http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/22/technol ... /index.htmNEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year.
Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”
It's impossible not to be matchable, at least, with individual people. They're tracking the cell phone, which means they know the number, which means they know who you are.klr wrote:Reading the full article, it's not quite as sinister as it might first seem, as long as the information does not ultimately get matched to an identifiable person
Mind you, as someone who never participates even in supermarket loyalty schemes, you wouldn't find me volunteering for this study - unless it was to mess it up.
This is all very true, and it's a good reason to secure your privacy when and where you can. I recommend starting with the book "How to be Invisible" by JJ Luna.Schneibster wrote:We're going to be dealing with this kind of stuff from now on, as technology gets better and better. Having a computer scrub the private data out is all very well, but who oversees the data to ensure it's scrubbed? What are the liability implications of not scrubbing it and a third party getting ahold of the unscrubbed data? Or stealing it before it's scrubbed? This hasn't happened yet I know of, but it's sure to, and liability insurers are sure to take notice after one of them gets burned.
Same, but gee whizz, do you think they'll go for our take on it? I mean, if their notion of allowing people to "opt out" of their scheme is suggesting that people can just turn their phones off ...Warren Dew wrote:I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates loyalty schemes. Just lower the price if you want to be nicer to your customers!
Malls suspend plan to track shoppers' cellphones
Two shopping malls have dropped plans to track shopper's movements after a US senator voiced privacy concerns about the practice, which involves monitoring individuals' cellphone signals.
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depends on how efficient your spam filter is, I guess.klr wrote:As the article also points out, you're much more easily "tracked" on-line, and yet most people don't seem to be clued into this, or to care.
Yeah, but it's not paranoia when they're really after you...Seth wrote:This is all very true, and it's a good reason to secure your privacy when and where you can. I recommend starting with the book "How to be Invisible" by JJ Luna.Schneibster wrote:We're going to be dealing with this kind of stuff from now on, as technology gets better and better. Having a computer scrub the private data out is all very well, but who oversees the data to ensure it's scrubbed? What are the liability implications of not scrubbing it and a third party getting ahold of the unscrubbed data? Or stealing it before it's scrubbed? This hasn't happened yet I know of, but it's sure to, and liability insurers are sure to take notice after one of them gets burned.
My cell phone, for example, is not listed to me. It's owned by an LLC that is owned by another LLC formed in New Mexico, which is the only state that does not require the owners or managers of an LLC to be identified in the state records. I have a registered agent in NM who keeps it legal and sends me stuff as needed, but even she does not know my real name, she knows only my pen-name and the address she sends stuff to is a "ghost address" located more than 200 miles from where I live. I have a friend collect the mail from the secure mailbox and send it to me at regular intervals, and I pay for my service with a debit card on a bank account for the second-level LLC.
I never, ever reveal my actual street residence address to anyone, and I pick up my mail at a post office miles from where I actually live. All service calls and utilities are paid for by the LLC, and I have UPS and FedEx packages delivered to a friend's house miles away from my actual home. I never, ever order pizza or any other deliveries to my door, and I even managed to escape the Census takers, so even they don't know where I live.
My vehicles are all registered to an LLC in Montana, which has very amenable tax and registration laws, and that LLC is also owned by the NM LLC, so there is no direct link from my license plates to my real name. I keep a "letter of authorization" in my vehicles to give to police if I get stopped that is issued by my pen-name on behalf of the LLC.
My driver's license address is listed as the ghost address 200 miles away.
My internet service is through the LLC stack as well, so my real name is never attached to that.
Took a few years and some real research to identify all the links that tied me to my ranch address and break them, so when I moved, it completed the severing of my old persona from my physical location. I was aghast when I started making a bubble-diagram of all the people and organizations who knew who I was and where I lived...there were more than a hundred...as a part of analyzing my privacy.
Now the only people who know where I live under my real name are my family and close friends.
Hard to do at first, and hard to maintain, given how carefully trained Americans are to simply give out personal information at the drop of a hat (why the hell does my hair stylist need to know my address and phone number, all I want is a stinking haircut...) without even thinking about it.
That's the hardest thing to overcome, learning to keep your yap shut when someone asks a rude or intrusive question...like the guy at the men's clothing store did today when he asked "So, what do you do for a living." My answer was, "......" accompanied by a stone-faced glare. He eventually got the message that he should STFU and ring up my purchase before I decided to walk out of the store.
Difficult, but worth it.
"...anyone who says it’s “just the Internet” can. And then when they come back, they can
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