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911 Call Tracking Site Stirs Concern
Frosty Piss writes, "This story comes from the Seattle Post-Intellegencer. For the past year, John Eberly has operated Seattle911.com, a site that until this week took real-time feeds of 911 calls from the Seattle Fire Department and plotted them on Google Maps. But on learning of Eberly's site, officials cited 'security concerns' and altered the way they display 911 calls on their Web site, changing the format from text to graphical, preventing Eberly from acquiring the raw data. (Several programmers are quoted musing how trivial it would be to work around this evasion.) Fire officials worry that allowing others to display where fire crews are on an Internet map could make things easier if terrorists were planning an attack. That logic left Eberly and others scratching their heads, as the information continues to be publicly available on the Fire Department's site. 'We're not obligated to provide this information. It's something that we did for customer service in the first place,' a Fire Department spokesperson said. So is this public information? Should the data be available to the public in real time?" The Seattle P-I story ends with a quote from Bruce Schneier: "The government is not saying, 'Hey, this data needs to be secret,' they are saying, 'This data needs to be inconvenient to get to.'"
Come on, does anyone really think that making the information a tiny bit harder to get is going to discourage real terrorists? Why do so many people persist in the idea that if we make the world hard to use that bad people won't be able to use it, bad people are the ones who will invest the time to learn how to work the system. A change like this does one thing, inconvieniences those people who may have found some use for this program. It doesn't stop terrorist, it doesn't help the public, it doesn't even make a good public relations story. How long before someone rebuilds the site to grab the graphics and translate them do you think? And how long after that before the govenment makes the data in those funny letters on forums at which point they may as well not even publish it. Every time I think I've grasped the limit of stupidity it moves further and further away...
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Is it important to know, in real-time, where emergency crews are? Why? So you can chase the ambulance that much easier? To gawk as crews try to rescue people, and possibly get in the way?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
If this was just for fires, I don't think it is incredibly bad, but my first thought on seeing the headline was, "why are they releasing 911 data in the first place?" I mean, were they posting medical emergencies, too? That is kind of creepy.
But on the other hand, if they were releasing the information, I don't see anything wrong with someone actually using the data. The shock to me is that they were releasing it publicly...in real time to begin with.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I don't quite get it. I can't read the article as the link ends up at a non-existant blog post.
I'll have to start out by saying I'm amazed such information was ever available. I'm just surprised anyone would think to post that for people.
I have to say I'm with the government on this one. Why does anyone need to know exactly where all the 911 calls are coming from in real time? I can understand why such data should be available, but why not give it a 24 hour delay? There are just SO many uses for this data for evil (where you can torch a house, when you can steal something with few cops nearby, where you can go to ambulance chase the most successfully, etc.).
If you have a good reason for needing the data in real time, I see no problem with using a simple free registration to get to it.
I just don't see why this needs to be available to the public in real time.
Frankly, I'd be more worried about other people having it. Not just for the stuff listed above, but for neighbors watching to see if I were to call and other uses like that which I wouldn't be big on. A particularly savvy criminal (or group) could rob houses and track local 911 calls to see when the cops have been tipped off about them so they know when to split.
Or, if you have a restraining order against you, you could watch when the police get called to the house then go in after they leave.
I can't think of any good reason why most people need this live. I can't think of a single one. Businesses, I can think of a few, but private citizens?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
"The government is not saying, 'Hey, this data needs to be secret,' they are saying, 'This data needs to be inconvenient to get to.'"
Now they just need to apply the same logic to their lists of gun owners.
I don't know seattle911.com, so I don't know if it's absolutely critical to have the data in real-time. But if not, just make the data available in the convenient format, but an hour or so later. As far-fetched as the terrorist scenario may sound, with this solution everybody could be happy, no? Or is this just another subtle reminder of the never-ending War on Terrer?
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
Terrorism risk my ass. My guess as to the real concern? The politicians are afraid that people might see how damned dangerous certain parts of town (read: slums) really are, sending property values into the crapper and perhaps launching a round of White Flight. You see, it's easier to deny a problem exists (or mask the extent) than to fix it.
All the typical poli behaviours are here on display -- denial, obfuscation, evasion and just plain old lying.
There is no way that 911 call information should be available at anything approaching real-time data.
They want to make the information available for customer service purposes then good, put it on a 24hr delay.
It might be possible to wait for many of the emergency vehicles to be on one side of the city and then start a fire on the other side of the city.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I travelled around Serbia about 10 years ago while they were still 'Communist'. There were often signs around roads, bridges, towns, etc, with 'No Photography' symbols. At the time I really appreciated that we were free from that kind of paranoia and ridiculous restriction in the 'west'.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
The standard big bad wolf that was used anytime someome wanted to stop you from doing something completely reasonable in the US used to be "Sorry, but due to liability, you cant...".
That implied some kind of financial damage if you did not listen.
Now the standard has changed to "terrorist threat". Imagine being sent to GitBay, shipped to Syria and tortured, and imprisoned forever. That is a hell of a lot more efficient.
I have noticed that in the US nobody dear to
1. Cross the line into the garage to look at the guys changing tires on their car anymore.
2. Allow thir children to ride in the shopping carts
3. Use opposite sex bathrooms
4. Engage in significan physical activity
5. Any other activity that looks like terrorist planning or execution.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Fortunately, most cities have planned for this by having *several* fire trucks.
And from TFA, this is still trivially possible. The data source is plainly available, just not easily parsed (which is a total non-issue for the short-term opportunist you describe).
Secondly, there's no need to wait for such placement; it'd be trivial to simply engineer that situation with a few 911 calls / events of your own.
Personally, I'd say they're offended that their "cool tool" got one-upped.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
In Seattle? In any large city with widely dispersed fire and police resources? That better be one Hell of a fire if everyone in the whole fuckin' city is there...
Anyway, many people are asking WHY someone would need this info, but that's the wrong question. The question should be "why shouldn't they have it"? And from the story, clearly they still do have it, just not from this guy's site. The city still has this info up on their site.
And why do most people who are interested in this stuff want access to it? The same reason people buy scanners, because it's interesting to follow what's going on.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I was just at Heathrow over the weekend- waiting for my wife to get back from the duty free in Terminal 3. It's one of the world's crappiest terminals- not even chairs at the gate. SO there I am waiting, sitting on the only space available, the floor. Here comes some guard saying I can't sit there- "security reasons". So WTF am I supposed to do, call to my genie wife to bring me back into her bottle with her? "Security Reasons" is the catch phrase of power-hungry bureaucrats everywhere, it means, "I'd like to push you around and you'd don't dare even question me when I give you even an unreasonable command on a whim". I got a headache when I read about the RFID tags at the Hungarian airport. Security is used by all the worlds' despots as the rationale for their staying in power. No kidding Capt Obvious you say? Well, what's the best way to push aside this reason without being labeled treasonous?
Except that they're not going to sit and wait for a bunch of fires to spontaneously sprout at the other side of the city, then run into another building with a match. If they really wanted to do that, they would *set* several fires at the other side of the city. And you don't need to track firetrucks to know that that's where they're going to be.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
By the same logic, websites that show traffic conditions should be shut down too. Well, ya, terrorists can make sure they don't get stuck in parking lot on the I-5.
Oz
Just last week. Chemical explosion and nasty fire in north carolina.Not the first, not the last. I guess you could wait 24 hours to tell people about it, as the clouds of shit that could kill them drifted over them. How about brush fires, you ever been in one? I used to fight them as a volunteer, sometimes people have minutes to evac- minutes, tops-so they shouldn't have a way to find out until it's too late? How about armed standoffs or bad car crashes that block whole roads for hours? Would it be nice to know about them in a timely manner? How about if you are a newsie, nice to get to where the news is going down? I can think of a LOT of reasons why this restriction is misguided, lame, stupid and fairly unconstitutional once you get down to it.
Really, this is government public business, the public has every right in the world to be informed of it, absolutely no different from any joe citizen can go sit in on court to any case you want if there's room in the pews.. no different at all, really.
This is allegedly a government by and for the people, not by and for the 1% connected elite and their hired on order taking and following drones. We had a revolution over that bit, remember?
Government is supposed to hold only a few cards with our express permission, everything else IS our business and THEY work at our suffrance, as our employees. I, for one, am SICK AND TIRED of government-as-masters and overlords who assume everything is theirs by default and you must grovel before them. As the expression goes, F dat shyte! They have just usurped all the powers and now make you beg for it, and whenever they find out you are using your born with rights they get all bent out of shape and want to take it away or sell you "permission" or something. Screw that! We tell them what to do, not the other way around! This ain't a massah/slave deal, none of that plantation action, no thanks!
Giving into this "everything revolves around terrorism" stuff is pure grade-A brainwashed crapola. You are a smart guy, you *really* don't believe all this hysteria crap they have whipped up to control the mouth breathers, do you? I understand the 'tards swallowing it because they think pro rasslin' is real, but not anyone normal who is reasonably intelligent. You can see through it for the extreme power grab and consolidation it really is? The Heglian Dialectic angle? Think about it, really think, imagine you are joe terrorist.. Anyone with a room temp IQ and above, with "tools" available at any qucikstore starting with a cig ligter, working completely alone, could go around the country and commit "acts of terrorism" on a daily schedule. And get away with it. Assymetrical warfare, pretty easy stuff really. So--where's the beef, where are all the attacks from the "OMG fundy islamofascist tarists sleeper cells all over gonna steal our freedom fries and rape the cattle!". Well??? Where are all the attacks?? There aren't any except for over were THEIR nations are being invaded, which is more or less understanable given the context of them..being invaded.
Maybe we have had one or two-maybe-I am still not convinced yet, to me it looks a lot more like a government reichstagg fire inside job.. the evidence we can see points way more to it being an inside job, using some stupid patsies at best.
Anyway, this "terrorism" jazz is primarily pushed for and by the coup plotters and those who profit from this coup takeover, and it really *is* a coup that has happened. They use "terrorist" as this generations buzzword to induce and perpetuate fear, uncertainty and doubt.
It's a scam, man, really, a freakin' scam...
Why is it still on the 911 site then?
I fail to see what purpose it serves to remove the googlemaps of the same data
I doubt that terrorists are that much less technical than the people of the seattle911.com site.
The only reason I can see with keeping the data public(on the 911 web site, not the seattle911.com one) might be public access to information laws or some other regulatory issue. If the information is public, let seattle911.com do whatever it wants with it. If the goal is to prevent terrorism, don't MASK the information, take it off the 911 web site too.
We aren't talking about an intranet here.
The public servants are alrady at risk, since it's PUBLIC information.
The only reason I can see to keep the info public, but not let seattle911.com use it, is that if seattle911.com is ad-based, and they don't want the seattle911.com to benefit for free, from this information. But in that case, that's what a cease and desist letter is for.
If it really is that risky for the public servants, why isn't the information better protected? How is publicising the info on only one site that much less safe than on two?
[rant]
I suspect that I'm not the only one whose getting tired of hearing about taking this or taking that away because we're concerned about Terrorists. Terrorism is real, it sucks rocks, but we're living in those times where conventional wars apparently are a thing of the past. We have to get over it and get on with life.
How long are we going to let FUD hang over us and control us? If there's a non-terrorism reason, like you've got alot of people using the data to follow the emergency services and get in the way while gawking at what's going on, then yes, change the policy. Don't throw up a nebulous excuse that 'terrorists will use it!' Then we all go duck and cover and hope we don't get blown up.
Too many people have fought and died for our freedoms. Are we so frightened now, that those lives are meaningless, and we should give up our hard-won freedoms for the illusion of safety?
[/rant]
Sorry. I'm just getting tired of it.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
At least in Canada you can take pictures of crap. Yes, you can take pictures *from* a plane! A regular, passanger jet plane!
Not being allowed to take pics used to be part of the "evil" communist russia. Now, it is part of the paranoid america. Congratulations americans, you are slowly turning into the same totalitarian regime like soviet union. All under the umbrela of fear and "security". And the sad part is no one is ready to stand up against this cancerous mutation of your constitution.
Well, I don't know...as we are aware that Seattle is such a hotbed of terrorist activity.
That's why we haven't got Bin L. yet in the mountains of over Middle East way- he's operating out of the Cascades!
OMG! I'm crawling into my shelter here in Oklahoma right now! *sarcasm off*
WTF? Terrorists responding to fires?- give 'em a hose and let them help fight the fires!
We know that they would not be smart enough to use a scanner, use their ears and follow the sirens, watch the frikken news- but heaven help us if they have access to Google Earth!
Damn, the insanity in this country is starting to drive me crazy.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.