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I Tracked an NYC Subway Rider's Movements with an MTA ‘Feature’ (www.404media.co)

submitted 1 year ago by HurlingDurling@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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During all this monitoring, I wasn’t anywhere near the rider. I didn’t even need to see them with my own eyes. Instead, I was sitting inside an apartment, following their movements through a feature on a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) website, which runs the New York City subway system.

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[-] otter@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 year ago

What's the feature

[-] seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM@feddit.de 57 points 1 year ago

With their consent, I had entered the rider’s credit card information—data that is often easy to buy from criminal marketplaces, or which might be trivial for an abusive partner to obtain—and punched that into the MTA site for OMNY, the subway’s contactless payments system. After a few seconds, the site churned out the rider’s travel history for the past 7 days, no other verification required.

From the article

[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago

Credit cards are as secure as carrying your passwords around you on a piece of paper, and telling it loots of people always.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

Thank you! I was on the bus and couldn't get the article to load

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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023

120 points (98.4% liked)

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