A little-appreciated downside of the technology revolution is that, mainly without thinking about it, we have given up "locational privacy." Even in low-tech days, our movements were not entirely private. The desk attendant at my gym might have recalled seeing me, or my colleagues might have remembered when I arrived. Now the information is collected automatically and often stored indefinitely.A Casualty of the Technology Revolution: 'Locational Privacy' (New York Times via Mitch Kapor)Privacy advocates are rightly concerned. Corporations and the government can keep track of what political meetings people attend, what bars and clubs they go to, whose homes they visit. It is the fact that people's locations are being recorded "pervasively, silently, and cheaply that we're worried about," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a recent report.
People's cellphones and E-ZPasses are increasingly being used against them in court. If your phone is on, even if you are not on a call, you may be able to be found (and perhaps picked up) at any hour of the day or night. As disturbing as it is to have your private data breached, it is worse to think that your physical location might fall into the hands of people who mean you harm.
The death of "locational privacy"
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Whew, what a relief. Now when people call for my wife, I won't have to tell them she's in the bathroom. They'll already know. No more getting in trouble for divulging such a secret.
Privacy died a long time ago, it's time to stop cuddling by the dead corpse.
For those who would like to track me down, my location is updated automatically at http://rishel.org/location
On the privacy side, I don't own a cell phone. On the no-privacy side, it's patently obvious that I never leave the house.
Rule #3 - If you can be found, you can be controlled.
I carry no tracking devices, do my mercantile exchanges with cash, and nearly always use a false name when asked for one. I maintain 40 to 50 aliases at any given time.
Yet, the US government has always found me whenever whenever they have wanted something from me.
The DOD had the FBI tracking me for a while after I stopped being willing to work on nuclear missile launch systems, but that ends after five years. Or at least that's what they told me during debriefing.
Okay, so they can find us now. So what? We're still as irrelevant as ever.
Or on the flip side:
Perhaps I'm kidnapped, the authorities could locate me via my cellphone which has location via GPS turned on....
Or if I was cheating on my wife they would know where I'm at if I forgot to turn it off per se...
Yeah up sides and downsides...
I know someone is going to come in here and say that you have no expectation of privacy in a public place. It's always been the case that anyone can follow you around and keep a log of your whereabouts and actions... but there's a world of difference between the remote possibility of being spied upon and the creation of an immutable trail of every place you go and every thing you do. Information that can theoretically be gathered and information that's constantly logged, trivially accessed, and totally out of your control are two fundamentally different things.
One of the great things about modern society is the ability to operate with a sort of de-facto anonymity. It's liberating. I can do things without fear of being shamed, without the fear that a dedicated adversary can find out, ten years down the line, that I took the bus to the colorful part of town and purchased some drinks at a gay bar. (It'd be nice if we lived in a world where nobody gave a fuck about that sort of thing, but we're not there yet. Not even close.)
I have a right to come and go without anybody knowing about it. I have a right to conduct my life free of the nagging voice that forces me to temper my every action for fear of it one day coming back to hurt me. I have a right to control what information is gathered about me. Just because it's not a right specifically enumerated in the law doesn't mean I don't have it. Nor is it any less of a right just because it's routinely violated.
I don't want to live in a panopticon.
Just today a local paper in a near by town of about 100,000 people ran a story about newly installed high res video cameras that are now monitoring folks on city buses. A camera in each bus has a view out the door, at the driver and into the main part of the bus. The article stated that the cameras will be watching for illegal activity, such as tagging, and also profanity.
Hmmm, this means that people on public transport in taht town are more surveilled than those who have their own cars.
Just today a local paper in a near by town of about 100,000 people ran a story about newly installed high res video cameras that are now monitoring folks on city buses. A camera in each bus has a view out the door, at the driver and into the main part of the bus. The article stated that the cameras will be watching for illegal activity, such as tagging, and also profanity.
Hmmm, this means that people on public transport in that town are more surveilled than those who have their own cars.
I decide to rethink using any location based services after foursquare started posting check-ins that were marked as "private" onto my Twitter account.
@10 : Profanity? Are you shitting me? What the fuck is wrong with people...
doctor popular - you use Twitter AND value your privacy? Not incongruous actions I suppose, but can you really simultaneously want people to know, yet not to know, what you're up to?
Is it just me or are a lot of the people who are worried about electronic privacy also the ones who use Twitter to tell the world what they're up to every hour of the day?
Ah, MDH beat me to the point.
#13-
That's just it- people are addicted to technology and, for all their bitching about rights and freedoms, aren't willing to accept the basic reality of what technology means for society. It won't be long until there literally will be no privacy anywhere, including our own minds- and then what? But how many people would willingly give up their twittering and their email and truly unplug from the "matrix"? Almost none. They love their gadgets and their lifestyle too much.
Me, the minute the bullshit gets to be too much to bear, I'll go live anonymously in India or Africa and figure out something to do there with my family. I'm not anti-technology, and I use computers in everything I do, almost. But it's important to keep a healthy perspective on things- the important part of living doesn't reside in RAM. My happiest times of life have been living without all my modern shit.
Of course, if even India and Africa aren't remote enough to be safe, we're all screwed...
MDH and BrainSpore,
Surely, only telling Twitter what you want to lets you choose the value of your privacy and use the service too.
I might use it to let customers know how far along I am on a particular project, without telling them what I had for lunch, or where I go to socialize.
@ Arkizzle
If you want a 19th-century level of privacy all you have to do is adopt a 19th-century lifestyle. Almost all privacy losses come from choosing to partake of some modern convenience, like getting a license to drive a car or using a credit card. There are exceptions, but for the most part you can still drop off the radar if you feel like going Kaczynski.
Sorry, that was meant as a general observation and not a dig at Arkizzle. You have a valid point about Twitter, of course.
Just wait until the EZ pass folks start using the device to calculate your speed from point A to point B.
And then mail you a speeding ticket or just add a speeding fine to your EZ pass account.
The fine folks at OnStar can already throttle back your car or even turn it off if requested by the authorities. Privacy? That was lost years ago. Now comes the behavioral control.
I might use it to let customers know how far along I am on a particular project, without telling them what I had for lunch, or where I go to socialize.
And to the extent you have two personalities that you're projecting, it's fine. I find it incongruous and somewhat schizophrenic*, no reason you should though. And no Arkizzle, I'm not calling you names, but you know that.
* - there may be a better word... duplicitous?
I'd like to know how to access this stuff. I've had my phone stolen twice and it would be really useful to be able to track it. I know it's possible; I'd just like it to feed to a website or something.
Old news, really: these computers are spying devices, as well as other things.
http://news.cnet.com/NSA-granted-Net-location-tracking-patent/2100-7348_3-5875953.html
Of course I'm here, but where are you?
Wait..
Neither of you think Twitter has any value beyond giving out Too Much Information?
And how on Earth is it duplicitous for a service to have a separate business use and a personal use? Or to use information broadcasting tools in a business-like manner (or restricted personal one), without also giving out geo-locateable/sensitive/personal info?
I'm genuinely puzzled guys. I would have thought using a tool for a purpose is all that mattered, not using it as it is used by others (likely with different motivations).
___
Both: we're all friends here, I don't feel attacked at all :)
i notice that the many in the comments section in the Cnet article linked above point out that the NSA thing is not foolproof...judging from the look of that comment section, neither is administering a comment section (at least for Cnet).
Well well: it looks like the business of fooling the NSA's geo-locate abilities may be a little more difficult than some thought:
http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/80964/sigcomm09.pdf
thanx to cryptome for link.
And this is new news, not like that NSA patent, linked above.
Arkizzle: I'm not saying Twitter's only purpose is to share TMI. I was just noting that there appears to be a large overlap between the people who worry about machines tracking what they are up to and the people who go out of their way to tell the world what they're up to.
Mark Temporis,
www.ihoundsoftware.com
Brain, that is very probably true :)
I don't use Twitter myself, (I joined up to see what it was about, but never really used it after that).
I'm not really concerned about phishing or employment issues, I just don't want anyone (everyone?) knowing what I'm at. I'd rather tell, or not tell, who I want, when I want.
But as I say, I can definitely see uses for it beyond TMI. I also understand people disliking being tracked in an automated way, on one hand, and freely revealing whatever they choose on Twitter.
#6 posted by mdh:
Okay, so they can find us now. So what? We're still as irrelevant as ever.
The problem is that if you ever become relevant, you can now be squashed with almost no cost or effort.
a fashionable clothing line that features Faraday cage pockets.
The problem is that if you ever become relevant, you can now be squashed with almost no cost or effort.
I don't think that is more true today than 50 or 500 or 5,000 years ago.
mdh #10 posted- "you use Twitter AND value your privacy? Not incongruous actions I suppose, but can you really simultaneously want people to know, yet not to know, what you're up to?"
I don't see any correlation. If I share links other Twitter users, I'm not entitled to any privacy? Twitter doesn't force you to type your location in case that's what you are thinking.
My point was much in line with Brain re: overlap, with an overstated dis-appreciation for having to have separate work / personal life-spaces.
Now we're just making up things to mourn the passing of.
How about putting out a little appreciation for all the kick ass Science Fiction stuff we're living with every day? Microwaves, laptops, the Internet, gene therapy, spf 45 sun block. Hell yeah. Considering my father used to lead horses around to grow food, chop down trees to stay warm and was lucky to be literate, I'll take it.
Little late to the gate on this one, aren't we? I already have to report the value of major assets to the government (taxes), pretty much any other financial information goes there too (IRS, and audits if they want 'em), my insurance company knows everything medical about me (and a single-payer insurance plan would give that data to the government, too), my credit card records are known to my credit card company and are subpoenable if the government wanted 'em. Ditto phone records.
So while yes, I'd be really in favor of strong protections for locational privacy, I also have to admit it's a last few drops dribbling into an already overfull bucket of information about me that's out there.
I'm not worried about action directed at me, individually. I've seen too many VIPs who either don't understand basic statistics & analysis, or are pressured into ignoring their better judgment. That leads to expensive operations with no hope of actually identifying the malefactors they supposedly target. Those expenditures must be justified.
I think the privacy scare tactics are analogous to the kidnapping scare tactics. "Stranger Danger" is way overplayed as most kidnappings/crimes against children are by people they know. Similarly I think any privacy issues aren't going to be large big brother issues as much as the existing networks of people remembering seeing you etc. If you want to be "location anonymous" don't tell your family where you are traveling etc first before worrying about your electronic device anonymity
It's all optional... until there's a law. Wait for it.
so, will the wealthy employ servants to mask their location by mass impersonation?