Ignorance is the opposite of bliss

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk>
Date: January 28, 2006 5:05:39 AM EST
To: dave () farber net

Dave:

The (UK) Guardian has a regular feature entitled "Bad Science" - a  
serious column, usually an analysis of recently-published allegedly- 
scientific news stories. However today's column is about popular fear  
of science, and gives as an example of an unpleasant use of new  
technology a way of surreptitiously tracking mobile phone users that  
I at least had not heard of before. You may want it for IP.

Cheers

Brian


> Ignorance is the opposite of bliss
>
> Ben Goldacre
> Saturday January 28, 2006
> The Guardian
>
> I spend a lot of my time wondering: why are people so afraid of  
> science, when it has given us so much? To my mind there are two  
> answers: firstly, the everyday science that you learned at school  
> is no longer enough to understand the world around you. Fifty years  
> ago, a fairly well educated person could easily have a full  
> understanding of how the technology they interacted with actually  
> worked . . .
>
> But that's not true any more. Look around you. Do you really, fully  
> understand your mobile phone? The braking system on your car? Where  
> your breakfast came from? Or even the manufacturing process that  
> produced this bit of newspaper? My guess is no. Any sufficiently  
> advanced technology, as they say, is indistinguishable from magic,  
> and these days, with the pace of new developments, that goes even  
> for people who know a lot about science. And that's spooky. We  
> don't like that, either intellectually, or in our gut.
>
> . . . This week, I noticed a glaring flaw in the mobile phone  
> networks that allows you to stalk people, and find their location  
> to within 200 yards, any time you want, without their permission.  
> You don't have to be Einstein; there are websites all over the  
> internet to do this.
>
> Here is how it works. You register on the site, pay a few quid,  
> type in the phone number of the person you want to track, and then  
> the system sends them a text message. All you need to do is  
> surreptitiously get access to your target's mobile phone, without  
> their knowledge, for just five minutes: long enough to receive that  
> text message, reply with the word LOCATE, and delete two text  
> messages that arrive immediately, warning them they are being  
> tracked. You can stalk them for a couple of days, find out if they  
> really are where they say they are, work out who they are with,  
> perhaps find out if they're having an affair, then delete them off  
> the system. They will never be any the wiser.
>
> I asked my girlfriend if I could, in principle, track her for a  
> day, without telling her how: she agreed and I set the service up  
> on her phone, in five minutes, while she was asleep. I have a map  
> of her movements in front of me right now. It feels very wrong. And  
> it required no technical knowledge, or "hacking", whatsoever. That  
> this is possible, and so easy, to my mind, is extremely sinister. I  
> had a squabble with one of these companies on Radio 4 yesterday,  
> and they seemed astonished at what I was saying. They promised that  
> they would tighten up security, and think about getting better  
> consent for tracking people's location than one response to a text  
> message. The notion that this technology could be misused in this  
> way had not, apparently, occurred to them. It took me to point it  
> out to them. Who the hell am I? Nobody. Do I work for a phone  
> company? Do I work for the government?
>
> In that moment, I can honestly say, I felt the fear that so many  
> people feel with technology. I don't fully understand how mobile  
> phones work. But now I know that anybody can use them to track  
> people, without their permission, I share that uneasy sense that  
> everything is, somehow, out of control ...

Full story at:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,,1696910,00.html


--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon  
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/


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