Do you want to find out if your spouse is making secret phone calls from their work or mobile phone? Are you concerned that your senator is making a few too many phone calls to certain law enformant agent(s)? Do you think your telephone records are secure from prying eyes? Think again. Yours, mine, and practically anyone elses phone information is easily available to anyone with a few dollars to spare. Are you freaked out yet? Good.
CBS 3 in Philadelphia and the Sun Times in Chicago have both reported on a web site (http://www.locatecell.com/) that will allow you to retrieve any persons phone records for a modest fee. Consider yourself warned about the privacy implications of this, they are mind boggling.
Even if a law is passed that makes this illegal, the fact that it is possible will only deter those who actively sell this info. It will still be readily available in black hat circles. Consider that if you wanted to call someone anonymously, you could no longer use any telephone associated with your identity. If you used a pay phone and someone spotted you, they could easily determine the number you called by querying the logs of that pay phone.
ok thanks Matt, I’m going to go hide underground again now…bye..
The problem with the convergence of information is that if you want to partake in our society (ie, collect a paycheck, own a home, have a car, etc) is that you simply cannot hide. This news doesn’t particularly bother me. After all, a vast body of information about my life exists on my web site.
The biggest difference between me and a more private person is that they think their personal information is private. For better or worse, I was merely informing others of this fact. I’m just the messenger, don’t shoot.
Do you think this is the kind of information that might deter crazies who are into making prank phone calls or worse? 🙂 That could be helpful.