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Britons covertly tracked by secret street scanners
Paul Lewis
London Guardian
Monday, July 21, 2008
Tens of thousands of Britons are being covertly tracked without their consent in a technology experiment which has installed scanners at secret locations in offices, campuses, streets and pubs to pinpoint people’s whereabouts.
The scanners, the first 10 of which were installed in Bath three years ago, are capturing Bluetooth radio signals transmitted from devices such as mobile phones, laptops and digital cameras, and using the data to follow unwitting targets without their permission.
The data is being used in a project called Cityware to study how people move around cities. But pedestrians are not being told that the devices they carry around in their pockets and handbags could be providing a permanent record of their journeys, which is then stored on a central database.
The Bath University researchers behind the project claim their scanners do not have access to the identity of the people tracked.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Eamonn O’Neill, Cityware’s director, said: “The objective is not to track individuals, whether by Bluetooth or any other means. We are interested in the aggregate behaviour of city dwellers as a whole. The notion that any agency would seriously consider Bluetooth scanning as a surveillance technique is ludicrous.”
But privacy experts disagree, pointing out that Bluetooth signals are assigned code names that can, to varying degrees, indicate a person’s identity.
Many people use pseudonyms, nicknames, initials, or abbreviations to identify their Bluetooth signals. Cityware’s scanners are also picking up signals that are listed using people’s full name, email address and telephone numbers.
Contacted about the Cityware project, the office of the information commissioner said in a statement that the public should “think carefully” before switching on their Bluetooth signals. A spokesman said the government watchdog would “monitor” the experiment.
“This is yet another example of moronic use of technology,” said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, an independent campaigning group defending personal privacy. “For Bath University to assert that there aren’t privacy implications demonstrates an astonishing disregard for consumer rights. If the technology is as safe as they claim, then all the technical specifications should be published and people should be informed when they are being tracked.”
He added: “This technology could well become the CCTV of the mobile industry. It would not take much adjustment to make this system a ubiquitous surveillance infrastructure over which we have no control.”
Although initially confined to Bath, Cityware has spread across the planet after the software was made freely available on the internet sites Facebook and Second Life. Thousands of people downloaded the software to equip their home and office computers with Cityware scanners.
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8 Responses to “Britons covertly tracked by secret street scanners”
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July 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
it’s like skynet. thousands of people are willingly downloading it:)
July 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
GOOD!…ANYONE DUMB ENOUGH TO ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE TRACKED…SHOULD BE TRACKED..AND THE UK? WELL..THEY COULD HAVE SAVED ALLOT OF LIVES BY JUST ACCEPTING HITLERS OFFER TO JOIN WITH GERMANY…WHY WAIT 40 YEARS TO DO IT?..DOESN’ SEEM WORTHWHILE.THE U.K IS SCARY..REALLY THESE PEOPLE ARE THE FIRST…”WESTERN CHINESE” MODEL..AKA THEY ARE CONTENT TO BE ESSENTIALLY CAPTIVE CONSUMERS…NO FREEDOM EXCEPT TO CONSUME AND WORK..AND VEN THOSE “FREEDOMS” ARE..WELL..NOT FREE AT ALL…BUT REAL FREEDOM? THAT ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT EXIST IN ENGLAND NOW…IT DOES NOT! THIS IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS IT SEEMS..REALLY THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS MEANS..REALLY THINK..IF YOU ARE BRITISH..THEN..WHY? WHY ARE YOU SIMPLY…ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN? DO YOU LIKE BEING TRACKED/ DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT YOU CAN EXPERIENCE THE BIGGEST COCAIN BOOM IN HISTORY AND THAT AT THE SMAE TIME A TERRORIST CANNOT GET TO YOU? IF THEY CANNOT WIN THE WAR ON DRUGS..THEY CANNOT WIN THE WAR ON TERROR…SO? WHAT IS THE GOAL? IS IS NOT TO THWART TERRORISM…THAT MUCH IS SURE..IT IS TO CONDITION YOU TO SLAVERY..AND YOU ARE…JUST..GOING ALONG TO GET ALONG….NO WONDER BRITAIN WAS CHOSEN TO SEE IF THIS COULD WORK “IN THE WEST”…YOUR MINDSET IS..ALREADY…”CHINESE” IN A SENSE…COMPLETELY AVAILABLE TO BRAINWASHING AND OBEDIENCE…COMPLETELY..’I HEAR AND OBEY….’…IT IS TOO BAD…BUT..THIS IS WHY SO MANY LEFT YOUR COUNTRY 300 YEARS AGO..UNFORTUNATELY..THERE’S NOWHERE LEFT TO ESCAPE TO…BUT..THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO BLINDLY AND..WELL..AGGRESSIVELY…OBEY…WILL BE IN DEP SHIT IN YOUR COUNTRY WITHIN 3 YEARS..BRITAIN WILL BE THE FIRST TO IMPLEMENT HARSH “PUNISHMENT” BRIGADES…AND PRISON CAMPS…”CHILDREN OF MEN” A PROPHETIC FILM…IT IS COMING…PERIOD…AND THE CITIZENS OF THE U.K. ARE..OK WITH THAT…FUCKING SHEEP! CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO PUT FORHT EVEN A TOKEN RESISTANCE…”TUT-TUT…TEA TIME..” CAKE EATERS AND TEA SIPPERS..AND PRISONERS OF THEIR OWN FEAR..
OH WELL..ENJOY IT…YOU GET THE KIND OF GOVERNMENT YOU DESERVE!
July 21st, 2008 at 8:01 pm
cool these people being tracked should request the video so they can make a documentary about themselves
July 21st, 2008 at 8:18 pm
PS Britain did Coupling
US did Friends
Britain did The Ropers
US did Three’s company
Can you see a pattern here?
Whatever Britain does the US copies, So get ready Americans
July 21st, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Hmmmm? Most bluetooth tracking is of mobile phones. All mobile phones are tracked all the time by the government via GPS and/or radio signal timing and strength methods. Even to a REALLY stupid person, it is apparent that bluetooth tracking is almost entirely redundant, and useless in quality and cost compared to the real tracking methods used.
Want to know a form of tracking that receives little coverage? RFID chips in your tires. The government tracks the vast majority of vehicle journeys using data collected by cheap, ultra reliable, and invisible sub-road-surface RFID readers. The RFID data is connected to the ownership of an actual vehicle, when the vehicle passes any license plate reading camera. If you think about this for a few seconds, you will realise that only a tiny percentage of RFID reader strips have to be partnered with a camera for this system to work.
Even with a new set of tires bought with cash, you vehicle is tracked the first time it passes over a reader. The tire ID codes are connected to you the first time your vehicle passes the camera. At that moment, all previous journey readings are updated on the computer database with the identity of the vehicle.
Of course, the Guardian won’t be covering this story until a time when most people have already heard it, and the Guardian isn’t making news, but ‘preaching to the choir’ in an attempt to build empathy and trust with its really stupid readership. The Guardian will NEVER tell you anything that you don’t already know through the smallest act of research. When it carries a story like this, it is purely an attempt to distract or confuse the stupid.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 am
I’m glad to see that some of you Britons know what’s what. Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future has come true. When we try to explain this reality to our fellow citizens, most of them respond like brainwashed zombies or robots. I personally don’t want to live in the type of world they have planned for us.
I believe that the only way the fascists can be thwarted is by crippling the infrastructure — by disabling the electrical grid, the telecommunications network, the transportation system, and by disrupting government, commerce, police, and military activity. Arson, vandalism, sabotage, and scorched earth.
We will need to create so much chaos that the troops desert their posts en masse so they can go home and help their own starving families and protect them from the roaming mobs. When the system has collapsed and the ruling elite and their followers are reduced to cowering in their own homes, we shall drag them out and execute justice apon them.
Liberte’, Egalite’, Fraternite’!
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:25 am
ECTOENDOMEZO: I couldn’t agree with you more
The British people as a whole allowed it so they deserve it.
(THE NWO IS ALIVE AND WELL IN BRITAIN) I believe the British, will have to be confronted sooner or later; it will be the only way to stop the NWO!!!
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:37 am
Starman: sorry, but friends came before coupling….although your point is close! The US does not copy Britain….but they do use as guinea pigs for the liberty removal programme.
The nature of Brit’s has always been to “lie back and think of England.” As a nation, we (The masses) will always just accept things …no matter how ludicrous they may seem. The ones who speak up against this Government will be looked down on.
Once the Brits have accepted this Big Brother culture…the powers of America will tell the US citizens “Well, Britain are already doing it…We need to follow suit.”