Google Maps To Add 'Friend' GPS Tracking 259
Henway writes "Google is adding the option to Google Maps to
place your whereabouts either via cell phone towers or GPS. Think 'locator beacon.' Paraphrased: This would be good for people wanting to let their friends know where they are or for parents wanting to know where their children are at all times."
So, kind of like Britekite? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds remarkably similar to the services offered by Brightkite [brightkite.com].
Abuse (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Abuse (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure about the irony, but for $15/week, I'll feed and care for your phone, take it everywhere with me. I even promise not to take it to any meetings of subversive groups, or atheist meetups.
The government will be happy that you are an active social part of society, and you can rest assured that your privacy is perfectly secure.
In fact, your tracking data will look exactly like that of 17 other lucky folks who have signed up before all the openings are gone. I just have one space left, so hurry. If you call in the next 10 minutes, you'll also receive photo frame skin for your other phone that holds a picture of the tracked phone so that you'll never miss it, normally a $29.99 value, but you'll get it absolutely free.
Sign up now, hurry, available spots are going fast.
They claim you can lie (Score:5, Interesting)
.
So the first thing we need is a google application that can update this "lie" info in real time. I want to type in a start address, an end address and have it automatically update the lie with intermediate locations that correspond to a realistic speed. Then even if your boss is watching you, it'll look like you are following instructions (even though you are at the bar).
That way, when it is inevitably used by assholes, we can salute and chime "Sure thing, boss!" then ignore him with impunity.
Re:Big brother knows where you are (Score:3, Interesting)
Except on Slashdot, where 1984 has to be referenced regardless of whether or not it's applicable. (For the record, I don't recall it being the case in 1984 that the whereabouts of citizens were tracked at all times.)
I'm not entirely sure what the concern is here? Is grandparent poster thinking that the government will be circumventing the requirement that people enable the "Track Me" service? That Google will allow them access to or retain the data contrary to their policies? (That at least seems more likely.)
You are aware this is already quite possible on the individual level, yes? The technology is not such that it's convenient to track the movements of everyone, unless with this new service, Google gave them that information.
G1! No! (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it odd that it'll work on Blackberries and other phones, but not the G1 phones yet. Must have been something that's been in the works for a while and they haven't had time to rework it for the G1.
The G1 actually already has an app (on the market, Locales I think it is) that will watch your location and enable and disable features on the phone. I use it to set my phone on vibrate at work automatically, and turn it back on afterwards. It turns my Wifi on at home and off everywhere else.
It shouldn't be too hard to make another app that replicates the 'friend gps tracking' functionality on the G1. And if you lose your phone, you know where it was last time it was on. :D
Dangerous Road (Score:2, Interesting)
GPS tracking should scare the shit out of people. I don't think many people see just how easy it will be for governments to grant themselves access to this information. All it will take is a single incident for the courts to decide that it is acceptable to subpoena these companies to find out who was within X meters/miles of X/Y coordinates at Z time.
Make sure you never walk within 1000 meters of any crime, for you may wind up becoming a prime suspect for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A single incident is all it will take to open these flood gates. Most likely a "think of the children/what do you have to hide" when a child goes missing or somesuch.
Really, GPS may have some cool possibilities, but you're fooling yourself if you think using any GPS tracking service is not going to be subjected to the possibility of all your tracking data being handed over to the authorities whenever it is deemed necessary to solve a crime/prevent terrorism, etc.
But of course, giving up privacy for "national security" is worth it, right?
Re:Six degrees of separation game (Score:3, Interesting)
This is true, but there are other issues to consider with this.
For example, one of the things that is legal in the United States is for the police to follow you around throughout your day, seeing where you go, who you talk to, when you scratch your butt walking down the street. There's plkenty of case law supporting the idea that as long as you are in public areas, the police can follow you as much as they want, given their resource limitations.
That last limitation is VERY important, especially in a mostly free society like the United States or other free democracies/republics/whatever.
The police should have the power (with reasonable oversight) to do what they need to do to enforce good laws. I'll define "good laws" in the US context as "constitutional". One of the ways they do this is following "people of interest" around.
This is a VERY different thing from the police putting a GPS transponder on every car in America, and looking through their logs for nearby vehicles when a convenience store gets robbed. It is also different form the police logging your location information from cell tower triangulation (or cellphone GPS) and, again, looking through their logs to find all the people near a crime scene when it occurred.
The first starts with suspicion. They must already have a reason to be interested in you, because assigning a police officer, or more likely several of them, is a very resource-intensive operation. They don't do it a lot because there are only so many cops. This is, societally, on purpose. We limit police power by making it hard and expensive for the police to poke their nose into your business.
GPS logging into a database, and then a simple database query for "every person near YYY at time ZZZ" is cheap. It is too easy for the police to poke their nose into the business of the generally law-abiding public.
It isn't that the technology is easy or hard. It isn't really that is it cheap or expensive in dollars to acquire the capability initially. It is that it is cheap to operate all the time, and makes it too easy and cheap for the police to poke their noses into private citizens' business with little reason, justification, or oversight. That's a good way to get bad police.
Don't design systems that make it easy to get bad police. It is too dangerous to our society.