Recent investigative reports issued by the Canadian Citizen Lab, in cooperation with American journalistic platforms such as Media 404 and Forbes, revealed the existence of a highly capable intelligence system called Webloc.
This system does not rely on traditional security vulnerabilities, but rather exploits the digital advertising infrastructure to turn smartphones into global tracking devices, putting the privacy of more than 500 million users under the microscope.
WeBlock is part of a new generation of spy tools known as advertising intelligence (ADINT). Unlike software like Pegasus, which requires expensive individual targeting, WeBlock works on the principle of silent mass surveillance.
According to investigations by The Hacker News and Citizen Lab, the system purchases huge amounts of data from data brokers who collect it from regular phone applications. This data includes:
– Mobile Advertising Identifiers (MAIDs): These are unique numbers for each device that are originally used to personalize ads.
– Accurate GPS coordinates: collected from third-party weather apps, games, and maps.
– Digital behavior data: device type, Wi-Fi networks connected to it, and even personal interests.
