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Data Brokers are scraping, then selling your data. CBP and ICE buy it all up.
Data Stealers, Data Brokers.
In my last discussion I talked about how the EU is trying to end E2EE by forcing back-doors, and hiring in the shadows top minds in systems and network engineering.
Excerpt
"The only thing needed to be known about what the EU is up to, is they're in the Dark, operating anonymously, and are after data that shadow brokers often buy up, dismantle, and invade not only the privacy of others, but the unethical procurement of data (the world's data) often leads to new systems being created to abuse it; think shadow profiles of you, or targeted ad or cyber warfare technologies."
How they're getting the data
It goes without saying, we all as network and system operators have seen and feel the impact of AI data crawlers scraping websites millions of times per day, even on per-hour basis.
These data companies, or individuals, or whoever they may be want only one thing: Data.
They'll go to any length and leave no stones unturned to get it, ravaging networks and resources and leaving others with the bandwidth bills
That app you installed just turned your device in to a proxy
They use hidden-ware at the subscriber level: Think, millions upon millions of people unknowingly, but quick-to-agree on a ToS when installing apps that their devices can be used as a proxy, often the developers are paid for this by:
- Infatica the biggest scumbag of them all.
https://infatica.io/
Android, iOS, Smart TV apps, they include infected code with these proxy SDKs so that they can further the movement of hiding bot data with real human data and the user has no idea.
Here's a good write-up on the matter. and a quick DDG search for "Infatica AI crawler" should net you some reasonable sys-admin criteria to better get a glimpse on how your networks are being navigated.
- The Web is Broken
https://jan.wildeboer.net/2025/04/Web-is-Broken-Botnet-Part-2/
Cloudflare recently introduced Bot Pay Per Crawl which makes scrapers pay using their web headers with payment information, and the money goes to authentic website operators.
blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pay-per-crawl/
The point I'm making is, even with EU's shadow projects going on, people willfully give their data away and even turn their devices in to access points that AI companies and bad actors use to blend in as legitimate traffic, avoiding DNS Block Lists and whatever security rules you may have to throw at the problem.
Cloudflare is only one company and doing what they can on the digital frontlines for authentic writers and content creators. This doesn't even put a dent in the amount of data and loophole tactics that can be used to decrypt the data, so that they can sell.
Today it's revealed that data brokers are amassing vast amounts of personal identifiable information, and not only that, are just being willfully handed it by data brokers that all of the airlines 'own' - ARC
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation
"For many years, data brokers have existed in the shadows, exploiting gaps in privacy laws to harvest our information—all for their own profit. They sell our precise movements without our knowledge or meaningful consent to a variety of private and state actors, including law enforcement agencies. And they show no sign of stopping."
and
"Movement unrestricted by governments is a hallmark of a free society. "
Are two big take-aways. However, the biggest takeaway for this is: the need for data runs rampant, and it effects all of us.
ARC has been caught selling the information to agencies such as CBP and ICE which contain global flights, and payment information on just about anybody, and everybody who travels.
Data brokers? They're making a fat pot of money by operating in the shadows.
More than 200 airlines settle tickets through ARC, with information on more than 54% of flights taken globally. ARC’s board of directors includes representatives from U.S. airlines like JetBlue and Delta, as well as international airlines like Lufthansa, Air France, and Air Canada.
While data models aren't hard to create and interpolate even more data, facts are facts.
Data brokers want our data, and there's a market for who's buying them up under the 'guise of ..well whatever they try telling us week to week.
The EFF explains not only the privacy implications, but the loophole around violating the 4th amendment, something the EU cares zero about.
Source
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/data-brokers-are-selling-your-flight-information-cbp-and-ice
Comments
I really suggest the good read here:
https://jan.wildeboer.net/2025/04/Web-is-Broken-Botnet-Part-2/
As I mentioned in the article, but this person has an amazing write up on these that I've been looking in to for months.
There's part 1 on there as well.
I like to write about privacy oriented deals, but I mostly love about protecting authentic works (art, text, video) from theft and data security from 'what looks like normal human traffic'
From that article:
_"So there is a (IMHO) shady market out there that gives app developers on iOS, Android, MacOS and Windows money for including a library into their apps that sells users network bandwidth. Infatica1 is just one example, there are many more.
I am 99% sure that these companies cause what effectively are DDoS attacks by aggressive AI crawlers that many webmasters have to deal with since months. This business model should simply not exist. Apple, Microsoft and Google should act"._
They just collect all the data, and run it through one of their AIs.
Outside of Cloudflare I've still yet to determine how AI agents used for malicious purposes and data brokers utilizing them can be distinguished between human and bot traffic.
You say google, microsoft, apple should act? How, they made billions from collecting data/tracking/spying users etc.
Best way is not use those.
Move to gnu-linux, openbsd, avoid mobile/smartphones at all cost.
Agreed. I'm pro Linux Desktop and not in the 'this is the year of the desktop way' - I PUSH to advance it. From the article it's saying, these companies know about it and are aware in the SLA. They include the drone-net stuff in the code, they have the users often AGREE TO IT (pressing install as fast as you can, pressing OK on everything)
It's still going on to this very day. Cloudflare did some pretty gangster stuff with making AI drones pay creators but, unless they're magic workers I don't see how they can stop this kind of traffic. Normal users use their apps, Youtubes, googles, and 3 hours later that same device is used as a drone access point that some gigabit line somewhere is hammering through to scrape
Scraping is as easy as:
wget --recursive --no-parent --page-requisites --convert-links --limit-rate=200k --directory-prefix=your_directory http://example.comToday, US visa refused after Indian applicant failed to share Reddit account.
How'd they know he had a reddit account? Data brokers.
https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/us-visa-refused-after-indian-applicant-failed-to-share-reddit-account-8879349