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Phone or Tracking Device?
Red Wolf writes "The first major commercial service that traces people's locations using their mobile phones -- mapAmobile -- is designed more to ease the minds of worried parents and suspicious bosses than to enable unauthorised spying."
That's how it always starts. As more and more companies use it, and when corporations finally control it, those safeguards will slowly be peeled away in the name of security and efficiency - by then it will be so common that most of us probably won't even notice the loss of privacy at all, and others will even encourage it in order to help catch criminals.
FP
I am more worried about the 2005 law that requires GPS/triangulation in all cell phones for 911 call locating. Here's a link to an article in Popular Science about China and how people were using their cell phones to find out which buildings were infected with SARS.
.02
People play a game where you "kill" a nearby person after you locate them using your cell phone equipped with GPS. Just what I want, ANYONE to be able to locate me on the street (opt-in service or not isn't my point).
The first major wave of location services could beam to the U.S. as early as Christmas, when 44 percent of the nation's 149.2 million cellphone subscribers are expected to be traceable, according to the research firm In-Stat/MDR.
No thanks, I would prefer to die after placing a call to 911 rather than have whoever decide that they want to track me via GPS/triangulation.
Live free or die.
Just my worthless
Sorry, but "easing the mind of a suspicious boss" is still "unauthorized spying" by any reasonable definition of the term.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I find the wording of the press release ironic.
;)
<paraphrase>
This device isn't really for spying, it's more to allow parents to spy
on their children, and employers to spy on their employees.
</paraphrase>
They of course fail to mention that if the technology were available, a judge
could easily grant a warrant to allow authorities to observe your
movements without notifying you.
In many ways this is worse than Orwellian, because at least in
Orwell's vision, you could still hide from the cameras or escape to
places that didn't have cameras on them. With this device if you had
it on (assuming it works as well as they claim (doubtful)) they could
pinpoint your location all the time. I guess you could just leave it
in your office while you went to play that round of golf and say you
were in a meeting.
Still this technology is simply a herald of more instrusive technology
to come. Move over Orwell, the future may be worse than you imagined.
As someone said in an earlier story, doubleplusungood.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
I keep my cell phone encased in lead.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
How long will it take before there's a option on the mobile device to disable this? Even if they don't offer it, I'm sure it'll be hacked pretty quick.
Or a novel idea, turn the phone off!.
is designed more to ease the minds of worried parents and suspicious bosses than to enable unauthorised spying."
/., we say it's alright to use the Xbox as a home PC even though that's not what it was designed for. For that very reason alone, I am 100% sure that this will be used to infringe on at least one person's privacy.
And Kazaa is really just designed to transfer information back and forth. It's not Sharman Network's fault that it gets used to infringe on an incredible number of copyrights.
Let's face it, just because it was designed to ease parents and bosses, that's no guarantee whatsoever that they will not be used to violate one's civil liberties. RFIDs are designed to help stores keep inventory and make checkouts easier, but they can be easily abused to "see" what someone is wearing on his person.
We champion the right to use products in nonstandard ways all the time here at
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
..but if you are really interested in moving around throughout this land of ours with being tracked by big brother's watchful eye in the sky, then you can LEAVE YOUR NOKIA AT HOME.
It's a no-brainer.
--
AT&T Wireless has had this for quite some time. It's called find-a-friend, and it lets you locate and be located by other AT&T GSM customers that you specify. I do have a GSM/GPRS phone with AT&T and I've read a little about the feature, but never used it.
to use this when waking up after a huge drinking binge to find out where the hell I am.
Of course, what value is coerced consent? The two groups of people this is clearly intended to be used on -- children and employees -- will not be 'consenting' in any kind of free manner.
'Consent because I'm your legal guardian and can consent on your behalf' and 'Consent or lose your job' don't really count as consent in my book.
The cellphone is becoming a tool for employers to squeeze away the last vestiges of a personal life for their employees. First is the expecation of being contactable at all hours, day or night, instantaneously (and thus the expectation that people will never be doing anything they can't be called away from). Now, they can't just contact you, they can find out where you are, at any moment, and without your knowledge.
And as for those of us living in the United States, you really think the Justice Dept. isn't going to press for access to this kind of thing -- with as little judicial safeguards as they can get away with?
Ugh.
Can you see me now? Can you see me now?
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Turn it off...
I keep my cell off a lot. Why? I use it for MY convienence... It's for me to make a call, not to be pestered when I'm in the car, at the mall, eating dinner, etc.
Corporatism != Free Market
Cell phones are RF devices. They broadcast. They say "I am here!" and the nearest cell tower says "Cool. I'll patch you in here until you reach the next cell." The phone company could track you to within the radius of a given cell since day one. As the technology has matured they've been able to better locate individual phones. It's a side effect of providing better coverage and more efficient service.
If you're worried about people tracking you by your cell phone, turn it off - and be aware that as soon as you come on the air to make a call, "they" will have a good idea where you are.
All this new service does is make that knowledge accessible to someone who's not monitoring cell sites inside the system. The addition of GPS in the phones makes it dramatically more accurate, but it's not really a new capability.
If you're worried about the Law tracking you down by your phone, then you should probably ditch the cell and go back to pay phones. Ditch the calling card too.
As for parents, if I give my kid a phone, and I care enough about her to wonder where she is, then tracking her with the cell (especially one I'm paying for) is my parental right. Parents are responsible for their kids. Part of that responsibility is having an idea whether they're out raising hell or really are over at their friend's studying like they said they were.
Bosses? Different matter and entirely situational. Company phone, company car, company time, the boss has the right to know whether or not I'm abusing my privilege. My phone? My time? Hell no.
Sure, they can track us with our phones. Big fat hairy deal. You don't want them to track you? Then don't carry a -transmitting- radio in your pocket!
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
I spoke with a developer with a working system. The phone companies can (as in "do now") provide the location information, and security is provided through certificates. If, for the moment, you assume that certificates work, you get to control who gets to see your location information. You can hand it off to your friends or boss, and you can turn it off (stealth mode) at any time. I saw it working and it is pretty impressive (or scary for all the reasons already mentioned). Also, once the infastructure is in place (which it now is), it is trivial to implement.
Coercive permission and court warrants would get around perfect security (if such a thing existed).
However, my point is that the infastructure is in place right now (in US) and implementation is easy.