Remember when everyone freaked out for a hot second because it looked like Apple was tracking your every movement? Well, users of nearly every phone out there, you are not going to like this. Security researcher Trevor Eckhart seems to have found a piece of "diagnostic software" created by a company called Carrier IQ that phone carriers have been installing on phones so as to spy better serve you.
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Results tagged “tracking”
Your Phone Carrier Is Probably Spying On You
Bigger Brother: Stores Want To Track You Via Cell Phone
According to CNN, some malls in the US rolled out a new technology on Black Friday that allows retailers to track customers' cell phone signals while they're shopping. The technology is already being used in Europe and Australia, and it was scheduled to be tried out in two malls in California and Virginia. That was until Senator Chuck Schumer put a stop to it.
iPhone Knows Where You Were Last Summer
Even before the iPhone got GPS capabilities it could tell you where you were through cell phone tower data—a useful trick if you were trying to figure out where you were on a map. And the introduction of GPS has given the phone a whole slew of useful location services (we're particularly fond of using the feature to track our bike rides). However the fact that the phone can tell you where you are does not make it cool that since iOS 4 was released last June, iPhones have been keeping a secret file of everywhere their owners have been—a "feature" we like to think of as the "suspicious spouse's new best friend."
Don't Forget To Bring A Towel: Some Hotels Now Tracking Your Linens
Like Welsh musician Gruff Rhys (see video below), we happen to suffer from an acute case of Xenodocheionology...but who could blame us! Everyone knows that one of the greatest perks of hotels is all the sweet, bite-sized swag you get to stuff into your backpack at the end of your stay. Those mini shampoo bottles, the white slippers, and little bars of soap are the stuff dreams are made of. But it seems that hotels have started to catch on to the free swag train, and have started implementing ways of stopping you from taking their robes.
City Could Save Firehouse With FDNY Consultants' Paychecks
Even though the city installed vehicle locators on 1,300 ambulances and fire trucks three years ago, consultants who worked on the GPS system are still getting paid more than $3.5 million per year. Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez blasts the city for paying Hewlett Packard consultants up to $410,217 annually to tweak a system that's already in place, as it threatens to close fire houses and layoff firefighters due to possible state budget cuts. He argues the money would be better on FDNY operations, considering it only costs $1.5 million annually to fund a fire company of 29 firefighters and four officers. An FDNY spokesman said the consultants still provide needed upgrades and enhancements to a system that has "reduced response times across the city."
NYPD Building Massive Cell Phone Database
Days after the NYPD announced plans to expand their anti-terror surveillance network to a huge swath of midtown, it's been revealed that the department is also quickly amassing a vast database of cell phone users. Officers have been instructed to remove suspects' cell phone batteries when making an arrest, for the twofold purpose of "avoiding leakage" and also documenting the phone's International Mobile Equipment Identity number [IMEI]. The IMEI number is registered with the service provider whenever a call is made, and can be used to connect the dots between suspects. Naturally, the NYCLU is pissed.
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