Cell Phone Tracking and Bugging

photo by Jurvetson (flickr)
Tell your average hipster that they can use VZ Navigator on their phone to get directions to the coolest new club through a GPS chip in their phone, and they'll probably think its pretty neat. Tell the same thing to your average healthily paranoid geek, and they'll hopefully question how else it might be used. Sure its cool, but if Verizon can do it, so can the government. On top of that, they may also turn on on your mic even when you're not on a call. In a follow up to my article on FBI cell phone tapping, we'll be discussing how you can be tracked on your cellphone, and under what circumstances.
New Skateboard
WEUT! My new skateboard came in today!
I just finished assembling it and took it out for a little ride. Its smooooooth and has a ton of pop.
RDP, APs, JOBZ, and BMG
Today I was 3 computers deep into remote desktop (RD to one computer, then use that one to get to another, etc). Navigate through that sort of setup long enough, and you start to question what is real, or at least what is actually the machine you are physically sitting in front of. Quite existential, that.
At any rate, on the drive to work today I was doing a little casual geo-wardriving with my new bluetooth GPS receiver and netstumbler and I came across 2 access points within about 100 yards of one another that I found very interesting. They had two distinct names that told me a lot about the persons that set them up.
Seagull GC-105: 360 view
Finally! Thursday night at ~7:30pm I received my Seagull TLR from UPS. Its as cool as I knew it would be. After reading all about medium format and TLR cameras for weeks I'm so glad to finally have it in my hands. The only problem has been that was too dark on Thursday to take any photos and I worked all day Friday! I have managed to sneak out when it wasn't raining on my break and take a few photos, but I really want to finish this first roll of 120 film to see how it comes out.
In lieu of taking photos with it, I've been examining it, drooling over it, and taking photos of it. Today I'm working all day again, but I will get out a 5pm and still have time to go shoot photos for a couple hours. Doody will probably be up here by then as well (he was in Portland) so we can go TLR shooting together!
Kaiser Kuo is Full of $hi7
Torrentfreak.com has written an article analyzing why there is no way Kaiser Kuo's claim that Blin.cn's new P2P technology is 50x faster than Bittorrent. Its definately worth a read to educate yourself about the current state of the art.
TorrentFreak contacted Ashwin Navin, President and Co-Founder of BitTorrent Inc. When confronted with the 50 times faster than BitTorrent claim, he said: “BitTorrent can regularly saturate your downstream capacity, which in layman’s terms means BitTorrent is as fast as you can get. The claim is indicative of the fact that BitTorrent is the global standard for P2P transfers, against which all others are compared. BitTorrent DNA took that standard up significantly, but we don’t run around making sensationalist claims to get buzz.”
Medium Format Foray
I am a little sick today but I was feeling worse yesterday so perhaps I am getting better. It is the usual sore throat and icky overall feeling that makes you know tomorrow you are not going to want to get out of bed. I am not too concerned however, because it is the weekend now and it is pouring rain outside so I do not plan on taking photos unless things let up.
The wonderful folks at foliagenetwork.com say the leaves are not yet at their peak in my area, although they are very close. I agree with them that the trees are confused by these conflicting periods of very cold/warm weather we have been having. Some places the leaves are vibrant or falling off while 10 feet away they are still green as your neighbor's lawn.
iPhone Coming to UK on 10-9-07
Steve Jobs just announced that the iPhone is coming to the UK on November 9th via wireless carrier O2. Get all the details of the event from engadget here, or just view the summary here.
iPod Touch – So Sexy!
OH GAWD TEH SEXY!!!

I knew this was coming, especially in light of the iPhone and the steadily declining iPod shipments (thinning out their stocks), but to physically see it, in all it's glory, is another thing all together. It comes with Wi-Fi, web browser, and all the other goodies that the iPhone has (sans cellular). I, for one, don't mind keeping my phone as a phone and my iPod as an iPod, so the fact that the iPod Touch has all that stuff does better justify getting one rather than an iPhone.
We also now have a new nano (that reminds me of the Zen V), and now plays video and has cover flow?! As if that wasn't enough, the newly dubbed 'iPod Classic' is now all metal and comes in up to 160GB! Now that's what I'm talkin' about.
Crazy times we live in my friends, crazy times...
More on Warrantless Wiretapping
As if the government didn't try hard enough to keep us in a state of constant fear, THIS tops almost all (the rest of our civil rights that are currently being violated excluded).
A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back doors in the nation's communication networks. The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law Sunday by President Bush.The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers.Basically, all phone, internet and Voice over IP service providers (including Skype, Google Talk, and Gizmo Project) can now be ordered to put in back door spying measures for the government, all without warrant. I'll stick to encrypting sensitive emails and using paper for other sensitive data.
Apple iPhone Release Date Confirmed
For all of you mac-addicts dying to get your hands on the new iPhone, we finally have a confirmed release date of: June 20, 2007.
I can't wait to see what kind of success the iPhone will have, and you can be sure I'll keep you up to date with all the latest developments.
Cool Motorized Snow Skate
Its a motorized snow-skate created by some engineering kids at the University of Waterloo, and its really, really awesome. Check the video out via MAKE.
iPwn
You've read the speculation, you've seen the renditions, now experience the truth!
(image Copyright © 2007 Apple Computer)
Yes, the iPhone is here! No, not that one, you sneaky Cisco devils. This is the true iPhone, the one that has been discussed and dreamed about for what seems like years. Catch the full scoop after the jump:










