Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Noid Noid

     Um, don't look now but in NYC, payphone watches you!  Or your smartphone.  The system uses little Bluetooth "beacons" to ping passing cellular phones. Turning off "location services" might -- might -- disable it.

     Even the city's socialist mayor wasn't cool with it, and asked the company to turn 'em off.  (No word on removing the devices, so one supposes NYPD might ask them to be turned back on, all sub-rosa like.  Or is that too paranoid?  Hey, it's 2014.  Big Brother -- and his nieces and nephews in the advertising business -- is watching.  The only question is how thoroughly.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are we reaching a point where many (even most) people will long for the good ol' days of the 1960's and give up smart phones, PC's, credit cards, and other such easily-stolen / hacked technology in the interests of preserving their privacy? Or will people just live with the idea that, at the end of the day, somebody knows EVERYTHING about them, and willingly trade privacy for convenience?

What's the difference between a hacker stealing one's personal info and a major corporation or the .gov doing it?

Old NFO said...

I think more folks can and will 'drop out'... Maybe keep a burner phone, but never use it unless there is an emergency.

Anonymous said...

And they think TV shows like Person-of-Interest is just paranoia sci-fi!

gfa

Anonymous said...

Tip of the iceberg. Here's another:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/09/12/e-zpasses-get-read-all-over-new-york-not-just-at-toll-booths/

73, Jim

Stretch said...

And people laugh at my old flip phone.

Anonymous said...

>What's the difference between a hacker stealing one's personal info and a major corporation or the .gov doing it?

Q:What's the difference between you hiding a root kit in a CD for your customer to discover (or not) and Sony doing the exact same thing?

A: 15 years to life.

-SM