Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 39 posts

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#21

Post by ryusage »

will118 wrote: post #13

I keep seeing these Renew people dance around this whole "identifying information" thing. Maybe they clarified it somewhere along the line, but I read the quartz article and the one before. I can't think of anything more identifying that I carry than my MAC address(es). So say my MAC is 01:23:45:67:89:ab and Renew anonymizes this to "0001", clearly that's just as identifiable. I genuinely can't think of a reason to g…

It seems pretty clear from the way they talk about it that they're tracking who sees each ad on each bin in exactly the same way google tracks who sees each ad on each web page. The obvious next step for such a technology is to show specific ads only when people who might care about them are nearby. It's pretty genius really - it would put them miles ahead of other physical ad companies, at least until the rest started doing it too.

But yes, the obvious downside is that instead of worrying about google knowing everywhere you go on the internet, you now have companies that know everywhere you go physically as well.

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#22

Post by 7952 »

Tichy wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who finds that a bit silly? Perhaps the next step will be that we won't be allowed to look at other people on the street anymore, because we would gather too much information. What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail? I wouldn't be surprised if every smartphone with WLAN also "tracks" other people on the stre…

There is a difference between capturing data passively (which this is), and actively trying to extract it. That's the difference between a paparazzi and Google Streetview. Of course the average person has no idea what they are broadcasting.

The reality is that modern gadgets always leek unique data that could be identifiable; and trying to lock down every path is impossible.

Perhaps every app, browser page or network connection should get its own GUID that it always included, un-encrypted in every request by default. Then give users the ability to change it easily on a per app basis. Make laws that require companies to only collect the GUID and no other passively collected information without explicit permission.

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#23

Post by cinquemb »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #18
jwilliams wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the same City of London that is surrounded by the "Ring of Steel"[1] - described as a "surveillance cordon" with almost half a million CCTV cameras. At the checkpoints police had near-carte-blanche to search any vehicle they liked. From a different era, granted, but a strange entity to be kicking up a fuss about privacy. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_(London)

Wealthy people like to protect their personal privacy.

Makes me wonder what will happen when clothes, hats, glasses and etc start emitting electromagnetic interference that inhibits this vast system.

There's gotta be money in that, eh?

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#26

Post by ChuckMcM »

I figured it to be a publicity stunt, the bins are selling advertising, this gets their description and capabilities into the press.

But it twigged an interesting idea (probably impractical) of a personal version of this device. It could give just watch for mac addresses (or bluetooth addresses) that got into range or stayed in range. If someone was following you in a car it might show up as continued presence of an unrecognized cell phone MAC address.

If done right you could do "recognition" with Glass using cellphone MAC rather than facial. Not sure if that counts in the rules, but people do inadvertently carry around an ID tag with them that is broadcasting their identity to anything that knows how to ask for it.

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#27

Post by x0x0 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

I figured it to be a publicity stunt, the bins are selling advertising, this gets their description and capabilities into the press. But it twigged an interesting idea (probably impractical) of a personal version of this device. It could give just watch for mac addresses (or bluetooth addresses) that got into range or stayed in range. If someone was following you in a car it might show up as continued presence of an…

Those cost $57.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spyi...

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#28

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

cinquemb wrote: post #23
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealthy people like to protect their personal privacy.

Makes me wonder what will happen when clothes, hats, glasses and etc start emitting electromagnetic interference that inhibits this vast system. There's gotta be money in that, eh?

Think of all the fun you can have too. You could potentially fake a person's electronic signature and then visit strange places.

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#29

Post by mattmanser »

Tichy wrote: post #8

Am I the only one who finds that a bit silly? Perhaps the next step will be that we won't be allowed to look at other people on the street anymore, because we would gather too much information. What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail? I wouldn't be surprised if every smartphone with WLAN also "tracks" other people on the stre…

Your brain can't track millions of people and remember them all forever without breaking a sweat like computers can.

The difference is the scale and the permanence of the data.

And yes, the mobile companies shouldn't be collecting that data even though they are.

When I visit my dominatrix, 15 illicit children or go for my ballet lessons, I want it to stay private from my 3 girlfriends.

There are numerous organisations that could take advantage of that information to blackmail me into doing something I didn't want to, like support pay rises for all the head police officers.

I'm being silly, but what the hell does anyone need this information for, the only possible thing it can be used for is for nefarious purposes. It doesn't really stop crimes, it rarely catches criminals and it doesn't make our lives better. It's expensive, degrading to individual humans to constantly spy on them and is an enabler for horrific crimes against humanity.

Just say no.

Re: City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

#30

Post by cinquemb »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #28
cinquemb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder what will happen when clothes, hats, glasses and etc start emitting electromagnetic interference that inhibits this vast system. There's gotta be money in that, eh?

Think of all the fun you can have too. You could potentially fake a person's electronic signature and then visit strange places.

Kind of reminds me of Ghost in the Shell philosophy[0]:

What good is electronic surveillance when people who can run scripts and programs to imitate other people to the point that it will be indistinguishable from the real thing?

Thinking about this stuff gets me excited about the future. I'm deff going to be involved making stuff like this happen, haha.

Edit: Already getting myself involved with it now…

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_She...

Post reply on HN