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Telcos Waking Up To the Value of Your Location
holy_calamity writes "Cell phone networks represent probably the most effective data collectors of all time: almost everyone's movements and communications are logged in some way by these firms thanks to the ubiquity of cell phones. Now they're beginning to wake up to the value of that data, as researchers mine call records to study travel and social patterns at previously unimaginable scales. Not surprisingly, some are thinking about how to monetize that data, too."
Did someone say cheaper phone calls??
Wait! Whats a sig?
My guess is they sell this data to the corrupt motherfuckers who are running our country so they know exactly where any miscreants are as soon as the do something remotely questionable! Bastards! Wait . . . there's someone at the door . . . I'll be right b
Target 1133863 has been eliminated for non-compliance.
I guess it's a good thing I don't have a cell phone. No cell phone, no tracking. No tracking, no data mining.
About the best the marketers know about me is from my grocery shopping card, though what they glean from my buying a 5 lb. tub of Crisco, two 48-count packs of condoms, three baby bottles and the 5 lb. jar of grape jelly every two weeks is up to them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"This is anautomated message for Mr Smith. Hello Mr Smith, we've noticed that you've been spending your friday mornings at hotel 6 a lot, and while you commit adultery with Ms. Doolan who also spends a lot of time there with you, you may want to consider taking a short detour to Delco Brand Drugstore for some condoms to avoid your wednesday trips to the free VD clinic!"
I think the phone companies will try to charge you for this. That would be more in keeping with their other behavior.
Palm trees and 8
I was preaching to them about Jesus! Honest!
Ha, they better be tracking by the minute if they want to catch me that way!
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
They can sell information on everyone you called, use speech recognition to monetize the content of your calls. And since you voluntarily brought a phone into your life, why turn off the microphone just because you aren't making a call? Just continuously record everything in the vicinity - there must be a wealth of data there that someone would pay for.
Why stop there? Most phones these days come with at least one camera, many with two. Activate both, and stream the data back to a data collection point. Do image search and color-gradient analysis, pick out those that indicate some hanky panky, hire some folks in the far east for a dollar a day to comb through the video data and pick out only those streams that show people in a comprimising position, and then monetize in one of the following ways:
1. Blackmail your victim^H^H^H^H^H customer (a monthly fee not to tell the missus/mister what you've been up to in your cubical at 10pm last night, or to not send your family intimate pics of your honeymoon, etc.)
2. For those who won't or can't pay, hire another set of people with video editing skills to weave together full length videos of people's intimiate moments, and sell online.
3. Charge a premium for videos of people who 'live near you'.
4. Profit!
Bonus points for those iPhone holding iSlaves ... they can provide the content, but their 'freedom from porn' ensures they can't watch it (at least not on their iShackles).
I mean, it's not as if we have any real rights anyway, once there's a bottom line to be made, and it isn't like this is any creepier than the 'dead peasants insurance' most of our employers have taken out on us already.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ah, so that's why we heard "Oh, God! YES!!!" over your line...
Similar to the upcoming US election results
at least they were kind enough to submit the incomplete post to /. before elimination.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?