Last weekend AntiSec—a hacking group that’s bent on telling the world how the US government is tracking each of us and controlling our lives (Duh. We already knew that. We watched the X-Files. They took each of our DNA at birth and the Cigarette Smoking Man stored it in the basement of the Pentagon)—released a statement saying they’d retrieved approximately twelve million unique Apple user IDs (associated with iPhones and iPads) from an unwatched FBI laptop file. The unwatched laptop allegedly belonged to special agent Christopher K. Stangl, from the bureau’s Regional Cyber Action Team. To prove their point, they released one million of these IDs, allegedly stripping them of their personal info, but leaving enough so that product owners could search for their own IDs to see if they’d been caught in the file.
Nearly everyone at my work uses Apple products, so this caused a bit of a stir in my part of the world yesterday morning. We all scurried to locate our unique IDs on our phones or tablets, and then to the site where one can search to see if their user ID pops up.
Mine didn’t. I don’t know of anyone’s who did. At first I was relieved, but then I felt a little miffed about the whole thing. Wow, FBI. You’ll track some of us (and twelve million is actually a lot of us) but not me? What’s wrong with me? Am I not worthy of being tracked? Am I too boring for you? You think that other girl is prettier than me, don’t you, FBI?
I don’t even care that this laptop was allegedly stolen back in March, when I didn’t have an iPhone. I’m special, FBI, and you’re going to regret this for the rest of your life. I hope you’re happy with those other twelve million users!
Excuse me. Ahem. I got a little caught up there for a moment.
Anyway, the FBI was pretty silent on the whole matter yesterday, but came out late in the afternoon to say that the whole thing is bogus. They’ve never tracked Apple IDs, there was no laptop; the whole thing is “Totally False.” Likely story…
The fact of the matter is lots of people (aka, any app developer whose app you buy) can actually track your unique Apple ID. Combining the ID (which is hard-coded into your device) with any other personal information (like your location, your phone number, your name and bank information) means that just about anyone can know LOTS about you in this day and age. Hell, do you have the Facebook app on your phone? These people even know about your penchant for ‘I Can Haz Cheezburger’ memes…
I know this freaks out a lot of people (Privacy! Where’s the damn privacy?), but not me. I grew up in a small town. Two hundred years ago, almost everyone lived in a small town. If you’ve ever lived in a small town (or have a good imagination) you already know that privacy, well, it’s not like that ideal actually exists. People know you, they know about you, and they know LOTS of things about you. The bad thing you did at the Friday night dance was already home and waiting with your angry mother by the time you got home two minutes after curfew. This is the same thing. We need to deal with it.
Like I’m dealing with the fact the FBI doesn’t want me…
Andrea
09/06/2012
a favorite professor of mine once said that if you’re not on some watch list, you’re doing it wrong. so maybe you’re just doing it wrong. or maybe you’re on a different watch list. hell, you write for SI. I’m sure the FBI is plenty concerned about you.
and what does an unwatched laptop even mean? is it just sitting alone in a small closet?