Researchers from Mississippi State University tracked down and monitored movements of unnamed Russian officials possibly related to the country's defence industry by simply buying commercial data collected from their cell phones, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing documents obtained under a request from the state. It's not clear why the researchers targeted the Russian defence industry specifically, but they indicated that their work might be of interest for law enforcement and American government agencies.
The group of academics, funded by the Pentagon, obtained geolocation data, collected by various mobile apps from users' phones and then sold it to marketing companies, from a company named Babel Street. While the firm describes itself as social-media monitoring service, they have a "secret" product named "Locate X", which allows clients to access archives of cell location data obtained from various sources, the newspaper claims. The company does not advertise the product and requires its clients to remain mum on its existence, the WSJ adds.
The data allegedly provided by Babel Street is, by itself, anonymous but according to the research team, in skillful hands, can be used to identify a person behind an alphanumeric ID that comes with each set of locations collected from a phone by apps that make money on selling them to third parties.
The team from the Mississippi University tracked phone owners whose location was close to known or suspected military sites in Russia. They learnt that 48 cell phones were present at the Nyonoksa Missile Test Site on 9 August 2019, a day after an experimental missile engine exploded during tests, killing several people. The researchers were also able to track further movements of Russian officials who were thought to be responding to an incident. It's unclear if the team was able to identify anyone of the 48 phone owners.
The university researchers also determined that the Nyonoksa tests site had the smallest mobile phone presence out of all three monitored objects, concluding that either it had stricter rules or that the incident left the site contaminated and forced the evacuation of personnel, according to WSJ.
In the past, Orbital Insights analysts expressed interest in spying on the Russian defence industry using data obtained from cell phones. They got hold of cell data from several Russian regions where defence industry factories are located. Analysing the cell activity in Spring 2020 and comparing it to earlier periods, Orbital Insights suggested that industry activity, and hence output, had been reduced, presumably due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is, however, unclear how the company acquired the cell data, which is not freely or legally available in Russia.