Your mobile phone is watching you.. Closely.

[Fumesucker]

http://www.gizmag.com/die-zeit-interactive-tracking-mobile-phone/18295/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=e690eed24b-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

While most of us know it is theoretically possible for our movements to be tracked by detecting which tower our mobile phone is connected too, it might come as a shock to see just how much of a digital footprint we leave as we go about our daily lives. German Green Party politician Malte Spitz and German newspaper Die Zeit have provided a frightening insight into just how much information can be gleaned from the digital breadcrumbs we drop every day by creating an interactive map showing Spitz's movements and activities over a five month period based on mobile phone data and information freely available on the internet.

To get hold of his mobile phone data, Spitz sued his service provider, German telco giant Deutsche Telekom. He then provided the phone data, which included geolocation and time and date information, to Die Zeit who combined the data with information freely available on the internet – including Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites – that related to his life as a politician to create an interactive map of Spitz's movements and activities.

And before you start thinking a public figure like Spitz is going to generate more data than your average man in the street, you might want to take a moment to consider just how many tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates you fire off on a daily basis.

In the age of ubiquitous computing and technologies such as RFID chips, the ability for corporations and governments to track not only our movements but also our activities is only set to increase and raises questions about the rights of individuals to privacy in the digital age. But as shown by Die Zeit's interactive map, which was based on data collected from August 2009 to February 2010, the information required to form a pretty detailed picture of our lives is already out there.

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[FLPanhandle]

2. Is this a surprise to anyone?

Apps like Loopt have been leveraging this data and share it openly with others for years now.

[1monster]

3. In that case, my mobile phone must be bored to tears...

The most interesting thing my phone heard was when my now adult son was in elementary school and my husband and I would exchange a call saying, "It's time to pick up the donut" --a play on the Dunkin' Donuts advertisement series starring The Mustachioed Donut Maker when it was time to meet the school bus in the afternoon.

It was our little joke, but occasionally I wondered what the impression would be if we had been being monitored. :scared:

[pipi_k]

5. Mine too...

unless there's something exciting about "Angry Birds" and "Bubble Bust"


:7

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. If someone wanted to track me they'd definitely find the perfect cure for insomnia.

[kentauros]

4. "tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates you fire off on a daily basis"

Um, none?

Even though I have a new phone, a "crackberry-light" type, I only text to about two people and only from a literal handful of places: my office cube, my apartment and two restaurants I frequent. The rest of the time it's off. If anyone wanted to 'track' me, they'd find it more difficult than with the rest of y'all ;)

[Urban Prairie]

6. Dunno how anyone would benefit in any way from tracking me

My wife and I only have pay as you go Tracfones, and have been using one of our neighbors' phones or cellphones to make calls that would need to take longer than a few minutes. But I have just recently discovered that I can make phone calls through my gmail account, but my headset and microphone aren't working properly for some reason, I can make calls and hear the person I am calling , but they can't hear me. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the microphone attached to the headset, maybe I will have to fiddle with the OS (WinXP) device manager and sound settings to figure out what is wrong. There are no updated "drivers" available online from the headsets makers either (Logitech)

Since I haven't had any discretionary income to spend as I wish in over half a decade now, and I now have a LOT more company that are in the same situation or worse, and growing. I cannot even afford to start a credit union account, to obtain a debit card, since my long unemployed wife and I are living solely upon my fixed income from SSD, and since April, 2006, we have never had more than maybe a couple of dollars in change left by the last couple of days of each month. We are living right on the razor's edge. because any relatively minor unexpected expense(s) might just be enough to push us off it and into homelessness.

The only reason that I am still able to browse the internet at all, is because my neighbor bought a computer and lets me wirelessly share his cable broadband signal, in exchange for keeping his computer's OS up to date and functioning properly, and his son is using my wireless router that I connected to their modem, for his Wii for playing games online.

[Hatchling]

12. Check with your credit union.

Mine rebates my fees for direct deposit.

At the 1st of the month I deposited the minimum amount to open the account and then used the new debit card to spend that money on my basics. I had sixty days to set up direct deposit.

[felix_numinous]

7. Another thing that has become the 'new normal'

and it is anything but.

[Quantess]

8. Some people actually like to tell people where they are on facebook

The places app.
How could it possibly be a good idea? Why do they think I care that they are at Mario's Pizzeria right now?

[MadHound]

10. And this has been possible for ten years now,

And the sad part is that people are buying their own chains. It isn't just your Twitter or Facebook or cell phone. It is those discount or club cards you use, using plastic (debit or credit) instead of cash. Coupons, surveys, free trials. It is out of all this that your corporate profile is put together, the better to sell things to you, and yes, keep track of your activities. And all of this is easily available to the police and other governmental authorities.

And sadly, the American public has bought into this willingly.

We have bought our own chains.

[Zorra]

11. Heh. My phone is tracking someone named John Jensen.

He does not exist.