-Caveat Lector- http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2693860,00.html?chkpt =zdhpnews01 Those great gadgets might be spying on you By Eric Auchard Reuters March 8, 2001 9:41 AM PT CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Big Brother may be in your pocket. Popular electronic gadgets with links to the Internet pose a mounting threat to consumer privacy, Richard Smith, a leading computer privacy expert, said in an interview on Wednesday. Smith, chief technology officer for the Privacy Foundation, a Denver- based, nonprofit advocacy group, said a variety of gadgets have come to market this past year that pump consumer data directly back to corporate marketing systems. Such everyday "spy" devices include fitness monitors that track heart rates and pump out exercise-related advertising, digital music players that track listening habits and low-cost wristwatch and wireless surveillance cameras, as well as location-tracking mobile phones and other monitoring devices. "What concerns me is how much surveillance companies are building into everyday electronic devices," Smith said. "Most people don't understand how far this has already gone." Smith was interviewed ahead of a speech entitled "Gadgets that Spy," which he plans to deliver at the 10th annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference here on Thursday. The annual event has drawn more than 300 leading privacy activists, technical and legal experts and government officials in the privacy field. Gadgets spying on everyday life As examples of such potentially invasive electronic gadgets, Smith singled out SportBrain, an exercise monitoring device that can be worn on a person's belt, storing data that can later be transmitted back to the company's Web site. The gadget monitors the wearer's movement and then can be coupled to a phone so data can be sent to the equipment maker's Web site. The site allows athletes to track exercise and caloric data in return for viewing advertisements based on exercise levels, Smith said. Smith questioned why the product does not run locally on a consumer's PC instead of "calling home" to the company. The answer appears simply to be so the company can market products to the consumers, Smith said. The privacy policy on SportBrain's Web site says it will never sell the information it collects to outside companies. ''We take special precautions to maintain the privacy of our members while at the same time providing them with the detailed and valuable information they desire from us,'' it states. A SportBrain official dismissed Smith's arguments, saying that he had failed to take account of the company's response to his position. "There are no privacy concerns here," said Greg van den Dries, SportBrain's vice president of sales. "We don't sell data. We are not some crazy Internet company. We make money selling hardware." "People who are security experts can never admit they are wrong. Smith is barking up the wrong tree here," van den Dries said. The Sunnyvale, Calif. company is backed by Softbank Ventures and Ronnie Lott, the former U.S. football star. Smith, a computer entrepreneur who lives in Brookline, Mass., sold the industrial controls software company he founded nearly two years ago. Since then, he has made his name probing technologies that can be used to invade consumer privacy. The Privacy Foundation is an independent research organization funded by Peter Barton, the former president of Liberty Media, the U.S. cable television company now part of AT&T, among other backers. The consumer advocate has brought to light the use of serial number and other data in software from companies such as Microsoft, RealNetworks and others that could potentially be used to track consumer behavior. "I've always been interested in the computer-bites-man type story," said the self-described gadget lover of his mixed feelings about the potential for technology to be abused. Surveillance at home, work and play now routine Beyond this early wave of gadgets, Smith sees data-collecting, privacy- invading devices pushing their way into every walk of ordinary life. "We've seen this sort of consumer data-tracking all before on the Internet, but now we're beginning to see it migrate into everyday devices," he said. Eastman Kodak now sells a digital picture frame holder aimed at grandparents that allows parents to e-mail pictures of the grandkids directly to the frame, requiring a phone connection back to Kodak. Smith said Kodak staff had told him that the $10 per month network connection was meant to subsidize a device that was otherwise selling below cost. A spokesman for Kodak was not immediately available to comment late on Wednesday. Another area he cited as a concern is the arrival of very low-cost, so- called "biometric" software that use fingerprint, facial and voice recognition and iris-scanning of one's eyes as security systems that do away with the need for cumbersome passwords and other security tokens. Some 30 to 40 companies are active in this area, he said. In studying the motivations behind this new wave of data-gathering products, Smith said he struggled to make sense of many of the business models used to justify such products. "Some of these products are just not going to make it. They just don't make sense," Smith said. He theorizes that the illicit lure of collecting unprecedented amounts of data on consumer behavior may explain why some of the more poorly designed products exist. It appears these companies have been seduced by the idea of direct marketing into developing business models that just don't make sense to consumers, he argued. The technology critic said his argument is supported by the experience of the past five years of Internet advertising and marketing. Many sites with hare-brained business models started up but then fell on hard times as privacy concerns cropped up, Smith noted. -- Best Wishes If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had ten apostles. ~Unknown <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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