DPS plans to spend millions in taxpayer dollars on a controversial software, used first as part of Governor Abbott’s border crackdown, to “disrupt potential domestic terrorism.”

In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.

WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.

Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher and digital rights activist based in Vienna, Austria, argues that data collected for a specific purpose, such as navigation or dating apps, should not be used by different parties for unrelated reasons. “It’s a disaster,” Christl told the Observer. “It’s the largest possible imaginable decontextualization of data. … This cannot be how our future digital society looks like.”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240827115133/https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-cobwebs/

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zipEnglish
      17·
      3 months ago

      That is the real (overall) goal of shit like this.

      Prevent people from using communication devices so that we can’t coordinate. It is a lot easier to go around busting heads if people aren’t recording you (or running over from the other street to fight back…). Same with the constant war on encryption.

      And useful idiots (or incompetent plants) will love to talk about how the real problem is people are bringing those evidence collection boxes to protests and are coordinating rather than acting as a sea of individuals.

      • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Yet again I’m not saying this isn’t bad, I guess I’m just surprised people are just catching on to this shit. Look into meshnets. Get a DV handycam. Keep it secret keep it safe. Practice good op sec. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

        • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zipEnglish
          13·
          3 months ago

          No. What you are doing is trying to act smug while spreading the exact same end goal of isolating people.

          A hidden gopro does not stop cops from beating you to death and saying you had a gun. A bunch of phones that are recording “to the cloud” does that. Similarly, a hidden camera does not let you communicate with other protesters and just isolates you and weakens the movement as a whole.

          Please listen to others rather than being a useful idiot for the fascists.

    • 14th_cylon@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      Riots are also rarely planned in the US so so I doubt even a majority of the participants will remember not to bring a phone with them.

      It also impacts one of the most powerful tools we have for accountability: the cameras on our phones.

      Airplane mode

        • 14th_cylon@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          I am not talking about other people, I am saying that any individual who happens to become part of some unplanned ethical riot, has a chance to not be tracked through their phone and still use its function which don’t require any external connection, like camera.

          Whether they decide to use it or not is really up to them.

            • 14th_cylon@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              3 months ago

              you should be pushing back against the laws > and practices that make you want to tell people that to begin with.

              I am not disputing this part - I am just saying, there is something you can do even when the situation is not planned. I am not saying it is easy or anything, I am saying you are not without options.

              I am not advocating for state survaillence.

                • 14th_cylon@lemm.eeEnglish
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  we should not be shifting the onus onto the general public in a situation like this.

                  If we are talking about how we would design our utopia (no sarcasm here) we absolutely shouldn’t. I am just pointing out that even in less than ideal reality you are not without options.

    • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      I guess? I mean the feds were already doing this to the capital insurrectionists, but yeah it does suck that Texas is now doing it too. I suggest everyone who’s getting pissed at me reevaluate their threat models instead and maybe go get a DV handycam from goodwill