Technology as Tattletale

The New York Times is carrying an article noting the increasing presence of location-sensing technologies in our lives. It discusses several applications of the technology like tracking stolen cash from a bank, or making sure a teenage son follows the rules. The article also notes that these ultra-high resolution GPS trackers can allow freedom as much as restrict it: "Project Lifesaver, a nonprofit group in Chesapeake, Va., fits Alzheimer's patients and autistic children with radio frequency beacons disguised as bracelets, which help emergency responders find them if they are lost. Next spring the group will introduce new bracelets, created by Locator Systems, a British Columbia company, that combine radio signals with G.P.S. and cellular communications. That should allow caregivers to establish a zone where patients can safely wander, said Jim McIntosh, the company's chief executive. If patients wander off, emergency crews could receive more specific information."

"As much" is the key phrase

[Anonymous Coward]

"The article also notes that these ultra-high resolution GPS trackers can allow freedom as much as restrict it:"

I have a feeling that the helping of a couple of autistic children is not going to offset the massive use by 'nannies.' Saying that it can allow freedom *as much* as restricting it is only trying to put a good face on a device that has massive civil liberty concerns.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[DaedalusHKX]

Wow, man, just wow. According to you, I should have been dead, as should all my extended family. Not only were we NOT chipped and tagged like cattle, but we grew up spending quite a bit of time on the streets (videogames weren't available where I grew up, until I was about 10). Amazing, and you're saying that without the EOG (eye of god) mechanism, a child cannot be expected to be responsible?

No wonder you people need lords and masters to tell you when to breathe.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:"As much" is the key phrase

[DaedalusHKX]

Think on it like this. When a whole generation grows up tagged like cattle, always submitting to the cops, never having shot or carried a gun or trained in any form of hand to hand combat (call it martial arts, call it PT, call it what you will), and never having exercised their own rights (which are now presumed "granted by government" anyways) what more do you need to enslave them?

The fence is like that which a dog learns of early in life inside the electric fence. Walk too far and BZZT. Eventually even if the power dies, that dog will NEVER test the limits again (unless he's one of those rare individuals that resist submission at all costs (dominant/alpha)).

I don't see this as being that useful, other than as a way to keep the cattle of mankind in line and teach them that "someone's always watching"... the great "eye in the sky" and all.

The upside is that there will be plenty who will exercise their freedom, and circumvent these technologies, and eventually leave this planet to the meek/cattle-people to live on. It is the only logical outcome. You cannot "save the world" because it includes the bovine-men alongside those who will not be cowed, and the bovines refuse to be saved... better to be hamburger for sure than to contest with the wild beasts for survival on the range. The only solution is to leave (if anyone suggests crushing the bovine-people in a genocidal armageddon, while fun to entertain in Quake 4 Enemy Territory, in real life, such an endeavor is doomed to fail, and in the unlikely event of success, the drain on the psyche would leave the victors in worse shape than the now nonexistent losers). And I would not be too surprised if the exodus I'm suggesting, has happened at least once before in the history of mankind.

Re:

[n dot l]

I was just about to reply with pretty much exactly what you wrote, only I wouldn't have expressed it nearly as well as you did. If I had mod points and hadn't already posted, I'd throw another +1 Insightful onto your post.

Re:

[Charcharodon]

I put one of those on my dog because he like to go say hi to everyone in the neighboorhood. For a bout a week he refused to move out of the middle of the yard since he was so scared of the fence. That was until he figured out where the control box was and chewed it up, turning the fence off. I'm not saying he was smart enough to figure that out, he just managed to chew up the right thing, but he certaining didn't stay in the yard once he figured out the power was gone.

Nothing in life is an absolute or

When I tied my pup... he did the following.

[DaedalusHKX]

I didn't want to waste juice scaring the poor mutt, so we learned mutual respect, I respect that he can outrun me, he respects that I have food, snacks and a nice warm place to sleep. I want his company, he wants mine (or so I jokingly tell myself, but I'm a capitalist at heart, I already KNOW that he wants food, shelter and whatever else he can get from me, and trades his companionship for these things HE wants... and I find it an acceptable relationship/exchange. We both benefit.)

Now... when I first rai

Re:

[Charcharodon]

:) That sounds familiar, mine did something similar before I tried the electric fence. The only way to make sure he'd stick around was that you had to be home, then he was more than happy to be by your side, but once you headed out the door to goto work or left him outside all day he'd hop the fence. My final solution was a doggy door, he hardly ever took off after that. I guess given the option to be able to go inside and sleep on whatever furniture he wanted was more appealing than going around the bl

Re:

[DaedalusHKX]

I moved out towards the country, he's got a couple of acres to hunt on, now, and stuff to bark at, so he's a happy camper... and I think he's taken it as his duty to sleep all the time (good boy) but barks at all living things that come near.

The way I see it, as long as he's barking all is well, if he stops barking THEN I worry :)

Re:"As much" is the key phrase

[Thrip]

You know, if you're trying to make a reasonable argument, you should try not to lose all your credibility by suggesting that going to live somewhere on a different planet is "the only logical outcome." Just so you know, it's not even a remote possibility. You can gaze up at the sky all day, but come nightfall, you'll be herded back into the barn like the rest of us. Some of us ARE planning a stampede, and your escapist stargazing is not helping.

Re:

[DaedalusHKX]

You know, as much as I think your idea is good, stampedes are the reason Remington sells .44 Remington Magnum Wadcutter ammo... to crack the heads of the lead beasts. The rest, as you said, get herded quietly. This has been the direct outcome of every slave revolt since Spartacus (lest you forget, he LOST, and a LOT of weaker men were crucified along both sides of a LONG road, all courtesy of our "civilized" Western Roman Empire, the CRADLE of the fine and civilized Catholic/Christian Religion and of the

Re:

[FooAtWFU]

He wrote:

I think this device has massive child-raising concerns, but your suggestion that parents cannot keep track of their children--whom they are ultimately responsible for--is silly.

You wrote:

Wow, man, just wow. According to you, I should have been dead, as should all my extended family.

Now, as a random Slashdotter who just stumbled into TFCommentPage, I must say that this is a very impressive non sequitor. (And there's a lot of other stuff I could say about the exchange, but I'll refrain.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[cumin]

You couldn't have made a better argument for tracking your children. You absolutely must look after their safety, but if you can't know where they are once out of the house, then you can't let them out of the house. On the other hand, if you sit them down and say you can leave the house, you can do whatever, but I have to be able to find you, then you can give them freedom that you couldn't have before.

Re:

[EtoilePB]

You absolutely must look after their safety, but if you can't know where they are once out of the house, then you can't let them out of the house. On the other hand, if you sit them down and say you can leave the house, you can do whatever, but I have to be able to find you, then you can give them freedom that you couldn't have before.

And what about all of the generations that grew up before tracking? I was 21 before I or anyone I knew had cell phones. And even then I just had one because I was driving

Re:

[cumin]

You assume that your parents would have restricted your freedom more if they'd been able to?

I think not, I think your parents would have treated you pretty much the way they did and you would have become pretty much the person you are. Ditto for me. Those previous generations, I think *most* but certainly not all of them got the same freedoms our parents tried to give us. But that's not the group of parents and kids this would make much difference for. I can think of a group of kids that were pretty much g

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Look at some of the freakiest chicks in porn, most of them have very religious families. I.. have a friend who knows of at least 3 superfreaks who were raised as proper Mormon girls.

Hell, look at some of the most messed up people you personally know, most of them will also come from very religious backgrounds.

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Google "Belladonna."

Not such things as a ultra-high rez GPS?

[Lord Satri]

these ultra-high resolution GPS trackers

Misleading. The article is clearer: "The change is powered less by new technologies than the artful combination of existing ones, mainly the Internet, cellphones and G.P.S. satellites."

Some info. GPS receivers, which most of them use U.S. 'GPS' satellites -and- Russian GLONASS satellites (and eventually Europe's GALILEO and China's COMPASS 'GPS' systems), don't really have multiple spatial resolutions, only one. But yes, there are differences. In the article's case, they mix it with other spatial data to g

Re:

[Registered Coward v2]

have a feeling that the helping of a couple of autistic children is not going to offset the massive use by 'nannies.' Saying that it can allow freedom *as much* as restricting it is only trying to put a good face on a device that has massive civil liberty concerns.

Unless it is used by government for tracking purposes your massive civil liberty concerns simply do not exist.

Private individuals have the right to decide how they want to employee such a device; and I would agree there are privacy concerns if co

Sucks to be Young (sometimes)

[mastershake_phd]

In a few years its going to be a lot harder for kids to get away with stuff. No more jumping out your bedroom window, etc. Get ready for a generation of sheltered kids. We can call them Generation S, or maybe Generation P.

Generation S & Generation P - Copyright mastershake_phd 2007

Re:Sucks to be Young (sometimes)

[n dot l]

Meh. By then parents will be so busy doing their own stuff and generally neglecting their children that there won't be anyone to watch the monitors, so it all cancels out in the end.

Oh, wait, that already happened, you say?

Well then by all means tag the little bastards. And someone make me a device that yells "Get off my lawn!" whenever kids get close...I'm far too busy doing my own stuff and neglecting real life to be bothered...

</rant>

Re:

[mastershake_phd]

Meh. By then parents will be so busy doing their own stuff and generally neglecting their children that there won't be anyone to watch the monitors, so it all cancels out in the end.

Oh, wait, that already happened, you say?

Well then by all means tag the little bastards. And someone make me a device that yells "Get off my lawn!" whenever kids get close...I'm far too busy doing my own stuff and neglecting real life to be bothered...

A friend of mine has kids, hes in his mid 20s. We were talking about

Re:

[sqrt(2)]

A friend of mine has kids, hes in his mid 20s...

His first mistake.

Re:

[Chief Wongoller]

Maybe there is merit in tagging all children. Millions of children go missing every year around the world, around 800000 do so in the US alone (http://www.usd.edu/~mcarroll/missing_children_statistics.htm).

Re:

[mastershake_phd]

Maybe there is merit in tagging all children. Millions of children go missing every year around the world, around 800000 do so in the US alone (http://www.usd.edu/~mcarroll/missing_children_statistics.htm).

From your source " 876,213 missing persons (adults and juveniles) were entered into the FBI's NCIC during the year 2000."

Most of the kids who are reported missing are found obviously, and tagging them would help find them faster. But, out of all those missing children very few are taken by strangers e

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

can != does

[s4m7]

The article also notes that these ultra-high resolution GPS trackers can allow freedom as much as restrict it

Yeah, and a scuba tank can offer death as much as it offers life, but rarely does when used properly.

Why stop there?

[iminplaya]

Put on electric collars that zap you if you step "out of bounds". Easy to see where this will lead.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[clickclickdrone]

Plus at least one episode of ST TOS I can think of.

Re:

[n dot l]

Easy to see where this will lead.

It'll either be the generation that grows up hopelessly deranged because of the constant surveilance, or the generation that grows into docile little drones that do as they're told because they can't shake the feeling that someone's watching them...

Put on electric collars that zap you if you step "out of bounds".

Heh. While they're at it they can give the collar the voice of GLaDOS [wikipedia.org] so it can issue warnings, instructions, and inspirational anecdotes.*

* Those that haven't played Portal, or listened to someone who has played Portal rant incessantly about the Weighted Compa

Bunch of idiots - this DOES increase freedom

[cumin]

Or one of the first independent generations in years?

Seriously, do you think that most kids get to go wherever they want as soon as they're old enough to ask? Do you think that most kids are at home because they want to be or because their parents feel like they aren't safe roaming the neighborhood? I doubt most kids in the last eighty years were allowed to visit neighbors or wander the neighborhood before they were fifteen. Two hundred years ago in colonial America, kids could just take off and play or ha

Re:

[n dot l]

Instead I see all these idiotic posts making the assumption that parents are letting their kids have freedom but just waiting for a gadget to restrict it.

I think you misunderstood what I and (possibly, I can't speak for anyone but myself) others are saying. The assumption is that parents these days are, by and large, the morns that "aren't letting their kids have freedom" and that much of the freedom that kids do get is had by evading the parents, which would become impossible if they were all tagged or collared with a tracking device. How free would you really be roaming the streets if you know your parents are probably watching and might yell at you over

Re:

[Mr. Slippery]

I doubt most kids in the last eighty years were allowed to visit neighbors or wander the neighborhood before they were fifteen

WTF? Where and when did you grow up that kids were kept in the house all the time?

I was certainly wandering the neighborhood long before I was fifteen. Spent a lot of time playing in the woods even. Went over friends houses. Rode my bike to the library, to the arcade, to the mall. This was only about twenty-five years ago.

Let's not use a wide brush here.....

[Stanislav_J]

Using this technology to keep alzheimer's victims from wandering off or hurting themseleves is about the least objectionable "tattletale" scenario I can think of. Going to the other end of the spectrum; say, routinely tracking a driver's movements in his own private car....ah, not so much. Technology itself is neutral, and while it can be used for the betterment of mankind, there will always be the temptation to expand a successful tracking technology for use in ever widening circles of privacy violations. That is why we need strong, sensible legislation to prevent abuses and draw boundries. Unfortunately, that requires strong, sensible politicians to make the law, and I don't think they're making any of those anymore.

Re:Let's not use a wide brush here.....

[Thrip]

Technology itself is neutral

Thanks for wasting everyone's time by mindlessly quoting a cliche. Now go sit somewhere and think (if you remember how) about that for half and hour and then come back and tell us if you still believe it. A guillotine is not neutral. It has one purpose: public execution. A gasoline engine requires gasoline, with a set of results that may not have been predictable at the time of invention, but certainly are not "neutral."

True, the morality of something like a GPS is much harder to weigh than, say, a flamethrower. But that is a reason to be more careful, not less. We pretty much accept that when people develop a new piece of hardware, they have a responsibility to make sure it won't explode in your face (unless it's, you know, a face-exploder, which I'm sure someone is working on in God's great US of A). When your bank put's up a new web site, we all presume they have spent a lot of time making sure it's secure. It's about time we started holding technology companies just as responsible for thinking through privacy issues before releasing something.

If the mp3 player catches fire in your pants, it's broken and should not have been released. If the website lets hackers get your bank account number, it's broken and should not have been released. If the car tells dad you spent the night at your girlfriend's house instead of at boy scouts, or tells the department of homeland security you stopped by the mosque, it's broken and should not have been released.

Re:

[schmiddy]

If the car tells dad you spent the night at your girlfriend's house instead of at boy scouts, or tells the department of homeland security you stopped by the mosque, it's broken and should not have been released.

Wow. Yet more of the attitude "the user is too dumb to make moral decisions on their own, so we have to make them for him". And you wonder why the government illegally seizes power in the name of a higher cause.

Keep in mind the exact same GPS unit could be used for keeping track of where you le

Re:

[Thrip]

Wow.

My sentiments exactly. This is an extremely confused screed you've got going here. Let's try to step through this and apply a little rational thought, shall we?

If the car tells dad you spent the night at your girlfriend's house instead of at boy scouts, or tells the department of homeland security you stopped by the mosque, it's broken and should not have been released.

Yet more of the attitude "the user is too dumb to make moral decisions on their own, so we have to make them for him".

Who exactly is "the user" here? The mosque visitor has no scope to apply a "moral decision" to not be tracked and thus profiled. Technology affects people beyond those who pay for it, thus free-market libertarianist bullshit doesn't really shed any light on this issue.

And you wonder why the government illegally seizes power in the name of a higher cause.

No. I don't wonder that. That's very clear to me. What I wonder is why s

Re:

[ryzvonusef]

i worship an idol? what, i never so one! man, why didn't anybody show me? seriously, if people go to levels of actually believing such stupidity.. HELLO! we worship one God and repect jesus as much as you do! Plz, think of us as terrorist as much as you like, but at least be knowledge-able about it...

By your logic

[cumin]

Lets assume that the technology is used in exactly the way you suggest, to track the whereabouts of minors and people the government is afraid of.
As far as being watched by Dad, here are the real options:

• A. Dad lets Jr go to boy scouts because he knows that Jr tends to go where he said he would as he's proven, and Dad can check up on Jr just to make sure he's not knocking Susie up. Eventually Jr grows up but he's got a long history of being allowed to make his own decisions and mistakes so he enjoys his

Re:

[Stanislav_J]

I think you've gone way off base here. Yes, "technology is neutral" is a cliche, but believe it or not, sometimes cliches are true. Your specious guillotine example has already been discussed elsewhere. When I say "neutral," I don't mean that the potential uses or motives of the users are neutral -- I'm saying that, for example, a GPS system doesn't know or care who it is tracking or why -- the same technology can be used to protect the eldery or mentally ill, to locate a dangerous criminal, or to violate t

Re:

[Thrip]

First -- apologies for the overly harsh tone of my earlier reply. Sometimes my rhetoric gets the better of me.

That said, please explain why the guillotine example is "specious." You can't dismiss an argument just because some moron disagreed with it. I think it's a very good example. A person manufacturing guillotines knows exactly what use they will be put to. If you believe there is a moral weight to capital punishment, then there is a moral weight to the manufacture of guillotines. Hard to get a mor

Re:

[Bender0x7D1]

Well, if you consider a guillotine in context, it is actually a good thing. Prior to the guillotine, executions were done by hanging, or by using an axe - and a guillotine is a much more humane approach.

In hanging, if the drop was too short, you would slowly suffocate to death instead of getting a broken neck. When using a headsman and an axe, it wasn't that uncommon for the headsman to "miss" and require multiple blows to actually remove the head. With a guillotine, you guarantee a fast, relatively p

Re:

[maxume]

If people in general were strong and sensible, we wouldn't need legislation to protect us from stupid. Anybody who looks at American style democracy and thinks that 'the problem' is the system has an incredible disconnect between their extremely pessimistic and cynical view of one small group of people, and their hilariously optimistic view of another large group of people.

The world gets better when people refuse to give ground on things that they consider principles, rather than hand waving about things th

I have no problem with GPS tracking in cars

[Shivetya]

when it comes to parents (the owners of the cars) who lend them to their children. I think every parent has the right to know where their car and child is. Giving a car to a child is a big hand over of responsbility but it does not end that responsibility for the parent. The child (adult for some) is entrusted to behave as the parent instructs and operation of a car outside of direct parental supervision is not a license to be a hooligan. Once the child becomes an adult by law or moves out the use of such a device should end.

We lose too many children every year to auto accidents and perhaps knowing they are being watched over will save a few from fruitless loss. It could do very well to protect them as well from actions outside of their control - giving responders guidance to where they are in an emergency.

Re:

[Kokuyo]

Seriously? The kids we lose because they're just dumb fuckwads who think a few beer (as in ten) and some shots of vodka won't do anything to decrease their ability to drive are good for two reasons:

1: The more intelligent ones think twice about copying that
2: We're rid of some morons.

Now if we could get them to kill themselves without hurting others... that would be efficient.

Sometimes people die. Losing freedom over a bit of security is plain stupid.

Re:

[Aetuneo]

Think about it from the other angle: If you know that you are being watched, and hence that you will be protected from harm, you are more likely to take risks. For example, if you know that a vehicle will stop before it hits you, because of some sort of automatic stop button in it, you are much more likely to walk across the street when there are vehicles coming, because they will not hurt you (of course, the chance of this increases when you are in a hurry, or when your senses are clouded by alcohol or dru

Yeah, that sounds great....

[Datamonstar]

... until the people who push this stuff gets a taste of it when their wives track their signal to the local red light district when they were supposed to be at the office working.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://forgetmenotpanties.com/ [forgetmenotpanties.com]
 

Screw that

[JamesRose]

Just handcuff your kids to the nearest radiator.

A new one for our area

[smchris]

that I haven't seen discussed.

Our bus/trolley system in Minneapolis/St Paul has been operating for years on a cash or disposable card system with the cards having unlimited monthly value or a cash value. They have recently completed testing and are pushing a swipe card that isn't disposable and has a unique serial number. You can add value to it online and a couple days later it will appear on the card when you use it. Obviously because the readers are a wifi connection to the system.

So it's all in the q

Not for my kids

[throatmonster]

...and they are on the verge of teenage years. I've always refused to let them be fingerprinted, photo ID'd, whatever, in those programs that claim they only give the information to you (the parent) in case your child goes missing. It's far too easy to run afoul of laws, even when the activity itself is relatively benign. I'm going to give them every chance NOT to be tracked if they want to disappear.

Having said that, I make a lot of effort to know where my children are, in more ways than one. Not just phys

Re:

[AgentPaper]

Funny, that. My mother refused to have me kid-printed when the friendly local law enforcement officer came to our school, but it wasn't because she felt that I should be able to run away - far from it. She didn't want my fingerprints, or any other identifying information, where the cops could get their hands on it. (Our local constabulary wasn't exactly known for its stringent adherence to due process, particularly where kids were concerned.)

That said, my parents always knew where I was, or at least who

Poor-man's GPS

[Sax Maniac]

No kidding. I accidentally discovered this a few years ago! I found out that I can use online banking to figure out where my wife is. Unlike GPS, it works indoors! Each bank card is like a satellite, the more you have the more accurate it becomes. Thus, the poor-man's GPS: in more ways than one.

Re:

[cumin]

I tried that, but it did indeed make me a poor-man. In fact, it didn't take long until I couldn't make the payments. Unfortunately they didn't repo the wife, only turned off the service.

Not inherently bad...like any tool

[moxley]

Technologies like this always have good uses and bad uses.

It usually starts off with good uses - but also keep in mind, that when a government wants to have more control over the population or make a change that will have far, wide, and long ranging impacts they ALWAYS initially claim it is for the "good of the people and will never be abused."

Two examples? Your Social Security card. My original one has in big letters on the front" NOT TO BE USED FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES." Because at the time these SSNs

call a spde a spade

[dotmax]

The only reasonable response to crap like this is a spittle-flecked rant.

The simple irreducible fact of tech like these GPS nanny boxes is that they are castrating our society, and our next generation in particular. Disabling your [son's] vehicle because he was so [Mr. Burns air quotes] sneaky [/mr burns] as to drive to the next town is beyond assinine, it daddy-dicksizing, public humiliation and teaches ... just what does it teach? Not anything i want my future leaders to learn, that's for sure.

This stuf

Re:

[omfglearntoplay]

Nice rant. While I don't see car seats as being too terrible, the rest of it is so horribly true it's sickening in an urban or suburban environment. The only way to get away from this stuff is to get away from the cities. Of course then you miss out on high paying jobs, fast food on every block, and high crime rates. Maybe I should sell my house, get a simple job, and go live on my deceased grandparents' land. To be honest, it is tempting. I can even get decent internet out in the boondocks now. But no mat

ZZZTTTT!!! "Citizen must return to safe area..."

[omfglearntoplay]

That's what this sounds like. Walk out of line and Ow, Shock, ~ZZZTTTT~!.. in it's best Half-Life 2 civil announcement voice "Citizen must return to safe area. Any citizen who resists will be shipped to sector Delta for emotional retuning".