Yes, we can -- if you are carrying a cellphone!
"Privacy Lost: These Phones Can Find You" by LAURA M. HOLSON
Two new questions arise, courtesy of the latest advancement in cellphone technology: Do you want your friends, family, or colleagues to know where you are at any given time? And do you want to know where they are?
[And the third question: Do you want your GOVERNMENT to know?]
Obvious benefits come to mind. Parents can take advantage of the Global Positioning System chips embedded in many cellphones to track the whereabouts of their phone-toting children.
And for teenagers and 20-somethings, who are fond of sharing their comings and goings on the Internet, youth-oriented services like Loopt and Buddy Beacon are a natural next step.
Sam Altman, the 22-year-old co-founder of Loopt, said he came up with the idea in early 2005 when he walked out of a lecture hall at Stanford:
“Two hundred students all pulled out their cellphones, called someone and said, ‘Where are you?’ People want to connect.”
[And the government wants to know whose connecting!]
But such services point to a new truth of modern life: If G.P.S. made it harder to get lost, new cellphone services are now making it harder to hide.
[Pssssssuu! There it goes, out the window!]
Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation based in San Francisco:
“There are massive changes going on in society, particularly among young people who feel comfortable sharing information in a digital society. We seem to be getting into a period where people are closely watching each other. There are privacy risks we haven’t begun to grapple with.”
[SOME of us have, sir! Get off the fuck-stick merry-go-round, sir!]
But the practical applications outweigh the worries for some converts.
[Especially shit-eating Amurkns!]
Kyna Fong, a 24-year-old Stanford graduate student, uses Loopt, offered by Sprint Nextel. For $2.99 a month, she can see the location of friends who also have the service, represented by dots on a map on her phone, with labels identifying their names. They can also see where she is.
[And you have to PAY for it, too!?! Pfffffttttt!
Welcome to the TOTAL SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY and the FASCIST ECONOMY, readers!]
One night last summer she noticed on Loopt that friends she was meeting for dinner were 40 miles away, and would be late. Instead of waiting, Ms. Fong arranged her schedule to arrive when they did. “People don’t have to ask ‘Where are you?’” she said.
[Why would they need to?
They can just call the government, and they can check the records the telecoms gave them.
You don't need to bother your friends, girl!
Of course, if the GOVERNMENT asks where you were, you'd better tell, right?]
Ms. Fong can control whom she shares the service with, and if at any point she wants privacy, Ms. Fong can block access. Some people are not invited to join — like her mother.
[Government access, or... ?]
“I don’t know if I’d want my mom knowing where I was all the time.”
[But you don't mind the government knowing if you cut a fart, 'ey?]
Some situations are not so clear-cut. What if a spouse wants some time alone and turns off the service? Why on earth, their better half may ask, are they doing that?
What if a boss asks an employee to use the service?
[Tell him no! Did he pay for it? Jesus!! Sig Heil, hey!
And what if the government is tracking your every move?
Hi, gov't! :-(
So far, the market for social-mapping is nascent — users number in the hundreds of thousands, industry experts estimate.
But almost 55 percent of all mobile phones sold today in the United States have the technology that makes such friend-and- family-tracking services possible, according to Current Analysis, which follows trends in technology.
[Yup, the chip is ALREADY IN THERE -- just as the government likes!]
So far, it is most popular, industry executives say, among the college set.
[Sorry, but STOO-PID FUCKING SNOT NOSES!!!!
Hey, kids!
Think the service will work FROM IRAQ?]
But others have found different uses. Mr. Altman said one customer bought it to keep track of a parent with Alzheimer’s. Helio, a mobile phone service provider that offers Buddy Beacon, said some small-business owners use it to track employees.
[All for the good, though, right?
So if you are TAKING a dump, is the boss gonna ring ya?
Un-fucking-believable!!!!
I'm SICK of this INVASIVE TOTALITARIANISM, readers!!!!]
Consumers can turn off their service, making them invisible to people in their social-mapping network. Still, the G.P.S. service embedded in the phone means that your whereabouts are not a complete mystery.
[Especially to the GOVERNMENT, I'll bet!!!
:-(
Charles S. Golvin, a wireless analyst at Forrester Research:
“There is a Big Brother component. The thinking goes that if my friends can find me, the telephone company knows my location all the time, too.”
[NO SHIT!!!!
And notice the elephant in the room that the shitty Times won't mention, but which I will: the GOVERNMENT!!!!]
Phone companies say they are aware of the potential problems such services could cause.
If a friend-finding service is viewed as too intrusive, said Mark Collins, vice president for consumer data at AT&T’s wireless unit, “that is a negative for us.” Loopt and similar services say they do not keep electronic records of people’s whereabouts.
[No, they HAND THEM OVER to the N.S.A.!!!!]
Mr. Altman of Loopt said that to protect better against unwelcome prying by, say, a former friend, Loopt users are sent text messages at random times, asking if they recognize a certain friend. If not, that person’s viewing ability is disabled.
Clay Harris, a 25-year-old freelance marketing executive in Memphis, says he uses Helio’s Buddy Beacon mostly to keep in touch with his friend Gregory Lotz. One night when Mr. Lotz was returning from a trip, Mr. Harris was happy to see his friend show up unannounced at a bar where he and some other friends had gathered.
Mr. Harris: “He had tried to reach me, but I didn’t hear my phone ring. He just showed up and I thought, ‘Wow, this is great.’”
[Yeah, this is GREAT!
How many drinks had you had at that point, mush-brain?]
He would never think to block Mr. Lotz, but he would think twice before inviting a girlfriend into his social-mapping network.
“Most definitely a girl would ask and wonder why I was blocking her.”
['Course, you wouldn't wonder that if someone was BLOCKING YOU, right, drunkard?]
