Mobile Tracking

GPS is a great technology for tracking things and, indeed, is in widespread use these days. It is, however, subject to some irritating limitations. GPS signals get confused by groups of tall buildings. And are hard to read inside buildings.

A new technology, developed by one of the original architects of the GPS satellites, relies on television signals to overcome both of those limitations. TV signals penetrate buildings – obviously or we wouldn’t have enjoyed the nighttime soaps for the past 40 years – and can create a much more consistent picture of where a suitably equipped device has traveled. The target device for the new technology – cell phones.

The surveillance possibilities of this sort of device haven’t been lost on the government. One of the investors in Rosum, the company developing this technology, is In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA.

As I noted in the March newsletter, Oregon is considering implementing a mileage tax to replace a tax on gas bought at the pump. They’ve gone one step further to making this happen.

Starting this Fall, 20 volunteers will have “on-board mileage-counting equipment” installed in their cars to track how far they drive. By Spring, the government hopes to increase the sample size to 280. Volunteers will download data from their onboard computers at specially equipped service stations. They will not have to pay any gas tax during the trial…but instead will be charged 1.2cents per mile they drive.

There is an issue about tracking when the car crosses state lines – into those old-fashioned states that still tax gas purchases – which is being used to justify a GPS component to the “equipment”. And variable pricing for rush hour travel in certain zones is being discussed.

Let’s hope those refinements make a lot of potentially invasive information colection worthwhile. Otherwise, a pretty reasonable system could be built upon simply checking the odometer which is already installed in all cars everywhere… Is this a case of technology infatuation winning out over need?

This post is for the techno-savvy and gadget happy, the ones who are definitely hip enough to know not putting in emails what they wouldn’t want to appear in a newspaper headline. Your blackberry isn’t safe either. Note the word “mistakenly” in the follow quote from an article by Javad Heydary for TechNewsWorld:

“Common belief has mistakenly held that messages sent from one BlackBerry to another using PIN numbers, rather than using normal e-mail addresses, will bypass a company's computers, thus making these communications completely private since the messages are being sent directly from one device to another.”

This little bit of insight comes to us courtesy of a court case in Canada. A large bank is suing a new investment management firm founded by bank ex-employees. It alleges that the ex-employees tried to recruit colleagues for the newco while everyone was still working for the first bank. And as evidence, that bank produced PIN protected Blackberry messages between the suspects which had been stored on their servers.

The lesson here is clear: just because the communication is peer-to-peer, don’t be fooled into thinking the transmission path doesn’t include a server somewhere in the middle that is facilitating the whole thing.

As a followup to last month’s newsletter.

More states are considering legislation about black boxes. In an AP article, James Warden cites an official with the National Conference of State Legislatures, who says that North Dakota, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and West Virginia may join California with black box laws on the books.

Warden also notes that State Farm insurance requires its customers to assist in crash investigations. If you are a State Farm customer, this means that you have already given up your right to withhold black box data from them in the event of a crash. Forewarned is forearmed.

The hottest gadget among tax collectors is a camera connected to a computer database of delinquent taxpayers, er non-payers. Designed to work on cars while parked or driving up to 60 mph, the Bootfinder camera is used to photograph car license plates. That information is cross referenced with a database, updated daily, of scofflaws who haven’t paid taxes or parking tickets. Autos belonging to the ne’er do wells are then tagged, booted or in some cases, impounded. So far, the camera is being used in Arlington VA and New Haven CT.

I suppose if you want to avoid paying in those jurisdictions, you can always risk a speeding ticket…

Here a handful of articles with more:
Washington Times
Forbes
CNN

UPDATE 5/28/05: The Boston Herald reports that Beantown has now jumped onto this particular revenue-generating bandwagon.

New York State has just passed a law which makes it illegal for rental car companies to use GPS to track how fast and how far you drive your rental car. While many rental car companies offer GPS services (most often to give you driving directions), only one smaller company has been taken to court for abuse of it. This company billed its clients a hefty fee any time the driver exceeded the posted speed limit. There's more on this story in my book.

The bottom line is that as of last week, you won't have to pay any additional fine if you speed in a rental car in New York State...unless,that is, the State itself is asking for it.

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UPDATE: Applied Digital Solutions just received FDA approval for its RFID Verichip. We can probably expect our doctors and hospitals to start talking more to us about the pros and cons of having an implant ourselves. This is no longer an issue for special groups...
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While debate rages over the use of RFID tags in consumer goods, a growing number of programs to use RFID to track specific populations of people - like prison inmates, hospital patients and Japanese schoolkids - are getting underway.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction just announed a pilot project to use RFID bracelets to track the prison warders and inmates at its Ross Correctional Facility. If all goes well, the department plans to expand the program to include staff and the full population of 44,000 inmates. Facilities in California, Michigan and Illinois also have programs deployed.

Applied Digital Solutions, a Florida company, is nearing a step further for getting FDA approval to sell it's RFID chip to hospitals to identify patients and monitor staff activity. The icky part about VeriChip's technology is that it is designed to be implanted under the skin...Mexico is already using the chip to monitor a handful of cops.

And an elementary school in Japan is tagging kid's nameplates and bookbags with RFID transmitters to monitor whether or not they are truant and if they're sneaking into areas that are deemed off limits.

These three groups join the august list of tracked beings that already includes livestock and pets. Hmmm...

NOTE: after this post, I came across an article in Fortune with still more examples.
NOTE: and here is another article on news.com with still more examples.