What do you think about GPS tracking devices that some parents use on their kids even if they ware adults, it a bit "Black mirror" sort of thing

[Pawelk198604]

My mother was also a little overprotective, but in my case it was justified because I was a little sick when I was little.

Now there is such an application "it is called life 360" for overprotective parents, in my opinion it is Orvelism in its pure form. Apparently in America, some parents forcing it for installing even their adult children, making it a condition of further financial support at the University, in my country Poland universities are mostly free, that is not quite, they are financed from taxes, i.e. also from parents regardless of whether they wish it or not ;-)

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/22/dont-leave-campus-parents-are-now-using-tracking-apps-watch-their-kids-college/#comments-wrapper

 

But returning to the subject, I have such a thought experiment, I thought what would happen if a child of such overprotective parents, which forced him to walk with the GPS tracker turned on, put such a device in a space rocket, For example, to Falcon 9, and such a thing was sent in space.
I wonder how such overprotective nerds would react so that they would see that their child was moving at a speed of 27570 km / s at an altitude of 300 km  
Or, in the cheaper version, insert such a GPS meter into a meteorological balloon or an unmanned drone

[Reactordrone]

If you get too high or too fast the GPS will shut down (so that they can't be used for missile guidance).

I guess that's one way to stop people tracking you.

[Pawelk198604]

4 minutes ago, Reactordrone said:

If you get too high or too fast the GPS will shut down (so that they can't be used for missile guidance).

I guess that's one way to stop people tracking you.

So it's kind of American(pentagon) protection against using GPS for military purpose other than their own ?  ;-)    

[Reactordrone]

2 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

So it's kind of American(pentagon) protection against using GPS for military purpose other than their own ?  ;-)    

Yeah, civilian GPS is limited to 1000kts and 18km.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls

[Pawelk198604]

2 minutes ago, Reactordrone said:

Yeah, civilian GPS is limited to 1000kts and 18km.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls

CoCom i see i heard about it, it's a bit lame because it would cool opportunity to make fun on overprotective parents or employers that like to micromanage their employees      

Edited January 5, 2020 by Pawelk198604

[magnemoe]

2 minutes ago, Pawelk198604 said:

CoCom i see i heard about it, it's a bit lame because it would cool opportunity to make fun on overprotective parents or employers that like to micromanage their employees      

Just being indoor in an building at lest something like an apartment block will block off gps, now simply leave the gps device in the location and you can do that you want. 
More fun tell an friend to carry it while you go on an short vacation.
Then you have hacking, and yes having the receiver show the location of an gps satellite instead of the tracker had been fun. 

And yes gps tracking is an bad idea with the expectation of small children on say an vacation there they can easy get lots. 
As they are pretty easy to fool they just generates an false security or an scare then they get bad data. 

Read an review of an gps tracker for cats. A pretty pointless but a bit fun device to see that the cat was up to. Only real use might be to see if cat is close or not. 
Well he watched the cats movement over the day, then the cat stopped inside an tiny forest, well its gone to sleep he thought, then he felt the cat against his leg, it had simply lost the collar with the tracker. 
Benefit was that he could recover the device. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Reactordrone said:

Yeah, civilian GPS is limited to 1000kts and 18km.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls

Wow interesting. 

[Guest]

Note that those are rather generous limits. You could guide, say, a subsonic cruise missile with civilian GPS. The original intent was to preclude ICBM use specifically.

[Superfluous J]

I don't really see the problem here. If you're a minor then knowing where you are at all times is actually good parenting. If you're an adult then buy your own phone.

[tater]

I have 2 teenagers, and I think this is creepy.

 

[wumpus]

Not just  the parents, the professors at college are getting into the act:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/

Note that this appears to be more about getting your phone to connect via bluetooth pairing, but if they get you to install the app, you better believe the professor, all college staff, the app company, and anyone they sell your data to will all know everywhere you've been and when you were there.

[kerbiloid]

Until the child gets higher than a carriage wheel enough sapient to understand what is this collar and how to by-pass it, it's probably useful. Later it's useless, as motivates him for risky experiments how to fool it.

Why trace a student, when his trajectory has a fixed destination point - the trials/exams, where you can just revenge him for ignoring?
(Or he will do it himself if it's a blind test.)

Edited January 6, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Pawelk198604]

18 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I don't really see the problem here. If you're a minor then knowing where you are at all times is actually good parenting. If you're an adult then buy your own phone.

Insofar as tracking teenagers under 18 years of age may seem reasonable but creepy idea of crappy parents, tracking the college age kids, who are not actually kids anymore, is crossing border of creepiness very much,  it's like 1984 or Truman show!

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Until the child gets higher than a carriage wheel enough sapient to understand what is this collar and how to by-pass it, it's probably useful. Later it's useless, as motivates him for risky experiments how to fool it.

Why trace a student, when his trajectory has a fixed destination point - the trials/exams, where you can just revenge him for ignoring?
(Or he will do it himself if it's a blind test.)

Yes same as I pointed out, now I get the attendance part, in Norway attendance was not mandatory on college level education back then I was doing it outside of labs and similar.

But it was on lower levels and tended to take up plenty of time. 
Now this could be done simply by an Bluetooth device in the room, no need to do large scale surveillance, also having an manual override by the teacher. 

[kerbiloid]

One thing inspires/uninspires, depending on your side.

Matrix wouldn't need GPS trackers to follow you, it just knows your  coordinates.
So, if the world was Matrix, why would appear the GPS trackers? Nobody had a problem with their absence thirty years ago, so Matrix just wouldn't add them.

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes same as I pointed out, now I get the attendance part, in Norway attendance was not mandatory on college level education back then I was doing it outside of labs and similar.

But it was on lower levels and tended to take up plenty of time. 
Now this could be done simply by an Bluetooth device in the room, no need to do large scale surveillance, also having an manual override by the teacher. 

I suspect the app sold in Norway probably doesn't do full surveillance on students as Norway has laws about such things and enforces them (at least one Scandinavian country busted the maker of an app I was using [Runkeeper] for transmitting GPS data for times not in use).

In countries that don't enforce such privacy, I'm certain that the app with the most development and best marketing is going to obtain all the surveillance it can to pay for that development and marketing.  And you get to choose between consenting to full location surveillance and your attendance grade.  Sometimes in the US you get to choose between surveillance and unemployment (although I suspect such companies find it harder and harder to hire qualified people.  Expect more attempts like this during a ressesion).

Note that the cellphone companies have known your phone location (or at least which tower it was closest to) since they were "car phones".  The network has to know where you are to send a "your phone is ringing" signal.

Looks like this topic popped up in a computer security and privacy blog I follow (includes links to those suggesting resistance via hacking): https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/12/hacking_school_.html#comments

Edited January 6, 2020 by wumpus

[magnemoe]

35 minutes ago, wumpus said:

I suspect the app sold in Norway probably doesn't do full surveillance on students as Norway has laws about such things and enforces them (at least one Scandinavian country busted the maker of an app I was using [Runkeeper] for transmitting GPS data for times not in use).

In countries that don't enforce such privacy, I'm certain that the app with the most development and best marketing is going to obtain all the surveillance it can to pay for that development and marketing.  And you get to choose between consenting to full location surveillance and your attendance grade.  Sometimes in the US you get to choose between surveillance and unemployment (although I suspect such companies find it harder and harder to hire qualified people.  Expect more attempts like this during a ressesion).

Note that the cellphone companies have known your phone location (or at least which tower it was closest to) since they were "car phones".  The network has to know where you are to send a "your phone is ringing" signal.

Looks like this topic popped up in a computer security and privacy blog I follow (includes links to those suggesting resistance via hacking): https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/12/hacking_school_.html#comments

No they did not use such an device then I was at university, it was in the 90s
I just said that to automate attendance bookkeeping you just need to see if student is in lecture, or more accurate the students phone or one of his phones. Yes installing the app on an second phone and have an friend carrying it would work. 

Some cars are tracked however the stated purpose is fleet management  

And yes the phone company know your appropriate location this is commonly used in murder and missing person cases. 

[DDE]

On 1/5/2020 at 2:39 PM, Pawelk198604 said:

Apparently in America, some parents forcing it for installing even their adult children, making it a condition of further financial support at the University

This is quite indicative of the degree of 'adultness' of the children involved. Sadly, US students are known to be profligate and waste their rather expensive time at college, if not misspend the actual money allocated by their parents for college. This is aggravated by the popular depictions of colleges as dens of vice and villainy, and the children being basically out of their parents' reach for the first time in their lives.

From an ethical standpoint, 

In terms of the actual technology being used, Kaspersky are not thrilled by the amount of leaks in those apps: https://securelist.com/beware-of-stalkerware/90264/

On 1/5/2020 at 2:39 PM, Pawelk198604 said:

But returning to the subject, I have such a thought experiment, I thought what would happen if a child of such overprotective parents, which forced him to walk with the GPS tracker turned on, put such a device in a space rocket, For example, to Falcon 9, and such a thing was sent in space.
I wonder how such overprotective nerds would react so that they would see that their child was moving at a speed of 27570 km / s at an altitude of 300 km  
Or, in the cheaper version, insert such a GPS meter into a meteorological balloon or an unmanned drone

 

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, DDE said:

Kaspersky are not thrilled by the amount of leaks in those apps:

It's not a bug when it's a feature.
(Never used their antivirus as it always made my poor, poor coolers roaring.)

[DDE]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It's not a bug when it's a feature.
(Never used their antivirus as it always made my poor, poor coolers roaring.)

I use them in lieu of Tom Clancy thrillers.

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/foxconn-hack-kaspersky-duqu-2/

[kerbiloid]

28 minutes ago, DDE said:

I use them in lieu of Tom Clancy thrillers.

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/foxconn-hack-kaspersky-duqu-2/

As Duqu is antagonist and on the Dark side, so Kaspersky is protagonist and Light.

[DDE]

13 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

As Duqu is antagonist and on the Dark side, so Kaspersky is protagonist and Light.

Don't make me subscribe to r/prequelmemes...