MIT Researches Map Cell Phone Usage

stlhawkeye writes "MIT researchers with the Mobile Landscape Projects have mapped a city based on cell phone usage. The article includes a map of Graz, Austria with a color-coded overlay indicating cell phone usage in various parts of the city. Using call origin and destination data, they are able to not only reverse-engineer a topographic map of the geography and landscape, but one of phone usage as well. The implications of the research have practical applications in law enforcement, emergency management, and traffic management. There are also, of course, privacy implications."

Comments

Link in article broken.

[bluesoul88]

The correct address for MIT's "Mobile Landscape" project can be found here.

Re:Invasion of Privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in cellular infrastructure design so I have a clue about what these researchers do & don't have available.

They wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on your call given the type of data this article says they have available. They only have access to some of the call statistics (location, origination, termination, etc...) and are nowhere near the pipe that is carrying the bits that make up your voice or data.

Re:Geography...

[just-a-stone]

graz has been the cultural capital of europe back in 2003. since then, new media arts activities in and around graz are quite impressive.

besides, the current saturation of austria's cell phone market is above 83%, mobilkom austria has a market share of ~41%. i think this provides a good situation for researchers.

... but the girls and the styrian beer are good reasons anyway.

Whaaaa

[tsotha]

I work for a big cellphone company. The question I have is:

Why are these people reinventing the wheel?

We plot phone traffic patterns as a function of geography on a daily basis so we can make sure we have capacity where we need it. Hell, I could go to a plotter 25 yards from my desk and plot out a map very similar to the one in the article.

Honestly, sometimes I chuckle at what academics think is cutting edge. Years ago a friend of mine from school was discussing "new" compensation algorithms for telescopes which were in fact over 20 years old to the people who've been working in satellite recon.

Re:Whaaaa

[tsotha]

Well, the satellite stuff was probably classified, so yeah, I could understand that. This particular story, though, is just amusing. How did they think cellphone companies manage network coverage? Blind guessing and ouija boards? Also, in the US cell phone companies are required by law to pinpoint customer locations during an emergency as part of 911 service.

Re:Invasion of Privacy

[negative3]

It depends on the standard; some are harder to eavesdrop on than others. Any fool with a 30kHz (even 10kHz will work) bandwidth FM demodulator and the proper tuner can get an analog cellphone signal with no problem (AMPS == Ancient Mobile Phone Service, and truly should be abandoned). This is effortless for a graduate student in digital communications. GSM presents a problem for eavesdroppers because all of the time slots are aligned at the base station - if the eavesdropper is not sitting at the base station the time slots could be horribly skewed & overlap or lag. CDMA presents even greater problems because time slots are not the issue but actually figuring out the spreading code, chip rate, etc. is a huge problem. But if this was done cooperatively with a service provider, I'd say that the chances are slight, especially after reading the first line of TFA: Using anonymous cellphone data provided by the leading cellphone operator in Austria, A1/Mobilkom. Do you think the data given to the students is the actual recorded calls? I'd expect it to be time of arrival and any available spatial data. So for now, let's leave the conspiracy theories to

Another aspect: cell phone companies design their systems based on call density & concentration - this could have been real news a decade ago. It's standard practice now. I can draw the cell phone usage in a city if you answer a few questions: where are the rush hour routes? where is the business district? what are the peak rush hour times? You can get a much better picture by actually analyzing a lot of data but the fundamental result will be the same!

Re:Terrorist Bombs Triggered By Cell Phones

[scotbot]

I suspect the London bombs were triggered via cell phone.

Rubbish. How could they? You can't get a mobile signal on the underground because it's so far underground. The bombs were on timers - at least, they were until the police decided to change the story for reasons known only unto them.

Re:Terrorist Bombs Triggered By Cell Phones

[WillAffleckUW]

I suspect the London bombs were triggered via cell phone.

Rubbish. How could they? You can't get a mobile signal on the underground because it's so far underground. The bombs were on timers - at least, they were until the police decided to change the story for reasons known only unto them.

Many underground transit tunnels - and car/truck tunnels - have repeaters nowadays to provide cell phone, emergency signal, and radio services. However, this is not true of all tunnels, only some.