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Your Own Mini-Stalker
kashif.ahsan writes "A ComputerWorld article discusses the inherent privacy dangers of carrying around our ubiquitous technological assistants. They're like miniature stalkers, right there in your pocket. 'Camera phones contain all the necessary ingredients for completely invasive stalking: a microphone, camera, personal data on the user, location information, a chat and call history — you name it. And victims carry them everywhere they go. All that's missing is the software that lets stalkers take control ... new software, called snoopware, does just that.'"
Does this make me a celebrity?
/AM/ important on the internet! Woohoo!
My god...then it's true! I
And carrying a remote control is like having a little telekinetic friend.
Take out the battery and SIM card, and tape over the camera and microphone when you aren't using it.
So let's get this straight...
- I'm already being spied on by close-circuit cameras planted everywhere short of the public toilet (may be wrong on that one as well)
- Government agencies and their friendly associates already have records of my name, sex, DOB, address, occupation, salary, and other "general statistics"
- Corporate spyware already records my keystrokes, browsing habits, shopping history, porn preferences, dubious sources of owned MP3s, financial credentials, political views, and probably things I don't even know about
And now you are trying to tell me I need to be scared of my 4x3 inch PDA? Right, because OBVIOUSLY that's the only thing threatening my privacy!
That means I have friends!
If someone is willing to violate my personal space and physically take my stuff, I might suggest stalking my filing cabinet instead.
It never moves and has way more juicy data than my latest vacation photos and lunch planning.
Given that all of these appliances are carried voluntarily and have an off switch, this story has no merit at all.
At best it's the basis for a (rather bad and technically unsound) horror story. At worst it helps spread fear and paranoia - as if we didn't have enough real problems to worry about.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The stalkers of the world will always have the upper hand as long as we try and keep the genie in the bottle. We need to make the technology a two-way street and get rid of the myth of privacy. I don't have a problem giving away my personal infomation as long as I know who has access to it and I'm able to get the same back in kind. A battered woman is more empowered by knowing where her abusive ex-husband is at all times or knowing when he accesses information about her than she is by going undercover and into hiding.
Nah, it's possible. All you need, and this is really easy--trust me--all your need is to write an application that can run on any weird-endian processor, hundreds of different micro-oses, or in the case of java-supporting phones, break out of the java sandbox, or on brew phones just get yourself the developer certificate from qualcomm and then get the carrier to distribute your app to their customers.
This is going to be huge.
...
Well, there's always BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
In Japan it's marketed as a feature. You can stalk your kids as they walk from school to home (with various detours into convenience stores to read the manga, etc.). There's an ad with some kid walking home and everywhere he goes there are black hats videoing him and speaking into lapel microphones.
There seems to be this ridiculous notion out there that you and everything about you is some kind of giant secret. Case in point, has anyone gone shopping for car insurance lately? Honestly, the password to your email account is the least of your concerns when compared to the way that credit scoring rapes you on something like that.
If I have:
A) No speeding tickets
B) No DUI convictions
C) No accidents
D) An eviction five years ago
E) A big student loan
then I will have higher insurance rates than an 18-year-old with no credit whatsoever. ZOMG the insurance company is in my credits powning my billz!
Furthermore, has anyone paid taxes lately? We carefully pen or key all of our vitals, all of our earnings and where we earned them, all of our expenditures and where we spent them, our political affiliations, our medical conditions, our contact info, our religion, our blood types, et cetera. Then what? We can but choose between the creepy old letter carrier, Chester, and the creepy old internet. Who gets all this juicy data next, we can only imagine. I promise, it is not good.
Here's a tasty one for you... Homeland security. Had to get that phrase in there for all the conspiracy types on Google. Tracking your library card? To hell with that lame crap... to hear them tell it they are in your fone processin your data anyway.
Speaking of Google... well... Google. Sign in to be mined^W Googled^w convenienced.
There are a Segan Billion Billion data leaks out there, and you and your data don't exactly get to choose where to leak.
So when I see these articles about **DIGITAL DEVICES CONTAIN DATA AND THEY CAN SEE MEEE ZOMG** I tend to seriously consider going back to lighting my farts, just to cover the evidence. Plus, it is truly entertaining when compared to sweating about the spy in my pocket. Fsck my own mini-stalker, where do I get a mini-hooker?
Why bother being paranoid? They're going to get you anyway.
FairTax baby!
A battered woman is best off when related to a real man, a member of a dying breed. We remember how to disappear a guy. Counseling not required. Without a father, father-in-law, brother, cousin, close friend, or godfather in possession of Actual Real Testicles (TM). Sadly, a battered woman is best served with tartar sauce, justice system on the side. A stupid ass phone is a hill of beans unless 911 is dialed on it, and that usually happens when it is too late.
I know what you're getting at with the two-way street bit, but with that location tracking info you'll just be like Sigourney Weaver with the little alien-detecting-PDA. Blip, Blip, Blip, there he is. Difference is that Sigourney had an assault rifle and a handful of jarheads to tend to her woes. Who is gonna be there when Bobby the beater is in the ceiling?
FairTax baby!
>18-year-old
Way to contribute to the very same problem you are complaining of being treated with (prejudice and irrelevant facts being taken into account).
It's sick to see governments repeatedly marginalize young drivers' rights by blanket higher premiums, harder process to get a car, tougher fines for exactly the same offences, and restrictions which don't apply to older drivers. And I'm not talking about "novice" vs "veteran", I'm talking about real age being taken into account (and even if you are above the legal age of majority you still may be considered "young" for these purposes).
Look, just because there are SOME asshole teens who zip by your street in their pimped out Civic doing 160mph with music so loud you see the windshields vibrating, doesn't mean ALL young drives drive this way, and there should not be a blanket prejudice towards all younger drivers.
Seeing you whine for suffering the consequences of people with big loans being put in the same category as bad drivers for insurance purposes, while implying young drivers should get higher premiums just because they are young, is hypocritical at best.
I still can't figure out how the hell the so called "hacker" was able to install the so called "snoopware" into their new phones?? ... were these people soooo stupid to have their Bluetooth turned on, or installing any xyz application sent by a person they don't even know??
...
.. the article seems too far fetched from reality! (IMO)
May be the MMS or SMS they received with the "snoopware" had the title "P0rn"
Apart from this
Therez light! : aHR0cDovL3hrMGRlci53b3JkcHJlc3MuY29t
I love Google so much. Look for "blackberry snoopware" and see references like this.
5
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=78
Given the Blackberry popularity among the "power tie" crowd and among their account managers, if I were a stock investor interested in gaining some nsider information, or a reporter willing to bend some laws, I'd be sitting at the booth at Infoworld or the Republican national convention monitoring as much data as possible.