Imran (over at Mobile Messaging 2.0) pointed to an interesting blog post this weekend, about the social impact that location based applications can have. Now that networks (such asGyPSii, that Steve is currently looking at) are more connected via social features and an always-on, always reporting attitude, Jan Chipcase asks if is this a step too far?
Read on in the full article.
I will never used any application,that is location based.
After all we are living in a police state.
Thanks for the link to that very interesting blog. Great essay by Jan, well worth reading. Makes a change from the usual totally positive slant on location based services, which I find mildly irritating.
I dunno... it's quite a short and unspecific article.
It's a bit like those articles some UK newspaper columnists wrote during the total eclipse that happened across Europe in 1999, they talked about "experiencing a world without the sun". Many cynics responded by pointing out that happens every night. 😉
In a similar vein, we've had a kind of pin-point precision to all our communication technologies since they were invented. You cannot use any method of communication without giving out your or your recipient's physical location.
- When you access the internet you're giving out your IP address, which your ISP can trace to your physical address (ie the house you live in). If you post on a message board your IP address will be visible to moderators, and who knows what they can do with that. There are ways to prevent revealing your IP address, but very few people use them, and even fewer are aware that IP addresses exist.
- Anything that accesses a mobile phone mast gives out your rough physical location, that's how assisted GPS tells you where you are without satellites. Simply having a phone switched on tells your phone network where you are at any particular moment, and the more phone masts there are nearby the more precisely they can pinpoint your location.
- Landline phones can be traced instantly nowadays, and the same goes for faxes and telexes.
- Radios aren't much better, there's triangulation.
- Letters? They have the recipient's physical address. The sender could remain anonymous, but that means the recipient may not be able to reply.
There are obviously serious threats, and we've got to be extremely careful who gets hold of our communcations data, but these threats aren't new. Even Elizabeth I of England used to intercept encrypted letters and have them decoded, which happened over 400 years ago.
tzer2
Your point is well taken but then you yourself are admitting that tracing via ip address is kind of pretty geeky.
In the scenario you are mentioning, the person is not making his physical address obvious to anyone. Its for some techie to find out where that person is.
The point here is, social apps which give out your location like nokia chat or gypsii make it obvious. Here the person wishes to let out his/her presence.
Ultimately, for me it looks like a case of individual choice.
Dangerous it is, not for me, but for bill gates or the other billionaires of course!!
For the past week i've been trying to trace out an app that keeps using my data connection without my consent. Was able to isolate it to being a java app. Unfortunately, i have SO many java apps its sicken to start thinking which app's faulty. - very nauseating.
Even with phone's GPS chip switched off manually, i still get this surreal ominous feeling that some creepy figure under a dark hud (with an evil grin) - laughing - is still able to track me as we speak.
The issue of user privacy has been a fiercely debated topic over a long span of years - i doubt it'll ever end. With advances in technology as a whole the way tiers on the net , especially social networks, 'monitor' their users will be of increasing concern.
True, we do give out information when we use all these communication methods - internet, phone, radio, letters, toaster (okay maybe not this, but you do 'use' electricity alot don't you ?!) - but even if the user is forfeiting his/her right to somewhat privacy, he/she still needs certain level of 'control' over that.
If i need to communicate with friends&family on one half of the world, i maynot want the other half knowing what i'm doing.
I do believe there are best practises to using the Net as it pertains to privacy - but nobody's really safe now on the net, now don't you think ?
Although voiding my warranty to physically check out my gps chip isn't really a bad idea too.
I gave up on privacy a long time ago.
- I have a blog.
- I have Twitter.
- I have Jaiku
- I have Facebook
- I have Flickr
- I have Share Ovi
- I have gmail and Google (and look at my search history OH MY OH MY...)
- I have postal mail
- My home alarm has a two-way full duplex phone connected to my monitoring center (are they listening to me?).
- There are even public records of my home mortgage and my mortgage amount
- I shred as much as I can
- I destroy as much as I can
- but gosh darnit, for the life of me, I still can't get geo-tagging on my photos to work for those quick outdoor moments - it just takes too long to track.
- when I don't have a GPS lock, Google mobile maps tells me an area of 1800 sq meters for acccuracy...that's a big area.
Anyway, my rant is - I've given up on privacy a while back. I choose to be public because of the services that are provided to me based on location and preferences. It's neat, it's fun and quite useful. However, I'm still waiting for other people to read my blog and see my pics and to track me on twitter...I'm just not that interesting I guess.
"However, I'm still waiting for other people to read my blog and see my pics and to track me on twitter...I'm just not that interesting I guess."
I guess you've got to give up alot more of your privacy for this then . I'm going to shred all my cookies when i get out of this site. Since learning about, in detail , how people get tracked so easily on the net - i decided to be extra careful. Stay away from popular Social Networks like Facebook and MySpace, Flickr. Maintain tight firewalls, use trusted proxies, and maintain healthy anitvirus updates,security updates and antispyware.
@unregistered
"I will never used any application,that is location based.
After all we are living in a police state."
Do you know as you wrote that comment, the admins and mods of this forum saw your ip address and alot more and can locate where you sent it from. Quiet creepy if they know what colour of the pc you used was.
As mobile user of highly advanced nokia smartphones , we 'need' more control over our privacy. There's all so much that individual security companies can do if users aren't aware and decide to 'post themselves' on the net.
@ Tzer2
"- Anything that accesses a mobile phone mast gives out your rough physical location, that's how assisted GPS tells you where you are without satellites. Simply having a phone switched on tells your phone network where you are at any particular moment, and the more phone masts there are nearby the more precisely they can pinpoint your location"
Thats still 'within a locality' not in the case of a scenario where a girl across the globe in russia can see what i'm typing on the net in nigeria. Still i see your point - but i feel the matter is only going top get worse over the years as technology becomes more advance and precision increases.
Tzer2 wrote:I dunno... it's quite a short and unspecific article.It's a bit like those articles some UK newspaper columnists wrote during the total eclipse that happened across Europe in 1999, they talked about "experiencing a world without the sun". Many cynics responded by pointing out that happens every night. 😉
In a similar vein, we've had a kind of pin-point precision to all our communication technologies since they were invented. You cannot use any method of communication without giving out your or your recipient's physical location.
- When you access the internet you're giving out your IP address, which your ISP can trace to your physical address (ie the house you live in). If you post on a message board your IP address will be visible to moderators, and who knows what they can do with that. There are ways to prevent revealing your IP address, but very few people use them, and even fewer are aware that IP addresses exist.
- Anything that accesses a mobile phone mast gives out your rough physical location, that's how assisted GPS tells you where you are without satellites. Simply having a phone switched on tells your phone network where you are at any particular moment, and the more phone masts there are nearby the more precisely they can pinpoint your location.
- Landline phones can be traced instantly nowadays, and the same goes for faxes and telexes.
- Radios aren't much better, there's triangulation.
- Letters? They have the recipient's physical address. The sender could remain anonymous, but that means the recipient may not be able to reply.
There are obviously serious threats, and we've got to be extremely careful who gets hold of our communcations data, but these threats aren't new. Even Elizabeth I of England used to intercept encrypted letters and have them decoded, which happened over 400 years ago.
while i agree with you that the current world we live in with technology has all these privacy vulnerabilities. yes someone with motivation can use all the above means to find your location. but the intent of this article is talking about the general public. some of these location services make your real-time location available to anyone. so even if you're not a VIP, someone with a grudge, girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, serial nutjob, etc could all find your location.