On iOS you can apparently simply check the APFS filesystem creation date and that's stable and unique enough to need almost no disambiguation. And any app can do this with no entitlements

Disabling "advertising ID" on iOS makes it extremely difficult to reliably fingerprint phones. Apple doesn't allow SDKs which attempt to bypass this, so the app would have to have a first party auth of some type.

Everything they do is a framework for consumer protection laws.

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>Unit commanders have your social media accounts and monitor what you do there.

I’m prior Air Force, so never been deployed to a FOB, but I have never had a commander ask me for my social media accounts. I’m not sure how this is even possible. I couldn’t even tell you all my social media accounts if you define social media as a platform where people communicate directly with one another publicly (forums, marketplaces like Craigslist, etc.) You can correct me if I’m wrong, but I have never seen it happen and it seems like a pretty weak enforcement mechanism.

> UCMJ doesn't have 4th amendment rights. Your room, housing, belongings, car, phone, can all be searched with impunity at any time, with or without notice.

That’s a bit of an overstatement. For housing or computer systems owned by the military, yes, you have no expectation of privacy and they can be searched without probable cause. However, personal effects such as your phone or laptop do have protections against unauthorized searches. Commanders and military judges must have a reason for authorizing a search, that search must be narrowly tailored, and if the search does not meet these requirements the evidence can be suppressed during court martial proceedings. Good example would be US v. Nieto

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/caaf/1...

The US military hasn't yet been in a military altercation with a peer adversary that can actually exploit that information. The war in Ukraine shows that these information leaks can have severe tactical consequences.

Most of what goes on on most bases is as unsecret as it gets. The rooms where sensitive things happen have security measures in place and they keep you from bringing your phone in there. Usually a little locker is provided where you store your phone while you are inside the protected area. In some very sensitive places there may be additional active and passive measures but usually people with access to those areas police themselves.

It allows fun things like locating aircraft carriers on Strava.

I don't think the Iranians have direct targeting tech for individual mobiles for decapitation strikes yet, that's an Israeli capability.

The base is where people live 24/7. You'd be banning them from having phones.

Or Kalshi bets.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-clas...

Or run tracking.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracki...

Probably not anything more than you could find via publicly accessible information and then the movements you do care about (deploying to go fight in a war) you'd get via your satellites and so forth.

It's unfortunate that predatory businesses exist (payday loans and furniture rental anyone - you could run ads for those in certain communities :o ) but it's a tough and demanding lifestyle that's a bit unstable since our military actually does things and there are a lot of predatory auto companies and banks out there praying on regular people (most of them from poorer, working class, and/or minority communities) who aren't as well educated as the rest of us on things like interest rates and loans and all of those things.

You say that like it’s not already happening.

Oh, this is an old trick the US has used for a long time:

https://www.wired.com/story/how-pentagon-learned-targeted-ad...

Exactly.

The abscence of an indicator that is expected is itself an indicator.

There are MANY problems that are too politically or practically difficult to tackle for the US Military and personal cellphones aren't close to the top ten. It's far easier to force everyone to register their cells to be automatically blacklisted from data collection than it is to justify tens of thousands of NJPs and court martials every year, many of which will include officers and senior enlisted.

The US Military doesn't win through stealth or secrets either. Their advantage from the beginning until now has always been funding and logistics. With the Internet, satellites, and now AI, OPSEC is a fool's errand outside of very specific operations anyhow.

Probably because the intelligence community is also at the other side of this equation. The strategic advantage of a smartphone duopoly completely inside US jurisdiction is immeasurable.

> Why even allow any mobile phone for the US solider if it could cause any arbitrary problem for the US military if the location data, name, unit, rank, ... of the respective soldier was published and permanently updated on a publicly viewable website?

By this logic, why keep anyone around after the SF86 hack[0]? Simple answer: Costs. It's a lot more expensive to lay off everyone with a security clearance (especially, if they're regular employees) and make a whole new batch of people go through the security background checks. We're probably talking billions - not to mention the issue with downtime of no one being around to do anything.

> So, why doesn't the military than treat every soldier who has a mobile phone near to him where the above could cause military problems to be a saboteur (perhaps even with the accusation of being a spy of a hostile nation) who should be charged by a military tribunal?

...because they (they being the military, in general) have - relatively - planned for this in places that they physically control (and the threats levels demand it) by essentially making all buildings that need to be secure giant faraday cages[1].

What that doesn't account for is people outside of the buildings[2], which is probably what they're hoping to address with this change. (Too little, too late, I think - as that data's already out there.)

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Office_of_Personnel_Manag...

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_inform...

2 - https://www.wired.com/story/phone-data-us-soldiers-spies-nuc...

It seems like stalking laws in most jurisdictions should already cover this. Is there any legal precedent that could help without the need for new laws?

To them, the consent is using the device/service/whatever.

You see it in various bits of EULA and ToS all the time. "Continued use of <insert thing here> implies agreement with the license terms".

Now, is that at all feasible when you need a smartphone to do things like pay for parking in cities or to read menus at restaurants? No. Do the people in SV who think this way also try to wedge their products and services in every single nook, cranny, and crevice of our lives as a way to increase their net worth? Yes. Is this indicative that these people have severe antisocial or sociopathic tendencies that we, as a society, need to handle? I'm not a psychologist.

Ironically, the US Miliary appears to be supporting the GDPR.

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The US is currently not deploying troops against an adversary that can make use of that information.

This is basically impossible to do on a global scale. And even within a jurisdiction, there is a great risk of overregulation, see e.g. Europe.

Disclaimer: I am a Linux and GrapheneOS user, running my own DNS with filtering for trackers, etc.

Absolutely not, rules for thee not for me!

News article is about Microsoft Windows AdID?

But Doubleclick might use it, no clue if it affects Google.

The rules for DoD phones are different than the rest of the Executive Branch. I don't know if it will eventually roll out to DoD phones; but, that was what we were told and we haven't seen it yet.