Last year, a media investigation revealed that a Dat Easy Broker in Florida, DataStream Group, is selling highly sensitive location data that has detected the US military and intelligence staff abroad. The origin of the data was unknown at the time.
Now, a letter sent to the US Senator Ron Wygen’s office that was Wired by an international collective of media and 404 media proclaimed that the ultimate source of the data was Eskimi, a small known Lithuanian -Ad-Tech business. Eskimi, meanwhile, denies that it had any involvement.
The alleged role of Eskimi – and his denials – raises the opaque nature of the location data – Industry: A Databelator in Florida claims that a Lithuanian company provided information about US military staff in Germany. That data can theoretically be sold in essentially someone. But the exact ways in which the data are collected, compiled and shared remain unclear.
“There is a global threat risk for insider, from some unknown advertising companies, and those companies are essentially breaking all these systems by abusing their access and selling these extremely sensitive data to brokers who further sell it to government and private interests,” Says Zach Edwards, senior threat analyst at CyberSecurity Firm Silent Push, citing the AD-Tech ecosystem in general.
In December, the joint investigation by Wired, Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) and Netzpolitik.org analyzed a free sample of location data provided by DataStream. The investigation revealed that data stream provides access to exact location data of devices that are likely to belong to US military and intelligence staff abroad – including the German air base that will allegedly store US nuclear weapons. Data Stream is a data broker in the location data, obtaining data from other suppliers and then selling it to customers. The site previously said it offered “Internet Advertising data along with hashed -mail, cookies and mobile location data.”
The dataset contains 3.6 billion location coordinates, some scored intervals at milliseconds, of up to 11 million mobile advertising IDs in Germany over a one-month period. The data was probably collected through SDKs (software development sets) embedded in mobile apps by developers who consciously integrate tracking tools in exchange for agreements with revenue part with data brokers.
After this reporting, Wygen’s office demanded answers from DataStream Group on its role in trading in the location data of US military staff. In response, DataStream Eskimi identified as his alleged source and claimed to have obtained the data “legally from a respected third-party supplier, Eskimi.com.
Eskimi CEO Vytautas Paukstys says that “Eskimi has never had a commercial relationship with data ice/data tribal group, and refers to another name that used data stream, and that Eskimi is” not a data broker . “In a subsequent e -mail of a company spokesman, it is said: ‘Eskimi has no commercial relationship with DataStream Group. Without a doubt, Eskimi did not share or sell location data of military personnel or any other data in Germany or Europe with data stream group. “
In ‘NE -mail responding to detailed questions from the reporting collective, M. Seth Lubin, a lawyer representing DataStream Group, described the information as legally obtainable from a third party. While Lubin admitted to Widen that the data was intended for use in digital advertising, he emphasized the reporting collective that it was never intended for resale. Lubin refused to disclose the source of the data, referring to an agreement with the unveiling of the reporting and analyzing the reporting of Collective as reckless and misleading.
The Defense Department (Dod) refused to answer specific questions regarding our investigation. In December, however, DOD spokesman Javan Rasnake said the Pentagon is aware that Geolocation Services could jeopardize staff and request service members to remember their education and strictly adhere to operational security protocols.