion did so to press for regulation and increased scrutiny of the location data market... So far, Washington has done virtually nothing to address the threats, and location data companies have every reason to keep refining their tracking, sucking up more data and selling it to the highest bidders."

88 comments:

Temujin said...

This would seem a more alarming article approach than a political add 'targeting' your opponent. I always use the 'Obama Comparison'. Would they have even thought of publishing an article like this about His Obamaness.

rhhardin said...

Derbyshire this week puts the hysteria down to women in politics. Guys have a basketball game and points are disputed but if you ask who won the game a week later, nobody remembers. Women remember every disputed point.

Losing doesn't lead to cooperation for women as it does for guys.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Stimulating violent ideation was the entire goal of Trump's claim that Obama was an imposter for the presidency. It was a thought out and persistently implemented strategy.

gilbar said...

remember "Snipers wanted"? and that was for President Bush

the democrat party has been At War with america, since At Least '61
some things do NOT change. . . some parties, do NOT change

Mike Sylwester said...

Dog Whistle

AllenS said...

I've been using the large size of crowds to track our President.

rehajm said...

Obviously the lead is to gratify NYT readers by assisting their fantasies of assassination, but they weren’t tracking the president but someone NYT suspects was physically close to him. In the past. Even if you could know his approximate location in real time you still gotta get close enough you arm chair assassins you...

Karen of Texas said...

Oh, look - whataboutism oh so early in the day... I suggest that questioning Obama's illegitimacy is far less sinister then pointing out how one can virtually track the president.

My very first thought was "whoa, they're showing you that you can track him real time which makes it much easier to target and kill him."

Lucid-Ideas said...

Sure. Right.

Thus far we have James Hodgkinson (remember him?) and Rand Paul's neighbor attacking him and breaking his ribs. "Fantasies".

The NYT knows exactly what they're doing a la Sarah Palin "targets".

Everything has failed so far, why not these conveniently highly suggestive word choices!

rehajm said...

Shorter NYT: It has cone to the attention of NYT that ‘impeachment’ doesn’t mean Hillary! is now President.

MartyH said...

It used to take a trove of location information to track where President Trump is. The NYT has thoughtfully put it all in one place for you!

Wilbur said...

"Stimulating violent ideation was the entire goal of Trump's claim that Obama was an imposter for the presidency. It was a thought out and persistently implemented strategy."

Do you have a basis for this statement? Or are you demonstrating the famous mind-reading powers leftists seem to possess?

Darrell said...

Just let it be known that there are plenty of lamp posts if anything should actually happen to Trump.

Marcus Bressler said...

Creepy as hell.

THEOLDMAN

Rusty said...

Why not just print; Hey! Antifa! Here he is!

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Karen, questioning President Obama's legitimacy was self-evidently an attempt to incite the loonies on the right to assassinate the president. Everything you complain about - Trump has already done it. He is a piece of shit.

Automatic_Wing said...

Will no one rid me of this turbulent Queens man?

Darrell said...

Next, the NYT will do a review of drones and their carrying capacity. Don't worry, they will ask that something be done about drone abuse.

Darrell said...

BCAR is a real piece of shit.

Just an observation.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Wilbur said...
Do you have a basis for this statement?


Wiki said ...

Trump was the most prominent promoter of birther conspiracy theories. According to political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck, Trump "became a virtual spokesperson for the “birther” movement. The strategy worked: when Trump flirted with running for president in 2011, his popularity was concentrated among the sizable share of Republicans who thought that President Obama was foreign born or a Muslim or both."

In 2010, at the urging of Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, the National Enquirer began promoting a potential Trump presidential campaign, and with Cohen's involvement, the tabloid began questioning Obama's birthplace and citizenship.

Darrell said...

Hillary made Trump question Obama's birth certificate, remember.

Shouting Thomas said...

Obama (or his publisher speaking on his behalf) claimed to have been born in Kenya when it served Obama's political and academic purposes.

Claiming that Obama might be lying about his birth is not calling for his assassination. What an absurdity.

In this case, ARM, I'm simply calling you a flat out liar for claiming so.

I'm calling you a deliberate liar here. Stop lying.

Considering Obama's $1.6 billion gift to Iran, I think suspicion about his origins and patriotism are well founded.

Anyway, you're just lying that these sorts of statements are incitements to violence, ARM. You're hysterical. And you're lying deliberately.

Stop lying, ARM. You're a liar.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Darrell said...
Hillary made Trump question Obama's birth certificate, remember.


Proof?

Shouting Thomas said...

ARM, your statement that questioning Obama's birthplace is an incitement to violence is an outright lie.

I'm calling on you to renounce this vicious lie.

You're a liar.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

ST, claiming that the nation's president is an imposter is self-evidently an incitement to violence. Trump knew what he was doing even if you don't.

Narayanan said...

Is tracking same as putting Crosshair on someone

Darrell said...

And the publicity for Obama's first book listed Kenya as his birthplace. He even reviewed the copy.

Fernandinande said...

deanonymize location data and track the whereabouts of President Trump So we are told ...

The NYet rapidly admitted it was a fake headline and that they didn't know who they were tracking - movements of months ago! - until they discovered that they weren't tracking Trump. They assumed this person was near Trump because his locations matched what they already knew about Trump's locations. Pretty pitiful.

Maybe next time the NYeT will tell us that their geniuses figured out where Trump lives.

MartyH said...

Snark aside, the concerns about privacy are serious and real. But this is a horrible approach to take. Their readers hate Trump with a passion. As pointed out, we have already had two attacks on Republicans.

They could have made the same point by tracking one of their reporters on a two week cross country trip while not exposing to the readers how exactly to do it.

I heard that this author also wrote a high school newspaper article titled, "How to buy a fake ID and what liquor stores are sure to accept it" as a public service.

Sorry, still gotta snark.

Shouting Thomas said...

ST, claiming that the nation's president is an imposter is self-evidently an incitement to violence. Trump knew what he was doing even if you don't.

He didn't claim he was an imposter. He claimed he might not qualify for the presidency.

That's two lies in one post.

You're a vicious, deliberate liar, ARM. You lie reflexively. I don't think you are capable of uttering a sentence that doesn't contain a lie.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

ST, violent lunatics like Darrell completely believed Trump's lies. How is this not an incitement to violence?

Shouting Thomas said...

You know that Darrell, whoever the hell he is, is inclined to violence?

No, you don't, liar.

Stop lying for a minute.

Even your avatar is a lie. You aren't reasonable and Socratic. You're a fucking liar and a loon.

Every time I look at your avatar, I see a liar.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Darrell constantly makes statements of violent fantasies. Darrell is a pathetic old man, but inciting the same feelings in a young, vigorous man could have easily resulted in violence against Obama or his family.

Why don't you go back and read through Darrell's oeuvre? Total whack job.

Darrell said...

Beclowned Commenter AReasonableMan is a piece of shit, remember.

And who cares what hors d'oeuvres? Prostitutes have to eat, too.

Wilbur said...

ARM, you're not worth the time to exchange views with. Your response was inapposite and nonresponsive.

Have a great Saturday. I will, secure with the knowledge that our President is Donald Trump and not Hillary Clinton.

Original Mike said...

…questioning President Obama's legitimacy was self-evidently an attempt to incite the loonies on the right to assassinate the president.

Huh?

Ryan said...

If the cant remove through impeachment, I'm sure they will try something more dramatic.....

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Wilbur, my response was a listing of the facts. All you have is fantasy.

Original Mike said...

You're calling this: "…questioning President Obama's legitimacy was self-evidently an attempt to incite the loonies on the right to assassinate the president." a 'fact'?

Gunner said...

Alleging that Trump is working for Putin is self-evidently incitement to violence in that case.

Phil 314 said...

“ He is a piece of shit.“

Remind me again, is that a high crime or a misdemeanor?

tommyesq said...

'Self-evidently" = i have no real idea but i so want to believe.

pacwest said...

"I've been using the large size of crowds to track our President."

Good one Allen! I'd imagine the security at his rallies is pretty tight.

@ARM
"questioning President Obama's legitimacy was self-evidently an attempt to incite the loonies on the right to assassinate the president."

Are you saying the Trump impeachment is the Dems call to assassinate Trump?? How else do I read this? Maybe you're right, but I hope not.

mockturtle said...

Fortunately, Trump is a good deal smarter than the witless media.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Impeachment is an integral part of the constitution. It is clearly different to prancing around the country arguing that the president is a foreigner who is lying about his nationality. Behavior that was clearly intended to compound on the fact that Obama was the first black president, which already brought up strong feelings of hostility in some.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The obsession with Trump is delusional.

The radical far left dems excuse every kind of corruption and immoral behavior on their side - FBI, Comey Strokz, Clinton, Biden Brennan etc... and they stalk Trump like a deranged hate-cult.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Impeachment over made- up crime by corruption excusing liars is not in the Constitution.

Bruce Hayden said...

This is a real problem. No, not ARM defecating all over the thread. But the privacy issues here.

I had assumed that the big problem was the phone companies selling your information data. But that can be, and probably has been, at least somewhat circumcised by the FCC and state regulators. Maybe more pernicious, a lot of the apps you have loaded on your phones and tablets are also reporting your location, in real time, if you allow it. And the default typically is to allow it. Ann’s article links to another one that helps you lock up your smart phone a bit. For an Apple product, that means limiting access to Location Services, Background App Refresh, and turning off your advertising ID. Very few applications require Location Services unless the foreground application, and not even all the time there. The Background App Refresh allows applications to update information in the background. Hard to track you, if the apps aren’t running in the background, accessing the Internet over either WiFi or through the phone system.

Thinking about this, I should also advise everyone to go back through all of their privacy settings every several months. Just now, I discovered that Cox cable had access to the address book, and some bizarre application had access to the microphone. What I do is ask myself why a specific application might legitimately need some feature, and if I can’t come up with a good reason, then I turn it off. If you turn it off, and shouldn’t have, the app will tell you to turn that functionality back on when you request something of it. Which works great. On my Apple devices, the only apps that get access to the microphone are conferencing apps, that also get access to the camera. I also turn off Siri completely, which is a complete pain, because Apple doesn’t want it turned off.

Sebastian said...

"Even if the potential to stimulate of violent ideation was purely accidental, it should have been noticed and changed."

It should have been changed! It's so sad they wrote this! It's terrible! They should be better journalists! They have a responsibility!

Give it up, Althouse. It wasn't accidental, and they like it. They are progs. They are on the other side. They despise your shouldabeens. Spare use us the handwringing about your precious NYT.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
narciso said...

A column that is a firm of electronic stalking yikes.

narciso said...

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/20/exclusive-monica-crowley-vindicated-by-columbia-university-after-fake-plagiarism-accusations-from-cnn-establishment-media/

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Bruce Hayden
defecating all over the thread.


When you call out Darrell for his repetitive 'violent ideation' you will gain some credibility.

Howard said...

FIFY Bleach Bits Bimbo and her fellow travelers stalks FBI, Comey Strokz, Clinton, Biden Brennan etc... like a deranged hate-cult.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

When Althouse calls out Darrell for his repetitive 'violent ideation' she will gain some credibility on this issue.

Darrell said...

“ He is a piece of shit.“

Remind me again, is that a high crime or a misdemeanor?


There must be a turd option.

Howard said...

Blogger Bruce Hayden said...
This is a real problem. No, not ARM defecating all over the thread.


Says the shyster who spews loads of verbal diarrhea on every thread.

Less is more, grasshopper

Howard said...

Darrell isn't the worse offender for violent ideation fantasy. Give the boy some credit, he has significantly reduced his insatiable lust for bag of dicks.

pacwest said...

ARM,
Free speech is an integral part of the constitution too. For now anyway. But not OK because Obama was black??

And birther theory brought out strong feelings that imperiled Obama, but impeaching Trump has nothing to do with animus? C'mon.

Francisco D said...

Shouting Thomas,

We all know that ARM is a blatant liar. In this thread, he is making a fallacious assumption, but not telling a factual lie.

In either case, there really is no need to engage him except to point out what is obvious.

Darrell said...

Howard is a 6'2" sack of shit.
Piled higher and deeper relative to ARM.
And the reason that bags of dick are always sold out.

Michael K said...

Good Grief ! An ARM and Howard thread.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

pacwest said...
Free speech is an integral part of the constitution too.


It is, and no one is saying that what Trump did, in that particular case, was illegal. It was contemptible, of course, but this applies to Trump's entire life so not particularly remarkable.

FleetUSA said...

NYT has a permanent case of TDS and needs to be committed to a bankruptcy doctor.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Francisco D
blatant liar


Let it go buddy. The line of reasoning Althouse promulgated in this thread is a complete loser - when seen in the context of Trump's own behavior.

Howard said...

That's a good one, doc. Do you feel hammered?

pacwest said...

ARM, Let's just leave it at your view is that Trump is contemptible so he deserves what he gets. I can't say I agree with either your assumption or conclusion.

Howard said...

Pacwest: good point. Trump is getting exactly what he wants from his political enemies by his purposefull contemptible behavior.

narciso said...

the left treated thatcher much the same way, ditto for the lawfare affiliates in Israel, so it's not a surprise, they never really were made to account for their cloying soviet sympathies in the 3rd world, whether in academia, or journalism,

pacwest said...

Hi Howard.

Mr. Majestyk said...

"And the publicity for Obama's first book listed Kenya as his birthplace. He even reviewed the copy."

Ergo, according to a certain commenter, Obama was "self-evidently" calling for his own assasination. How weird!

Jupiter said...

Much as it pains me to come to the defense of the NYT, I must point out that a "journalist" lost her job back in November for publishing an article about Trump's Thanksgiving plans that neglected to mention a trip to Afghanistan. So, I think there is a news hook here.

And ARM is not a "piece of shit". He is a heaped-up, reeking pile of shit. But I think what he was trying to do, in his ham-headed way, was to show the absurdity of Althouse' claim that this was inciting violence, by making an equally absurd claim of his own. I will just point out that if ARM would like to make his whereabouts known in real time, I could see a way to make use of the information. His birthplace, not so much.

Ken B said...

Fernandistein's 7:20 comment provides the best evidence. This is fake news from the NYT. But fake news still feeds the assassination fantasy doesn’t it? So I believe Althouse's suggestion about what the NYT is doing here.

Yancey Ward said...

Fernandistein's correct- the story was bullshit through and through- Fake News at its finest.

traditionalguy said...

WaPo is the enemy's Tokyo Rose bragging about the CIA's Assassin teams clever tricks. But so far their attempts have failed every time. Ever since Admiral Rogers gave Trump the NSA tools that the enemy in the White House once was using against our Republic, their defeat has been inevitable.

Nichevo said...

Sebastian said...
"Even if the potential to stimulate of violent ideation was purely accidental, it should have been noticed and changed."

It should have been changed! It's so sad they wrote this! It's terrible! They should be better journalists! They have a responsibility!

Give it up, Althouse. It wasn't accidental, and they like it. They are progs. They are on the other side. They despise your shouldabeens. Spare use us the handwringing about your precious NYT



He means, take off your clothes, Ann.

Nichevo said...

Howard said...

Less is more, grasshopper

Of you, definitely

David Begley said...

If Trump was assassinated the Left would go wild with joy.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Jupiter said...
I will just point out that if ARM would like to make his whereabouts known in real time, I could see a way to make use of the information.


By Althouse's reasoning this is stimulating violent ideation, at least in Darrell.

Francisco D said...

If Trump was assassinated the Left would go wild with joy.

The Democrat Media already has the story line - it was a right wing nut job/White Supremacist who went over the edge.

Phil 314 said...

"Impeachment is an integral part of the constitution."

Its so integral that it must be kept from that nasty Senate (which I assume is a less constitutional legislative body.)

Bruce Hayden said...

I find interesting that people of similar political bent can be read so differently. I didn’t read the article politically, but rather as commentary on a troubling trend in technology. The way I read it, the point about Trump is that if he can be tracked, then everyone can be. And this is essentially a wake up call for those around him to be more careful. The Secret Service agent tracked there shouldn’t have been trackable via his cell phone. He should only be carrying an untrackable phone. But that isn’t practical in reality. He has two choices in the real world - he can carry two phones, one owned by the federal govt for work, and a private one for his private life. You aren’t supposed to mix the two uses. Crooked Hillary showed the problem with mixing with her using a private email server, instead of the government one she was legally obligated to use. On the flip side, Strzok and Page were using their work phones to carry on their relationship, and their texts belong to the government as a result. Someone like this Secret Service agent shouldn’t be carrying a personal, trackable, cell phone, but shouldn’t be talking to wife, kids, friends, etc on their more secure government issued phone.

Maybe I am more sensitized to the privacy issues than some here, since I am a member a member of the communications and computer privacy committee of a prominent engineering society. We had discussed this sort of tracking a couple days ago, from another article as the jumping off place for the discussion. The tracking of much of the American public, on a regular basis, by some of the biggest companies in the country is worrisome. And it isn’t going to be that easy to stop, because it isn’t just the cell phone companies doing it. Rather a lot of the applications that we fill our phones with can, and do, track our phones (and thus us) in near real-time. They probably start innocently, but ultimately discover that they can sell the resulting data for money. Just another income stream to offset the cost of developing the application.

JaimeRoberto said...

Step 1: Question Obama's birthplace.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Assassination

See! It's self-evident!

Jim at said...

Stimulating violent ideation was the entire goal of Trump's claim that Obama was an imposter for the presidency. It was a thought out and persistently implemented strategy.

It seems you woke up this morning and drank an entire jug of stupid juice.

Aussie Pundit said...

Let's get real. This was one hell of an intelligence operation, a thing of beauty. An operation that the NYT isn't capable of. Plus, the journalists were coached and babysat through lessons in how to use it.

The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so.

Anonymous sources. Foreign sources.

The whole thing is anti-US government propaganda, dresssed up as well-meaning concern about privacy. "We gotcha. We can see you."

Michael K said...

Maybe I am more sensitized to the privacy issues than some here, since I am a member a member of the communications and computer privacy committee of a prominent engineering society.

Tom Clancy addressed this in his novel "Debt of Honor." His ability to predict the future was amazing. That same novel had the use of a 747 jetliner as a flying bomb.

Aussie Pundit said...

I find interesting that people of similar political bent can be read so differently. I didn’t read the article politically, but rather as commentary on a troubling trend in technology

It's much more than that.

The NYT was gifted a massive database of very hard-to-get information, they won't say who from, including personal information about Trump's security.

Anyone can write "commentary" on privacy issues. This isn't commentary, and shouldn't be treated as such. The NYT are acting like, "some enterprising journalists did some digging to make a point." That's not what happened at all.

This is wikileaks level stuff, the difference being that nobody knows the source of the data.

Rusty said...

Blogger Howard said...
"Blogger Bruce Hayden said...
This is a real problem. No, not ARM defecating all over the thread.

Says the shyster who spews loads of verbal diarrhea on every thread."

When you learn to read for comprehension you'll appreciate him more.