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Communications Your Rights Online

FCC Wants to Track Wireless 328

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the competition-to-be-big-brother dept.
pin_gween writes "According to an article on ZDNet, the FCC wants the ability to track Wi-fi accessible phones like the ZyXel phone. The FCC's June report talked about several ways of realizing a caller's location: 'creating an "inventory" of every Wi-Fi access point in the United States, engaging in "mapping and triangulation" of those access points, compiling an "access jack inventory" for wired VoIP users, or even mandating that Net phones include GPS.'"
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FCC Wants to Track Wireless More

FCC Wants to Track Wireless

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  • Ye gods (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ag-gvts-inc ( 844888 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:27PM (#13327566) Homepage
    The war on terror has claimed another victim.
    • What they (politicians) forget, is that the real terrorists use very old fashioned means to deliver their messages. I guess in Afghanistan, it would be via horse-back with an encrypted message talking about the "next season" whereas the actual message is a "delivery of chemicals." Heck, these guys (terrorists) are not stupid.

      It makes me wonder why we as the most advanced and technologically superior country, have failed to capture Osama bin Laden yet yet continues to direct operations against us 4 years la

      • Re:Ye gods (Score:4, Insightful)

        by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:55PM (#13327715) Journal
        It makes me wonder why we as the most advanced and technologically superior country, have failed to capture Osama bin Laden yet yet continues to direct operations against us 4 years later and US$350 billion spent and counting.

        You can blame part of that on the idiots who leaked to the press that we were tracking Osama and listening to his satphone calls. Osama's no idiot - as soon as that hit the press, guess what? No more satphone calls.
        • "Freedom of the Press!"

          "Publish and be damned!"

          "Information wants to be free!"

          For the record, I think it's completely irresponsible for the press to publish such things, but hey! they're allowed and to hell with the federal budget and if the military has to occupy foreign nations for indeterminate amounts of time, that just sells more copy. It's all about ratings and sales...

          • Re:Ye gods (Score:3, Insightful)

            by andreMA ( 643885 )
            I think it's completely irresponsible for the press to publish such things
            I think the greater irresponsibility is that of the (presumably Gov't employed) person who leaked the information in the first place.
      • If OBL was downloading music and burning it onto CD, they'd catch that fucker pretty fast.

        Since he apparently hasn't broken any law, he's not worth catching.

        What? I'm sure that if there's a case for several thousand cases of 1st degree murder, there would be something about it on TV every now and then.
      • It makes me wonder why we as the most advanced and technologically superior country, have failed to capture Osama bin Laden

        Huh... according to high ranking scuttlebutt at the pentagon we've known precisely where OBL has been hiding for the past few years. Independantly related to me by two separate individuals... Top Men [imdb.com], both.

        I think the real suprise is that you totally buy the whole "we're so inept we can't find a dialysis patient in the middle of a country the size of Texas" argument. Would you

    • Re:Ye gods (Score:5, Interesting)

      by onecaribou ( 209126 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @01:35AM (#13328111) Homepage
      Reminds me of a quote I read recently...

      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

      James Madison

      The Bush administration makes me feel like I'm stumbling through a bad dream.

      - E -

      Japan-A-Madness
        http://jmad.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

    • That was my initial thought.
      Is this about 911 or 9/11

  • Next up from the FCC (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LochNess ( 239443 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:28PM (#13327579) Homepage
    mandatory ankle bracelets they can use to track you all the time.

  • One question! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blaksaga ( 720779 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:29PM (#13327581)
    Can I just ask one question? WHY? Is tracking wireless really necessary?

    • Re:One question! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ag-gvts-inc ( 844888 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:37PM (#13327634) Homepage
      Well, people expect 911 to work. And while I'm first to agree that it's not reasonable to expect it to work from a wifi voip phone, there would undoubtedly be lives saved from this requirement. HOWEVER, I'm of the opinion (or is it hope) that it might just kill that particular technology instead. That is, I'd like to think that between the safety or liberty question, that we would choose liberty...
    • The question is more like WHERE? Where in the world do you store all this tracking info.

      • "The question is more like WHERE? Where in the world do you store all this tracking info."

        You don't. You look it up when you need it. If there's somebody in particular you want to track, you track HIS data.

        Frankly, I'm not terribly whoop-de-doo'd about the gov't being able to track me. Let them. Afterall, it's not like they can track my credit card transactions or anything.

    • Re:One question! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
      Because if they think it is possible then it could mean a real power grab for the government. The military created GPS, and now we've got a 'Wireless Revolution' combined with nifty toys like RFID. Something makes me wonder if this isn't the reason GPS exists in the first place. Now we know where you are even if you don't respond to a GPS signal - we've put a chip in your cell phone and wi-fi card that tells us where you are.

      They could easily track everyone in the United States at all times given that every
      • While I agree that this is way too much power to put in with the government, I'm not too inclined to think our government's that competent.

        • They are competent enough (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          They are competent enough to kill masses of people, whever they want to, about anyplace they want to, including the US if they feel like it.. They come up with laser guided missiles that work. they have satellites that work. they got planes tanks and various other whizzbangs that work. they got jails all over and a few million people locked up at any given time. They are competent enough to run multiple torture camps and get away with it. They can call anyone a terrorist and snatch them away, and don't have
  • So, basically, for the FCC to track down everything wifi, they need to check Google?

    Damn, they sure clamped down on THAT idea fast!

  • Be wary? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dhalphir ( 862198 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:30PM (#13327594)
    This is just yet another attempt to monitor what we're doing and where we are. Who says that the transmitter in the phones would only transmit the location?

  • warrant only? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zxnos ( 813588 )
    these guys have been watching too many spy movies. this could kill the industry. i really doubt it would happen on a large scale. perhaps under a warrant or soemthing.

  • Cowardly Wankers (from article) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by saitoh ( 589746 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:32PM (#13327606) Homepage
    "(As a side note, I think it's cowardly for FCC officials to refuse to have their names mentioned, but it was a condition of attending the event.)"

    Yeah, if you cant stand in front of a conference type event that you evidently called for, and have the press print you as a source, I think thats seriously pathetic.

    • Here, here (Score:5, Insightful)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:05AM (#13328411)
      This is especially bizarre given they are calling for universal tracking -- they want to know where we are and who we are but they won't even let us know who they are, yet they speak in the name of the public! This isn't just ironic; it's downright Kafkaesque.

  • EVERY access point? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ArbitraryConstant ( 763964 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:33PM (#13327612) Homepage
    They want a list of EVERY access point?

    I can't even imagine the immensity of that task. There must be millions of APs in the US, and the list would change on a day-to-day basis.

    Without SSID broadcast, it wouldn't even necessarily be possible to discover them all.

    • milieu control (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The government wants to be able to control information. Sure, they are clueless as to how impossible that is, but that also means that they will try. It could easily kill lots of innovative businesses.. Perhaps thats the idea, the current GOP-led government is clearly obsessed with suppressing competition for their big corporate donors. The Dems are not angels, either..

      Yes, Ultimately, it will mean that many businesses are started elsewhere, not in the US, but isn't that the case already?

      The power elite car
    • Without SSID broadcast, it wouldn't even necessarily be possible to discover them all.

      The answer is simple young padawan. :) Just spread some FUD about terrorists using "hidden wireless networks" to spread evil, then push through an unenforceable regulation about requiring the broadcast of your SSID.

      Taking off my tinfoil hat for a moment, the goal isn't really to catalog all wifi devices. Its more about justifying your budget and maintaining the image of staying with the times and keeping the pressur

    • Re:EVERY access point? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Have Blue ( 616 )
      Turning off SSID broadcast doesn't make an AP undetectable. It just sets a flag saying "please do not report this AP to the user". It's trivial to find/create a wireless scanner that ignores this flag and reveals hidden networks. And on top of all that an AP can't possibly hide from a directional antenna on the 2.4Ghz band.

    • WiFiMaps.com (Score:3, Informative)

      by drewzhrodague ( 606182 )
      You could also check out WiFiMaps.com [wifimaps.com]. We've been doing this for a while, but what makes us different, is that our database is open to the public.

  • Triangulation is impossible (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:33PM (#13327615)

    The article states that there will occur a "mapping and triangulation" of the access points. Triangulation may have worked to sniff out the spies in World War II, but nowadays it's ineffective for one simple reason: the number of branches to and from each node is too high.

    I've worked (someone with a job on /.!) with WiFi access points for some time, and we constantly came across this hurdle. It's interesting that as technology develops, the capacity of both surveillance and anonymity increases.

    Food for thought.

  • Big Brother (Score:5, Insightful)

    by uncoveror ( 570620 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:36PM (#13327628) Homepage
    I made a similar post [uncoveror.com] on another thread, but it is even more appropriate here.

    This could be used as a tool for big brother, not just 911 calls. You are as naive as a child if you don't see the dark possibilities [uncoveror.com] in this. The FCC commissioners probably only see a new toy to play with in this tracking technology, and have no concept of the monster they are creating. Those who will exploit it are counting on the FCC to not "get it".

    • The FCC commissioners probably only see a new toy to play with in this tracking technology, and have no concept of the monster they are creating.

      The really bad ideas always start out in the clothing of good ideas and then just sort of creep down the slippery slope.

      The problem with these tools is that the people using them imagine themselves to be unambiguously the good guys. And the sad truth is that often they are the good guys. But they don't understand that they have no way of assuring that the p

  • problem? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zxnos ( 813588 ) <zxnoss@gmail.com> on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:36PM (#13327630)
    ftfa: (As a side note, I think it's cowardly for FCC officials to refuse to have their names mentioned, but it was a condition of attending the event.)

    if the fcc is a government agency, paid by taxpayers, shouldnt we know the identity of the officials and who said what? why are they hiding if they want to know where we are? even if it is *only* for emergency responders...

  • I want my GPS! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by d3ac0n ( 715594 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:37PM (#13327633)
    I dunno about you, but I WANT my phone to have GPS. Simply so they can locate me if I call 911 on my wireless phone. I think that would be the most elegant and potentially useful idea. Registering all Wi-Fi access points is WAY too intrusive and complicated. Simply making wi-fi phone providers insert an inexpensive GPS locator into the phone makes much more sense, and the phone makers can turn it into a feature! (Wardriving with your Phone! W00T!)

    • this is NOT rocket science (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @12:05AM (#13327750)
      I dunno about you, but I WANT my phone to have GPS. Simply so they can locate me if I call 911 on my wireless phone.

      If you want to be located when you call 911, maintain a land-line. Where is the goddamn rocket science here, people?

      You know what? If you don't have a land-line and you have to call 911 and can't speak...well, maybe you die. It happens. Sucks, but it happens. I hate this society...we've become obsessed with throwing huge wads of cash, effort, and legislation at the stupidest problems. 700,000 people die each year of heart disease; zero people a year die from terrorism. We spend billions on one, not on the other...and when Little Timmy dies because he choked on a marble 'cause mommy wasn't watching him, we get "Timmy's Law" which solves a Darwinism problem.

      • If you want to be located when you call 911, maintain a land-line. Where is the goddamn rocket science here, people?

        Because we all know that all situations that necessitate a 911 call happen in a person's home.

  • Let me guess (no I didn't RTFA, big surprise!) - the FCC just wants to make sure that we can all get 911 emergency service if we need it. After all, some child might have to call in for their parents who have both been hit by a bus and we can't expect a poor thing like that to tell the emergency dispatchers where he is.

    Never mind the man in the corner who is really pulling the strings and thinks he ought to be able to track any citizen at will without anything even resembling just cause. That boogeyman do

  • Good thing... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Oriumpor ( 446718 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:40PM (#13327647) Homepage Journal
    'cause you know, wifi access points never move or die.

    'creating an "inventory" of every Wi-Fi access point in the United States,


    We (enterprise) have a hard enough job tracking our own and our rogue points. And it's not like users ever want to have a mobile access point for presentations at non-wifi locations.

    And what about every laptop that is automagically converted into a wireless bridge/access point with a few clicks?

    On top of which, what is it really necessary to track every wap? To "triangulate" a connection they'd still need to trace the origins of a voip call over the IP connection to figure out where the call was made. A wifi access point map doesn't give you much if you haven't got a way of sourcing the call.

  • More proof that the government just wants power (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:44PM (#13327667) Homepage
    Do you know how you can tell that the federal government just wants more power to fuck with the commoners? Look at things like this, the USA PATRIOT Act and like the and tremble. The government talks about homeland security, but the borders are still open, we're still butt buddies with Saudia Arabia (mainly on the receiving end in more ways than one), the government pushes for things that mostly target the general public and the push is always for more and more power while *gasp* not doing anything consistently pro-security with it.

    This is a good example of why I vote libertarian in every election. The government doesn't need to be able to track cell phones because it already has the powers it needs to control the influx of terrorists: deportation, border security and wire-tapping regular conversations. If our government cared less about not offending people and more about really using its basic powers first to fight major crime and terrorism, we wouldn't be wasting our time reading about this stuff.

  • Lets just hope they go for GPS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hotdrop ( 907046 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:44PM (#13327668) Homepage
    Hopefuly they will just opt for gps and then manufacturers will include a "debug mode" like on almost every dvd player to turn it off. If theres no debug code cutting a few leads and bridging some wires will do the trick for extra anonimity :) Rember if they think they can track you but they cant its even better then if they cant track you at all.

  • stupid (Score:3, Insightful)

    by william_w_bush ( 817571 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:45PM (#13327674)
    This story makes the tin-foil hats cry out for tin-foil hats, wow.

    Firstly: have each ap have a programmable text location in case the handset dialer dials e911. Make it part of the setup app that you should fill this address in if you want voip to work properly, but can be disabled if the owner overrides it.

    Second: This is so over-the-top paranoid gay, why not say all ip-addresses have to have full gps location tags with each packet (which is close to what this means). "Hey user_bob01, wave at the sky, you're on keyhole camera!". I understand there is a risk of criminal use, but add a little control to the server side so if a number is being used it can be tracked to it's ip and you can guess where that is from the geoip tables. This shouldn't happen often enough for this to be regulated.

    Man the FCC is going psycho lately, wtf? Do I have to worry that my next cellphone will rfid tag my balls when i put it in my pocket?

  • Question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by femto ( 459605 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:45PM (#13327676) Homepage
    Does anyone actually believe the '911 justification'? In practise will being able to automatically locate all phones help emergency response? Wouldn't a better solution be an all in one 'emergency' button which will send a distress call along with a location? The person wouldn't even have to be able to speak. The normal 'call' button would just place a normal call and not send a location.

    If the answer to the first question is 'no', the next question is "Is anyone getting sick of the lies being told by our governments as a matter of routine?"

    • Re:Question (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Is anyone getting sick of the lies being told by our governments as a matter of routine?"
      Hey! Speak for yourself!

      Some of us happen to enjoy being lied to!

      For many of us (and I know I speak for alot of my fellow devout Americans), make-believe is a significant lifestyle choice that helps us get through trying times.
    • Heh, I got sick of the lies from page one, but the fact of the matter is, the government doesn't even have to lie, people are pretty good at taking care of that themselves.

      If they weren't, then we would have somehow amassed the amazing nexus of concentration necessary to come to the realization that it would take an attack on the scale of 9/11 every few months for terrorists to be anywhere near as much of a threat as, say, drunk drivers or tobacco marketing executives. But we haven't, even though it's a pa
    • Well, having one button would be a good idea, but the phone should be perfectly capable of knowing whether it's just called 911, and only transmit its location when it has.

  • So, ignore the infrustructure implications for.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by saitoh ( 589746 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:57PM (#13327724) Homepage
    ...for a trade off of a couple bucks:

    "For one thing, what if someone doesn't want 911 service on his or her VoIP phone? I already have a landline and a cell phone at home, and I might add a VoIP phone to the mix. I don't need 911 service and don't wish to pay higher prices for a GPS receiver or location-identifying hardware that would be included in it. Mandating 911 service would amount to a tax on VoIP customers."

    I'll start out by saying I think the above reason is really kinda weak. There are other problems to be hashed out, but I'm just looking at this for the moment.

    If anyone has read "This is Burning Man" by Brian Doherty, this will fall similarlly in line (its near the end of the book):

    America seems to have grown up in an environment that gives the false illusion that they are safe. Child safety locks on cars and meds, etc. While there are a batch of people (and I'll personally go out on a limb and say over half as I'm an optimist at times) who can generally figure out whats safe and what isn't. There is still a large contingency (especially at large festivals such as Burning Man or Bonnaroo) who will push that limits to the point where they could/do die from their own actions. These people exist in society as we know it, and it isnt until they are in a dangerious situation that they dont realize it or choose to ignore it, and harm themselves.

    Now, with that in mind, you and I both know, that there will be someone, somewhere, who does something insanely stupid (like making meth in a hillbilly home methlab), will need to call 911, and cant cause they were too cheap to get a real phone. Now, personally, i'm kinda ok with standing back and saying "well, Darwin was right after all", but the general public, in all of their emotional-based reactions and overzealous desire for safety , probably wont bode well with that***, and a nasty mess will ensue in the media and lots of other things. So, while there are other issues to be hashed out about who has access to what databases, I can understand why, from a fundimental level of ensuring access to emergency services, it (IMHO) should be required.

    *** Steven Levett made an interesting point in Freakonomics: People dont have fear/outrage for the more probable, but very distant disasters, such as heart disease that can kill them, but instead focus their energy and fear/outrage on things that are very miniscule, such as terrorism attacks.

  • The U.S. government spends more on surveillance... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:59PM (#13327728) Homepage

    The U.S. government engages in more surveillance than any other country in the history of the world. The U.S. government spends more on surveillance than any country in the history of the world, and U.S. taxpayers are not allowed to know true total amount.

    The departments of the U.S. government such as the CIA and NSA and FBI function as a world-wide secret police. Sure, they have openly acknowledged purposes, but much of what they do and how they do it is hidden from U.S. citizens. There are departments of the U.S. government that do secret police work whose names are even secret. United States taxpayers are expected to pay, and vote, and they are expected to accept that they won't have the full facts of the activities of their government. United States citizens are not allowed to know enough to base their vote on the facts.

    Historically, U.S. government surveillance has had some political or economic benefit for those who wanted the surveillance.

    --
    If you support dishonesty and violence [doonesbury.com], don't say you are Christian.

  • Question on how??? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Volvogga ( 867092 ) on Monday August 15, 2005 @11:59PM (#13327730)
    I did RTFA, but I didn't feel like searching through a PDF for the answer to my question. How do they plan on identifying someone's location in one of these 911 incidents that they are so sure will happen?

    To triangulate a broadcast location, don't you need at least 3 reciever stations in the immediate area?

    If so, wouldn't that mean that you would already be in a decently populated area (we are taling about calling 911 in public, right?) where someone nearby should be able to find a land line while you are bleeding in the street?

    Sounds like maybe 911 shouldn't be available with these phones, or that it should be a known risk in buying one that it may contribute to your death when operators have no idea where you are.
    • "To triangulate a broadcast location, don't you need at least 3 reciever stations in the immediate area?"

      For WiFi, acctually, only two receiver stations are needed in order to plot an X-Y location. The Gestapo during WW-II needed only one mobile receiver in order to triangulate a transmission source. The use of additional receiver stations should speed up the acquisition of the transmission coordinates as buildings or other structures could obscure/block the WiFi signals.

      OTOH, GPS does require at least 3

  • I Don't Understand What All the Fuss is About (Score:5, Funny)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @12:15AM (#13327802) Homepage Journal
    What the FCC is suggesting is clearly within reasonable bounds of methodology to insure successful commerce and increase national security. What with all the terrorists running around, we've got make sure we're safe. Personally, I'd like to see more of this kind of thing happening but not just tracking phones, tracking people too. The way I see it, the world is a dangerous place and you've got to make certain that the wrong sorts of people are carefully watched. Considering that I am not involved in anything that could be flagged as suspicious by law enforcement, I am confident that my reputation as an honest American will ensure my privacy.

    The main problem with the griping about what the FCC proposes is that people don't want to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Instead of making sure they keep their noses clean to keep the FCC from taking an interest in their activities, they expect the nanny state to go the extra mile to create the illusion of privacy. That's the problem with most people these days. They have no sense of personal responsibility and expect the nanny state to do everything for them. This line of thinking is what costs lives to terrorism. If everyone let the government keep track of everywhere they go and everything they do, then the only people who would have anything to fear would be the true bad guys. Every other citizen would be safe and they would know that [tt]heir privacy was assured since they took it upon themselves to walk the straight and narrow.

    Come on people! This stuff is simple. Instead of expecting the government to do everything for you take matters into your own hands by letting the government track you! It's not that hard to follow this line of thinking. I know that the Bush administration has definitely moved in a much better direction by stepping up surveillance. We haven't had one attack since 9/11 here and it's because we've given up the illusion of privacy for true personal privacy that WE control ourselves by NOT being criminals. Why is this so hard for everyone to get?
    • Why not just ban all wifi altoghether?

      After all, when you ban all wifi, then only criminals will have wifi.

      So then you can just arrest everyone who uses wifi, just like in Florida.

      After all, it worked with the war on drugs, didn't it?

      --

      This post sponsored by "SpaceBalls 3 - The Fellowship of the Ring Around The Collar."[tt]

    • I want them to RFID turds.

      Then we can find out who's responsible for all this pollution shit I keep hearing about.

    • ...aren't you?

      This is the kind of thing that makes me afraid of my neighbors. I hope you never go into politics.

      Of course... you're certain that people NEVER abuse their power... and governments NEVER go corrupt. After all, that's never happened before in history, right? Give me a break.
      • You must be one of those whackjob conservatives who think that the government should coddle it's citizens from cradle to grave. And to top it all off, you foed me? Care to explain that? I just made my libertarian viewpoints as clear as possible and you get all uppity about it. Fortunately, most of the United States thinks more like me, which is why Bush (the first Libertarian peresident) is in office. I still can't understand how people like you continue to survive. Conservatives are a dying breed. T

    • Re:I Don't Understand What All the Fuss is About (Score:5, Insightful)

      by daigu ( 111684 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @01:04AM (#13327986) Journal

      You are modded as funny and this would have been a great troll. But sadly, I think you are putting forth this argument in earnest. It is certainly an argument that is out there and is why many cities around the world have started putting cameras everywhere.

      What with all the terrorists running around, we've got make sure we're safe.

      Where are all these terrorists? Can you show me convictions in a US court? I'd love to hear about some. And how does this capability make the US safer?

      Considering that I am not involved in anything that could be flagged as suspicious by law enforcement, I am confident that my reputation as an honest American will ensure my privacy.

      I'm sure quite a few of the 2 million people currently being held in US prisons thought the same thing. Perhaps you cannot imagine that there might be corrupt cops or the justice system might favor the white and rich over the colored and poor. The whole premise of this comment falls apart the moment you can no longer trust the justice system - and you are a fool if you trust ours.

      The issue is not the nanny state. The issue is about a police state. It is why we have the Fourth Amendment:

      "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

      To recap, a system the FCC proposes violates the right of citizens to be secure from unreasonable searches. It is not based on probable cause and it is not particular as to what is being searched and why. In other words, it is unconstitutional. It is really that simple.

    • to insure successful

          The FCC are in the insurance business now?

            The word you want is ensure, not insure. One small letter. A world of different meaning. It's a common mistake.

            Yeah I feel like a spelling Nazi today. So sue me.
    • Is everyone's irony detector broken today?

      Instead of expecting the government to do everything for you take matters into your own hands by letting the government track you!

      ...

      We haven't had one attack since 9/11 here and it's because we've given up the illusion of privacy for true personal privacy that WE control ourselves by NOT being criminals.

      Those two lines alone are a dead giveaway. Anyone intelligent enough to actually form a coherent, properly spelled rant is also intelligent enough not to

  • Frankly (Score:2, Insightful)

    by capillary tube ( 861062 ) *
    Well, fuck the FCC. They don't have that power.

  • My Phone (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nsaneinside ( 831846 )
    My cell phone (a Samsung A660), like many others, has some sort of location-broadcast feature (GPS, probably?) built-in. By default it is on.

    Even when it is off, 911 operators can determine your position. Good; there's no reason they shouldn't be able to - it's for safety's sake.
    When it is turned on, this message is shown: "Sprint PCS and those parties you have given permission to will now be able to retrieve your location from the network."

    What qualifies as permission given? Was there some small text
  • Ok, just implant a god damn GPS bug in my skull and be done with it already.

    -
    • Ok, just implant a god damn GPS bug in my skull and be done with it already.

            Just put it right next to my alien implant....
  • The telecom I work for here in China has mobile user locating data available now [wi-fitechnology.com].

    It's simply a matter of doing the math, based on how long it takes signals to reach the handset from a couple of towers, vs. the known/fixed coordinates of the towers. Nearly as accurate as consumer GPS, but with the additional benefit of being able to work indoors :)

  • This may not be so bad. But read on. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @02:14AM (#13328260) Homepage
    This isn't quite as bad as it sounds. First, the basic requirement is that VoIP services which interconnect to the wireline network must forward 911 calls into the wireline 911 network, along with enough caller location data to route the call. This only applies to 911 calls. The caller location data is just "the original location at which service was provided". If the system allows the caller to move around, the end user must have the option to update their location information. But, as yet, the VoIP service is not required to track their users.

    Automatic routing of cellular 911 calls was introduced because manual routing worked very badly. California used to route all 911 calls from cell phones to the California Highway Patrol. As cell phones became more common, CHP dispatch was overwhelmed. By 2002, the CHP was getting over 8 million calls a year, most of which didn't involve freeway incidents, which is most of what the CHP handles. Call hold times on 911 were reaching 10 minutes during peak periods. The CHP was running a huge call center, which basically asked where callers were and forwarded their calls to some local 911 dispatch center.

    That's the background for cellular 911. It's convenient that the dispatcher gets the location of the caller, but the real benefit is that the call gets sent to the right dispatcher.

    If 911 routing isn't automated for VoIP, where should the calls go? Some call center in Bangalore? If the VoIP provider doesn't have some clue where the caller is, that's about all they can do.

    There's worse stuff than this going on. The extension of the "Commmunications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act" rules to VoIP is much more of a Big Brother thing. If you aren't aware of how this works, the basic concept is that wiretapping has been built into the phone system, and wiretaps are now delivered to law enforcement over T1 lines. The US wiretapping system is run by Verisign. [verisign.com] That's being extended to VoIP.

  • C'mon, folks, I can't believe that if someone really wanted to mis-direct the government as to their physical location while using a computer-controlled phone, they wouldn't be able to fake the GPS info going out.

    The REAL bad guys won't be caught with this, only the poor slobs who make mistakes...
  • Thats right. Now the spyware is going into the hardware. Now they can track our location. Which means they'll be able to track traffic patterns, congestion, lifestyles, spending habits, frequent and popular areas, demographics, studies, and more.

    It will be a massive mining operation of information. For sale, for study, for research... who the hell cares. Nothing good can come from it.

    People won't stop using cell phones because the technology is put in them to track. Most people are ignorant of the dev
  • ... a new definition of the term 'Open' spectrum.
    "You can use this spectrum for whatever you like, provided you keep the emissions down to x and we can listen in to anything you say"

    Say they do this, what is to stop the terrorists from using ham frequencies and using an encrypted signal? Yet again this is the problem with the FCC at the moment, they don't seem to understand the problem.

    Say they block the ham frequencies, whats stopping the terrorists from sticking up UHF transmitter and broadcasting an encr

  • The change of power in the information age (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:17AM (#13328604)
    It's an idea that is taking a long, long time become developed and it is very slowly coming into clarity among the power elite. The idea that the more that you use technology to focus the systematic application of violence for the control of society, the less of this violence can be used against those who create the technology.

        The people who develop and engineer technology that is used to direct violence (directed violence being the police, the military, and the mafia, as opposed to random criminal acts) can ensure that this violence is never directed against themselves by building safeguards into the technology that prevents it from being used against those of the technology 'guild'. Technologists need to develop a new consciousness that transcends nationalism and corporatism and focuses on the idea that we should put the needs of the global tech community above the needs of the various governments, corporations, and religions.

        High tech terrorism exists because the technicians are willing to give a higher loyalty to the religious fanatics who order other technical people to be randomly killed than they do to technical people that they are killing. This is wrong. We should protect ourselves first. Since we design and build the technology, we should ensure that the technology is not used against us. We should start doing this by refusing to use high technology against other members of the global tech community regardless of their nationality, religion, or corporate affiliation.

        It's time for a very quiet, very discrete shift in loyalty in the global tech community. We need to develop the deep idea that our primary allegiance is to our own people, and our secondary allegiance is to God, country, and corporation.

        Generals, CEOs, mullahs, and presidents can never make world peace or progress. They simply have too much gain from constant endless wasteful war. But since the modern means of directing violence is increasing based on technology, we, the designers and builders of this technology, have more control over the systematic application of violence than the nominal rulers of society.

        Why should we care if the government, the police, the fascist mullahs, or the mafia is using technology against the people? Just as long as they are not using it against our people.

        This meme is one of the primal ideas of the new Information age that is developing out of the excesses and breakdowns of the Nation-State Age.

    • Re:The change of power in the information age (Score:4, Interesting)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @10:18AM (#13329987)
      "our people"? "My people" include my friends, family, neighbors, community. If the ONLY people you care about happen to be those who choose to be interested in electric gadgets or telecom or applied engineering, you don't have a healthy mindset. There are hundreds of other human endeavors just as worthy. There are billions of human beings just as worthy of care and concern There are actually politicians and policemen and even CEO who are NOT evil. Thinking that the solution to world problems will be solved by a bunch of geeks engaging The System in some kind of technowar is really just planning another kind of terrorism that will disrupt & harm good people's lives. Instead, how about spreading the word to all kinds of people on how there are alternatives to how we do things now, that there are long term consequences to our actions now, and that the power to vote could be used to quickly change the direction we're going?

  • Woohoo...GPS in every wi-fi phone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WhiteWolf666 ( 145211 ) <{sherwin} {at} {amiran.us}> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @10:33AM (#13330101) Homepage Journal
    See...the problem is, that's retarded.

    Sure, GPS works outside, with a mostly unobstructed view of the sky.

    Ever use GPS in a canyon (urban or in the boonies)?
    How about with large overhanging objects overhead?
    How about indoors?

    GPS is everywhere, sorta.

    But the reality is that Wi-Fi goes a lot of places GPS does not.

  • Patent minefield (Score:3, Informative)

    by CharlieHedlin ( 102121 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @10:56AM (#13330296)
    First one that came to mind was this one: 6,759,960

    It is a patent on using the known location of an access point. It's not specific to 911, but I think it would be covered.

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