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FCC Wants to Track Wireless

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the competition-to-be-big-brother dept.

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.'"

2 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Good thing... by Oriumpor · · Score: 5, Informative
    'cause you know, wifi access points never move or die.

    'creating an "inventory" of every Wi-Fi access point in the United States,


    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.

  2. Re:Yum! yes please I'm an American by Ron+Bennett · · Score: 4, Informative

    Guess you missed the news about the DEA seeking the arrest and extradiction of Marc Emery then ...

    http://www.cannabisculture.com/

    Emery is a CANADIAN citizen who has NOT been in the U.S. for over a decade, and operates his business from within Canada, including his web servers, etc.

    Yet, despite all of that, the DEA has sought his extradiction ... and before anyone replies back with something like "but he was sending seeds to the U.S." ... the point is the tenticles of the U.S. extend to most ALL CANADIANS and to that of citizens of numerous other countries around the world - the DEA and other various U.S. law enforcement agencies actually have OFFICES and conduct investigations in Canada, and many other countries globally.

    Point of my tirade is that moving may not help; in large part due to technology, such as being described in this Slashdot news item.

    Ron