A couple years ago, we did a vis with Nathan Eagle at MIT Media Lab that tracked 100 media lab and sloan school faculty and students' locations based on interpolated tower info. Click on the first visualization: http://reality.media.mit.edu/viz.php
The location of the users was augmented by each phone pinging for nearby bluetooth IDs to give 10m proximity information. There's quite a bit of interesting information to be extracted. Here's a powerpoint of Nathan's findings presented at a Where 2.0 conference: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/presentations/where2005/eagle_update.ppt We did have identity information from the volunteer subjects, though. As Roger writes, Google claims to only collect non-identifying tower info... -Stephen > -----Original Message----- > From: Roger Critchlow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 9:08 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Google, GPS and "We know where you are." > > Well, according to this slashdot: > > http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/23/196229 > > which points to this Washington Post article: > > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/2 > 2/AR2007112201444_pf.html > > the feds have been routinely asking for and getting real time > cell tower tracking information from your phone provider, > even though it runs counter to DoJ guidelines. So that's > with access to the cell phone infrastructure but it's roughly > the same information that GoogleMaps is using to locate your > phone without GPS. > > As for bugging your phone, sure, it would be no problem to > write a small program which ran on your Treo, woke up > regularly, checked the cell id's on the closest towers, and > SMS'ed that information to someone who was interested. You > might notice the extra interference on your car FM radio if > you have a GSM phone, you might notice the SMS charges on > your phone bill, or you might walk around announcing your > location until the phone broke. > > But the pings, the handshakes with the cell towers, are > infrastructural, they're your phone's business and the phone > company's business, and they only go further if your phone or > your phone company explicitly shares them. > > The precision depends on the density of the towers and how > well the intersecting sectors have been mapped by GPS phones. > While GMaps is active on the phone, it's reading out the > id's for the nearest tower/cells and the signal strength for > each id. If the phone has GPS, it sends the cell id's/signal > strength and the GPS location to mother google for her world > map. If the phone has no GPS, it just sends the cell > id's/signal strength to mother google. She checks her map > and sends back an estimated location and error. That it's > not working around Santa Fe probably means that there aren't > many, or any, GPS enabled phones running GoogleMaps and > reporting actual locations around these parts. > > But Google can't ping your phone, it's your phone that pings > the towers to maintain its connectivity. And Google only > collects the tower id/signal strength/location information, > because collecting identities would be evil, not to mention > hideously expensive given that there is one cell phone for > every two people on earth as of last thursday: > > http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/29/213245 > > -- rec -- > > > On Dec 3, 2007 1:10 AM, Tom Johnson < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Colleagues: > > In recent days, Google announced the beta of some > software for a GPS-equipped mobile phones. See > http://tinyurl.com/yrvfo3 > The way it works is by picking up a signal from cell > towers, it indicates the phone's location with a blue dot on > Google's Mobil Maps. (For what it's worth, I have Google > Mobile Maps on my Treo 650, but I have yet to get this > version to work.) > > Here's my question: > > Would it be possible for the Google mothership to do > the equivalent of "pinging" my phone number, not to make a > call but to see if (a) the phone is on and if so (b) where is > that phone? The phone wouldn't ring, so the user would have > no idea he/she is being geo-located. I assume that if Google > could do that, those phone numbers and geocodes could easily > become a data base appropriate for some interesting data > mining, both as a static bit of insight and if done, say, > every hour, whew. What a rich pile of insight for all sorts > of people, businesses and survey agencies. Putting aside > issues of a person's privacy, just the collective data about > where that particular phone is going -- forget who owns it -- > would be rather amazing and useful to some. > > So, back to the questions: > > 1) Would those pings of a phone be possible? > 2) Would the results reflect location and movement of > that phone down to what degree of distance today? Are we > talking meters or kilometers or ???? > 3) And if Google wasn't doing the pinging, could anyone > who had my phone number track my location and/or distance > from any originating dialing point/server? > > Thanks, > Tom Johnson > > -- > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482 (c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- > Buckminster Fuller > ========================================== > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > http://www.friam.org <http://www.friam.org> > > > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
