My Digital FootPrint

CDT joined in a  "friend of the court" brief   filed at the U.S. Supreme Court in what could be one of the major Fourth Amendment cases of the decade, U.S. v. Jones, which poses the question of whether the police can plant a GPS device on a person's car for 24/7 tracking without judicial oversight. The brief says: The issue before the Court in this case is not whether GPS tracking ever may be used by the government. Rather, it is whether the government must obtain a warrant in order to employ this technology. CDT's brief was filed jointly with our frequent partner in Fourth Amendment cases, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Several things make the brief special.  First, it is also signed by four technologists, whose expertise lends special credibility to the brief.  Moreover, one of the four is Roger Easton, often called the father of GPS for his groundbreaking work at the Naval Research Laboratory.  The other three represent the current generation of experts

Google Latitude  history is either very interesting or very scary.  In "my digital footprint" I wrote about an idea for a security application where a phone would close applications and services as you drifted off your normal routine based on history and location. Further it would also seek to find friends and contacts as additional support. The latitude dashboard lets you see some graphs of how much time you spend at work, home, and out and about, and a list of your most visited places. You can also see a Google Map with your 500 latest updates added as pushpins.  From the dashboard, you can export your history of location updates as a KML file. It does ask you to opt in, and it doesn't share your location history with anyone. There is no doubt that it is a bit creepy as it gives step-by-step views of where you have been and even knows how many total miles I've travelled. You will love the little feature that explains how many miles you have travelled in terms o

Google Latitude  history is either very interesting or very scary.  In "my digital footprint" I wrote about an idea for a security application where a phone would close applications and services as you drifted off your normal routine based on history and location. Further it would also seek to find friends and contacts as additional support. The latitude dashboard lets you see some graphs of how much time you spend at work, home, and out and about, and a list of your most visited places. You can also see a Google Map with your 500 latest updates added as pushpins.  From the dashboard, you can export your history of location updates as a KML file. It does ask you to opt in, and it doesn't share your location history with anyone. There is no doubt that it is a bit creepy as it gives step-by-step views of where you have been and even knows how many total miles I've travelled. You will love the little feature that explains how many miles you have travelled in terms o

Google Latitude  history is either very interesting or very scary.  In "my digital footprint" I wrote about an idea for a security application where a phone would close applications and services as you drifted off your normal routine based on history and location. Further it would also seek to find friends and contacts as additional support. The latitude dashboard lets you see some graphs of how much time you spend at work, home, and out and about, and a list of your most visited places. You can also see a Google Map with your 500 latest updates added as pushpins.  From the dashboard, you can export your history of location updates as a KML file. It does ask you to opt in, and it doesn't share your location history with anyone. There is no doubt that it is a bit creepy as it gives step-by-step views of where you have been and even knows how many total miles I've travelled. You will love the little feature that explains how many miles you have travelled in terms o

Google Latitude  history is either very interesting or very scary.  In "my digital footprint" I wrote about an idea for a security application where a phone would close applications and services as you drifted off your normal routine based on history and location. Further it would also seek to find friends and contacts as additional support. The latitude dashboard lets you see some graphs of how much time you spend at work, home, and out and about, and a list of your most visited places. You can also see a Google Map with your 500 latest updates added as pushpins.  From the dashboard, you can export your history of location updates as a KML file. It does ask you to opt in, and it doesn't share your location history with anyone. There is no doubt that it is a bit creepy as it gives step-by-step views of where you have been and even knows how many total miles I've travelled. You will love the little feature that explains how many miles you have travelled in terms o

Today we are concerned in some ways by the thought that CCTV can capture our actions and the issues about our privacy.  This is balanced with the comfort that so are others and those who have nothing to hide are safe.  Data (video) is kept in the promise that at some point it could be used to protect you, and conversely used to capture you, when the algorithms become sufficiently good to interrupt actions, I hope never intent. Today, in the most part, the CCTV system cannot link the image of you to an identity of you.  When this link is established could it be used to make your personal data more secure?  If you lost your phone, image the local CCTV network acknowledging that it is not you holding your phone and locks the device up, or indeed starts to track it. Would such data (systems linking images to identity) be of use, or are the benefits outweighed by the possible downsides?