A lot has been posted this week about the Google Maps application for mobile phones and how it can approximate your location anywhere in the United States. This is reasonably troubling. Recently I jumped into the world of Blackberry and downloaded the Google Phone app which had one button links to Gmail, Google News, and Google Maps. The most troubling thing about this app is that my phone was alerting me several times a day that Google was attempting to DOWNLOAD MY PHONE RECORDS! I'm not exactly sure what this means but I assumed it meant they wanted my calling records. After repeatedly denying the request I deleted the program altogether. Personally I don't think GPS is the gateway to a beter life/consuming future. Just learn how to read a map people.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Aren't you freaking out just a little bit, eltb? It would be interesting to see an analysis of the information Google is getting from the phone, but it is probably just asking your phone for the Cell ID as discussed in the article.
Well, they need records of when calls were placed and what towers handled them, right? And I assume if they can get whatever network traffic logs are available that would be helpful too. They don't need to know who you are calling or who is calling you, necessarily. Although when they assure us that they do not have this information and wouldn't misuse it if they did, my gut tells me that this means they probably do, and would.
I have the older Google Maps Mobile on my Samsung Windows Mobile phone and it has no idea where I am, and never asks me for anything. Unless it's just being coy, and it actually knows all. Or maybe Bill Gates has all those data on lockdown in his doomed effort to forestall total Google world domination.
Of course my service is Verizon and you know that they just hand everything over to the Man on a continuous basis anyway.
and at&t doesn't?
No, yeah, they do too. Of course. Most folks do. Qwest, I know, was one of the few big telecoms who demanded a warrant when the federales rode up. There might have been some others.
But I think it's all about the web and about encryption now. Your data packets are transmitted right out there in the public eye, which is fine, but their contents can and should be private.
Skype FTW?
Post a Comment