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Wozniak Unveils WozNet
dki writes "Steve Wozniak's WozNet is covered in an article at the New York Times today. His company Wheels of Zeus, mentioned previously on Slashdot last year, plans to create wireless networks that use GPS to track clusters of electronic tags within a 1- or 2-mile radius of a base station. The tags "will be able to generate alerts, notifying the owner by phone or e-mail message when a child arrives at school, a dog leaves the yard or a car leaves the parking lot.""
I'm not sure whether my first reaction is one of geek-interoperability heaven, or "1984"-style wariness. I guess my feelings are that for private citizens this could be a very cool idea, but for a general populace control/observance I'm a little worried.
If Paul Allen bought a wi-fi company would it be under Microsoft?
when someone mentions RFIDs, everyone gets all up in arms about it, but when it's Steve Wozniak behind them (these things are basically an advanced form of RFIDs and can be used in much the same way), it's wahoo! go woz! you rock man!
Most people here have read Bill Joy's article on "why the future doesn't need us." One thing he mentioned in the article is that he may have a moral directive in the near future to stop developing in the field he helped create, because it was doing more harm than good to society.
This is exactly how I see Woz's latest project. It sounds like something that has FAR more potential to be invasive and violating than it does to be useful. I'm a bit surprised, actually--Woz has always struck me as doing weird but cool stuff, not nasty stuff.
Anyways, it seems a sad day when one of the proto-geeks is forgetting to look at what he's actually doing from a larger perspective.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Big Brother at a consumer level.
/.ers, but the other half should love it, right? Information wants to be free, right? Your location and activities ARE WHO YOU ARE. I don't believe that the government should have access to that information - I believe everyone should [unless your in a private place, say your own home, then just your location should be available :-]
wonderful.
To my mind, there were only 1 problem with big brother:
The information was not universal. That is, only the government had access. If the general public had access to the same data, it would have been OK. ie. The problem was not that the govenernment had too much data, it was that it did not share it.
I know that sounds crazy to half the
The moniker(sp, sorry) "Big Brother" implies something: they were like family looking out for you. So, yes, this stuff is "Big Brother"ish - but in the sense that you can look out for your family, not that the government can spy on you. You just have to look for the original meaning of the term.
The arguments for and against such tracking devices have been hashed out several gazillion times here on /., so I'll spare the replay, but there's one important difference here: this is Woz. He's no starry-eyed upstart CEO or engineering student; he's one of geekhood's geekiest, and he knows what he's doing (certainly as far as the tech end of things are concerned.) I think that he stands a good chance of making this thing work. It's exciting and frightening to think about.
Best of luck, Woz. Please be careful.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
mwah ha ha ha
1) Police put tracking devices on you... If anyone can get them, who's to say it was the police...
2) A stalker plants one in the victim's purse...
3) An election campaign plants them on the opposition's sign crew...
4) Agents provocateurs carry them in protests, making it so much easier to co-ordinate them...
5) You neighbour plants one on you, and calls the tipline whenever you happen to go through a bad neighbourhood, or near a mosque, hoping to get a reward...
And many more...
I am aware that /. does not speak with one voice, but the general values expressed by its members are odd. If it is something that can be used for violating privacy (but hasn't) it is feared, but if something is used for piracy ALOT, it should be considered good regardless of the illegal nature of its use because it has non-infringing uses.
By the way, children have no right to privacy from their parents.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
...that's obscenely naive. So what's stopping me from putting one on your car and knowing everywhere you go? What if your wife does it? What if your boss does it? See, there's nothing at all that implies consent here.
I'm sure Woz was trying to do something cool, and believe me I would love to know where my fscking keys and remote are like everyone else, but there are some more nefarious uses that will be among the first applications for the device.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Just like everything Woz comes up with, I don't think it's fair to call this a "good" or a "bad" thing yet.
Right away I'm sure the privacy guys are jumping up and down, and I can't say I blame them. This chip would make it a complete bitch to hook class and/or work.
BUT at the same time, it'd be real nice to hide one of these suckers in my car (I know lowjack exists, but from the article it appears this tech will deliver much better performance) in case it would get stolen. Throwing these things in handhelds and laptops could also be a godsend. Hey, those things are about the size of a keychain, no more looking for your keys ever again.
Again, it's not possible now, or maybe ever to render judgment on this technology. However, Woz better be damn sure to regulate who can and can't locate said devices (how many men want their wives/girlfriends to know their every moves?). 100 years from now we'll look back at Woz as one of the great innovators of our time
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
I would guess that you don't have kids.
Kids right to privacy from their parents ends where the parents responsibilities to ensure their safety and well being begin.
I can BET that once those tags are out kids will figure out how to fool them. The simplest thing comes to mind right away.... Because the system tracks TAGS and not KIDS, young ones figure out a good scheme: give the tag to a "keeper" for few classes and then skip school. Once you come back, pick up the tag from the keeper and go home without attending school, all while the parents think their loved one is learning.
Same thing with the dog... Bet someone soon would yell out:
"Honey come quick, I think sparky died under this tree, he has not been moving for 4 hours already.." Just moments before learning that the tag lies in a pile of poo after Sparky ate it and then... well.. put it out throug the other end.
Kids right to privacy from their parents ends where the parents responsibilities to ensure their safety and well being begin.
And children are not qualified to judge where this line is. Anyone who thinks that children's privacy shouldn't be subject to parental discretion is not a parent.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
And how long until WozNet becomes subpoena'd for records by the Department of Homeland Security?
Yes, each cluster is locally administered, not by a large agency, but there's nothing saying that implementations of the pager/SMS/email must require cc:jashcroft@doj.gov...
Food for thought.
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Yeah, because if my fictitious nine year old decides to have a nike symbol tattooed on his forehead for cool clothes without my permission, then he should be able to do that.
I mean, come on. We can certianly trust children to make life altering and sometimes threatening decisions without our involvement.
Parents have a hard enough time keeping their children alive and well until they are past puberty (the age of bad decisions) and a little into their more stable years without adding jibes about how kids today are not much more than slaves.
I'm not saying I'd use Woz's service - I don't know, my children aren't old enough to be on their own. But you shouldn't dismiss it because it does have some potentially bad abuses.
Of course, you might have a double standard there. Perhaps you think it's ok to have file sharing even though it can be used in the commision of crimes, but not an object tracking service because it could be used in the commision of crimes?
I could understand your consternation if this tool only had bad uses, or was designed primarily for 'bad' purposes (ie, the handgun is a weapon whose primary design and use is killing or disabling human beings, but it does have other purposes, such as target practise so you can become better at killing humans instead of just disabling them - but it can be used in both offense and defense) but you can't claim that the service is a bad thing and will bring about Aldus Huxley's futurific version of reality.
We are a tool using species. Don't bemoan the tool, bemoan the uses.
-Adam
Since when are we opposed to technology? Like freenet and every other technology, this has the potential for both good and bad use. Woz has proposed a perfectly legitimate use for tracking technology. If the government ever proposes tracking us with it, THEN we can start an uproar.
"If you want your Libertarian minimal-government-involvment society (as many Slashdot posters/readers seem to)"
No I don't. People can not even be trusted in Sims on line not to be jerks. I like laws. We just have to find the right balance.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
In 1984, the problem is not that the government knows what you're doing or not - it is that they are the only authority. They know more than anyone else, because they see more than anyone else. If everyone had access to the data, they could not lie or mislead the public about what is or is not going on.
The truth is that nobody cares how many condoms you buy, but if they did, they could find out (or at least the government could). Credit card records, receipts, video, or just going through your trash.
I don't want to live in an aquarium. And putting that aquarium out into the street instead of keeping it in an authorized-access-only place doesn't really help here.
You do live in an aquarium - though the water may be a little murky, all's that's needed for a clear view is a little effort by the owner of the tank. The only reason you want that aquarium in a secure location is because you trust the government or you haven't considered the issue. That sounds like flamebait, but I don't mean it that way - if you can think of a response that doesn't fall into that category, I'd love to hear it.
I'm actually NOT advocating putting cameras on every corner. But there are a lot of cameras around... What I am advocating is that everyone should have access to those cameras that are pointed at public spaces.