[Reader-list] Identification Experiments II

Menso Heus menso at r4k.net
Tue Jun 5 12:12:55 IST 2001 

Hi,

I would just like to point out that the GPS system works in a one way style,
meaning that the satellites continuously broadcast their locations and the
receivers pick these signals up and process them to give you your location.
No information is being sent back to the satellite and neither can a satellite
figure out who's picking up it's signal. In order to achieve something like that
there will need to be a second system that broadcasts the location back to some
other satellites (or uses the GSM network) so that Mercedes for example can know
where the car is.

Reason I'm trying to explain this is because it's not done in the article itself
which could give people the impression that GPS broadcasts information back which 
it does not.

On http://www.howstuffworks.com/gps1.htm you can learn more about how GPS pinpoints
by triangulating between three satellites (and uses four to determine time).

If you're really worried about surveillance technology then keep in mind that if you
carry a GSM phone the triangulating trick can be used by the telco to determine
your position up to 250 square meters and that each phone is uniquely identifiable
by it's IMEI number (International Mobile Equipment Identity Number) which is
always linked to your name when you get a subscription.
Don't think you're safe if you've got a prepaid phone which didn't require any 
registration though: traffic analysis can still say who you are!

If you want to know the IMEI number of your GSM phone, dial *#06#

Traffic analysis means looking at who is communicating with who. For example:
if my unregistered prepaid phone starts calling my parents every two days and
their phone starts calling me it means there is a relationship between those
too and by looking at what other numbers are being called and the frequency
you can deduct who is using the phone. Sneaky stuff, aye?
Since GSM communication works in cell based blocks you can easily figure out who's
hanging out with who as well. Locate one phone and then query the GSM-broadcasting
pole for all the other phones in that cell. Do this regularly and patterns occur.

Menso

On Mon, Jun 04, 2001 at 02:04:51PM -0000, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote:
> 
> 
> Apropos of Jeebesh's last posting on the Prisoner Tracking Systems being 
> developed at a prison near Hyderabad - read this short essay by Cynthia West, 
> author of "Techno-Human Mesh" which has appeared in  Computer Professionals 
> for Social Responsibility (CPSR) newsletter, Volume 18, Number 2
> (http://www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2000/Spring2000/west.html
> )
> 
> cheers (?)
> 
> Shuddha
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Safety, Security and Surveillance 
>  by Cynthia K. West, Ph.D.
> 
> West at coastside.net
> http://www.cynthiawest.com  
> 
> A fellow digerati [1] member tells me she and her husband have purchased the 
> new Mercedes station wagon to accommodate their growing family. Of course, 
> one of Mercedes' marketing pitches is the ability to transport one's family 
> safely, securely and in style. Elsie chirps, "The Mercedes also comes with a 
> GPS (global positioning system) which is great. If I need to know how to get 
> somewhere, I just check the GPS. And if I'm still lost, I can call Mercedes 
> from the installed mobile phone and they, knowing my position exactly, will 
> talk me through the directions or stay on the phone until I get there." She 
> continues, "Plus, a nice feature is that Dan can call Mercedes and locate me 
> in case of emergency." I nod understanding, but not necessarily agreeing. 
> 
> This example displays just how common surveillance has become in the western 
> world. In the case of surveillance cameras and GPS technology, we have turned 
> public spaces into superpanopticons, or systems which are designed to shape 
> and affect behavior as if one is under constant watch. The trade off for such 
> public monitoring is supposed to be some sense of increased, or perhaps just 
> maintained, safety and security. 
> 
> These technologies are not innocent. For instance, the GPS has a history 
> embedded in the military-industrial complex. One of its original 
> applications, with respect to interaction with human subjects, was to track 
> military personnel in the field. Soldiers wear a belted unit that 
> communicates with the satellites and the GPS, letting those outside the 
> combat zone know of the soldiers' whereabouts. 
> 
> One step toward commercialization of the GPS was in the area of criminal 
> justice, or tracking paroled prisoners. Such is the application marketed by 
> ProTech Monitoring Inc. in Florida. [2] ProTech offers a receiving/tracking 
> unit that a parolee (mostly sexual offenders) wear in a fanny pack along with 
> a non-detachable ankle bracelet. The technology is in constant communication 
> with the satellite and GPS. The GPS sends information bout his or her 
> whereabouts to a monitoring center. The monitoring center, in turn, contacts 
> the police, the parole officer and the victim of each parolee, should the 
> parolee outstep his designated geographical boundaries. 
> 
> There is a slippery slope of such technologies toward general consumer usage. 
> For example, ProTech encourages the victims to also wear a corresponding unit 
> to assure her or his safety. The argument is as follows: the monitoring 
> center can know where the two individuals are with respect to each other and 
> notify the victim more rapidly. The specious marketing message begs the 
> question: Just who is the criminal here? 
> 
> In Techno-Human Mesh, I argue that it is not long before the GPS is used to 
> track general populations. Just as the book went to into production, CNN.com 
> featured Florida-based Applied Digital Solutions, a company promoting the use 
> of a miniature digital device to be implanted in people, just under the skin, 
> which communicates with and is tracked by GPS technology. [3] Their first 
> markets include children and high risk heart patients. One benefit touted in 
> the marketing message is that if you are a heart attack candidate, the device 
> will monitor certain biological functions and notify a monitoring center if 
> it detects medical concerns. Similarly, parents concerned about locating 
> missing children, need not worry if their children have an implant. Their 
> product, amazingly enough, is called the "Digital Angel." 
> 
> Another example is Techno Bra (I am not kidding here) which proposes that 
> women wear its digitally embedded support system. Techo-Bra features a 
> digital device that can recognize the rapid jumps in the heart rate of its 
> wearer, distinguishing between an exercising heart beat and a heart beat of a 
> woman being sexually attacked. In the event of sexual assault, the bra uses 
> the cellular phone network to notify the police. [4] The marketing message is 
> that we will be safer if we purchase and utilize surveillance products. 
> 
> I submit that we are not addressing these problems at their roots. That is, 
> instead of encouraging individuals to act within moral limits, we create 
> societies in which the individual is further isolated. It is each 
> individual's responsibility to care for him or herself, not to rely on a 
> stranger for assistance, but rely on the power of monitoring technologies. By 
> relying on technologies for our safety concerns, we give the technologies 
> power and render ourselves less potent players. Also, in this system, it is a 
> vicious circle, always hoping that the technologies stay ahead of the 
> criminal elements. 
> 
> We must instead return to education and retain some process for educating 
> members of society about agreed upon values. How does a community, which is 
> often comprised of divergent interests, arrive at an agreement on common 
> values? One successful example comes from Sanford McDonnell, chairman 
> emeritus of McDonnell Douglas Corporation who, having developed a code of 
> conduct and values for his employees, extended the idea to his community 
> where he created and funded a school-business-community partnership called 
> Personal Responsibility Education Process (PREP). The goal of this 
> partnership was to determine common values and promote these values in 
> schools. Parents and teachers of each school met to decide upon the specific 
> values and character traits they wanted to develop in students. If not 
> everyone agreed on a particular value, they conceded that the value would not 
> be taught. Even though one school in this community was comprised of people 
> from a variety of cultural backgrounds, they agreed on the core values of 
> honesty, responsibility, respect, cooperation and service to others. [5] 
> 
> Technologies of the superpanoptic type, like surveillance technologies, 
> should be examined with great care. Those deemed invasive or non-constructive 
> should be resisted. Educating individuals about the types of societies and 
> communities we want to built needs to be the foundation, instead of 
> technology solutions. Similarly, if as computer professionals, we are busy 
> building systems such as these, we need to ask ourselves about their value in 
> the short and long term. Are these systems we are building contributing to 
> the kinds of communities we want to leave the next generations? 
> 
> [1] I borrow John Brockman's term from his book of the same name, Digerati, 
> to signify the group of individuals responsible for researching, developing, 
> selling and marketing information technologies. 
> 
> [2] See [ http://www.protech.com ]. 
> 
> [3] Richard Stenger, "Tiny human-borne monitoring device sparks privacy 
> fears," 20 December 1999, [ 
> http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/ptech/12/20/implant.device/index.html ]. 
> 
> [4] Leander Kahney, "Techno Bra Calls the Cops," 1 July 1999,[ 
> http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,20517,00.html ]. 
> 
> [5] Gail Bernice Holland, A Call for Connection (Novato, CA: New World 
> Library, 1998), 101. 
> 
> Based on forthcoming book to be published in 2000 by Quorum books, entitled 
> Techno-Human Mesh: The Growing Power of Information Technologies © Cynthia K. 
> West, 2000. 
>  
> 
> 
> -- 
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> SARAI:The New Media Initiative
> Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
> 29 Rajpur Road
> Delhi 110 054
> India
> Phone : (00 91 11) 3960040
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Reader-list mailing list
> Reader-list at sarai.net
> http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved 
somewhere.... 	 	- TheRegister.co.uk on Scientology
---------------------------------------------------------------------

More information about the reader-list mailing list