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New Service Maps Speed Traps By Cell Phone
esocid writes "In a modern equivalent of flashing your headlights to warn other motorists of police speed traps, you can now warn fellow drivers with a cell phone or personal digital assistant about speed traps, red-light cameras, and other threats to ticket-free driving. And as you approach a known threat, you'll get an audio alert on your mobile device. The developer of Trapster, Pete Tenereillo, said the system, which requires punching in a few keys such as '#1' to submit information to Trapster's database, should comply with laws banning talking on cell phones. The free service can automatically detect location using mobile devices' GPS capabilities or tap their Wi-Fi and get location from a database run by Skyhook Wireless. Police officials that Tenereillo has talked to haven't complained about the service because it inevitably encourages drivers to slow down."
I would think a police official would find it easier to just have police drive past points hitting #1, saving money on police traps and increasing coverage?
I'm guessing this would allow me to make people slow down on my street by simply making them "think" there is a speed trap there. Not a terrible idea, if enough people use it. Though how many false positives will it take before confidence in the system is shot?
Or you know, you could obey the speed limit, stop at red lights, etc. Seems to keep quite a few of us from getting tickets.
Guess what? I have never been in an accident and never been ticketed in 18 years of driving. I always signal, never drive more than 5 miles over the speed limit, always let people in when they signal, maintain a safe following distance, and generally don't act like an ass on the road.
Am I better than other drivers? Perhaps, it depends on what you mean by better. What I am is a safe and courteous driver.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Actually, a lot of people probably won't realize that by allowing "Trapster" to track their movements and feed data back to them based on location, they will be giving up a big part of their own privacy and helping to create a database that will no doubt be subpoenaed from time to time -- if not outright plundered through misuse of the so-called Patriot Act.
In addition, with speeders allowing their locations to be tracked, that database also documents their speeding. A juicy target if the speeder is involved in a collision and the victim(s) want another way to establish reckless driving.
Or, it's just a useful target anyway to document and prosecute speeders. Most subscribers will no doubt be speeders, so as the police state becomes stronger, look for your now well-documented past to come back to haunt you.
And what happens to all of that data if there is a security breach at the company and someone exfiltrates all of the records. Most probably wouldn't care, but the higher your profile, the more you could expect to see your actions published in the open for all to see.
No thanks. I'll just keep my radar detector.
They only detect the cheap radar detectors. There has been an electronic warfare in the civilian world with radar detectors (RDs) and radar detector detectors (RDDs). Moderate priced RDs have had RDD detection capability for awhile and will go into a stealth mode, temporarily disabling their main oscillator.
And of course, you have the professional level such as the Beltronics STi Driver or the Valentine 1 which have been hardened to prevent RF emissions detected by RDDs...
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.