http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/06/696.asp Missouri: State Spies on Drivers Through Cell Phones The state of Missouri has begun a program to track individual movements on highways through cell phones. Delcan control roomThe Missouri Department of Transportation will spend $3 million annually on a program to monitor the movements of individuals on highways via their cell phones -- without their knowledge or consent. Delcan NET, a Canadian company, developed the system which triangulates the location of each driver by monitoring the signal sent from the cell phone as it is handed off from one cell tower to the next. Each phone is uniquely identified and the information is compared with a highway map to record on what road each motorist is traveling at any given time. The system also records the speed of each vehicle, opening up another potential ticketing technology. Missouri rejected the simpler solution used by other states of embedding sensors in the pavement that record how many vehicles pass over a stretch of pavement without uniquely identifying them. Missouri wanted a program that required less equipment. "The traffic community has been really excited for quite some time about the possibility of being able to use cell phones to track vehicles," Valerie Briggs, program manager for transportation operations at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials told the Associated Press. "Almost everyone has a cell phone, so you have a lot of potential data points, and you can track data almost anywhere on the whole (road) system." A pilot program in Baltimore only tracks Cingular cell phones on 1,000 miles of road. AirSage Inc. has contracted with Sprint to spy on motorists in Norfolk, Virginia and Atlanta and Macon, Georgia. Source: States seeking to track cell phones for traffic conditions (Associated Press, 10/8/2005) The only way to get around this is to use a pager for your cell phone line then call the people back on your mobile when you get a chance and then turn it off. Also, having the phone registered in someone elses name isn't a bad idea (or a scooby doo disposable phone)
Well Clyde, since I refuse to use my cell phone when I'm driving and only on extreme rare conditions do I even have it turned on when I'm in my car...will it do them any good?
Maybe certified, but the technology exists Whether it is useful is another story. It is used for all sorts of crappy spying tricks now, legal or illegal. I have one, but only because my employer requires it, otherwise I have no use for one, on road or off. (An the chances of me using it underway on the road is zero.) Not only for trackng and triangulation, but for simple eavesdropping. Too easy for my sense of privacy.
I have a trac phone which is never on unless I'm in trouble on the road. People get angry because they can't reach me during the day sometimes but I feel that my clients pay me good money to attend to their business and I don't want to receive any other calls while I am in their offices. My daughter and one business associate know my schedule and can reach me any time. Other than those two, the rest of the world can wait.
So when you feel doing something illegal and want a rock solid alibi, Duct tape your phone to the top of someone’s car near your home. Then when you are done being bad, go retrieve it and say track my phone that’s where I was.
The official statment at least is that no identifying info will be conected and it dosnt matter if it is in use or not as long as it is on, that it will just be used to see if the phones continue to move down the hiway at normal speeds or if they go slowly along or stop so they can know when/where there are traffic jams so as to let folks know and so on... then too 'officialy' there is no monitoring of the internet and phone calls in general to flag all conversations with key words for review.
What was it Ronnie said? "Trust but verify." Well, I don't trust because I can't verify. Until I have the controls in hand and understood, it is an intrusion. If the technology is available, it will be misused.
