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Friday, March 11, 2011

the darker side of cellphones and the digital age

In a world that is falling in love with location-based services the following critique will probably sound old-fashioned and laughable.

Still, we should all remember that each and everyone of us who carries a cellphone is being tracked constantly by the cellular phone companies. Thanks to NY Times I learned of a great story by Zeit Online, telling of a very nice demonstration given by Malte spitz of the German green party regarding the meaning of meta-data kept by cellular phone operators:


  • This demonstration, "Naturally", required that Spitz had to file a suit against telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom just to get this information... 
  • 35.831 bits of location information have been gathered by the cellular phone company  between  August 2009 and February 2010.   
  • These bits, put together,  provide a clear picture of a person’s habits and preferences.  For example: they tell at what cities he visited and when; whether he  walked  or took a train; when he worked, when he slept and when his phone was unavailable. It shows when he  talked on his phone and when he preferred to send an SMS.... and more.... 
  • When you add this data to the bits of data flowing loose on the internet (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forum posts, news items, etc, etc), You get to know a person's life.


The future is here and now, and I think I'm going to start shutting down my cell phone more often...

[update, 20/4/2011: Techdirt has a story about smart phones apps using the camera and microphone to gather information, without users knowing it. The uses reported appear to be legitimate. The implications are really scary]. 

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