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Beijing To Track Citizen's Cell Phones
wan9xu writes "Purportedly to help alleviate Beijing's traffic congestion, the new initiative, literally translated as 'Platform for Citizen Movement Information,' proposes to track individual citizens' movement in real time via cell phone signals. Cell phones will be automatically registered at cell towers as soon as they are switched on. The rest is just like the phone tracking you see every week on CSI."
U-TDOA except it should probably be named DTOA instead. I like how they keep changing the names of this stuff so you don't catch on.
Nothing to see here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten
german politician got his tracking data from telekom and visualized it, just press play.
Another patriotic naming convention (i.e. Patriot Act). It will be an easy sell. It's all about control. Nothing more than control.
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
"Cell phones will be automatically registered at cell towers as soon as they are switched on." ... err, as they usually do? Since otherwise, how would the cell company know how to route a call for you?
Of course TFA is in Chinese, and I don't know what it really says, but yeah, the very design of the cell network allows for such tracking, and there's a lot of potential for abuse there, whichever government does it.
I guess this is in response to the Arab protests, if you as the authority can see where people are gathered/gathering, you know where to send the skull-crackers to.
Oh, and logging individuals would make it easier to see which people (phones) show up at these things regularly, for whatever reason, so we can crack their skulls too!
I wonder what sort of techniques can be used to fight this; multiple phones (useless since afaik you need an ID card to get a SIM card), leave your phone at home, go to "airplane mode" at a random time before the planned demo? Should the protesters buy walkie-talkies and tune to xy frequency? (The police would then just skull-crack anyone caught with a walkie-talkie).
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
It is not that the Chinese gov't is going to start doing anything new. When you use fear as a great motivator to control your people, it never hurts to draw attention to the amount of scrutiny maintained over each citizen (in the interest of the common good). It's best not to let citizens forget for one moment that their actions are subject to significant, continuous observation. [XXX is watching you, from a distance.]
Hell, this is well known from military airplanes . . . if your radar is on, you can see them . . . but they can see you! So if you are doing some Secret Squirrel stuff, and think that you might be tracked, turn the damn thing off.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Which citizen is the poor schmuck whose phones are bugged?
they're coming 'armed' with their hopeful good natures, some of their toys (to share with others) & many of their mommies. they just can't get wrapped around the notion that there's 'too many' of them. probably because they're so tiny, & most of US are so wasteful/selfish/misinformed? see you there? other options include;
The Georgia Guidestones, a massive granite edifice planted in the Georgia countryside, contains a list of ten new commandments for Earthâ€s citizens. The first commandment, and the one which concerns this article, simply states; â€Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.â€
Robert Walker, former chair of PepsiCo and Proctor & Gamble on water:
Water is a gift of nature. Its delivery is not. It must be priced to insure it is used sustainably.
Mikhail Gorbachev:
â€We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there arenâ€t enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage.â€
Jacques Cousteau UNESCO Courier 1991:
â€In order to save the planet it would be necessary to kill 350,000 people per day.â€
Jacques Cousteau, Population: Opposing Viewpoints:
â€If we want our precarious endeavor to succeed, we must convince all human beings to participate in our adventure, and we must urgently find solutions to curb the population explosion that has a direct influence on the impoverishment of the less-favoured communities. Otherwise, generalized resentment will beget hatred, and the ugliest genocide imaginable, involving billions of people, will become unavoidable.â€
â€Uncontrolled population growth and poverty must not be fought from inside, from Europe, from North America, or any nation or group of nations; it must be attacked from the outside – by international agencies helped in the formidable job by competent and totally non-governmental organizations.â€
David Rockefeller: Memoirs 2002 Founder of the CFR:
â€We wield over American political and economical institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as â€internationalists†and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political structure, one world, if you will. If thatâ€s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.â€
David Rockefeller, Co-founder of the Trilateral Commission:
â€We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine & other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plans for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. Thomas Ferguson, the Latin American Case Officer for the State Departmentâ€s Office of Population Affairs (OPA) (now the US State Dept. Office of Population Affairs, est. by Henry Kissinger in 1975): â€There is a single theme behind all our work -we must reduce population levels,†said Thomas Ferguson, the Latin American case officer for the State Departmentâ€s Office of Population Affairs (OPA). â€Either they [governments] do it our way, through nice clean methods or they will get the kind of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran, or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it. â€The professionals,†said Ferguson, â€aren
Keep in mind that turning off your phone also works in favour of oppressive regimes. If you are not able to communicate, you cannot organise or participate in protests in large numbers (due to lack of knowledge).
It's a passive effect of constant surveillance: people automatically censor themselves (consciously or subconsciously). This is one of the main reasons why more surveillance directly results in less freedom.
...and pull the battery out.
At the end of March, US "defence" contractor Lockheed Martin will administer a census in England and Wales which it is compulsory for every householder to complete.
It is set in the (then) futuristic year of 2004, when Earth has been enslaved by a race of aliens known as the Orbs. The Orbs, who look like giant floating eyeballs, have implanted all humans with global tracking devices, forced them to wear nondescript robes and forbid them from speaking or communicating. The protagonist has been assigned by the Orbs to track down fellow humans who are believed to be forming an underground resistance.
for all phones sometime since 9/11 (IIRC) under the guise of helping you (ie - helping the 911 emergency service locate you). Not sure when it was implemented though.
With the microphone, camera, and other sensors plus ubiquity - cell phones is one of the most insidious government spy tools around. Tiny little trojan horses we pay for.
and You THINK the US GOVT DOES not? lolL
You could moan about this; but when they caught the guys in the 2008 Chinese milk scandal they stuck a bullet in their heads. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal You can't like the régime; but they do tend to win me back from time to time. Of course I don't condone the death sentence; but now that I have a child I'm very irrational about these things. Also being in the UK, I'm so tracked when I walk around YET STILL THERE BE CRIME It doesn't bother me. My lord I'm off topic!
Every single carrier can do it and does it already. It's the very definition of how cell networks work.
Saving the data generated for later analysis is, on the other hand, something the carriers would not probably do on their own as you need a huge storage for the crap that's a PR nightmare if anyone leaks it's existence and it's of no real use to them. But, I have no doubt that most of the carriers in the world are doing it under government pressure.
Slittyzens?
Don't have enough experience with this....but can you turn off the actual phone functions, incl. the regular checking-in at the nearest cell tower, and just use (smart) phones for their apps in quasi local-only offline mode?
All phones I know/owned turned on everything when you turned on the phone itself...
why, when the aliens gave us cotton to warm/comfort our little selves, must we favor poisonous petroleum products, which we kill each other for the rights to, not thinking that the planet may need that crud to stay balanced? is it slow (mutated) thinking? bad information? go down with the ship? what? if even babies know when somethings are 'not right' (even the calendar)?
The majority of people in most western countries (according to surveys I've read about) are quite happy with an eye for an eye - even non religious people. Its only the libtard agenda thats been promoted by vested interests for the last 50 years that has tried to paint the death penalty as some sort of neanderthal throwback when in fact its the most just penalty for certain crimes including the one you mention.
Sooooo... how long until it becomes a crime in China not to carry a switched-on cell-phone with you at all times...?
Actually, the death penalty in the US, once you examine who has been executed, is clearly racist. IHO, where it becomes irrational is that the same people that advocate the death penalty are avid Pro-Life-ers.
Actually, it's not true.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/international-polls-and-studies - support for death penalty in most progressive countries is either low or declining.
And yes, death penalty is a neanderthal throwback.
The majority of people in most western countries (according to surveys I've read about) are quite happy with an eye for an eye - even non religious people.
Ah, so it's revenge. Someone once said something like, "If you take an eye for an eye, then everyone will be blind.".
Its only the libtard agenda thats been promoted by vested interests for the last 50 years that has tried to paint the death penalty as some sort of neanderthal throwback when in fact its the most just penalty for certain crimes including the one you mention.
Libtards! Hahahaha! Yeah!
Yeah, this real asshole once said to forgive is the way to salvation or some such horseshit - goddamn bearded sandal wearing hippie pinko comie if you ask me! I thin he was even Spanish! He called himself Jesus!
So they're using a Visual Basic GUI?
Toy Size Spy Drones, Live government cell phones tracking, ACTA, Arbitrary domain names seizing, Law mandated year-long ISP data retention policies. Innocent citizens detained at airports (during which agents copy and/or seize their laptops and cellphones).
It sure is nice living in the future.
Yes, I'm really going to believe a webpage that is clearly anti death penalty.
"And yes, death penalty is a neanderthal throwback."
Care to explain why or is it just for the usual spurious "it makes us no better than them" or its "state murder" or whatever other drivel people like yourself dish up to try and explain your point of view?
Then set up wifi networks (it could be a small set of gateways with 3G modems that route connections out through Tor or a VPN, or it could be something like HSMM-MESH), from there you have a wide range of communication options.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"Someone once said"
Ghandi. And with all due respect to the man if that were the case then winning the 2nd world war against Hitler was a waste of time. Its easy to rattle off a nice pithy, superficially profound statement like that , but when you did deeper you generally find they're BS.
"He called himself Jesus!"
And? I'm not religious, I couldn't care less what he said.
Care to explain why or is it just for the usual spurious "it makes us no better than them" or its "state murder"
Spurious? "Do as I say, not as I do" has never worked.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And i'll tell my boss, i might not be able to answer because i'm at indoor.
All I can say is that these "eye for an eye" people must have a great deal of faith in the infallibility of their justice system. Personally I can't understand why anyone would want to give the state the right to take it's own citizen's life, weather said citizen deserves to die or not is irrelevant.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Because it kills innocent people. That's why.
It's quite simple.
Robert Heinlein - Starship Troopers
"Is it possible to abolish war by relieving population pressure (and thus do away with the all-too evident evils of war) through constructing a moral code under which population is limited to resources?
Without debating the usefulness or morality of planned parenthood, it may be verified by observation that any breed which stops its own increase gets crowded out by breeds which expand. Some human populations did so, in Terran history, and other breeds moved in and engulfed them."
Perpetual balance with Nature -- this is not natural. The way Nature [and the universe, effectively] "balances" things out is by wiping out populations, not subtle and controlled limitations on breeding and death. I don't recall seeing any live dinosaurs for the last ~65M years. We'll either find room to expand elsewhere (Terraforming, colonization, etc.) or we'll bide our time until we our natural genocide/extinction.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Taking into account what you said, maybe they should just buy hard-hats?
Once they have all those phones registered and ready to track, the Chinese Big Brother will have to conquer one more obstacle: Convincing all those people to keep their phones turned on all the time in order for this tracking system to actually work.
I am a bit paranoid and don't like the idea of being trackable. For this reason I typically have my phone in airplane mode and turn off this mode when I expect phone calls or want to browse / check mails. I still do not fully trust the proprietary firmware not to transmit any signals. I would really like to check whether it still transmits anything in airplane mode. Does anybody know an easy and inexpensive way of how to do that?
Sorry, no can do. iPhones have a fixed battery and special screws.
Doesn't it? So people who are executed re-offend then do they? The thought of being executed doesn't make some people hold off the violence compared to the through of 20 years in prison?
You see, this is the spurious logic people like yourself work by. Its all bullshit.
Doesn't it? So people who are executed re-offend then do they?
The question is not whether they re-offend but whether the total number of offenders is reduced.
The thought of being executed doesn't make some people hold off the violence compared to the through of 20 years in prison?
Studies have shown that the threat of punishment does not, in fact, stop crime, especially when you fail to address social inequality that produces it.
You see, this is the spurious logic people like yourself work by. Its all bullshit.
You want an excuse to satisfy your bloodlust. You will find none here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A design flaw that shouldn't be overlooked when buying.
Be relentless!
Remove the SIM card? Oh wait, Apple is working on making that impossible too.
words words
So what is your opinion on HOSTS files?
"Studies have shown that the threat of punishment does not, in fact, stop crime, especially when you fail to address social inequality that produces it."
Social inequality my arse. A huge proportion of crime is white collar such as fraud or hacking or tax evasion or even street violence and is commited by middle class types. So wheres the inequality my friend? Your argument is just the standard issue left wing nonsense trotted out to explain why their liberal prison policies don't work.
"You want an excuse to satisfy your bloodlust. You will find none here."
There we go , hyperbole again. Its not about bloodlust, its about justice for the victims. Something sorry little bleeding heart hand wringers like you have no concept of.
Which citizen?
I read TFA on Google Translate, and while the resulting English was a mess, it is clear that the article is about measuring traffic flow from cell phone signals, a thing that has been tried here in the U.S. No mention was made of whether they intend to anonymize the data. In the U.S. project that I read about, there was some amount of concern raised about privacy, even though the article I read made clear that there would be anonymization.
I'm not saying that the Chinese government wouldn't use cell phones to track and control the movements of people, but as others have already pointed out, that's an accompanying risk of the technology. But in this case, I think the Chinese gov't bashing isn't appropriate.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
LOLWUT? You are a idiot.
Here in Texas, this is part of how we get the metrics of our highway usage. Toll tags make up the other half, and I'd expect that license plate recognition has part of the share as well. I wouldn't be surprised that China is doing something else with these. But here, TxDOT uses these as nothing more than a unique identifier. None of the data is saved in the long term, if it were, it would be subject to open records requests, and everyone could find out that their baby mama is driving to Dallas every weekend to go see her sancho. But it is amazingly accurate, and has helped us build roads in the places that need it most, even when we're all frakking broke. China is *the* leader in transportation infrastructure, like it or not. We have so many other reasons to look down on them, and everyone is shocked and awed any time they're mentioned. This is not one of those times, this time they're using technology for the greater good, which is how it should be used in the first place. Btw, this post is biased from the very first word.
"Studies have shown that the threat of punishment does not, in fact, stop crime, especially when you fail to address social inequality that produces it."
Social inequality my arse. A huge proportion of crime is white collar such as fraud or hacking or tax evasion or even street violence and is commited by middle class types.
So now we're talking about white collar crime?
There we go , hyperbole again. Its not about bloodlust, its about justice for the victims.
Justice is subjective. Killing helps no one.
Something sorry little bleeding heart hand wringers like you have no concept of.
When you have to resort to Ad Hominem then it's clear you have no argument worth making. Thanks!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A design flaw that shouldn't be overlooked when buying.
Comrade! You won't buy an iPhone because you can't remove the battery to thwart surveillance activities?
Please to come this way.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"So now we're talking about white collar crime?"
You were talking about the threat of punishment. You didn't limit it to murder. And was OJ Simpson poor (we know he's guilty)? What about those rich boy terrorists?
"Justice is subjective."
Of course its subjective , its not a law of physics, its a human desire. And if the victims family wants the death penalty for a murder they should get it.
"Killing helps no one."
Really? Got anything to back that up with or are you just resorting to vague handwaving now?
"When you have to resort to Ad Hominem then it's clear you have no argument worth making. Thanks!"
Truth hurts?
Of course its subjective , its not a law of physics, its a human desire. And if the victims family wants the death penalty for a murder they should get it.
I feel victimized for having to listen to your nonsense, and I think you should get the death penalty for spouting it. If I want you to have the death penalty, you should get it. My argument is every bit as rational as yours since nothing gets better if you murder a murderer.
"Killing helps no one."
Really? Got anything to back that up with or are you just resorting to vague handwaving now?
Since there is no evidence that killing helps anyone, but there is plenty of evidence that killing is harmful, I think you're the one with the burden of proof.
"When you have to resort to Ad Hominem then it's clear you have no argument worth making. Thanks!"
Truth hurts?
Who's hurt? I'm only filled with pity for you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No problem, just stick it in a metal baggy. Real engineers don't buy toys they can't take apart.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
so if soemone needs the police to clear / re-route some traffic, all you need to do
is dump 100 mobile phones into the backseat:"congestion approaching!"
What makes this one citizen so important that he/she gets the whole city's attention? It's some mega-celebrity right?
Oh, the apostrophe's supposed to be after the s
'Real' engineers won't be deterred by a custom screw head.
It was designed by an engineer, it's not like it's alien technology we couldn't even begin to figure out how to get into.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Tyranny 2.0, it's about the syn(against man)ergy.
As part of the implementation of the EU data retention direcitve, the Swedish government wants to go even further and require operators to retain the location of every phone at the beginning and end of a call.
And he was a better politician than logician.
Taking an eye for an eye is a reference to the ancient law (found in the Old Testament and Hammurabi's code) that the offense of putting out another person's eye is to be punished by having the offender's eye put out. It's an important point to notice that no retaliation is due for the punishment; it's explicitly not like a vendetta.
Thus, if no one puts out anyone's eye, no eyes are lost. For each person who puts out an eye, one additional eye is lost. Even assuming no deterrent effect (which is of course the whole point), only twice as many eyes will be lost under "an eye for an eye" than under some less harsh regime. Since we can see that very few eyes -- far less than half -- are put out under the current less-harsh regime, we can tell that instituting "an eye for an eye" will in fact NOT leave everyone blind.
The same goes for "a life for a life". There are something like 16,000 crimes classed as "murder and non-negligent homicide" each year in the US. Assuming these are all committed by different people, and no deterrent effect, only 16,000 more people would die if each murderer were to be killed.
Get a Google Voice number and trade phones with strangers on a regular basis.
"I feel victimized for having to listen to your nonsense, and I think you should get the death penalty for spouting it. If I want you to have the death penalty, you should get it. My argument is every bit as rational as yours since nothing gets better if you murder a murderer."
Oh dear, getting a bit silly and desperate now arn't we. The punishment has to fit the crime.
"Since there is no evidence that killing helps anyone,"
Well it prevents reoffending, it gives closure to the victims relatives and it means the state doesn't have to waste money keeping someone in prison for decades. Other than that , sure , it doesn't help anyone.
"but there is plenty of evidence that killing is harmful"
Cite.
"Who's hurt? I'm only filled with pity for you."
Well let me tell you, the feelings mutual.
...you're very, very naive.
Oh dear, getting a bit silly and desperate now arn't we. The punishment has to fit the crime.
And I simply don't feel that the punishment of murder fits any crime. Killing someone just lets them off the hook. They don't suffer like survivors suffer. Meanwhile, the dead do not suffer. It's not about the dead (the crime) but about the living (revenge) and while punishment may be appropriate, a society of revenge quickly ends up with no members.
"but there is plenty of evidence that killing is harmful"
Cite.
Are you serious? Go kill yourself, then try to make that comment again.
"Who's hurt? I'm only filled with pity for you."
Well let me tell you, the feelings mutual.
What will you tell me about mutual feelings?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Killing someone just lets them off the hook. They don't suffer like survivors suffer. Meanwhile, the dead do not suffer."
Thats a valid point of view , but I think losing your life is worse than spending time behind bars unless the prison includes torture as part of its daily regime and I don't think anyone would advocate that.
"Are you serious? Go kill yourself, then try to make that comment again."
I assumed you meant harmful to society. Of course its harmful for the person who's executed, thats the whole point.
Thats a valid point of view , but I think losing your life is worse than spending time behind bars unless the prison includes torture as part of its daily regime and I don't think anyone would advocate that.
Prison in the USA (or many other nations) is a neverending regime of torture.
"Are you serious? Go kill yourself, then try to make that comment again."
I assumed you meant harmful to society. Of course its harmful for the person who's executed, thats the whole point.
Right, your whole point is to follow harm with more harm. That person could potentially be useful to society if we actually tried to help them instead of putting them into the rape box.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Prison in the USA (or many other nations) is a neverending regime of torture"
Yeah , whatever...
"That person could potentially be useful to society if we actually tried to help them instead of putting them into the rape box."
There are plenty of unemployed who could be useful to society. We don't need to involve prisoners who deserve punishment. And don't start wittering on about rehabilitation, that comes after the punishment.
"Prison in the USA (or many other nations) is a neverending regime of torture"
Yeah , whatever...
That's seriously your response? "Yeah, whatever"?
There are plenty of unemployed who could be useful to society. We don't need to involve prisoners who deserve punishment.
You talk a lot about what people deserve, but that is totally subjective once again. You feel qualified to determine what people deserve. I think you are not.
And don't start wittering on about rehabilitation, that comes after the punishment.
Again, punishment helps nobody, throwing people in prison just creates hardened criminals, this has been shown again and again. Killing people helps nobody either. So you want to do things which help nobody. In our system it costs more to kill someone than it does to incarcerate them for life anyway. Clearly the problem is the system whether you want to kill people or not.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"