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MIT Mapping Students WiFi Access in 3D
GuitarNeophyte writes "Ever wished that you had a way to just look at a map and find your friends across campus? Or wanted to find an open study lounge without having to foot it on over? Well, with MIT's new WiFi Mapping project, you can. They've set up large plexiglass maps, projecting dots over a campus map, allowing you to know the concentration of WiFi users in various parts of the grounds. With over 2800 access points, locations of individual students (if they have opted to reveal their information) can be found with accuracy as close as the individual classroom (even in multi-story buildings). It's also had the affect of providing some interesting research on study patterns, '[R]esearchers also found that study labs that once bustled with students are now nearly empty as people, no longer tethered to a phone line or network cable, move to cafes and nearby lounges, where food and comfy chairs are more inviting.'"
Do they call it "The Marauders Map"?
I reject your reality, and subsitute my own
Well yea (if they have opted to reveal their information).
Wah Sig!
Yeah, as if college students ever had any privacy.
FTA: "(if they have opted to reveal their information)"
Did you even read the article? Students have to opt in. Not opt out. Which means they arnt automatically displayed, they have to use their hands and do some typing to be shown on this grid. I dont see any privacy problems when its up to an individual if they want to be shown.
Here's another two: OPT-IN. Nobody's forced to participate here, and in fact, you're not even in by default, so there really should be no privacy problems.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
also had the affect
You mean 'effect'?
Hmmm...I wonder if he got a grant to go to school?
Just because the information is hidden, what about unscrupulous system admins? Law enforcement? Etc. It could even be discoverable for lawsuits.
History has shown that if the capability exists, it will be used.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
So how much did tuition increase by with the new Wifi? Isn't it already $40,000 a year at MIT after room, board, books, food.
At the end of the day, when university is empty, you can check on the map if someone forgot his computer. I guess you could get 5-10 pc a year.
RTFA
affect effect
Which one doesn't belong?
As one of the student developers I can say that that is one of our primary concerns, and part of Phase 2 of iSPOTS is a way to keep the logged data safe from unscrupulous admins, and law enforcement.
Labs are empty and Cafes are full at MIT. Yeah right, those kids don't want to socialize, that is why they got into MIT. They love the lab, in fact they never leave their labs, which is obvious once you smell them. A geek without a lab is like a race car driver without a car.
Of course this makes headlines when MIT does it, but everyone ignores that UC San Diego began something similar years ago. They gave out PDAs (crappy ones, mind you... HP Jornada) to a few thousand students so that they could see each other as long as they were within range of the access points. I have to admit, I never used it because the PDA they gave me lasted about 30 minutes on a full battery charge, but it looked pretty interesting when I was a freshman there. I'm sure they're not the only other campus to have tried this, either. http://activecampus.ucsd.edu/
Forecast for tomorrow: A few sprinklings of genius with a chance of DOOM!
Sounds like a very nice system for stalking girls... Oh wait, MIT
\u262D = \u5350
You know, being a moderate person in general I'd normally be dismissive of your post, but that was actually pretty funny. Being that you've posted it as A.C. I now have the right to repost it elsewhere without your permission.
Here is the link to the MIT site
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Exactly.. that's one of my peeves other than the then/than mixups.
It's also had the affect of providing some interesting research on study patterns
Ah, no.. something has an effect which could affect something or someone.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Here's another RF-based location search. The software is all OSS.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
teh tin foil hats will still work. however, teh goggles still do nothing.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
"With these maps, you can see down to the room on campus how many people are logged on," said Carlo Ratti, director of the school's SENSEable City Laboratory, which created the maps. "You can even watch someone go from room to room if they have a handheld device that's connected."
;)
Very interesting from both sides of the privacy/security standpoint. You could theoretically track someone's daily habits or watch their track (and others nearby) if there was some sort of emergency. It would then be fairly easy to possibly narrow down who was in the area at the time which would lead to effective questioning, etc.
Obviously it would be unlikely that a would-be attacker would have his device turned on at the time but even an MIT student might make a mistake
Mapping students? For this crowd especially, that is most certainly a Bad Thing(TM) when you glance at the title. What the title ought to have read with something more neutral, like Mapping Wi-Fi Concentration. When you decline students as the accusative, it sounds like something is directly doing something to the students. This is alarmistbate.
More like: Piracy Nightmare
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
[R]esearchers also found that study labs that once bustled with students are now nearly empty
I can stick my head in the room, look around, and tell you that. Or if you want to be a bit fancier, you could just look at the login/logoff logs to tell you how many people are there.
Here is the iSpots (MIT's WiFi mapping and tracking) home page @ MIT with great pictures and more information
http://ispots.mit.edu/
Enjoy!
Sig
Oh? If the information is available, it can be used. If you can link to a "roamer" to a location, so can they. All it takes is enough time and effort. While you may have addressed historical information, what do you plan to do when the FBI demands you turn it on or log it with an administrative subpoena?
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
Then they'd be going through proper legal channels and it would be no different then them demanding that something like your mobile phone was tracked. Information can't be protected against access for legitimate purposes.
And therefore, we should stop developing any new technology and storing any new information, as it could one day be subpoenaed.
I'm serious. Nothing around you but other computers and students. Chugging the code on an all night project, with nothing but a 2 liter of Mt. Dew to fuel your sleep-deprived, caffeine induced coding hallucinations.
Going to the lab was an explicit statement of "I'm getting shit done" - cutting yourself off from an many distractions as you possibly could (though email/web pervade) and working until you drop / it's done.
I look fondly back at the labs these days - wish I was younger - and remember the all nighters and watching the sun rise. (From the top of the CII).
With or without explicit consent you can always track any person's movements but their wireless card's MAC address. This is has serious implications and is a violation of personal privacy and its reasonable expectation. Something should be done about that from a legal as well as from a technical perspective e.g. anonymizing access.
On a sidenote, MIT is one of the largest polluter of the Cambridge airspace with hundreds of not exactly open access points that interfere with open ones nearby. They should at least open them and get rid of the controversial and privacy violating registration procedure and tracking of people.
Hint: an administrative subpoena does not require judicial oversight and quite frequently comes with a gag order preventing you from even contacting your lawyer.
This is why all tracking systems are bad. The technology may be "1eet", but there are far more evil uses this could be put to.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
Oh wait. DOH!.
Researchers find that college students enjoy eating and sitting down.
Tests are currently being conducted on the effect of both of these situations in tandem.
The researchers suspect that children and adults will behave similarly, but have not yet conducted conclusive testing on the matter.
Glog!
Here is a link to the actual project It's interesting. I messed around with it a little today. I don't know if or what people outside MIT can see on it though.
Here is an even better option RTFA! The system uses an Opt-in.
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
Don't be riddiculous.
Don't you mean rediculous?
This is Slashdot.
Yes it is - and if you're gonna misspell a word here, you should do it the correct way.
"It's also had the affect of providing some interesting research on study patterns"
Well, that is no surprise really. Reminds me of the College that didn't pave any walkways until after the first semester the campus was open... then just paved where people had worn paths. Should provide good, statistically reliable, insight into where resources for social/academic lounges should be located.
OTOH, does MIT have a graduate program in sociology? I'm thinking of a great study on nerd relationships and mating behavior...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Don't you mean ridiculous?
" Did you even read the article? Students have to opt in. Not opt out."
You must be new here.
OTOH, even if students opt in, how secure is the system? Also, you're opting in to having your information displayed, not to be included in the mapping. Is it possible for someone to crack the system and tie in the personal data of a student who did not opt in to that student's location?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
This is novel how?
.cc file? Yeah.
At UCSD we've had this for ages.
On a related note, Dr. Bennet Yee a prof at UCSD now working at Google, did a pretty cool hack when I was in his class. His laptop was GPS enabled, so whenever he'd turn it on, it'd grab GPS coordinates, then after reverse engineering mapquest's query string (this was before Google Maps, of course) he'd grab a map of the area around where he was, then would upload it to the class web page. It was called the Bennet Tracker, and was very useful for telling if your professor was hanging out at the coffee cart by Mandeville, or in Chicago, or whatever.
I also wrote a tool (when I was TAing a lower division class) that would figure out the physical location of the students logged in to the server. Mainly I used it to stun and amaze my students, as they'd sit a row behind me in the lab, and I, without turning around, would say, "Hi Sean."
But it was also useful when we had a rash of cheating incidents to be able to build a graph of which students had been sitting next to each other, even in other areas of campus. This group of two and this group of two were both sitting next to each other, and had diff-zero code for one entire
It should not be possible. The information provided by the campus ISP (MIT IS&T) is nothing more than connection data, probably with IP addresses, and to opt in we associate the name with the current IP and location (possibly gleaned from IP data). It requires you to continue to reconnect at new locations with new IP's for the data to continue tracking. If this is a bit vague it's because I'm fairly new to the project. I'm going to be working more on Phase 2, which will expand upon this and provide for options to allow and disallow access to your tracking data with a much finer level of control.
So you'd need to opt-in every time you open a session or change location? Kinda like flipping the The Doctor is IN/OUT" sign? Seems like a good idea to me.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
What affect could possibly effect you?
1. Lame dick grammar/spelling nazis on /.
2. The "this is all FUD" crowd.
For starters, spelling and grammar are important, but not that important, especially here...
And another thing, get over it, because it's ALL FUD
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I could not agree more. When do we ban license plates?
Yes very good comment!
I am waiting for the real French to start protesting 'Why is it taking the Americans so long to come save our gay asses again?"
Breaking News!
The latest research developments out of MIT have found that people actually spend more time where there are comfortable chairs and food!
In the photo, anyone else notice a mysterious yellow-looking cable going to the back of that "wirelessly connected" laptop? Am I seeing things, or am I right to be very amused?
http://wsulug.org
So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair!
When I was attending Indiana University at Bloomington about 12 years ago, someone had created a little unix app that did a similar thing. The program would display a simple ascii map of a specified computer room, pinpointing the location and name of each user currently logged on in that room.
:-)
It was great fun for sneaking up and scaring the bejeez out of your friends.
Don't log in. Really if you don't want to be found don't long onto the network. This isn't all that new or scary. Anytime you are logged on to a network somebody could tell where you are. What is really funny is since this can only track you in public places it isn't like you really have privacy to loose. Think about it even in your dorm your room really isn't private. What is next for the privacy nuts. Will they want everyone to have blindfolds so that none one can see you and report that you went to Circle K for a Mountain Dew and a snickers? There is no privacy protection in public space! It sort of violates the idea of public.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You can do something similar with Navizon. You can use their Buddy Tracker thingy to know where your buddies are using wifi. And you don't have to be an MIT student to use it :-)
Or just switch logins around every week with some close friends.
Don't you mean ridiculous?
Don't be rediculous.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
anyone know what kind of hardware they are using for APs?
If this gets developed in a government situation, it's an invasion of privacy.
If it gets developed in MIT, it's a praise-worthy project.
Back in the day,
We caught cheaters by superimposing their printouts and holding up to the light.
The best part, though, was giving them their grades.
Suppose the assignment got a 93, and three guys all turned it in - Each one got 93/3 = 21 points.
"You shared the work... you share the grade points. And if you have a problem with it, I'm sure the Dean would be happy to hear your side of the story."
if only the goddamn saferide would run reliably
God, I was wondering myself today what exactly the pin-point accuracy is, because I'm spending so much time in the student union restroom downloading porn and jacking off. (In my favorite unpatroled bathroom), now i'm worried it might get suddenly more popular
> '[R]esearchers also found that study labs that once
/* command to clear up nonessential data.
..,.........
>bustled with students are now nearly empty as people,
Don't anthromorph the study labs.
They hate it when you do that.
In Soviet Russia, study labs bustle YOU!
In the post-starwars days, I bemoan the lack of a petrified Natalie Portman pouring hot grits down my pants while I say, "All your base are belong to me."
I, for one, welcome our anthromorphed MIT study-lab grit-pouring non-existing Natalie Portman overlords.
Yes, it could be a beowulf cluster, and yes... it probably does run linux. No, there is not an OpenBSD port yet, and your card is not on the supported list.
Yes, you could run it in an emulator on your cellphone but you would get approximately 1x10^-10 frames per second. Try the rm -rf
Of course this package incurs triple dependency hell loops, but that's not a bug... it's a FEATURE!!!
U r teh suxxorwsz...
Slashbot error.
*boom*
There. See what this does for your karma, Anonymous Coward!
There is a difference between a few individuals (the network administrators, the people sitting next to you, or in the case of getting a Dew, the clerk and the people inside) aware of your activities and having the whole world being able to track you. Your analogy does not fit.
This is definitely a privacy problem.