Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

A surveillance device in every pocket

Mobile phones are not just a means of communication, nor physical location tracking, nor a means of profiling individual patterns, habits, and relations, such as social networks. A Times Online "colour story" reveals they are also, quietly, a powerful bugging device that can listen to conversations even while the phone is not being used.

"As long as [the] mobile is switched on and [the target] has it with him, it can be used to listen in to anything he is saying to anyone else.

Mobile telephone networks operate in a cellular structure with each cell of around 100 square miles controlled by a base station that keeps the phone linked to the central network. As its owner moves between the cells, the phone continuously links into the nearest base station, using a completely separate frequency to the one on which conversations take place, so that the network knows where to direct any incoming calls.

This 'control frequency' can be used to take over the mobile phone and turn it into a bug."

All very well for counter-terrorism, but this also completely destroys notions of privacy and evades legal safeguards. Indeed, it compromises not just the phone carrier, but any person speaking nearby. (Control frequencies can be used for other, undisclosed purposes. Remote use of phone cameras may well be another.)

Item posted by AutoEditor at 11:25 am ::