Yikes, the creepy online ads that follow your offline real world activities finally caught up to me after successfully evading this for 5 years. It appears to be a Bluetooth information leak exploited by the Twitter app to display an Apple App Store ad.
-
-
I think Apple is in cahoots for a lot of apps. I have mic disabled but while I had the app open I verbally mentioned a store I’ve never patronized, but received ads within the next scroll.
-
Do any apps have background access to gyros? They’re precise enough that they can pick up sound adequately for voice recognition, and some devious apps do this.
- 15 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
I have Twitter app settings allowed to access my location while I'm using the app, so presumably Grubhub could buy ads on Twitter targeted at people at or near restaurants they serve.
-
I have Location Services turned off entirely, and then I block all non-mapping apps from Location Services.
- 6 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
What makes you think it's a Bluetooth info leak ? Not just your GPS loc taken while it's disabled ? As a dev i always thought "why not make an app that turns it on, get the location, and turn it off again?". In short, i don't trust mobiles i guess...
-
I trust that Apple respects disabling hardware communication settings like Bluetooth. This reduces the attack surface to cellular and Bluetooth (WiFi was disabled) or something outside of iOS like a credit card swipe or (unlikely) facial recognition.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Why Bluetooth and not GPS?
-
I should have disabled Bluetooth. Zero apps have Bluetooth permissions on my device though, so if that’s the attack vector then I don’t know how they made the mapping between identifiers and people. AT&T is the other possible culprit, but I’m >1 mile from the nearest tower.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
I’d like to posit that natural phenomena start occurring when billions of connected users share petabytes of data per day in an era of machine learning. Of course, I love the conspiracy idea too. But this one, like many conspiracies, leaves more questions than answers.
-
3 simple questions off the top of my head: How would Twitter know they’re a Grubhub employee? Why is seeing a low paid Grubhub employee and then seeing a Twitter ad about it an affective ad strategy? Would a low level hack on the most secure popular mobile OS be a good use of $?
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.