Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - ICE's New Surveillance System Can Follow You Everywhere

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz     Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co �...�      ICE just bought a massively powerful new surveillance system that can monitor every single phone in your neighborhood, track the movements of those devices and their owners over time, and follow you home from work and to other locations.Joe Cox at 404 Media broke the story of these new ICE systems called Tangles and Webloc. He joined me to break down how this new ICE tech works, what these systems do, why the online advertising market is secretly dangerous, and how we can fight back. Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz                    https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0                    https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz 

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Like there isn't a switch just to turn off and be like, oh, online ads work differently now. This is how it's worked for like over a decade. Recently, a terrifying and dystopian phone and social media surveillance system that can do things like monitor every single cell phone in an entire neighborhood on a city block or at a protest, track the movements of those devices and their owners over time, follow them from work, back home, back to work to anywhere else that they might go, was bought by ICE. This is one of the most powerful surveillance tools ICE has ever gotten actually. access to. Joe Cox at 404 Media broke the story and he's joining me today to break down how this new
Starting point is 00:00:35 technology bought by ICE works, explain what it does, why it's so dangerous and how we can fight this increasingly invasive surveillance tech. Joseph, welcome. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Okay, so you've done so much great reporting on ICE, but I really want to kind of dig down into a story that you wrote recently on 404 media titled Inside Ice's Tool to Monitor Phone's entire neighborhoods. And you talk about these two tools that ICE has obtained. access to these surveillance systems that can track phones without a warrant. So what is this surveillance system I spot? What are these tools?
Starting point is 00:01:08 It's two specific tools. The first is tangles and that focuses on social media surveillance. I feel like everybody knows the law enforcement are reviewing social media. Whatever you tweet or post it, Instagram that's going to get picked up. The second one is a system called web lock, as in web and location data. and that deals with data from your smartphone, which can show where you are at a specific point in time. So the pictures to law enforcement, you can look into a particular area, see all the phones that were there, maybe it's a block, maybe a couple of blocks, maybe an entire
Starting point is 00:01:43 neighborhood, and you can then see where else those phones, and of course by extension, people actually went. And crucially, ICE is able to use this, it believes, without a warrant. So they're not going to AT&T or Verizon to get location data with a warrant or a court order, they're buying access to this tool, they're looking through it, and they're able to then see where these phones were, then where they went later. So how is this a change from what they had before? Like, what is different, I guess, about this new system compared to what they were doing previously?
Starting point is 00:02:15 Because I feel like even before they were monitoring a lot of location information. I always hear people say, like, leave your phones at home if you're going to protest, things like that. Yeah. So ICE has bought access to location. location data before. There was a really landmark report in the Wall Street Journal in 2020 from Byron Tao, and he found that immigration and customs enforcement, they were buying access to location data from at least one company called Ventel. And we'll get into, I imagine, how they get
Starting point is 00:02:43 this data. But they bought access to it and they were monitoring the US-Mexico border to try to find people crossing there. ICE used it to arrest people as well. But what's different here is that Ventel was just location data. It wasn't really so much analytics. It wasn't really super powerful. It was more, here's the data, we'll give it to the law enforcement officials. They can do whatever they want with it. Here, with tangles and weblock, when you use those systems together, it's like an all-in-one
Starting point is 00:03:12 solution. ICE doesn't then have to go and buy another piece of technology and then sort of sell tape it on. It's an all-in-one tool for law enforcement, and in this case ICE, to track phones, social media and people as well, which is what cops want. They want a really efficient, easy to use tool with lots of what they would call fun, capabilities and interesting powers. And that's what they're able to do here. So what are some things that they could do now with these new capabilities? They can draw a circle or a shape on a map, say they'll do it above hypothetically a protest or maybe
Starting point is 00:03:48 an action outside an ice facility. They can then see all the devices there. But there's all of these cute little buttons that they can push as well, such as nighttime mode, and it'll show where all of those phones were at night. Now, presumably, that's going to be where people are living if they're going home after a protest or something like that. They can do daytime as well to see where potentially these people are going to their employer the day after, something like that. And they can even click a root button, which will then show not just where they started and where they ended up, but the specific path they took to get there. So you'll be able to see what they drive. drove down this highway or maybe they walked through this park or something. And of course, that's all
Starting point is 00:04:27 very useful information to ICE or other in law enforcement that they could get by manually digging through the data or using code or their own tools or whatever. But here it's literally just you click a button and it shows you. And that's, you know, much more powerful capability. So how are they getting all this data? Because I feel like, hey, I haven't installed any tracking devices on my phone. I feel like I'm pretty secure. But it seems like they can just do this to anybody. So how are they getting all of that? There's two main ways they're probably getting it. I think one is much more likely than the other one.
Starting point is 00:04:59 The first, I think less likely one is via code in ordinary apps. So there's these things called SDKs, software development kits, and there's these small little bundles of code that get included into ordinary apps. So maybe that's a storm chasing app, a weather app, some sort of news app. Like it really can be anything. And I've seen all sorts over the years, including a Muslim prayer app, sending location data to military contracts and that sort of thing. And the way that works is that the codes in there is collecting the location of the phone all the time. And then the app developer
Starting point is 00:05:32 is selling it basically to make extra money. It's a way to monetize their user base. Now, of course, users don't really know about that ordinarily, at least in my case, when I've spoken to users, or even app developers when I've messaged them and asked them, hey, so do you know where this location data is going? They admit they actually have no idea and they're just taking the paycheck. So there's that the second one, which I think is much more likely because it just seems to be the trend in the location data industry. And it's actually a lot more insidious as well, is that there's this process called real-time bidding, RTB. So whenever you open an app and an advertisement is put in front of you, there's this invisible, near instantaneous process that happens in the background where companies are trying to get their advert in front of you. They want to get adverts in front of males in Chicago between 18 and 35 who are into gaming and NFL or whatever.
Starting point is 00:06:27 Like everybody's trying to do that to get in front of a particular demographic. But the thing is, you don't even need to place and add to sort of get all of that demographic data, including location data. So you have these spy firms, these surveillance companies, like the one that we're talking about here, where they either do it directly or somebody does on their behalf, they basically sit in and observe that advertising bidding process and just siphon up all the data, repackage it, and then sell it to the government. I do think that's much more likely because it just seems to be what location data companies are doing nowadays. I've seen many more doing RTB rather than the first thing I mentioned. Wait, so this is so crazy.
Starting point is 00:07:09 So they're not actually even buying these ads, but there's enough data that they can get, like through the bidding process of the ads that just going into the enter. into the bidding process will allow them to see, okay, here I can know where this phone is, where this, this, this, this. Do they have to pay for that data that they're going? Or can they just go in and pretend like they're going to buy an ad and get that data for free? So it's interesting. Spy companies do in a couple of different ways. One I covered from Israel called Patterns. A surveillance company, they sell, hey, you can look at all the phones in Palestine or whatever, right, or in Israel as well. And that's how they advertise the capability.
Starting point is 00:07:45 They've also advertised looking at phones across New York and America as well. What they did was the CEO of Patterns conveniently is also the CEO of an advertising company. So I could never prove it, but there was obviously a very, very strong link between this advertising company and this surveillance firm. So when we reported that Google kicked out that advertising company, they didn't want anything to do with it. The implication being that if you're an advertising company, you can siphon up this data. So you still have to at least like pretend that you are trying to be a good player. And then the other one is that sometimes spy companies will just straight up acquire or buy these advertising firms.
Starting point is 00:08:27 So then they, that's their way in. It's not like I could just spin it up with a laptop today. Like you would need to have a company. You need to have technical infrastructure. You definitely need to have the know-how. But apart from that, there aren't that many guardrails. You just need to get your foot in the door. somehow and that might be by buying an advertising company.
Starting point is 00:08:47 That is so insidious and I feel like the advertising industry is so ripe for just exploitation. Like because I think a lot of people will be like, so what? So what if I'm getting ads, right? Like ads seem so harmless and we're also desensitized to them. I feel like every app that you open, there's some little banner ad or there's some ad anywhere. So is there any way to kind of like not have any of these apps installed on your phone and be safe? or is it even just historical data that they can get a hold of where if you ever had any app on your phone, basically,
Starting point is 00:09:16 like they'll be able to identify you? It really depends on when you downloaded the app, when you had it running, potentially when you had it open as well, and of course, the permissions on your phone as well. Like if you have location services turned off, the app, even a sketchy one, should not be able to get your location.
Starting point is 00:09:37 If they are able to do that, they're doing something even crazy, easier that I don't even know about or security researchers don't know about, which is not to say it's impossible. You know, we saw that Google was still getting location data even when people thought they turned that off. That's a separate issue. But here, it really does depend again on which apps you have installed. So maybe you just don't install weird ones you don't need or, hey, that flashlight app that asked my location data, well, it doesn't really need that. I'm trying to like look behind a cupboard. I don't need to give them.
Starting point is 00:10:11 my location data, so maybe you do stuff like that. Potentially blocking the ads as well, although to be honest, I'm not 100% sure whether that would work because when I sort of give security advice, I want to be so sure in what I'm saying that it can apply to all of these different contexts. And the reason that's so difficult here is because as we're getting to, this is a fundamental problem in how online advertising is designed and works as an entire eco-examination. system. Like there isn't a switch, apart from on your phone, just to turn off and be like, oh, online ads work differently now. This is how it's worked for like over a decade or whatever,
Starting point is 00:10:50 right, with the introduction of the cookie and the introduction of a unique advertising idea on your phone. This is just how the internet works. It's like this digital exhaust is what some people call it from how the web works. And now law enforcement are sort of latching onto that and exploiting it. Yeah. Well, it just seems like this like hyper-capitalist kind of like advertising industry that, as you mentioned, has been built so aggressively over the past, you know, decade, 15 years, is so intertwined with the security state and security companies and surveillance companies and spy companies. Can you tell me a little bit more about tangles and web lock and, you know, how they're being used now and kind of like what examples we're seeing of use cases of these already in the wild?
Starting point is 00:11:31 Yeah, so, I mean, that is a million dollar question and definitely something we're still getting information on. What I would say is that the sale of these two tools, that we covered was specifically to Homeland Security Investigations, HSI, the criminal investigative arm of ICE. They usually do child abuse imagery, investigations, cybercrime, money laundering, that sort of thing. They also do workplace immigration enforcement as well. But as data from the Cato Institute, they keep getting this leased data from ICE and it's really, really fascinating. It shows that something like 90% of HSI is now doing the immigration mission. So there's basically no distinction. So HSI buys this location data tool. They're working on
Starting point is 00:12:19 immigration enforcement. So I think it's safe to assume this tool could be used for that in the future. The other thing I would add is that it's so hard to tell because you could try to send a FOIA to ICE and be like, what are you using this for? You're not going to get a response for free, for five years. That's why we're suing ICE. We're taking them to court to get certain records about a different surveillance program. But we're not going to know. What can be quite telling is that the company behind this, it was called cobwebs. They got acquired by PennLink. It doesn't really matter. But in marketing material to potential customers, they said, oh, you could use this to monitor Black Lives Matter protests. They said that in their marketing materials?
Starting point is 00:13:00 Yes, exactly. The independent journalist Jack Paulson previously obtained that a little while ago. They are saying themselves, you could use this to monitor protests. So when the company making and selling the tool is saying that, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that actually happened. Well, I think it's just like this level of surveillance that we're seeing and this increased surveillance is just, it has this like chilling effect, right? We're like, I mean, I can imagine so many people just even knowing that their phones are being tracked.
Starting point is 00:13:27 They don't want to show up at these protests and like they don't want that data necessarily tied to them for life, right? Oh, why were you at the Black Lives Matter protest back here? you know, that was a violent riot or why were you at here, X, Y, Z? Is there anybody that, like, doesn't want this to happen, like, in the government? I feel like it's like the government continues to expand their surveillance operations and spy on users and we're just losing privacy rights in real time. And it doesn't seem like there's any sort of pushback.
Starting point is 00:13:54 Yeah, it's a tricky issue because, again, ICE is just buying access to this location data. They got this massive new multi-billion-upon-billion-dollar budget. They're going to argue they have a legitimate use case for it, that sort of thing. I don't know if a lawmaker is really going to be able to tell any agency, hey, please don't buy this thing because it's on the open market. You just go and buy it. So there's that part, which I'm not sure, yeah, we're going to get around that. It's very capitalistic and very American as well.
Starting point is 00:14:28 And then the other side is that you do have some. some lawmakers trying to target more how the agencies get this data and how they're allowed to get it. And there was something proposed by Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon. The only good tech policy person is Ron Wyden, I feel. A lot of interesting stuff comes out of his office for sure. And he proposed something called the Fourth Amendment is not for sale act. Obviously, the idea being usually for phone location data or actually a bunch of other data. You would need to get a search warrant under the Fourth Amendment.
Starting point is 00:15:01 protecting you from unreasonable search and seizure. That's not what is happening here because law enforcement agencies are just buying access to location data. That bill would have required agencies to at least get a warrant, you know, to go through this data. I can't remember exactly when it didn't pass, but obviously that didn't work out because we're still talking about it today. There are people trying to tackle it, but it's tricky and it's tricky for people to understand it and for people to care because, you're Everything I just said is incredibly obscure. You know, people don't know this stuff. Right. And I think it's like complicated to people that don't understand like the basics of digital advertising. Like most people in Congress don't even understand the basics of the internet. So they're not going to understand like how a digital advertising firm works.
Starting point is 00:15:47 I mean, at the same time, I'm curious your thoughts on this too. But it seems like we're also seeing actually the expansion of data collection in the form of pushing these age verification identity verification laws. I'm curious of your thoughts on that, like sort of what loophole that might open. because there was a lot of controversy this week over persona, which is working with Roblox now to harvest biometric data, you know, all this other sorts of data on users and how quickly that can be exploited. So, yeah, I guess like, what are your thoughts on how those types of laws could further enable this system? Yeah, I mean, the first one that I'm sure you've touched on earlier episodes I've listened to as well is that it does create a
Starting point is 00:16:20 cybersecurity risk, right, where you're a young person or really any person and you're uploading a selfie of yourself and an ID to one of these places and that could be accessed by hackers. We've already reported on the Discord breach. There was recent and there was a ton of ID stuff and selfies there. There was this other ID verification service that worked with TikTok, X, and I think Uber, a security researcher found they were saving drivers licenses insecurely as well. So you have all that. But I'm glad you brought it up because I haven't really actually thought about that link yet between the collection of that data and how that might be linked to law enforcement. But any data collected by a company and that would absolutely apply to the.
Starting point is 00:16:59 verification services would be susceptible to a subpoena or some sort of legal court order. Like, I don't think they could just get it without that. They would have to go through presumably some sort of legal mechanism to source it. But as we've seen, over the last few months, law enforcement and the wider administration during the Second Trump administration will weaponize very loose criminal cases, very loosely justified warrants. And subpoenas are easy. Sapiners are like bread and butter.
Starting point is 00:17:26 You can like churn those out as a law enforcement. agency or as a government official, you don't even really need like much to go on. That information could be susceptible to those sorts of legal mechanisms. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it also seems like data broker data can be purchased anyway. Like you were saying before, without a subpoena, there's already so much data that they can purchase from data brokers, from these third-party ad services, from so many places that it's like, you know, you subpoena something, but then you have this vast amount of data that's available just on the commercial web, which is just terrifying. Yeah. I mean, one example would be Thompson Reuters. People will know Reuters obviously is a news
Starting point is 00:18:08 service. They're also a data broker and actually a massive one for the US government where they get all sorts of personal data, addresses, phone numbers, family connections. And then they sell access to that to government agencies, and I believe that includes ICE as well. And not to open up another entire rabbit hole of data supply chain. But whenever you get a credit card in the United States, that is added to your credit header. There's everything above your credit report, your name, address, all of that sort of thing. That gets sent to data brokers and then can be sold as well. So even that information, such as where does this person live, you can just buy that. And I'm not even talking about the people search sites that any weird stalker can find
Starting point is 00:18:51 in like five seconds. This is going to the cops and they have dedicated tools for getting that sort of information very, very quickly. Yeah, I mean, I just think like all privacy is being eroded often in the name of safety or online safety or just all of this nonsense. I mean, you've also talked about ICE getting even Medicaid records and medical records, which seems to be an issue as well. And I could imagine would make people nervous to seek health care if they knew about this. Yeah. So ICE entered an agreement to get data on something like 80 million Medicaid patients. And that was disputed in a court case and it was put on hold. And it's recently been allowed to progress once again.
Starting point is 00:19:33 We found a copy of the agreement between the two agencies that were doing this and then we published that. And then there's one which I think I wrote it in passing. Like it took me, I don't know, a couple of hours to write this up. But I keep thinking about it where there's this other tool called ISO claim search. Now, nobody has heard of that. I hadn't heard of it until, you know, I got a leak from ICE which showed it. And that is a tool which contains something like 90% of all medical insurance claims.
Starting point is 00:20:02 And ICE now has access to that. And my understanding is they didn't even have to pay for that. They just asked for it. And the person in charge of that is someone who looks up to Trump or is close to the administration. So now they have access to that. And it's honestly quite dizzying when I'm covering ICE. Like, oh, they have this tool. Now they made this app.
Starting point is 00:20:20 Then they bought access to this database and that sort of thing. And it is overwhelming and like, well, what else are they going to get? But the through line, I constantly see they're desperate to get addresses. Every single data tool they buy or get access to contains addresses. And that is what they want because they want to be able to populate their tools with those. So then they can go to a city and be like, we need to focus on this neighborhood. We need to focus on this building, on this apartment complex or something like that. And that's sort of more of a pet theory of mine.
Starting point is 00:20:52 but I have seen in some testimony and other places where addresses just keep coming up repeatedly. And of course, location data also helps with that as well where you can just follow someone to their address. It feels, as you said, like dizzying and overwhelming. And I think so often when we cover these things, people are like, oh, well, okay, so they have everything. Like, what can we even do? You know, and it feels so futile.
Starting point is 00:21:14 I have seen a lot more people talk about, like, leaving your phone at home and things like that. But then, of course, they have flock cameras all over. Like, you know, it seems. like we're in this just like oppressive surveillance state that that again the government is voting to actually strengthen not to dismantle what would your advice be aside from some of the stuff that you mentioned previously of sort of like trying to turn off location data on apps and stuff but i don't know like should we all like get like fake mailboxes somewhere to hide our address or like what's what's the solution i think that would be great but not everybody can do that
Starting point is 00:21:45 why i would say is that security is always a trade off with efficiency like those are the polar opposite things like you could do something as efficiently as possible, but you're going to have much less security. You could do something in the most secure way ever, you know, a mailbox with a fake ID. Don't use a fake ID that's going to be illegal. But like you do all of these different steps and then like, well, I can't even get my mail. You know what I mean? Like you're too secure then. So you always have to think about that balance. But I think people should be prepared to introduce a little more friction into their lives if they want to take their privacy and their security seriously. I mean, for a long, long time, I didn't use mobile phones for various reasons. And then I'm
Starting point is 00:22:31 experimenting with different ones now. But that was for the vast majority of people, too much friction. And I completely understand that. But if you can find somewhere in your life where you're okay adding a little bit, because it will benefit you from a privacy and security point of view, I think look that up and explore it. And unfortunately, it does require like a lot of reading. You know, like you need to read, I would say obviously our website selfishly, but like Wired as well, who publish these publicly accessible open guides on the steps you can take to, you know, protect yourself for the protests or maybe do XYZ or even back at motherboard, the technology section of vice where I used to work. We did a big guide on how not to get hacked.
Starting point is 00:23:13 You need to find those sorts of resources and digest them. And hopefully the, The journalists who are writing them are doing them from a place where the information is clear, concise, and actually useful. And not just pontificating online, which a lot of the security advice does. Yeah, I know. I feel like so much of it is so bad. And also, I mean, it's so terrifying, as you mentioned with, like, Thompson Reuters. This is, like, sensibly a news organization that's out harvesting. And I just, I don't mean, so much of the corporate media, I don't think has the interests of, like, people at heart, which is why I'm so grateful for sites, like, 404 media.
Starting point is 00:23:47 generally. I also think that people should try to fight these laws that are going to make all of this worse. Like I am kind of very nervous about the consequences of every single app having to like verify my identity. I refuse to verify my identity on any app and I just noticed this like declining number of apps that I can use. Even Uber like I got like temp banned recently because I like refused to put my actual information into Uber like my IRL name. And it's like, well, don't you want to be verified? Don't you want to have a verified profile here? Don't you want this? Don't you want this?
Starting point is 00:24:18 And it's like, no, I actually, I don't. You know, but as you said, it's so much more efficient that way. And you get better access to the services and like everything is this tradeoff. Yeah, absolutely. I actually use Uber under a fake name. So I'm not sure how I managed to do that. I do too. But it's increasingly hard to do that.
Starting point is 00:24:35 And I mean, with Facebook, I don't, I haven't used Facebook in a long, long time for various, you know, just privacy reasons and also it became incredibly lame to be on Facebook, obviously. So that's why I don't use it. But it's like, impossible to make an account now under a different name. I keep trying and I don't know, they must detect that you're using a VPN or you're connected from this IP address, or whatever it might be, whatever behavioral analytics they're doing. And I just can't do
Starting point is 00:24:59 that to the point where it's like, I'm not going to bother. And if I have to look up something for a new story that we're writing at 404, I have to ask Jason or a manual or Sam, could you log into Facebook and please check this for me? Because I literally can't. And that's as a piece of friction that I'm absolutely fine with, probably because I have nice colleagues who are prepared to actually do it for me. But again, everybody's going to have to introduce that in some way where, hey, if people decide they want to leave a phone at home when going to a protest or some sort of action, people are going to make that decision. If they want to use a different address for something, if they simply don't want to publish some information online, you have to be the one
Starting point is 00:25:37 to make that decision. Because I kind of hate it when people say, privacy is dead. You know, just like this giving up idea. And it's not. It's just a real pain, basically. And it is going harder. And I will acknowledge it. And I'm very privileged in that I have the time to figure it out. But it's not dead.
Starting point is 00:25:55 And you can take steps to combat whatever privacy or security risk you're facing. You just got to figure out what those are. And it's very case by case. Yeah. I think like even if you can't do as much in your personal life, I do think that fighting against laws and fighting the government's like overreach in these areas does make a difference as well. because I think right now there's so much support for these horrible data harvesting laws or allowing ice to do whatever.
Starting point is 00:26:19 And when I think actually if you ask average Americans, you know, to try to really understand the issue, they're not so cool with it. But for example, I would give on that is that there was recently, I believe, a public hearing about a potential data broker law, which would see that those sketchy people sites I was talking about, they wouldn't be allowed to have data on, I think, judges, members of Congress and their families. Because they were facing harassment and, you know, that's an absolutely massive issue. I believe Ted Cruz was bringing that and he was on the floor debating it. And again, Senator Ron Wyden got up and says, I agree with everything you're saying, but this should extend to all Americans. Everybody should have this protection. And if I remember correctly, when I was watching on C-SPAN, that was shut down. And Ted Cruz's version went ahead, which protects a very small part of society, the judges, members of Congress and their families.
Starting point is 00:27:10 But everybody else is kind of just left offend by. themselves, which is why I'm giving these very convoluted answers and how to protect yourself, because as you say, the lawmakers aren't doing it for us. The lawmakers aren't doing it for themselves. And also, like, what can you do when if these age verification laws pass or if these online safety laws pass, you will have to scan biometrically, scan your face to, you know, I had to do it the other day for Google or whatever. Like, you have to enter your info in because I guess I was Googling something that made them think I was under. I mean, they, I actually don't think they really, I think the age assurance stuff is nonsense. I think they just use.
Starting point is 00:27:43 it to harvest it. You know, they sort of guess that everybody's underage so that they can like harvest as much data as possible. But it's, you know, you want to participate in the internet. Like, I think that these laws are really detrimental. Yeah. And it's going to have that chilling effect, as you said, not just on the ground, so to speak. But yeah, even signing up for a service or downloading an app, like let's say in the future when potentially it is the operating system, as in Apple's iOS or Google Android, they're having to do the app store accountability act, Seth. Right.
Starting point is 00:28:16 They're saying in the future, if they're the ones who have to verify age and or identity, and then you're downloading the app, ice block, which can warn you where ICE officials are, maybe you don't download that app because you have scanned your face with Apple or whoever, or you have uploaded ID. So it could really extend that chilling effect in ways that I don't think we even really fully comprehend yet, you know? The App Store Accountability Act, which by the way, is something that Meta is lobbying so hard for. Well, they don't want to do it.
Starting point is 00:28:46 They want it to happen on the App Store level because they just want it to be this mass thing. And I think that making it a mass thing, essentially for people that haven't been following this act, which I think was struck down in Texas recently, but they're still trying to push it through nationally, would make it so that like you can no longer anonymously use a phone. Like your personal offline identity would be tied to literally everything you do on your phone. There is no anonymity anywhere on your phone anymore. And that's scary because I think. look, you already have your Apple account. Okay, we already have. It's not like we have like an
Starting point is 00:29:14 enormous level of privacy on our phone, but as you said, you can still download the ICE app theoretically anonymously and that sort of thing would, you know, would go away. Yeah. And law enforcement can already go to Apple and be like, hey, there's this Apple ID. Exactly. But they need to get that subpoena. Yeah, or some sort of other legal mechanism. But then if your ID in face is there, it does up the stakes. Absolutely. Joseph, thank you so much for chatting with me today. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
Starting point is 00:29:45 All right, that's it for this week's episode. If you like the show, please support me on Patreon via the link below or buy a paid subscription to my substack newsletter at usermag.com. That's usermag. I publish a biweekly roundup of everything that I'm reading and seeing and paying attention to online. You can also get my newsletter via my Patreon. Again, linked below.
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Starting point is 00:30:22 I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User. See you then.

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