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How do governments use the Patternz tool for mass surveillance of citizens?
In today's world, where technology has reached a high level of development, the problem of global tracking is becoming particularly relevant. According to an investigation by 404 Media, hundreds of thousands of popular apps participate in a global tracking network linked to the advertising industry. Apps use ads to create user profiles by tracking private and personal information.
The key tool in the system is the Patternz spy tool, which turns users ' smartphones into a kind of tracking device. You can use Patternz to receive notifications when a user arrives at a specific location or meets other people. About 90 TB of data is processed daily through Patternz, and profiles of more than 5 billion users are created, whose data is obtained from a large number of companies, including Google and X.
The investigation also revealed that about 600,000 apps were involved in the tracking campaign. Moreover, the CEO of Patternz developer company, Rafi Ton, proudly revealed its secret capabilities in an already deleted YouTube video, including tracking the user's exact GPS coordinates.
"The universal surveillance machine, designed for digital advertising, now directly provides mass surveillance by the government. Many companies, from app publishers to advertisers to large technology companies, are acting completely irresponsibly. This must be stopped," Wolfi Krystl, director of the Austrian research institute Cracked Labs and co — author of a paper on the research of the surveillance tool, told 404 Media.
Cracked Labs notes in its report that Patternz is being sold by a private ISA company. The origin of the company is not noted, but on the archived version of the ISA website, it is registered in Israel. Currently, information about the Patternz tool has been removed from the company's website.
The Patternz interface. The tool provides the current location of the goal, the history of movements over several months, and those with whom the goal frequently meets.
Patternz can also be used to distribute malware to unsuspecting victims. The tool uses the Real-Time Bidding (RTB) mechanism to provide specific data about users. The demonstration showed that intelligence agencies can get all the necessary information through online advertising. And since the tool works through an advertising system, this means that Patternz doesn't need to get permission from the Patternz developers for its covert operations.
Patternz collaborates with the Israeli advertising and technology company Nuviad, which is also headed by Rafi Ton. As a result of the partnership, Google suspended Nuviad's account as an authorized buyer, and Microsoft stopped Nuviad's access to its Xandr advertising platform. It is noted that Google reacted rather slowly to the actions of Nuviad and Patternz. US senators have expressed concerns about this issue since 2021, but Google blocked Nuviad only in 2023.
In today's world, where technology has reached a high level of development, the problem of global tracking is becoming particularly relevant. According to an investigation by 404 Media, hundreds of thousands of popular apps participate in a global tracking network linked to the advertising industry. Apps use ads to create user profiles by tracking private and personal information.
The key tool in the system is the Patternz spy tool, which turns users ' smartphones into a kind of tracking device. You can use Patternz to receive notifications when a user arrives at a specific location or meets other people. About 90 TB of data is processed daily through Patternz, and profiles of more than 5 billion users are created, whose data is obtained from a large number of companies, including Google and X.
The investigation also revealed that about 600,000 apps were involved in the tracking campaign. Moreover, the CEO of Patternz developer company, Rafi Ton, proudly revealed its secret capabilities in an already deleted YouTube video, including tracking the user's exact GPS coordinates.
"The universal surveillance machine, designed for digital advertising, now directly provides mass surveillance by the government. Many companies, from app publishers to advertisers to large technology companies, are acting completely irresponsibly. This must be stopped," Wolfi Krystl, director of the Austrian research institute Cracked Labs and co — author of a paper on the research of the surveillance tool, told 404 Media.
Cracked Labs notes in its report that Patternz is being sold by a private ISA company. The origin of the company is not noted, but on the archived version of the ISA website, it is registered in Israel. Currently, information about the Patternz tool has been removed from the company's website.
The Patternz interface. The tool provides the current location of the goal, the history of movements over several months, and those with whom the goal frequently meets.
Patternz can also be used to distribute malware to unsuspecting victims. The tool uses the Real-Time Bidding (RTB) mechanism to provide specific data about users. The demonstration showed that intelligence agencies can get all the necessary information through online advertising. And since the tool works through an advertising system, this means that Patternz doesn't need to get permission from the Patternz developers for its covert operations.
Patternz collaborates with the Israeli advertising and technology company Nuviad, which is also headed by Rafi Ton. As a result of the partnership, Google suspended Nuviad's account as an authorized buyer, and Microsoft stopped Nuviad's access to its Xandr advertising platform. It is noted that Google reacted rather slowly to the actions of Nuviad and Patternz. US senators have expressed concerns about this issue since 2021, but Google blocked Nuviad only in 2023.
