Smartphone, or Tracking Device?

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

You decide:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?_r=0

 

. . . when Nordstrom posted a sign telling customers it was tracking them, shoppers were unnerved.

“We did hear some complaints,” said Tara Darrow, a spokeswoman for the store. Nordstrom ended the experiment in May, she said, in part because of the comments.

 

Nordstrom’s experiment is part of a movement by retailers to gather data about in-store shoppers’ behavior and moods, using video surveillance and signals from their cellphones and apps to learn information . . .

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Nomi, of New York, uses Wi-Fi to track customers’ behavior in a store, but goes one step further by matching a phone with an individual.

 

If Skynet had this technology, John Connor would be a dead man.

[PromoTheRobot]

Is this a shock? How do you think they get real time traffic on Google Maps?

 

PTR

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

If it's not a shock in Hooksett, it's not a shock to me.

[KD in CA]

Geez...even Aaron Hernandez knows you turn off your phone before getting to the site of that night's execution.

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

Geez...even Aaron Hernandez knows you turn off your phone before getting to the site of that night's execution.

Might not be enough:

 

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/05/09/nordstrom-tracking-customer-smartphones-wifi-sniffing/

 

Smartphones constantly ping for WiFi service if you have WiFi turned on, whether you use it or not, as long as the phone isn't shut down.

Do they stop pinging once they're powered down?

 

That depends, according to Tom Henderson, principal researcher at ExtremeLabs, who tells me that phones that come back on instantly after being shut down haven't actually been powered off; they're just in a very-low-power-consumption mode.

 

A fast start indicates standby mode and a possible periodic location beacon. For that fast-start type of phone, users need to take the battery out if they're worried about locational privacy.

[CosmicBills]

Don't forget, "smart"phones aren't just tacking devices, they come equipped with microphones that can be remotely turned on by a third party without your knowledge. If God were a spy, he couldn't have created a more perfect surveillance device than the ones we all carry around in our pockets every day.

#NWO

Edited July 17, 2013 by tgreg99

[BillsWatch]

That is why stupid phones are smarter than smart phones.

[BuffaloBill]

I wonder how long it will be before someone develops the opportunity for shoppers to flip this. In other words, when the retailer has to somehow pay for the information.

[CosmicBills]

I wonder how long it will be before someone develops the opportunity for shoppers to flip this. In other words, when the retailer has to somehow pay for the information.

Already happens. Only it's the telecommunication companies that sell the info to the retailers.

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

I wonder how long it will be before someone develops the opportunity for shoppers to flip this. In other words, when the retailer has to somehow pay for the information.

From the NY Times article linked in my OP:

 

If these methods seem intrusive, at least some consumers seem happy to trade privacy for deals. Placed, a company based in Seattle, has an app that asks consumers where they are in a store in exchange for cash and prepaid gift cards from Amazon and Google Play, among others. More than 500,000 people have downloaded the app since last August, said a company spokeswoman, Sarah Radwanick, providing information like gender, age and income, and agreeing to be tracked over GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Placed then sells the data to store owners, online retailers and app developers.

 

“I would just love it if a coupon pops up on my phone,” said Linda Vertlieb, 30, a blogger in Philadelphia, who said that she was not aware of the tracking methods, but that the idea did not bother her. Stores are “trying to sell, so that makes sense,” she said.

 

Was George Orwell a time traveler who knew Linda Vertlieb?

[drinkTHEkoolaid]

Don't forget, "smart"phones aren't just tacking devices, they come equipped with microphones that can be remotely turned on by a third party without your knowledge. If God were a spy, he couldn't have created a more perfect surveillance device than the ones we all carry around in our pockets every day.

#NWO

 

We did this in Iraq. When we built their cell phone infrastructure and cell towers, we ultimately used it against the insurgents. We even remotely used the cell phone network to track certain individuals and use them to turn microphones on remotely to evesdrop. The amount of data we must have collected would be astonishing.

 

We could tell what "phones" associated together, what users were even in the same car together , daily habits and tendencies, their locations, phone records, microphone activation to evesdrop on conversations etc...

 

There is some scary technology most people are oblivious to our governments capabilities.

 

 

 

 

That is why stupid phones are smarter than smart phones.

 

No joke..more and more I'm thinking of trading in my "smart" phone for a dumb phone

Edited July 18, 2013 by drinkTHEkoolaid

[CosmicBills]

We did this in Iraq. When we built their cell phone infrastructure and cell towers, we ultimately used it against the insurgents. We even remotely used the cell phone network to track certain individuals and use them to turn microphones on remotely to evesdrop. The amount of data we must have collected would be astonishing.

 

We could tell what "phones" associated together, what users were even in the same car together , daily habits and tendencies, their locations, phone records, microphone activation to evesdrop on conversations etc...

 

There is some scary technology most people are oblivious to our governments capabilities.

It's terrifying on many levels if you allow your mind to wander down the avenues of "what if..."

[DC Tom]

We did this in Iraq. When we built their cell phone infrastructure and cell towers, we ultimately used it against the insurgents. We even remotely used the cell phone network to track certain individuals and use them to turn microphones on remotely to evesdrop. The amount of data we must have collected would be astonishing.

 

We could tell what "phones" associated together, what users were even in the same car together , daily habits and tendencies, their locations, phone records, microphone activation to evesdrop on conversations etc...

 

There is some scary technology most people are oblivious to our governments capabilities.

 

Paul shared some stuff with me once (about the technology in smart bombs), and finished by telling me "And that's the unclassified stuff. Imagine the **** I can't tell you." That's when I stopped thinking about it. I don't want to know.