this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026
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US military disables ad trackers on troops’ phones amid security fears (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 day ago by cm0002 to c/privacy@programming.dev
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US military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by the US senator Ron Wyden and ⁠statements given to Reuters.

The development follows reports ​that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East.

The air force told Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two ⁠months ago. US Special Operations Command said in a separate letter that it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices. The army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year

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[–] ArsonButCute@programming.dev 8 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Oh I see, the military is allowed to have ad-tracking disabled but when I have an adversarial noise generator running to produce alternative ad profiles and obfuscate my person from my device I'm a "terrorist" and "won't be allowed back in the country if I leave"

/s

[–] 4TBHMeCCL@suppo.fi 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

What are you using for your adversarial noise generator? The one I'm using isn't constantly putting out noise.

[–] ArsonButCute@programming.dev 2 points 1 hour ago

Fauxx I often have to make sure it's still running because I have a custom config that keeps me disconnected from cell service, the device can't even make emergency calls, but if you're device is a standard "always online" configuration it should keep running ad infinitum. On first run, it gives you a survey to determine what not to put in the ad profile it generates for you. It will make a new one every week at least. It still peppers in accurate data and whatnot to ensure that your real data doesn't show up as a hole in the ad profile, since if you hide too well your absence will be noticed.