Slashdot Mirror
Cell Phones to Monitor Traffic Flow
PCOL writes "The Baltimore Sun reports that Delcan technology will soon begin fullscale deployment of a system in Maryland that will mine cellphone data to determine traffic conditions such as jams and slowdowns. As long as a user's phone is turned on, the cellphone network notes the time of handoffs from cell to cell to calculate the location and speed of vehicles. Researchers say the program will reduce congestion by quickly delivering alerts on road conditions to drivers. The company says they will not track the movement of individual drivers. However, a staff attorney for the EFF says that tracking might violate federal law and 'increases the chances that information will be used for more invasive purposes in the future.'"
Slashdot should use cell phones to start monitoring dupes! :-)
/ 01/159241&tid=193
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11
Can you hear me now? Are we there yet? Can you hear me now? Are we there yet? etc.
;)
I'm not looking forward to this
Of course, it can't track you if your number starts with $sys$...
Turning off the phone isn't enough. You have to put the phone in the microwave for sixty seconds, pull out the battery, wrap the phone in aluminum foil, and throw it out the window into the bed of a passing pickup truck.
Unless I am confusing my web sites, this is the _third_ time this has been on /.
So if two is a dupe...
A third is a... tripe?