Re: Google Latitude
 

+2

It is clear that we have a generational shift going on here. This next generation has very little expectation of privacy. Maybe it's too much star trek (Computer where is so and so). But I'll be damned if I'm going to go broadcasting my presence. And I'll be double damned if some "friend" asks me why I'm not sharing my location.

I can see now how people are going to be framed in the very near future.

You honor I present evidence that proves that so and so was in fact at location a. Kind of like that Judge Dread scene where the gun was "proven" to be Dread's.

I want to know where you are I'll ask and ask for the nearest intersection if I'm interested in meeting you.

Re: Google Latitude
 

I suppose it depends on the granularity of course, if one could set it to nearest-city, etc., then I can't see why people would complain about sharing that with their friends.

Re: Google Latitude
 

I think the google sense of the "beta" is totally different from beta software where it means unfinished and I am not liable for any defects in product.

Just because google products say beta doest mean they are unusable in any way. They are still far more complete in features than an pre-release announcement only.

I am essentially talking anout making an announcement with something ready for usres to use - while you are soplitting hairs about the true meaning of beta or how complete a device is in its usage. Thats a different debate.

Re: Google Latitude
 

I added gpsgate support to minigpsd which does something similar.

You can navigate to the page and enter your location (lat/lon), and if they would publish the magic method I could add support for that too.

Re: Google Latitude
 

i don't quite understand those who say here they've got concerns about privacy.

don't you use instant messaging?
my presence settings already tell my friends that i'm home, that i watch tv, that i'm having dinner... and, sometimes, what songs i'm listening to.

don't you have a blog or something similar?
reading my friends' blogs i know where they are, what they do, who they're doing it with. - with many of them even in real time, as mobile blogging directly from the cell phone (via sms, mms, mail) became increasingly popular in recent years.
my blog hoster allows me to include latitude/longitude information for entries that are about a location... lat/long are part of the rss-feed, google maps displays location markers for each of these entries in the feed.

so that's what we have... already. people tell me where they are. what they do. some of it is based on privacy-protecting invitation-systems (such as instant messaging, nokia friend view,...), other content (blogs) is totally open for everyone to read.

these new geolocation systems are nothing fundamentally different. you can start and stop sharing your location whenever you want. like with any IM or social network, you'll have that situation when you are invited to be someone's "buddy" but decline. it's a common situation, we know how to handle it.

if it's a " generation shift": i'm 42, my friends are 35-45. so maybe you need to be in you early 20s to have any problems here, while those 35+ joyfully play with the technology. ;)

Re: Google Latitude
 

Yes I do. I do not broadcast where I am in my status. I do broadcast what I'm listening to, but never my actual location. Nobody's business.

Yes I have a blog. Two actually. I rarely mention my geographic location. In fact unless it is necessary for the commentary I'm posting (say the Sean Bell case in NYC), I don't divulge. There's no need.

I also use my tablet to post to my blog from wherever I may be. So for example I had a picture of Flavor Flav from a Flavor of Love DVD cover. I mentioned I saw the cover. I did not mention where. Why should I? Nobody's business.

Yes and those people who searched on AOL search thought they had "privacy protection". Most people with Gmail accounts have no clue that their web travels are being recorded unless they explicitly log out of the service rather than just close the window.

No well actually a lot of the "geolocation" services are not start/stop. Onstar, EZ Pass, The GPS in your cell phone.etc. Always on. Always Identifying who you are and where you are (and how fast you got there). Freely available to any government agency or private government tracker, to record, file.

The generational shift (and perhaps I'm being too narrow in that definition for various reasons), is one that has the idea that one ought not be "afraid" to give up "private" information if one doesn't have something to hide. Rather than the idea that my business, legal or otherwise is no one elses business. That my coming and goings are also nobody elses business including friends and family, unless I explicitly want to let them know. AND so called "friends and family" have no business getting up my behind when they can't know where I am and what I'm doing. a situation surely to arise.

People already are saying "something must be wrong with your relationship or friendship if you don't want to tell your location or what you're doing.'

My how all these human friendships blossomed over thousands of years with people not being able to call people anytime or know where they were. Shocking!

Re: Google Latitude
 

that's the whole point of these services: that people explicitly want to let their friends and family know where they are. sometimes.

really, i don't understand all the fuzz. and i am concerned about my privacy in general (which is one of the reasons why i avoid using google services whenever possible and why i'm still surprised how easily people hand over their mails, contacts, documents, calendars to this company)

Re: Google Latitude
 

This service could be useful, but being part of the "new" generation that sondjata is talking about, I still fear privacy concerns. Lets say, every day at 3, I have a job working at a sewage facility. I don't want my friends to know that, so I switch off my location. Now, if they are good friends, they will understand, but otherwise they will question why I always turn it off.

Other than that, Google does not give a sh*t about your location. The government can already track your phone (911 calls anyone?), and if you are really scared of the government, you would not carry a phone.

I think it is a great idea for the most part.

Re: Google Latitude
 

now that's interesting. you know, talking about these services you find out how people could/would use them. i myself would think of turning it off in your sewage example: i probably wouldn't have it switched on before i go there. my use case isn't "leave it on most of the time and only switch it off when you need to hide". my use case is "leave it off most of the time and only switch it on when you want to be located". so i'd probably have it switched off when at home or at the office because my friends know where and when i work, anyway, and i wouldn't want to signal "come and join me at my office".

i'd turn it on when i take a walk along the river danube, thinking: "hey, lovely day, wouldn't it be great to meet just anybody who's nearby right now and have a coffee?"
if nobody sees me and my walk is over, i'd go offline again.

very much the same as with IM: "online" means "ready for chat", anything else - incl. offline - means i might be online, but i'm sociophobic again.

right. reminds me of a friend of mine who had - well, mental problems, kind of a breakdown, left her family, bad story... anyway: after they'd started searching for her, in no time the police could tell exactly where she'd been, using mostly data from her cell phone, but also from cash machines etc.
in this particular case it was great because it helped finding her and giving her medical treatment as soon as possible (she's fine again now), but still... it was a little bit scaring to experience this, see the level of detail "they" have access to if they want. they certainly wouldn't need nokia friend view or google latitude for this.

Re: Google Latitude
 

Again I return to the idea that family and friends will be in a position to query as to why you have not shared your location. That is the expected norm will not be "I don't know and that's OK." Rather it will be "I don't know, therefore something is wrong." That is a huge fundamental change. I'm particularly concerned about this from a legal point of view as I'm currently reading a book concerning reasonable doubt and a jury's concept of privacy and guilt.

Anyway, if you read a recent report on ArsTechnica, you have a web company that had an advertiser put a box inline with their network that captured all customers net traffic for various reasons. The "Opt out" was buried in some fine text in the long "user agreement." and it was found that even those who opted out STILL had their traffic being logged by this third party.

So enough of the "explicit" junk.

The fuzz is about in the end the expectation of individual privacy. The US's NSA is on record as being very happy about people giving up this kind of information voluntarily because it lowers the legal expectation of privacy for them. This bothers me. The current trend is that once a large enough portion of the population volunteers to give up a certain level of privacy, then the government finds a means to then claim that the rest of us have given it up as well. This is specifically why the NSA got in it's head to use ATT, Verizon, etc.

The Fed is constrained by the 4th Amendment against warrantless searches of your private stuff. However no private company is under such a constraint. You then waive your privacy rights to internet company A, Internet company A then allows the government to access It's data, which was previously your private data, and you get a warrantless search. Now couple that with legislation "requiring" retention of logs and you have a whole lot of latitude for abuse.

But all you wanted to do is see an icon of your friend floating on a Google map.:rolleyes: