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FCC Wants to Track Wireless
pin_gween writes "According to an article on ZDNet, the FCC wants the ability to track Wi-fi accessible phones like the ZyXel phone. The FCC's June report talked about several ways of realizing a caller's location: 'creating an "inventory" of every Wi-Fi access point in the United States, engaging in "mapping and triangulation" of those access points, compiling an "access jack inventory" for wired VoIP users, or even mandating that Net phones include GPS.'"
The war on terror has claimed another victim.
mandatory ankle bracelets they can use to track you all the time.
Can I just ask one question? WHY? Is tracking wireless really necessary?
simply... Why?
What good would such information due other than to monitor communications?
The purpose, ostensibly, is to be able to direct 911 calls.
It's the classic trade-off: Safety, or Freedom?
So, basically, for the FCC to track down everything wifi, they need to check Google?
Damn, they sure clamped down on THAT idea fast!
Just another harmless drunk
This is just yet another attempt to monitor what we're doing and where we are. Who says that the transmitter in the phones would only transmit the location?
these guys have been watching too many spy movies. this could kill the industry. i really doubt it would happen on a large scale. perhaps under a warrant or soemthing.
always mosh clockwise
I'm an American citizen our God blessed government who drops cluster bombs on iraqi children needs more powers to spy on us to stop us becoming terrorists. We need to be implanted with chips to scan our thoughts and to manipulate us into flag waving compliance. I have nothing to hide in my thoughts. Bush is doing a great job. We need the Patriot Act to protect us from ourselves. We need to spy on each other like Cuba to stop each other becoming terrorists. We need to torture and rape those who won't support President Bush. We need to give more powers to our wholesome wonderful government.
http://www.infowars.com/
This is the FCC, not the DOJ or the Pentagon. This appears to be for 911 calls made from VOIP phones. Hmm, I'm kinda torn on this one.
"(As a side note, I think it's cowardly for FCC officials to refuse to have their names mentioned, but it was a condition of attending the event.)"
Yeah, if you cant stand in front of a conference type event that you evidently called for, and have the press print you as a source, I think thats seriously pathetic.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
I once laughed at movies like Fortress and other dystopian future-based stories, but it's coming true, albeit slowly.
You see, it's just the thing -- adopt and implement these things slowly and no one except people with tin foil hats notice, but by then --BAM! too late.
They want a list of EVERY access point?
I can't even imagine the immensity of that task. There must be millions of APs in the US, and the list would change on a day-to-day basis.
Without SSID broadcast, it wouldn't even necessarily be possible to discover them all.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Since the 80s I have been observing that TELCOs are running under loss. I never made single profit from a TELCO stock except during DotCom Boom. I conclude that FCC wants to screw TELCOs badly in one way or other. LOL Oho Ya, sarcastic and it's purely coincident.
The article states that there will occur a "mapping and triangulation" of the access points. Triangulation may have worked to sniff out the spies in World War II, but nowadays it's ineffective for one simple reason: the number of branches to and from each node is too high.
I've worked (someone with a job on /.!) with WiFi access points for some time, and we constantly came across this hurdle. It's interesting that as technology develops, the capacity of both surveillance and anonymity increases.
Food for thought.
The FCC is going to do the wardriving FOR ME!!
This reminds me of a commercial i saw the other day where the bank customers had an account UPC code stapled to their forehead to help track and manage their account. It was so convenient when the clerk tried scanning their head at the wicket. Good ol' tracking in the interest of safety/convenience.
This could be used as a tool for big brother, not just 911 calls. You are as naive as a child if you don't see the dark possibilities in this. The FCC commissioners probably only see a new toy to play with in this tracking technology, and have no concept of the monster they are creating. Those who will exploit it are counting on the FCC to not "get it".
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
if the fcc is a government agency, paid by taxpayers, shouldnt we know the identity of the officials and who said what? why are they hiding if they want to know where we are? even if it is *only* for emergency responders...
always mosh clockwise
I dunno about you, but I WANT my phone to have GPS. Simply so they can locate me if I call 911 on my wireless phone. I think that would be the most elegant and potentially useful idea. Registering all Wi-Fi access points is WAY too intrusive and complicated. Simply making wi-fi phone providers insert an inexpensive GPS locator into the phone makes much more sense, and the phone makers can turn it into a feature! (Wardriving with your Phone! W00T!)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Let me guess (no I didn't RTFA, big surprise!) - the FCC just wants to make sure that we can all get 911 emergency service if we need it. After all, some child might have to call in for their parents who have both been hit by a bus and we can't expect a poor thing like that to tell the emergency dispatchers where he is.
Never mind the man in the corner who is really pulling the strings and thinks he ought to be able to track any citizen at will without anything even resembling just cause. That boogeyman doesn't even exist and if see him, just stick your head in the ground and you will be safe!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
We (enterprise) have a hard enough job tracking our own and our rogue points. And it's not like users ever want to have a mobile access point for presentations at non-wifi locations.
And what about every laptop that is automagically converted into a wireless bridge/access point with a few clicks?
On top of which, what is it really necessary to track every wap? To "triangulate" a connection they'd still need to trace the origins of a voip call over the IP connection to figure out where the call was made. A wifi access point map doesn't give you much if you haven't got a way of sourcing the call.
for a neat and elegant solution. Seriously, that's a good idea.
If you compare what they're attempting and what they're saying, you'll find two different things.
If they were just trying to locate 911 callers, this could easily be done with a caller-enabled location system. When someone dialed 911, and only when someone dialed 911, it could report the location.
But what they're looking to do is much more. They want a system to enable law enforcers to quickly locate any individual person in the country. In other words, locating 911 callers is just a rather transparent excuse.
Do you know how you can tell that the federal government just wants more power to fuck with the commoners? Look at things like this, the USA PATRIOT Act and like the and tremble. The government talks about homeland security, but the borders are still open, we're still butt buddies with Saudia Arabia (mainly on the receiving end in more ways than one), the government pushes for things that mostly target the general public and the push is always for more and more power while *gasp* not doing anything consistently pro-security with it.
This is a good example of why I vote libertarian in every election. The government doesn't need to be able to track cell phones because it already has the powers it needs to control the influx of terrorists: deportation, border security and wire-tapping regular conversations. If our government cared less about not offending people and more about really using its basic powers first to fight major crime and terrorism, we wouldn't be wasting our time reading about this stuff.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Hopefuly they will just opt for gps and then manufacturers will include a "debug mode" like on almost every dvd player to turn it off. If theres no debug code cutting a few leads and bridging some wires will do the trick for extra anonimity :) Rember if they think they can track you but they cant its even better then if they cant track you at all.
http://www.uwarfare.com the Best Seattle Counterstirke Community
This story makes the tin-foil hats cry out for tin-foil hats, wow.
Firstly: have each ap have a programmable text location in case the handset dialer dials e911. Make it part of the setup app that you should fill this address in if you want voip to work properly, but can be disabled if the owner overrides it.
Second: This is so over-the-top paranoid gay, why not say all ip-addresses have to have full gps location tags with each packet (which is close to what this means). "Hey user_bob01, wave at the sky, you're on keyhole camera!". I understand there is a risk of criminal use, but add a little control to the server side so if a number is being used it can be tracked to it's ip and you can guess where that is from the geoip tables. This shouldn't happen often enough for this to be regulated.
Man the FCC is going psycho lately, wtf? Do I have to worry that my next cellphone will rfid tag my balls when i put it in my pocket?
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
If the answer to the first question is 'no', the next question is "Is anyone getting sick of the lies being told by our governments as a matter of routine?"
How is this going to be any different then current cell phone tracking? It seems very few ask the who has access to the information from the cell phone carriers, how would tracking the location of VoIP phones be any different?
I like mapping and triangulation the best...
But, what about GPS? What if they just built in a GPS unit that goes on only when you call 911, to tell them where you are?
Or if you buy some other service that uses GPS then it could turn on for that too. THough it would have to be secure and not activate for anything except 911 calls - and be hardware seperated or something... or is this just a disaster waiting to happen?
The government wants to be able to control information. Sure, they are clueless as to how impossible that is, but that also means that they will try. It could easily kill lots of innovative businesses.. Perhaps thats the idea, the current GOP-led government is clearly obsessed with suppressing competition for their big corporate donors. The Dems are not angels, either..
Yes, Ultimately, it will mean that many businesses are started elsewhere, not in the US, but isn't that the case already?
The power elite cares much more about maintaining their hold on power than our 'national' future.. (nations are a quaint concept, but one which is useful in divving up the rights to you) Don't see what I mean?
Look at education.. they are clearly trying to defund the public education system (whats the point of training people for jobs that will be elsewhere anyway..public education was for training workers for industry, and without industry, it serves no purpose..prisons are more like where we are going..or 'recycling' like Leu's fate in George Lucas's early film, THX-1138.. America is being looted.. while it still has wealth..
'Milieu control' is what information blockades like China's are used for, filtering out information that causes 'cognitive dissonance'.. (Festingers' now-proven theory, also worth looking up)
Milieu control: its also a hallmark of cults and totalitarian regimes.. look it up..
...for a trade off of a couple bucks:
"For one thing, what if someone doesn't want 911 service on his or her VoIP phone? I already have a landline and a cell phone at home, and I might add a VoIP phone to the mix. I don't need 911 service and don't wish to pay higher prices for a GPS receiver or location-identifying hardware that would be included in it. Mandating 911 service would amount to a tax on VoIP customers."
I'll start out by saying I think the above reason is really kinda weak. There are other problems to be hashed out, but I'm just looking at this for the moment.
If anyone has read "This is Burning Man" by Brian Doherty, this will fall similarlly in line (its near the end of the book):
America seems to have grown up in an environment that gives the false illusion that they are safe. Child safety locks on cars and meds, etc. While there are a batch of people (and I'll personally go out on a limb and say over half as I'm an optimist at times) who can generally figure out whats safe and what isn't. There is still a large contingency (especially at large festivals such as Burning Man or Bonnaroo) who will push that limits to the point where they could/do die from their own actions. These people exist in society as we know it, and it isnt until they are in a dangerious situation that they dont realize it or choose to ignore it, and harm themselves.
Now, with that in mind, you and I both know, that there will be someone, somewhere, who does something insanely stupid (like making meth in a hillbilly home methlab), will need to call 911, and cant cause they were too cheap to get a real phone. Now, personally, i'm kinda ok with standing back and saying "well, Darwin was right after all", but the general public, in all of their emotional-based reactions and overzealous desire for safety , probably wont bode well with that***, and a nasty mess will ensue in the media and lots of other things. So, while there are other issues to be hashed out about who has access to what databases, I can understand why, from a fundimental level of ensuring access to emergency services, it (IMHO) should be required.
*** Steven Levett made an interesting point in Freakonomics: People dont have fear/outrage for the more probable, but very distant disasters, such as heart disease that can kill them, but instead focus their energy and fear/outrage on things that are very miniscule, such as terrorism attacks.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
The U.S. government engages in more surveillance than any other country in the history of the world. The U.S. government spends more on surveillance than any country in the history of the world, and U.S. taxpayers are not allowed to know true total amount.
The departments of the U.S. government such as the CIA and NSA and FBI function as a world-wide secret police. Sure, they have openly acknowledged purposes, but much of what they do and how they do it is hidden from U.S. citizens. There are departments of the U.S. government that do secret police work whose names are even secret. United States taxpayers are expected to pay, and vote, and they are expected to accept that they won't have the full facts of the activities of their government. United States citizens are not allowed to know enough to base their vote on the facts.
Historically, U.S. government surveillance has had some political or economic benefit for those who wanted the surveillance.
--
If you support dishonesty and violence, don't say you are Christian.
I did RTFA, but I didn't feel like searching through a PDF for the answer to my question. How do they plan on identifying someone's location in one of these 911 incidents that they are so sure will happen?
To triangulate a broadcast location, don't you need at least 3 reciever stations in the immediate area?
If so, wouldn't that mean that you would already be in a decently populated area (we are taling about calling 911 in public, right?) where someone nearby should be able to find a land line while you are bleeding in the street?
Sounds like maybe 911 shouldn't be available with these phones, or that it should be a known risk in buying one that it may contribute to your death when operators have no idea where you are.
Vol~
Mhhh... you're right... this terrorizing you have to undergo from your own government is unacceptable. Take it down! Now! (Remember: The poeple are the nation. You pay the government to work for you. So fire them! This is your right!)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
If you want to be located when you call 911, maintain a land-line. Where is the goddamn rocket science here, people?
You know what? If you don't have a land-line and you have to call 911 and can't speak...well, maybe you die. It happens. Sucks, but it happens. I hate this society...we've become obsessed with throwing huge wads of cash, effort, and legislation at the stupidest problems. 700,000 people die each year of heart disease; zero people a year die from terrorism. We spend billions on one, not on the other...and when Little Timmy dies because he choked on a marble 'cause mommy wasn't watching him, we get "Timmy's Law" which solves a Darwinism problem.
Please help metamoderate.
If this goes through, there'll be a crack for it in a week tops.
It's one of the few sensible comments so far.
Her sphincter covered with bright red blood...all the visuals of a shiny, blood-red pussy without the smell
What the FCC is suggesting is clearly within reasonable bounds of methodology to insure successful commerce and increase national security. What with all the terrorists running around, we've got make sure we're safe. Personally, I'd like to see more of this kind of thing happening but not just tracking phones, tracking people too. The way I see it, the world is a dangerous place and you've got to make certain that the wrong sorts of people are carefully watched. Considering that I am not involved in anything that could be flagged as suspicious by law enforcement, I am confident that my reputation as an honest American will ensure my privacy.
The main problem with the griping about what the FCC proposes is that people don't want to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Instead of making sure they keep their noses clean to keep the FCC from taking an interest in their activities, they expect the nanny state to go the extra mile to create the illusion of privacy. That's the problem with most people these days. They have no sense of personal responsibility and expect the nanny state to do everything for them. This line of thinking is what costs lives to terrorism. If everyone let the government keep track of everywhere they go and everything they do, then the only people who would have anything to fear would be the true bad guys. Every other citizen would be safe and they would know that [tt]heir privacy was assured since they took it upon themselves to walk the straight and narrow.
Come on people! This stuff is simple. Instead of expecting the government to do everything for you take matters into your own hands by letting the government track you! It's not that hard to follow this line of thinking. I know that the Bush administration has definitely moved in a much better direction by stepping up surveillance. We haven't had one attack since 9/11 here and it's because we've given up the illusion of privacy for true personal privacy that WE control ourselves by NOT being criminals. Why is this so hard for everyone to get?
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
One of I am sure several stories about it.
This appears to be the FCC's response to those issues.
...when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Seriously, though -- how many AP's are out there already, without GPS? I doubt that the FCC would try to make people turn in their old equipment. Besides, it would be far too easy to simply disable the GPS in your AP, especially with custom firmware.
Not to mention that underground equipment would be impossible to track, either the phone or the access point. Are you a terrorist? Want to make a phone call? Do it in the subway/mall basement/wherever else you can't get a GPS signal. And believe me, "registration" ain't gonna happen; good luck even STARTING on that mess.
Well, fuck the FCC. They don't have that power.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-02-28-voip- usat_x.htm
You appear to be presuming this is about terrorism and the Patriot Act. If that is what it is about, the document would have said so. You must learn to trust the government and stop confusing your self with the between-the-lines stuff.
And they knew about the 911 hijackers but were prevented from doing anything about it due to restrictions. But then something somes along and the restrictions vanish. The gubbament tracking our every move is INEVITABLE and I wish people would understand that and embrace it rather than try to implement stupid safeguards.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If OBL was downloading music and burning it onto CD, they'd catch that fucker pretty fast.
Since he apparently hasn't broken any law, he's not worth catching.
What? I'm sure that if there's a case for several thousand cases of 1st degree murder, there would be something about it on TV every now and then.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
...aren't you?
This is the kind of thing that makes me afraid of my neighbors. I hope you never go into politics.
Of course... you're certain that people NEVER abuse their power... and governments NEVER go corrupt. After all, that's never happened before in history, right? Give me a break.
My cell phone (a Samsung A660), like many others, has some sort of location-broadcast feature (GPS, probably?) built-in. By default it is on.
Even when it is off, 911 operators can determine your position. Good; there's no reason they shouldn't be able to - it's for safety's sake.
When it is turned on, this message is shown: "Sprint PCS and those parties you have given permission to will now be able to retrieve your location from the network."
What qualifies as permission given? Was there some small text in the service contract giving permission to some other party?
(fyi, I wouldn't know as I'm on a family plan and my parents signed the service contract.)
I'd like all the policy-makers at the FCC to be outfitted with monitoring devices which publish their location 24 hours a day on a website. We need to know where they are all the time because there is a significant danger of them doing things which imperil our Constitution, democracy, freedom, privacy and security. For example, if the website indicates that an FCC policymaker is in the vicinity of Washington DC that would be a helpful indicator that it's time for me to contact my representatives. Also if I see that these FCC policymakers are visiting certain corporations, that could be helpful information. Finally, putting them under 24-hour surveillance would help them better understand the potential drawbacks of invading the privacy of all the rest of America.
Quickly, act like Microsoft and patent it.
Ok, just implant a god damn GPS bug in my skull and be done with it already.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
i for one welcome our naive welcomer of overlords.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
If only there were some sort of method to collect this data and then sort through it. Some sort of Searching method, lets call it a "Search Engine" to track wi fi points and users connected to it. Heck maybe this "Search Engine" could then offer free Wi-Fi to make the tracking that much easier. Then maybe we could "map" these users on "Earth".
Just tap into Google's nation wide network
mund freud.
Nothing like it! Hundreds of millions killed and oppressed with every passing century!!
I thought that US citizens had the Constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms to prevent federal governments getting into this sort of nonsense. Is it time for a few well aimed assinations? I understand that there is a particularly well qualified Arab in Bagdad who would be only too willing to help with the training. Technology gone completely mad imho. Makes the Soviet Union look positively benign in comparison.
The telecom I work for here in China has mobile user locating data available now.
:)
It's simply a matter of doing the math, based on how long it takes signals to reach the handset from a couple of towers, vs. the known/fixed coordinates of the towers. Nearly as accurate as consumer GPS, but with the additional benefit of being able to work indoors
I mean installing a GPS in either the AP or the Phone. It'll only ever work when you can see up.. and not many APs I've seen can see the sky.
Phones, very seldom would know their location. Seems like a lot of expense for the consumer with next to no gain for anyone.
-Qyiet
The FCC keeps wanting to expand their power on the Internet. They are already stepping out of their bounds. It will take the Supreme Court ruling to put them in their place at this point.
Ok, you Windows virus spreading, redneck sister fucking tightass.. I'm sure you'd have loved and welcomed Hitler and turned in your neighbors if they did anything that scared you or that you didn't understand.
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
It means that everyone with the correct software can ALSO get your info, instead of simply 911.
The only one I can currently think of is the mapquest software(not free). It gets your GPS as your starting point and gives you driving directrions based on that information or pulls up a map from your GPS location.
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
This sounds a bit weird to me. Cell phones with GPS was bad enough. Especially since most users don't even know how to access it or disable it. But this is just 1984. I'm thinking maybe the NSA has something to do with this. Since no one knows what goes on there anyway (and the ones who do don't say anything), what keeps them from talking to fellow buddies at the FCC to come up with a bullshit reason to track things? If they do this, I will hack and disable it.
If you do not wish to be tracked by phone, leave the phone at home.
^..^
It doesn't matter what FCC wants to do, it simply has no control. Who are they going to regulate, wireless providers or devices? If devices, why can't they be gotten into U.S without FCC permission? How stupid can FCC get? Now that Michael Powell is out of helms, isn't it high time it recovered a bit?
Automatic routing of cellular 911 calls was introduced because manual routing worked very badly. California used to route all 911 calls from cell phones to the California Highway Patrol. As cell phones became more common, CHP dispatch was overwhelmed. By 2002, the CHP was getting over 8 million calls a year, most of which didn't involve freeway incidents, which is most of what the CHP handles. Call hold times on 911 were reaching 10 minutes during peak periods. The CHP was running a huge call center, which basically asked where callers were and forwarded their calls to some local 911 dispatch center.
That's the background for cellular 911. It's convenient that the dispatcher gets the location of the caller, but the real benefit is that the call gets sent to the right dispatcher.
If 911 routing isn't automated for VoIP, where should the calls go? Some call center in Bangalore? If the VoIP provider doesn't have some clue where the caller is, that's about all they can do.
There's worse stuff than this going on. The extension of the "Commmunications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act" rules to VoIP is much more of a Big Brother thing. If you aren't aware of how this works, the basic concept is that wiretapping has been built into the phone system, and wiretaps are now delivered to law enforcement over T1 lines. The US wiretapping system is run by Verisign. That's being extended to VoIP.
The really bad ideas always start out in the clothing of good ideas and then just sort of creep down the slippery slope.
The problem with these tools is that the people using them imagine themselves to be unambiguously the good guys. And the sad truth is that often they are the good guys. But they don't understand that they have no way of assuring that the people running the show tomorrow will be the people running the show today. People don't live forever. People don't hold the same job forever.
Even without a political attack, there's still the issue that you have to hand over the tools you build today to the government employees of tomorrow. Even if you just look at political party issues, the mildest of all possible concerns: if you're a Democrat, do you trust the Republicans with the spy tools you've made, or if you're a Republican, do you trust the Democrats? And when you add in the possibility of enemy infiltration, influence through bribes, and outright attack to take control, it gets scarier in a variety of ways.
Any time you centralize the power of the Good Guys, you risk that in a single stroke, the Bad Guys (however you define them) can take central control of everything. One of the big protections of the United States, rarely talked about, has been the non-centrality of the "root password". That is, even if someone took over Washington, they would not necessarily control all the states.
As things get more and more centralized, and all these walls between agencies are broken down in the name of "efficient prosecution", the walls are also broken down that prevent "efficient toppling".
What I find ironic is that the people who want this power are also the biggest supporters of the Second Amendment, which was never historically about hunting and always about protecting the right of the people to retain the power to overthrow the government if it ever got uppity. (I seem to recall that some--e.g., Jefferson?--thought this would probably need to happen every 20 years or so...) Yet these tools they are creating for surveillance are designed specifically to assure that no such overthrow would ever succeed, nor even be attempted. Maybe that's even good. But if it is, we don't need all those second amendment guns. And if it's not, we don't need the cameras. Without even making a value judgment, I'll just say it seems just-plain-inconsistent to me.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
If shashdot disallowed comments for thirty minutes after a posting, the value of the content would quadruple.
Given any reasonable timeframe, the median number of Americans who die every year from terrorism is zero. (Granted, median doesn't give any weight to the number of people who died in a specific year, but a few thousand isn't much compared to just about any other cause of death and misery you're likely to see on the news.)
.50 Desert Eagles), those dehumanizing "most wanted" decks of cards, our very weak dollar, etc. etc.
I do not know how much we spend on heart disease research, but I highly doubt that it's anywhere near the cost of the Afganistan war, the Iraq war, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, extra security at the airport, time that the politicians spend debating inane but ostensibly terrorist-related issues, time and money our police officers spend on anti-terrorism training and security (I live in a backwater town in Florida that most Floridians have never heard of, and last Easter we had an entire freaking army of cops out to make sure the terrorists weren't going to steal our Easter eggs. I'm serious, they barricaded off a five block area and were at least a dozen of them walking through the crowd wearing unusually large sidearms... I coulda sworn they were
The two wars alone probably cost more than we spend on heart disease in a decade. It sucks that a few thousand people died back in 2001, and no one is saying that nothing should be done. But what we should do should be PROPORTIONAL to the threat, and terrorists just aren't that big a threat. Even the small threat they do pose is practically impossible to eliminate, at least by our current measures. What the hell is all this bullshit about GPS and Total Information Awareness and ID cards? None of that will ever stop a terrorists. Many (most?) of the hijackers were here legally. The only truly effective methods of stopping terrorism (refusing all immigration from hardline Muslim theocrasies and/or telling Israel that they're on their own) never seem to be brought up.
All we ever get is THIS... programs and technologies that are piss-poor at stopping terrorism, but awesome at tracking and controlling American citizens.
And awesome at wasting money too. Throw those billions at heart disease, and you save millions of lives every year around the globe. That's a hellofalot more important than pissing off the Sunnis and making sure Osama doesn't try to blow up our Easter Eggs.
C'mon, folks, I can't believe that if someone really wanted to mis-direct the government as to their physical location while using a computer-controlled phone, they wouldn't be able to fake the GPS info going out.
The REAL bad guys won't be caught with this, only the poor slobs who make mistakes...
They are competent enough to kill masses of people, whever they want to, about anyplace they want to, including the US if they feel like it.. They come up with laser guided missiles that work. they have satellites that work. they got planes tanks and various other whizzbangs that work. they got jails all over and a few million people locked up at any given time. They are competent enough to run multiple torture camps and get away with it. They can call anyone a terrorist and snatch them away, and don't have to tell anyone that it happened. You have no idea how many people have been disappeared, hardly no one does because so many people-disappear! Who's to know?? They *were* competent enough to whack JFK and get away with it. They are competent enough to manipulate the stock market for high level globalists and get away with it. They are competent enough to make a killing off the oil market and divert public opinion that it's all the ay-rabs fault that the prices are high. (hint: ay-rabs and opec DON'T make the bulk of the money in the oil market, it's whiteguys in suits in major western nations that do. They are competent enough to buffalo the entire US population into putting up with random roadblocks, which is as close to a classic police state action as you will see right before the major pogroms start (hint 2: check history books). They are competent enough to make everyone just eat blackbox voting and like it. They are competent enough to pull off a new reichstagg fire event and cover it up with a ton of lies.
In short, they are competent enough to mandate whatever they WANT and make it stick and you and the next 280 million "consumers" ain't gonna say or do boo about it.
That's how competent they are. Sometimes they screw up, but it really doesn't matter, most of the time they are so big and powerful just getting "close enough" is good enough for their purposes. Anything else that happens is acceptable collateral damage and what they consider a cost of doing geopolitical and economic "business".
This is especially bizarre given they are calling for universal tracking -- they want to know where we are and who we are but they won't even let us know who they are, yet they speak in the name of the public! This isn't just ironic; it's downright Kafkaesque.
Thats right. Now the spyware is going into the hardware. Now they can track our location. Which means they'll be able to track traffic patterns, congestion, lifestyles, spending habits, frequent and popular areas, demographics, studies, and more.
It will be a massive mining operation of information. For sale, for study, for research... who the hell cares. Nothing good can come from it.
People won't stop using cell phones because the technology is put in them to track. Most people are ignorant of the devices they use every day. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence people will even deny so they can continue to be in complete convenience without hassle.
Never underestimate the laziness of the populus.
I would rather have a smaller phone.
... a new definition of the term 'Open' spectrum.
"You can use this spectrum for whatever you like, provided you keep the emissions down to x and we can listen in to anything you say"
Say they do this, what is to stop the terrorists from using ham frequencies and using an encrypted signal? Yet again this is the problem with the FCC at the moment, they don't seem to understand the problem.
Say they block the ham frequencies, whats stopping the terrorists from sticking up UHF transmitter and broadcasting an encrypted channel over that? I know Americans have pretty much filled the UHF spectrum, but there is still noise between bands.
How will they be able to tell a terroist signal from noise on 2.4GHz? The whole point of a good encryption algorythm is that the signal looks like noise.
The list goes on. This whole plan is stupid. You can not use laws to stop law breakers.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Those two lines alone are a dead giveaway. Anyone intelligent enough to actually form a coherent, properly spelled rant is also intelligent enough not to say something so blatantly stupid and self-contradictory. Thus, we know he's not being serious, and is really against such gross invasions of privacy.
It's an idea that is taking a long, long time become developed and it is very slowly coming into clarity among the power elite. The idea that the more that you use technology to focus the systematic application of violence for the control of society, the less of this violence can be used against those who create the technology.
The people who develop and engineer technology that is used to direct violence (directed violence being the police, the military, and the mafia, as opposed to random criminal acts) can ensure that this violence is never directed against themselves by building safeguards into the technology that prevents it from being used against those of the technology 'guild'. Technologists need to develop a new consciousness that transcends nationalism and corporatism and focuses on the idea that we should put the needs of the global tech community above the needs of the various governments, corporations, and religions.
High tech terrorism exists because the technicians are willing to give a higher loyalty to the religious fanatics who order other technical people to be randomly killed than they do to technical people that they are killing. This is wrong. We should protect ourselves first. Since we design and build the technology, we should ensure that the technology is not used against us. We should start doing this by refusing to use high technology against other members of the global tech community regardless of their nationality, religion, or corporate affiliation.
It's time for a very quiet, very discrete shift in loyalty in the global tech community. We need to develop the deep idea that our primary allegiance is to our own people, and our secondary allegiance is to God, country, and corporation.
Generals, CEOs, mullahs, and presidents can never make world peace or progress. They simply have too much gain from constant endless wasteful war. But since the modern means of directing violence is increasing based on technology, we, the designers and builders of this technology, have more control over the systematic application of violence than the nominal rulers of society.
Why should we care if the government, the police, the fascist mullahs, or the mafia is using technology against the people? Just as long as they are not using it against our people.
This meme is one of the primal ideas of the new Information age that is developing out of the excesses and breakdowns of the Nation-State Age.
ROFL... Someone should let the FCC know that a GPS doesn't work indoors.
Law enforcement should not have extensive powers of surveillence over law-abiding citizens whom have given no sign that they have broken any law. As long as there is fundemental disagreement in this country as to what is right and wrong, it is a bad idea to give our government the ABSOLUTE ability to impose the (currently) popular ideology on the minority. It's a good thing that people are able to rebel. Bad laws are often defeated by people breaking the law (see: civil rights of the 1960s and the Prohibition.)
I know this is a hard concept to wrap your head around, but if the government is given the means to completely wipe out all lawbreakers, it will be the end of democracy and the birth of a sickening (and yes, Orwellian) form of totalitarianism. Everything our legislators pass will instantly become a reality, and there will be no way to stop or reverse it even if it turns out to be a REALLY BAD IDEA.
Openness is bad because our productive society as a whole (I'm exluding "hardened criminals" here) does NOT have a unified moral code. Personally, I don't want to give the FBI the ability to, say, prevent sex toys from being sold if President Jeb Bush manages to sell congress on the "war on dildos." I don't want to give the DEA the power to eradicate all pot in the USA. I don't want to give the FBI the ability to investigate to find out if a person is gay, and then "accidentally" leak this information if they don't like that person's (perfectly legal) actions.
Maybe you disagree with all of these personal preferences, and that's fine, but just remember that it's not guaranteed that YOUR preferred rule of law will be passed by an essentially omnipotent "open" government. If you're not a Protestant Christian, for example, it's likely you will disagree with many of the laws that come out of a conservative-controlled DC.
But you will have no choice but to follow them at all times, because even the slightest rebellion can be detected and you will be arrested long before you have the chance to start a even a peaceful, Ghandi-like campaign.
By the way, I love the fact that you're in complete agreement with an obviously ironic post. Re-read it, and see if you can spot the sarcasm this time. Bonus points for every contradictory sentence you find.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Attributed to Benjamin Franklin
I8-D
It's not like they can track normal cellphones or anything at all times.
Pelorat said, "It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy."
rewriting history since 2109
Its easy, they just create a rule that mandates you register your open wifi with local government. ( and you are assigned a SSID )
If they catch you not following the law, they triangulate on your house and detain you under the homeland security act.
Remember, they have a lot of power and can have the rules changed without having to have those pesky laws passed. Sure, their rules can be challenged, but in this day and age, if you tack on 'homeland security, or terrorism', you wont lose.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
hehe. you are naïve, then.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
to the expression "underground network".
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Come on, wifi is one of the most free, unencumbered forms of communication besides talking low during a walk in an empty park.
The objective here is ending this freedom. Period.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
But when people who lived under regimes like this start noticing simularities...
I could go to Canada...but the Canadian gov't seems to have a large faction willing to bend over for the US in some regards. I guess you could say that for many nations, even ones not right next door.
Maybe I can learn to speak Dutch well enough and move with my wife to Holland. I'm an American Mutt thru and thru so I don't really have a homeland...which kind of restricts the nations I can move to as they are very strict if you aren't decended from them. Maybe we can defeat Bush. I hope.
Blar.
..or they could just mandate Zyxel (sp?) and its comrades inform their customers that they cannot be found in case of an emergency.
Oh wait, this is the United States. We, by our very nature, must do everything in our power to disguise our hidden agendas.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Ok, say they get GPS in every net-phone, what's to say people just don't patch the software so it does not give correct coordinates? What if some ones just programs a VoIP that uses a secure network that hides where the packets came from as they enter or leave the system. On top of that, how are they going to make an inventory of every Wi-Fi access point in the United States... heck will you have to fill out two regression cards when you buy your D-link 5port A/B/G wireless wan router for BestBuy? One for the device it's self and one to send to the FCC? Are you going to be branded as a terrorist if you forget to register your WIFI if you are some kid and take it to a LanParty or a business owner move it from one side of the shop to the other.
And you'd better be walking by yourself and making like you're talking into a cell phone.
How long 'till we can't turn off the cell phone?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
That site does have substance but also has a lot of FUD.
I understand that people have ideals to protect but he had a choice to NOT sell a product in the US that is illegal in the US. Just because you are not physically in the country at the time of the sale is not a free ticket.
You're assuming that IPv6 enabled devices aren't able to broadcast their IP addresses.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
History has shown that oppressive governments eventually fall. This is another modern example of the same.
There are more of us (citizens) than there are of them (government officials). It wouldn't be impossible to dismantle the government in a few months time, and start over. All it would take is a unity of the people that never existed before in our modern society.
Just give it time, even the welfare mothers will get sick of paying $3.00 for gasoline and having her coupons denied at the store.. then you'll see some violence against the government like you've never seen before.
Picture 300,000 people descending on every capital building and police department in the country, all at once.
If the government continues down the current path, it WILL happen, its only a matter of time. No amount of control, brain-washing propaganda, drugs, surveillance, or other half-assed schemes will stop us when it happens.
Just you wait...
over my bed with a pillow in its hands, ready to smother me in my sleep if it decides that it doesn't like the way I snore.
As for calling Bush a Libertarian president. You must be on drugs.
He's taken all the liberties, but you don't have a lick more than you did when he took office. In fact you have a lot less. They've passed the Patriot and Patriot II acts and buried a whole lot of shit in other bills.
The way of the future is exremely dark...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You could also check out WiFiMaps.com. We've been doing this for a while, but what makes us different, is that our database is open to the public.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
It is none of the corrupt and obsolete FCC's business where my WiFi phone is located. If I want to announce my location I can do that myself. Period. The majority of people wants their privacy respected and not have their location exposed to stalkers and murderers. A democratic government as our claims to be better respects the democratic choice against location tracking by any entity.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
Oh, and then there's that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing. Blanket labelling anyone as "the wrong sorts of people" starts us down a slippery slope we don't want to be going down.
Why should I be forced to have my location tracked and even have to pay for it if I don't want? Just because tracking companies are paying off our lawmakers? This is disgusting! I thought we are a democracy with a free market economy and not some corrupted totalitarian fascist state. Let's all write the FCC to stop this undemocratic and totalitarian nonsense. Today!
So the FCC plans on imposing regulations on the unregulated frequencies.
It isn't quite triangulation, tho. Triangulation uses other receiving antennas to figure out where the transmitter is. You don't want to really do this with Wi-Fi. Each AP model has its own charichteristics, antennas, power-levels, and radiating patterns. Receiving Wi-Fi cards are just as diverse, and moreso with additional antennas.
So, while you do have to factor in all the diverse hardware, and make a model of a 'generic' AP and scanner, deal with GPS drift and errors, and I am sure a few other things, it can still be done -- especially with a large scale database, like WiFiMaps.com.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
See...the problem is, that's retarded.
Sure, GPS works outside, with a mostly unobstructed view of the sky.
Ever use GPS in a canyon (urban or in the boonies)?
How about with large overhanging objects overhead?
How about indoors?
GPS is everywhere, sorta.
But the reality is that Wi-Fi goes a lot of places GPS does not.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
The justification is 911 routing, so that the appropriate call center is reached. Hey, how about a settings on the phone when you first configure it out of the box. That should appease the tin foil hats because it gives them the power to set what location it's transmitting and it handles the 911 issue. Of course it becomes moot for all the other sinister for the things they really want to do.
...
Why aren't all the call centers linked anyway? I think that would be an easier task than compiling an all inclusive list of APs.
Call Center 1: 911, what is your location?
Caller: Location 2.
Call Center 1: *Enters location into form* *Transfer call button enables*
Let me transfer you.
Call Center 2: *Relavant data and call transfered* 911, what is your emergency?
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
Thank you!
This mistake is all too common, and it annoys me to no end. Don't they anything in school?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
First one that came to mind was this one: 6,759,960
It is a patent on using the known location of an access point. It's not specific to 911, but I think it would be covered.
And all you need is a handset, since in most places you can call emergency numbers (aka 9-1-1) even if the general phone service is disconnected. Applies to cellphones as well, actually...
Or at least start with the housenumbers clearly visable if the security (of the children probably) is such a big issue. Nothing is more fun then having people in a fire and the firebrigade is unable to find where they have to go to. Not every fire is visable from miles away and you would like them to be there before they CAN see it from miles away.
Some links here, here, and many more
That being said, it is a lame excuse just to be able to track people.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Perhaps someone could explain to me how this advances the FCC's supposed goal of allocating scarce resources in the public interest? Once again, they are abusing their power and overstepping their bounds in order to expand those bounds and grab more power. This is the fundamental fault in all bureaucracies.
what the FSCK is so hard about putting a "GPS" button on the phone.
If you're dialing 911, you can push the fscking GPS "find me" button. If you're paranoid and want to live on your own without the helping hand of the "The Man", the button should be pretty easy to disable (maybe recessed button to zeorize the GPS FPGA would be a good idea... I'd go for that).
What *really* steams my trout is that the powers that be seems to think that *I'M* not interested in my location. If you're going to fscking triangulate me, at least have the common decency to give me a reach-around and tell me where I'm at.
America has gone to the pigs... time to move.
Why do people insist on solving every problem with technology? Why waste government money on fancy-shmancy GPS devices when the authorities can simply mandate the routes which every trustworthy citizen should following when going from home to work, from work to the mall and from the mall back home.
Actually, now that I think about it, this solution can be extended to protect the environment and decrease US dependence on foreign oil. While not go away with the "going" bit all together? If we combine work and home in a single location, the problem of tracking everyone (in case of a 911 emergency) becomes much easier. I even found a good name for these comfortable mixed business-residencial zones. We can call them labour sites. Or may be labour camps.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Sensible and wrong - two great attributes that go great together!
Working with wireless and understanding how wireless works are two different things.
(Posting anonymously for years because nobody here has anything to reply that I want to read)
Since many IP devices are WiFi enabled already, I propose a network of WiFi location beacons. Just like APs broadcast SSIDs, why not make cheap, autonomous GPS/WiFi devices that simply rebroadcast their GPS location via WiFi? Deploy them by the truckload into major cities and let the laptops and the WiFi phones of the world choose to listen if they want.
This would provide a solution to the FCC's stated desires (providing E-911 to VoIP), while avoiding the mess that a network-based location tracking system would cause. A client-driven system needs to exist so that location determination and transmission is under complete control of the client.
I'm interested in throwing ideas around about this concept - wifigps@gmail.com if you want to discuss at length.
A recently translated fragment from among those in the Dead Sea Scrolls museum collection has allowed scholars to correct and amend the Bible.
What was mis-translated as the Number of the Beast is now properly translated as "Number of the Base."
One additional line of text follows it in the newly translated original:
"All your base stations are belong to us."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But as long as my access points have to compete with baby monitors, cordless phones, 2 way radios, RF remotes, etc and we're all clumped together in the unlicensed spectrum, they'll need to track my AP the old fashioned way.
They need a way to find idiots that call 911 and call stupid things emergencies.
A real world example (from a friend who is a 911 operator):
911: Hello 911, what is the emergency
Caller: I cannot find my keys and I am late for work.
Mean while little Billy just had an accident and is bleeding to death because his mom cannot get into the 911 system (it is busy).
911: That is not a real emergency. Please get off the line.
Caller: It is an emergency to me. Let me explain... bla bla bla.
911: I am hanging up. Bye.
Click.
Call back to the 911 operators.
911: Hello, how..
Caller: Why did you hang up on me? BTW my Cat's breath smells like cat food.
911: bye!
Click.
Repeat...
The problem with 911 is different people see an emergency as different things.
At least with GPS you could send a goon to that guy's house and beat on the head. Or the mother who lost her child could sue him for clogging the emergency system! Some stupid people need to learn the hard way how to use a system responsibly.
Oh yeah. I forgot. We ARE just statistics. You are not a person just a statistic near zero. It simplifies things if we just say you are "essentially zero." Now, when you die, it doesn't affect the equation.
World = You + RestOfWorld
You -> 0
World = RestOfWorld
You don't matter to Us.
All is futility!
Disclaimer: I'm using You in the generic (i.e., not personal) sense.
You don't seem to understand what a truly "open" society entails. Long before you engage in any sort of rebellion, you will be pegged as a potential dissident. If LEAs have the power to keep tabs on all American citizens, you can bet your ass they will. Complex search algorithms combined with the power of statistics means that you will not be able to visit websites or check out books or buy periodicals (unless you use hard cash every time) that are opposed to a current law without being labelled a potential criminal. If some of the new "always-on" wiretap measures are enacted, they may even be able to use voice recognition technology (and I'm sure the NSA has much more reliable voice recognition compared to whatever you can get at your local Best Buy) and then you won't even be able to talk about it on the phone, either. A couple billion dollars later, and there are microphones in every public place and you won't be able to talk about your ideas in public, either.
This sounds like an unrealistic nightmare, but if you give the police the constitutional ability to conduct unlimited warrantless surveillence and the money to set up these systems, you can bet your ass that it'll happen. No one will think about them, most won't even realize that they're being watched, but the moment you cross the line from talking about how a law is bad to actually breaking it, they will swoop in from the shadows and you will be imprisoned. Organized resistence is nigh impossible, even if it's 100% legal resistence (and remember, 100% legal resistence is often quite ineffective. Both Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. advocated breaking the law.) Even if you take care not to break the law you're protesting, if the FBI or the local police cheif does not agree with you, he can just dig through the (now enormous) paper trail on every single person in your group and find a minor crime or potential crime to arrest them. It could be as asinine as saying "I'm going to kill you!" in jest to your wife over the phone, but they could very well arrest you for assault and then claim later that it was just a misunderstanding.
Maybe it all sounds unrealistically evil, but it inevitably happens because those people who are cutthroat and cold enough to do shit like will inevitably rise to the top of the law enforcement food chain simply because they're not afraid to use such methods for personal advancement. Power begets power, and you must assume that all power will be abused to some extent. You cannot ever get rid of this problem entirely, but you must take care to limit the damage. "Open" society plus todays technology is a recipe for near unlimited power in the hands of fallible, corruptable humans.
Whatever advantage the information age brings to the dissidents will be nullified if an uppity police cheif tells his parking enforcers to concentrate their efforts on giving them tickets and his highway patrol to pull them over for random searches and mails out letters informing the community that they have a potential lawbreaker in their midst. This isn't unrealistic, because I know for a fact that it happened as late as the 70's in my county (mob corruption. Basically, some people would just find piles of parking tickets on their cars every day, even if they were legally parked.) The police can bend the law at will (or break it entirely, if they know the ins and outs of their own surveillence systems.) The dissidents cannot.
I was just defending the grandparent's original comparison of terrorism spending vs. heart disease research. The fact is even without a comprehensive "war on heart disease", even if you just gave the money to the researchers and said "have at it", you'd likely save more lives by at least one order of magnitude.
If you prioritized the problems of and threats to our way of life and worked out comprehensive solutions, you could likely save a thousandfold more.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What about those IP to GEO databases? That would probably give the city you are in away to the VoIP provider when making a call - wouldn't this be 'close enough' for the 911 centers for call routing if your position couldn't otherwise be routed?
Mapping out where each and every access point is almost an IMPOSSIBLE TASK.
So, in my infinite wisdom, I say this is CRAP!
Can't 911 centers route calls to one another, if need be? (bad idea to leave it to the 911 centers to route each others calls, but let's say something messes up and they need to.
I've used those IP to geographical location engines a number of times, and they are fairly accurate. I've never had it report the wrong city or anything like that.
Sounds like big brother to me. I didn't read the article.
Compliant judges? Rewriting the constitution? Ok, this whole scenario is implied by your "open society." If you open society would still require police to obtain judicial approval to obtain wiretaps, then 99% of the dangers I'm talking about here are moot and I've completely misunderstood what you've meant by open. This entire conversation took place in the context of an article granting vast (and potentially unlimited by judicial review) surveillence powers to the police, and in reply to a satirical post highlighting the importance of personal privacy, so I'm not sure how else I should read your comment.
You are the one (apparently) advocating rewriting the constitution, and under this rewrite judges would be entirely irrelevant... those same judges who are supposed to PREVENT the police chiefs from being too zealous.
If you believe that this massive and passive surveillence technology (very badly disguised as a 911 service) is useful to our LEAs, but it should be restricted a case-by-case, judicially approved (i.e. a warrant) basis, then that's cool. Perhaps you should have mentioned that in the first place, instead of blithely saying that our society needs to be more open.
But if you believe that the police should have this and similar types of surveillence without any sort of judicial approval or limitations, than you are indeed rewriting the constitution and opening the door to all of the catastrophes I have mentioned.
I inherited my grandmother's subscription to American Free Press after she died... They bill themselves as "america's last real newspaper", and it arrives weekly in the mail (they do have an online subscription, but Grandma couldn't have handled that, and I do like holding the paper in my hands...). Lots of articles are posted on their site, to get a feel for their brand of coverage. (They say "populist" - they might've said "conservative", before that label got hijacked)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
My, how randomly insulting. Bush is to Libertarianism as sticking your hand in a box of dirty needles is to avoiding disease. The 'War on Drugs': Bush = For - LP = Against Gun control: Bush = For - LP = Against Gay rights: Bush = Against - LP = For Freedom of religion (other than your own): Bush = Against - LP = For The list goes on, but I'll stop there in the interest of keeping things short. If you are actually serious then please, just go join the Republican party already. If not, then could you at least use some smilies or something so those of us with weak irony detectors can have some peace of mind?
Are amendments added to the initial report or substituted for them? e.g. 1998 year end report says $ 2 ,140,00 and the 1998 year end report amendment says $ 1,900,00. Which is it, $1,900,00 or $4,040,000 ?