My suspicions have been corroborated. There is a very real and sinister element to these state-of-the-art cellphones. In our naked lust to procure and floss the latest and most advanced devices such as the iPhone and iPad, we were blissfully unaware that these contraptions secretly track every movement — all the time!
It‘s true. If you have an iPhone, the makers have been tracking and recording your every move since last June. The same goes for other “smartphones.” When firing up that beloved Android, according to gizmodo.com, you are prompted to agree to the following: “Allow Google’s location service to collect anonymous data. Collection will occur even when no applications are running.” Google refused to answer on the record whether this “anonymous” location data is logged consistently and why.
A generation ago, Americans were outraged when they learned that agencies such as the FBI and CIA were secretly and illegally recording the political activities of its own law-abiding citizens.
Modern technology camouflages the identity of those who desire to know our location and moves. No need for anyone to wiretap your phones, bug your home or office or dispatch government goons to the streets to watch your comings and goings. You have a bugging device in your front pocket or purse — and the worst part about it is that you agree to it when you sign the extremely fine print — that is purposely confusing — when you get the phone.
Now when I turn on my Android, I have to disarm the tracking device from disclosing my location. I have to click on Twitter to turn off the option to show my exact location. Facebook has been giving away our private information like so many pieces of candy. And we had to put the “s” in the “http” to make it secure. Facebook never offered that option.
Why are so many computer applications, smartphones and social networking sites recording you and giving away information about you without your consent? What is the purpose? And, more importantly, who authorized this and what do they hope to accomplish with the collected data?
Security guru Kevin Mitnick told gizmodo.com writer Sam Biddle that he’s “quite shocked and disturbed” by the revelation, noting that the logged data could be of great interest to a variety of entities — prying spouses, private investigators, and, he reckons, the government. He speculates that the existence of the log itself “could have been at the request of the government,” as such data “can’t be used for advertisements. It seems to me more to be a governmental request.” He added, “I like to know what my device is doing.” And, that the phone’s logging of data was in this case like “carrying around a bug and a tracker at the same time.
–terry shropshire
