Google Latitude Application to track people's movements

A colleague of mine at work just sent me the following link: Google Latitude

I had a chill run up my spine when I saw what it was... This application by Google is designed to track all of your "friends" in real time based on the location of their cell phone. I know that there are a lot of ATSers out there talking about tracking movement with RFID chips, or something similar... Not sure if this is relevant because I know the government can locate you with triangulation from Cell Phone towers, but figured I'd toss it out there and find out what everyone thinks.

The first thing that popped into my mind though... was that if I can track my friends this easily, the government can track their "enemies" or people they PERCEIVE to be enemies just as easily... Big Brother is watching you..

~Peace

Would also - methinks - allow for some pretty solid alibis...

Many things can be accomplished in the 2 hours one's phone sits in a theater...

"This adds a social flavor to Google maps and makes it more fun," said Steve Lee, a Google product manager

(I closed the page out before I could get the address.)


I love this quote. I can't wait to see how it backfires in their face. Gives paedophiles a whole new court to play in.

Originally posted by A NeWorlDisorder

"This adds a social flavor to Google maps and makes it more fun," said Steve Lee, a Google product manager

(I closed the page out before I could get the address.)


I love this quote. I can't wait to see how it backfires in their face. Gives paedophiles a whole new court to play in.

Wow... didn't even think of that, but you have a good point there. It looks like you need to put in your number for it to allow you in and I'm not putting mine in... maybe someone I don't like very much! lol

But yeah, I could imagine pedophiles using that to locate their victims after meeting them online... Sounds like bad news baseball.

I don't think that you can locate your "friends" with this. Its not your toy.
I don't have a cell phone and will never buy one.
Maybe people should start getting back to the old ways.
You take calls when you are home.
If you are out - too bad - whoever is calling can just call back later.
Likewise if you must call someone, just use a pay phone.
With no phone you cannot be tracted.

There may be an exception.....your car.
It is my understanding that all cars for at least the last 10 years, maybe 20 have traking devices built in, and that you cannot disable it because you car won't run if you do. I knew of a mechanic who took his whole engine out trying to get the thing off/out, but it is such that all other wiring funs thru it, and I guess is a part of it.

The thing is, when you add someone to your list to get tracked, the person you added gets a message and has to confirm to be tracked. For privacy purposes.
But I bet the government doesn't have to have the person confirmed.

well as far as i can tell, you need to install a special java application into your mobile phone to enable this type of tracking. if you don't want other people to be able to track you using google, just dont install it, it's as simple as that (and you will probably need to have your phone connected to the internet all the time to upload data to google servers).

and imho there is going to be some kind of filter on who is able to see you and who isn't, so you can only share your location with people you trust.

as for government agencies such as CIA, they don't need anything like this to track you, depending on your location, they can track your movements relatively precisely... they say accuracy for phones without gps is about 50 meters (in urban areas with high antenna density), and about 30 centimeters for newer gps-equipped phones.

I was weary about having a GPS device in my phone. As a former extreamly paranoid person, it made me think twice about getting a blackberry. Then i fiugred, well, i guess if i know i have a gps device on me at least i wouldn't have to check personal items for bugs ect. because i'd know for a fact that if "they" wanted to find me they can for sure now. It kinda worked. Now i'm not like," i think that my movements may be being tracked." It relaxes me to KNOW that my movments ARE being tracked. So i suppose it is a good thing in my case.

Well, I'm not so much worried about pedophiles and stuff. All I know is if my kids want to take the car out on a Friday or Saturday night, either have their Latitude turned on, or expect a bunch of annoying phone calls from me.

As far as being tracked by "them", if you use a cell phone at all, you already could have been. Each tower has a unique identifier as well as your phone, whether you like it or not. That's how they've been finding people for years. That's how they know whether you're roaming or not. It wasn't terribly precise tho. Now with GPS in phones and stuff like 3G and the like will be dead-on accurate.

Since I don't go where I shouldn't be, and don't ever worry or apologize for where I go, this doesn't phase me in the least.

And if I do want to go somewhere I'm not supposed to be, I'll leave my phone at home. It's just that simple.