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Moscow To Track Cell-phone Users In 2015 For Traffic Analysis
An anonymous reader links to this story at The Stack (based on this translated report) that "The Moscow authorities will begin using the signal from Muscovites' cell-phones in 2015 to research patterns of traffic and points of congestion, with a view to changes in travel infrastructure including roads, the Moscow metro and bus services. The tracking, which appears to opt all users in unilaterally, promises not to identify individual cell-phone numbers, and will use GSM in most cases, but also GPS in more densely-constructed areas of the old city. The system is already in limited use on the roads, but will be extended to pedestrians and subway users in 2015. The city of 11.5 million people has three main cell providers, all of whom cooperate fully with authorities' request for information. A representative of one, Beeline, said: "We prepare reports that detail where our subscribers work, live, move, and other aspects."
So, does this mean that Russia is finally catching up with the US in terms of monitoring its citizens?
The mind reels.
Papers please, comrade.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Why does your phone have to be on all the time anyway?
Uhm, in order to receive calls???
Uhm, in order to receive calls???
Such an antiquated concept...
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
Such an antiquated concept...
True. I should have written "Uhm, in order to receive SnapChats?" ;-)
Obligatory Yakov Smirnoff reference.
Seriously. I am OK that they are using data for this.
At this moment there is no opt-out, besides not having a cellphone, so why not use it for something else.
That does not mean I agree with the spying.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Yes, gathering anonymous data, (good luck with that) can be a very helpful and cheap way of gathering real-time data on traffic flows. However, as anyone who spent some time in Moscow can attest, the traffic is basically in gridlock everywhere most of the time, with the worst pinch points being damn obvious to anyone...
I had wondered if it was supposed to be GRPS, and somebody didn't know what that was and shortened it to GPS assuming it must be a typo or something.
(If the phone was off, there would be no music coming from the stereo. Did you mean "airplane mode"?)
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
... Russia can do whatever it wants to do.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
>all of whom cooperate fully with authorities' request for information.
You want what? Hahahahahaha. *chambers round* Uhhh...sure. No problem. Here ya go.
I'm a satanic clam.
I think the point was if you need to be able to receive calls at all times. I don't. Especially when I know that whenever my phone is on, I am being tracked. Why don't they just mandate ankle monitors for all citizens anyway?
Given how hard a US citizen would be scrutinized if they chose to not ever carry a cell phone or have an email address, I'd say it IS pretty much mandated. You'll likely end up with your own FBI file otherwise.
However, that being said, I don't see the purpose of you even owning a phone if you're concerned about being tracked. It's going to become more and more impossible (or illegal) to own a dumb phone anymore, so even powering on a smartphone to make a call will likely result in a mass data dump from your phone to the various providers of crapware installed under the 172 EULAs you auto-agreed to when you broke the shrink-wrap.
A shame that we fully expect this data to be used to track us personally (because, let's face it, it probably will). This kind of data would be a huge value to civil engineers and planners who design the roads and target maintenance, improvements, and new routes. It would cost in the tens of millions of dollars to collect just a fraction of this using traditional methods, and yet the data could be had for less than a 1/10 of that and be far, far more complete.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
its the rest of the folks that are wacko
for some folks if they can't contact you RIGHT THIS MOMENT they assume you are "dead in a ditch" somewhere.
I have a rule that if you are not on the following list i will not answer the phone
1 Did you give birth to me?
2 Do you currently employ me?
3 are you otherwise going to be giving me some sort of resource?
4 picking me up for something?
5 treating me for something?
6 arranging some sort of service?
the funny thing is most of those folks actually contact me by other means anyway.
Why? Since when was it required by law that I must have my phone in a state that anyone can call me AND I MUST ANSWER THEM?
I have a cell phone, and it is turned off 95% of the time. I turn it on when I need to make a call, it has a message service if someone needs to let me know something.
I don't understand this need to be contactable 24 hours a day as if life itself depends on it.
I grew up without a cell phone and did not die, I own a cell phone and turn it off and still I am alive. Why do most people feel the need to have a contact 24 hours a day? Are they that scared to just think for themselves.
Given the general "geek" feel on this particular forum, surely you must understand that your position on this is a rather foreign concept to those who livelihood might in fact depend on them being connected 24 hours a day. And quite often it has nothing to do with thinking for themselves. (I blame a shitty attitude towards work/life balance, and an overall sickening addiction to build monitoring devices for every damn thing in the universe, as if your fridge really needs it's own Twitter handle)
Feel fortunate you are not one of them, but I would question why you even own a cell phone. Or email address. Or Internet service. The overall paranoia around being tracked physically, well you might as well just learn to accept that shit. If it's not a cell phone today it's going to be a drone tomorrow. Understand and accept the fact that thanks to the "War on Terror", the monitoring of human movements will be all but mandatory.
And yeah, I remember a life well before internet, cell phones, and "social" media. Shit happens. Things change.
I don't understand this need to be contactable 24 hours a day as if life itself depends on it.
If you need me, you can contact my staff. If it's important, they'll put the call through or forward the message. People who are 'always on' tend to be lower on the social or organizational totem pole. People who will catch hell if they don't pick up NOW.
Have gnu, will travel.
Have gnu, will travel.
Seriously, any Muscovites having problems w/ this and suspecting it to be anything other than traffic analysis, move. You could get really far from Putin by relocating to places like Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, et al. Which may take a while to get that traffic analysis. Not to mention - all the problems that Moscow is famous for - you get to leave that behind
After all, it's not like your country is short on real estate: if anything, Siberia is badly underpopulated. So move there, and you'd probably find prices a fraction of what it is in Moscow.
It's being tracked even if it is off. Only way to NOT be tracked is to remove the battery.
This is pretty much just a mandatory opt-in to Waze. It's exactly what Waze does to route you.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
Leave indeed.
Achille Talon
Hop!
If you need me, you can contact my staff. If it's important, they'll put the call through or forward the message. People who are 'always on' tend to be lower on the social or organizational totem pole. People who will catch hell if they don't pick up NOW.
You have personal staff that your family members are supposed to call if they need to talk to you? I think it's a pretty safe assumption that the vast majority of people are not as rich as you are.
It's going to become more and more impossible (or illegal) to own a dumb phone anymore
What do you mean? How will owning a dumbphone tomorrow be any harder or more impossible/illegal than it was yesterday?
It's going to become more and more impossible (or illegal) to own a dumb phone anymore
What do you mean? How will owning a dumbphone tomorrow be any harder or more impossible/illegal than it was yesterday?
Have you visited a phone store lately?
Finding a true dumbphone these days is about as easy as finding sports shoes without looking like a neon smurf puked all over them. Offerings have changed just a bit, and even my parents cheap-ass pre-paid phone is a smartphone.
As providers realize the potential revenue streams related to smartphones, the option of even offering a dumbphone option becomes more foreign to every provider.
In other words, you don't have much of a social life.
We've been tracking your cell phones for years now but we're going to start using the data for traffic analysis this year.
They want their near-real-time traffic-congestion reports back.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In Soviet Moscow the police track YOU!
just like they do here.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Of course you can get basic phones, that is exactly what one of my sight impaired kids uses, smartphones are of no use to him.
Link, proof? I call BS on this.