Very disturbing...

posted by The Vidiot @ 9:23 AM Permalink

Read this article. It'll make you clutch your cell phone and never let it out of your sight. Or throw it out entirely.

Excerpt; For the past week I've been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I'm going to tell you how I did it.

He doesn't mention the service he used, but here it is.

Excerpt: Forget those piddly wiretaps. The next frontier in warrant-free surveillance is upon us, and it's open to everyone. A UK service called World Tracker apparently uses cell tower data (or GPS, when available) to track the location of just about any GSM cellphone. Just enter the number you want to track into the service's handy Google Maps-based interface, and you'll be able to zoom in on the device's location, with accuracy somewhere between 50 and 500 meters. The first time you try to track a phone, a text message is sent to the owner, who must reply in order to enable tracking (we'll leave it to you to figure out how to work around this if you need to track a spouse, kid or employee). The service is currently compatible with O2, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile in the UK, and has plans to expand to other markets including Germany, Spain, Norway and the US. If, that is, privacy advocates don't shut it down first.

From the World Tracker Website:

Benefits
>>Locate your company mobiles at any time
>>Utilise your fleet more effectively
>>Provide additional safety to lone workers
>>Recover your lost or misplaced mobile

Oh, and they're a "Microsoft Certified Partner". Bill Gates. I'm not surprised.

Between that and the fact that your cell phone records can be bought and sold at anyone's whim, I just don't want to carry it around with me anymore.