X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/bf229d61b3177f58b35044a215c7149663f3b0b7..2303a53e3000b721cc73c3bfe81b6d2911b51a35:/blog/archive/2016/01/index.html diff --git a/blog/archive/2016/01/index.html b/blog/archive/2016/01/index.html index fdacef2c4f..10ea7d3112 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2016/01/index.html +++ b/blog/archive/2016/01/index.html @@ -21,6 +21,104 @@

Entries from January 2016.

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+ Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software +
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+ 24th January 2016 +
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Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around +with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their +position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long +time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their +computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called +mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often +also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access +during installation). And when these programs send out information to +central collection points, the location is often included, unless +extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided +information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is +good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that +the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and +perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way, +when they share their whereabouts with private and public +entities.

+ +

+ +

The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out +when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is +unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government +officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from +unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the +public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software +tool to do so is called +Creepy or Cree.py. I +discovered it when I read +an +article about Creepy in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i +November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian. +The python program was in Debian, but +the version in +Debian was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I +uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not +have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to +get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in +Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches +are now included +upstream.

+ +

The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from +Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a +complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a +given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all +these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at +least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these +days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to +configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide +information to them about your search interests. This should be taken +into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information +about yourself with the services.

+ +

The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least +geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital +of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at +information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the +information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area. +I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in +twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a +Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time, +making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other +things. A similar technique have been +used +to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and it is both a powerful +tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people +understand the value of the private information they provide to the +public.

+ +

The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as +it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at +least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and +python-requests-toolbelt).

+ +

(I have uploaded +the image to +screenshots.debian.net and licensed it under the same terms as the +Creepy program in Debian.)

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+ + + Tags: debian, english, nice free software. + + +
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Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe @@ -55,14 +153,14 @@ making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.

Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by installing apt-transport-tor and replacing http and https -urls with tor+http and https, and using the hidden service instead of -the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing +urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead +of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing etckeeper before you start to have a history of the changes done in /etc/.

 apt install apt-transport-tor
-sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/%tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
+sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
 
@@ -155,7 +253,13 @@ gjør håndtering enklere på disk.

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