Sci/Tech Your phone is blabbing your location to anyone who will listen

[FireCat]

Everywhere you go, your phone is sending out signals that can be assembled to form a picture of your movements. You can't turn them off, and companies have begun to pick them up, often without any indication that they're doing so. As this trend develops, smartphones could spell the end of real-world privacy.

"It'll get worse before it gets better," mobile industry expert Chetan Sharma told NBC News. "Unless leaders step up and work on a framework that works for all consumers, it's going keep getting worse and worse until it is unbearable."

That prediction may sound grim, but alarming examples are mounting.

Unique numbers associated with our devices can be harvested and tracked

Your phone is blabbing your location to anyone who will listen

www.nbcnews.com

LOL

 

[Solu9]

Damn I'm glad I don't have a smartphone.

 

[KaerfNomekop]

Damn I'm glad I don't have a smartphone.

I know right.

Nokia ftw!

 

[Solu9]

I know right.

Nokia ftw!

In the picture a Nokia phone is tracked. So I don't know...

 

[camelCase]

Damn I'm glad I don't have a smartphone.

Everyone knows at least one person like this. It's mildly inconvenient but I'm not visiting strip clubs or pimps or anything of the sort so I've nothing embarrassing to hide.

 

[Solu9]

Everyone knows at least one person like this. It's mildly inconvenient but I'm not visiting strip clubs or pimps or anything of the sort so I've nothing embarrassing to hide.

And everyone knows at least one person like this. With the exact same argument "I have nothing to hide".
No, neither do I. But I am not willing to give up more of my privacy just because I have nothing to hide.
It's the principle that matters. If you allow this, they will come up with something like placing cameras in your home. "Security" they will call it.
You still have nothing to hide so that's fine.
Then they will require you to have a tracking device (much like your smartphone), a collar perhaps, with a little camera. Now they can track you and see exactly what you are doing at all times.
But that's fine. You have nothing to hide.

 

[KMilz]

Is it better or worse that this isn't the government's doing? I'm at least as wary of the mega corporations as I am with my government, but I'm not sure which ones I'd rather have spying on me. None, of course, but that doesn't look like an option.

 

[camelCase]

Way to use the slippery slope logic.

 

[Solu9]

Way to use the slippery slope logic.

It's better to anticipate and foresee than to repair.
Besides. The last months should be an indicator for this is a scaling problem.

 

[KaerfNomekop]

In the picture a Nokia phone is tracked. So I don't know...

Doubt there's much to track from a phone that has 4MB of memory and no Bluetooth functions.

 

[FireCat]

And everyone knows at least one person like this. With the exact same argument "I have nothing to hide".
No, neither do I. But I am not willing to give up more of my privacy just because I have nothing to hide.
It's the principle that matters. If you allow this, they will come up with something like placing cameras in your home. "Security" they will call it.
You still have nothing to hide so that's fine.
Then they will require you to have a tracking device (much like your smartphone), a collar perhaps, with a little camera. Now they can track you and see exactly what you are doing at all times.
But that's fine. You have nothing to hide.

Hahaha Damn, That's so true!

 

[camelCase]

FC agrees? That's usually a bad sign.

 

[Solu9]

FC agrees? That's usually a bad sign.

Great argument.

 

[FireCat]

Nah, It's a good sign!

 

[Zakyath]

you're paranoid, smoke too much weed

 

[Solu9]

you're paranoid, smoke too much weed

Again. A good point. (where is that sarcasm button..?)

I would like to see a valid point for this NOT being an issue, beside the really thin "I have nothing to hide" argument.

 

[Accname]

Again. A good point. (where is that sarcasm button..?)

I would like to see a valid point for this NOT being an issue, beside the really thin "I have nothing to hide" argument.

The government needs all of this information to keep us safe from ourself. Without all the money that is generated by selling our personal information to corporations the government cant sustain all the security it had to buy to spy on us in the first place.
Do you want to live in a horrible post apocalyptic wasteland when everything collapses? Yes?

 

[KMilz]

The government needs all of this information to keep us safe from ourself. Without all the money that is generated by selling our personal information to corporations the government cant sustain all the security it had to buy to spy on us in the first place.
Do you want to live in a horrible post apocalyptic wasteland when everything collapses? Yes?

I think we all do in a way, we just want it to be in a way where it's cooler than everything is today and not full of tragedy and suffering. Not no real apocalypse or nothin'.

 

[KaerfNomekop]

Do you want to live in a horrible post apocalyptic wasteland when everything collapses?

Perhaps we're already living in one; we just don't see it because the blinds are never drawn.

 

[Zakyath]

Again. A good point. (where is that sarcasm button..?)

I would like to see a valid point for this NOT being an issue, beside the really thin "I have nothing to hide" argument.

why don't you start with telling us why this IS an issue. there isn't much to argue against as of now.

your principles? what principles? and you can't compare a company tracking your phone with a company putting cameras in your house.