Cellphone Surveillance Techniques and TV's 24

by Sarah Cortes

Thanks to the TV show 24, cellphone triangulation is now a household term. When you want to find the bad guy, or save your friend, you just triangulate. Like, on your laptop. It seems. According to the show.

So cool.

The flip side, that's not so cool, is that it provides yet another way to invade privacy and control innocent people and even, in the wrong hands, make their lives miserable. For example, police have found human traffickers use this technology around the world, including here in Boston, to to keep women forced into sexual trafficking from escaping their sad and all-too-common plight, while claiming that "they are not prisoners, they are free to come and go."

Of course, back in the unrealistically black-and-white world of 24, everyone knows who the good and bad guys are. And everyone knows that when you want to triangulate on 24, you call not for Jack Bauer, the ostensible hero. Nope, when it comes to the hard-core tech stuff you call for - Chloe, the straight-talking, rocking techno chick. You go, girl!

In real life, locating people using their cellphones involves multiple technical options. Cellphone "triangulation" is just one of several available techniques. LBS, or Location-Based Systems, fall under one of three categories:
•Network -based (of which triangulation is one approach)
•Handset-based (GPS)
•Hybrid

Network -based Cellphone "triangulation" is a technique that falls under the "network-based" category. It is considered the most accurate of all methods. But you might want to think twice if you're Jack Bauer and you need a helicopter to drop you an escape ladder into a precise location - because triangulation is also one of the most challenging techniques. Like landing a drop shot from the back of the squash court, it requires hours of practice and has a lower percentage of success. But when it works, it's sweet.

In general, network-based LBS utilizes a service provider's network infrastructure to identify handset location. The advantages is that it can be implemented non-intrusively, without affecting the handset. The disadvantage is that you have to ask the carrier to provide you the data based on a signal in relation to its towers.

Handset-based On the other hand, handset-based LBS requires installation of client software (GPS) on the handset. The advantage is that you don't need to ask carriers for tower information. But you still need to be able to read GPS, or request reading from GoogleMaps or an application that does.

Here's how handset-based LBS works:
•First, it calculates:
1) Location by cell identification
2) Signal strengths of the home and neighboring cells; or
3) latitude and longitude, if the handset is equipped with a GPS module
• The calculation is then sent from the handset to a location server like GoogleMaps.

Network-based LBS Challenges:
• Accuracy varies. Cell identification is the least accurate, triangulation, the most accurate
• Accuracy is closely dependent on concentration of base station cells, with urban environments achieving highest accuracy
• Requires working closely with service provider because it entails the installation of hardware and software within the operator's infrastructure.
•A legislative framework, such as E911 is required to compel service providers to cooperate and to safeguard privacy

Handset-based LBS Challenges:
These center around the necessity of installing software on the handset, which:
• Requires the active cooperation of subscriber
• Requires software that can handle the different handset operating systems
• Typically, only smart phones, such as Symbian or Windows Mobile are capable
• Proposed work-around: manufacturer installs embedded hw/sw on handset

These issues are coming up more frequently these days with the advent of a plethora of Privacy Laws. Understanding them can help avoid trouble for your organization and in your personal life. And., like Jack and Chloe, it makes you --so cool.

copyright 2009 Sarah Cortes

You can read Sarah's other tech columns at IT Knowledge Exchange

Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Technology

by Sarah Cortes

A major crossroads for technology trends, trendsetting individuals and thought regarding freedom, responsibility, and the law, Berkman is a unique and valuable place. Today's gathering reviewed Berkman's report to the 50 US states' Attorneys General entitled "Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies." John Palfrey, professor and librarian at Harvard Law, Berkman founder and general all-around respected person on these topics, presented, along with other task forced members.

Children's internet safety has become a high profile IT Risk Management and Security area these days. The report resulted from a consent decree entred into by MySpace.com and judicial entities as a result of series of horrific incidents relating to children's internet use. Some questions that arise are how the report addresses: 1) sexual predation by and of minors, 2) sexual solicitation by and of minors, 3) exposure to harmful content by and of minors, including violent and pornographic content.

It's interesting how language can be used to obscure what's going on. The report clarifies:
1) sexual predation by adult men of minor girls
2) sexual solicitaiton by adult man of minor girls
3) exposure to harmful content by adult men of minor girls, including content reflecting vacts iolent and degrading to women and girls, by adult men.

Even the word "predators" kind of depersonalizes things and makes them more comfortable. The uncomfortable reflection in this report is that the men engaging in these acts and practices are, for the most part, otherwise regular guys like our dads, brothers, husbands, and co-workers. How harmful and abusive behaviour against women and girls has become part of mainstream American culture is beyond the scope of this report, but there it is for all to read.

Viewed in much the same way as we view our daily squash match against a hapless opponent, sexual pressure and coercion are part of the daily sport, according to this report, of countless man and boys around the world. Although not attacking the roots of the problem, which seem to be entitled beliefs and attitudes among boys and men, social networking sites are neverthess beginnig to act, taking a detection and documentation approach, using age verification and Sentinal among tools and strategies to identify and screen out these predatory men and boys.

A technical advisory board comprised of representatives of 29 technology companies reviewd products and offerings of 40 submissions in response to the Berkman task force's RFP. It was, quite sensibly and not surprisingly, decided not to recommend any single technology or approach to protect minors on the internet. Some feedback from the 50 states' Attorneys General is that the victim and predator profiles in Berkman's research are inconsistent with actual arrest records of internet predators. Berkman has sought access to the arrest records, but so far none has been provided. Another objection was that Berkman's data must be outdated. In fact, John Palfrey elucidated, the data is consistent with the most recent data set, that from September 2008.

Berkman Center has once again performed a service with its excellent research on this important topic. A next step might be to step back and consider solutions that go to the root of the problem as numerous organizations who work with violent, exploitative, abusive men and boys have recommended. Ironically, a lot of money and effort is being spent on technical solutions which allow us to keep re-detecting the same problem, which is simply grouwing over time. Like preventive health care, money would be well spent on prevention of abusive, predatory behaviour by men and boys, and all abusers, not just money spent on detection and documentation of their crimes after girls lives have been ruined.

copyright 2009 Sarah Cortes

You can read Sarah's other tech columns at IT Knowledge Exchange