Google Latitude: track your friends’ cells
U.S. Internet search company Google Inc released software on Wednesday that allows users of mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends. Users in 27 countries will be able to broadcast their location to others constantly, using Google Latitude. Controls allow users to select who receives the information or to go offline at any time, Google said on its Web site. “Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we’ve built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application,” Google said in a blog post announcing the service. “You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see.”
Friends’ whereabouts can be tracked on a Google map, either from a handset or from a personal computer. Google’s new service is similar to the service offered by privately-held Loopt. Companies including Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, already offer Loopt’s service, which also works on iPhone from Apple Inc. Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd’s Blackberry and devices running on Symbian S60 devices or Microsoft Corp’s Windows Mobile and some T-1 Mobile phones running on Google’s Android software. The software will eventually run on Apple’s iPhone and iTouch and many Sony Ericsson devices. In 2005, Google acquired, but subsequently shut down, a location-finding service that used text messaging to keep mobile phone users aware of their friends’ proximity.
Source: Reuters
Comments(29)
Good tool for assassins and hitman.
good tool to know where your kids are
good tool to tack your car
and you realley thought assins & hitmen didnt all ready have this technology lol its been out for years
It is still pretty scary! If a mom with low tech knowledge can track her kids, so can a pedo! While I don't care about most privacy invasions, I can see this one being exploited in many nasty ways.
Do you remember the movie "Enemy of the state" with Will Smith? Google are becoming more and more a global player to get personal information about privacy of normal people like NSA, CIA, Mossad etc are doing with their Echolon program, really sad days…
next up is Google Personal-GPS-Implant so you can have a true big-brother state.
How would a pedo be able to track the kids movements when the only way to have access to its location data is by being explicitly added to the list of people who can see it? Read the damn article, you muppet.
the difference between this and getting tracked by the state is that you can turn the tracking off and have control over who sees what (except if there is a security breach or something like that). anyway, you can turn this thing off without having to remove the battery of your phone, so dont worry about "enemy of the state" scenario. or simply, dont use it. can you trust google? of course not. but its up to you.
number 6 good thinking
6, yeah.. but pedos are good liars and good at gaining childrens trust.
They already stalk online etc.. all they need to do is have a kids myspace page, then when they get adds and some mobile numbers i'm sure they could exploit this.
Seriously, I dont want the paranoia of knowing exactly where my girlfriend is all the time..
there will be no more trust with this
or privacy
boycott so it gets removed from lack of users plz./
With any technology it will be exploited. Having "Google Safeguards" on the system is just to ensure people have some sort of privacy, but in reality, those safeguards will be exploited, and it isn't difficult to do so.
agree 6
I look forward to using it, finding and exploiting it's weaknesses and adding its capabilities to my list of developing probe resources.
@4: Mossad have no connection with Echelon – the system that intercepts all voice and data comms, sifting it for commercial and criminal intelligence . See this European Parliament doc for a fuller explanation of its capabilities…
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
yay, who want to be tracked by google….
google exploits ppl´s stupidity, who would ever want to give google data to find them 24/7… thats totally insane, we got no idea if the data can or will be misused, either by google or 3rd party companies/criminals.
thats big Brother gone mad.
Boy goes to strip club
Girl uses Google Latitude
Boy comes home
Girl asks "Where have you been"
Boy lies and says lunch with boss
Girl confronts boy
Boy loses girl.
Lol this tool is bad for all male with crazy psycho girlfriends on atleast 12 different levels.
Easily fool your jealous girlfriends by tying your phone to a squirrel, marmot or large bird of prey.
Then watch them try and track you
@6 If you only have a list of people who can see,doesn't mean someone cant hack that cell and get in.Trust me ,i think that technology like this should be stopped.This is a guarantee way the government can get to us or any other hacker.
There's an old folk warning that if you throw a frog in boiling water he will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pan of cold water and raise the temperature ever so slowly, the gradual warming will make the frog doze happily . . .
in fact, the frog will eventually cook to death, without ever waking up.
people are people and people WILL abuse 'a thing' IF they can.
we WILL regret giving up our privacy.
Witch one of you have to be afraid of hackers / hitmans?
But, if they want to track anyone of us, they doesn't need such hightech device… they just simply follow you on their own foot. And if you want to hide from someone (government, insane killers, etc), then you probably do something wrong. And if you must hide from some reason, you will not use these kind of mobiles anyway.
But the jealous girlfriends / wifes are really pain in the ass in this situations…
The movie 1984 was about the government tracking and watching you.
Obviously its the general populace that wants this. Using camera phones to video tape everything. using GPS tracking to track everyone.
Nice. Begin the countdown to the end of the world now….
1) buy a prepaid GOPHONE with cash
2) put that GOPHONE on your list
3) charge your new phone fully
4) hide that GOPHONE in your targets car
these phones have 14 days standby mode. you now have a gps based automobile tracking device in your target's car.
awesome.. time to get a gf now to actually use this
@ Caveman:
Its not sad. Didnt you wish you had some call tracking device when you were watching the movie ? Dream becomes reality my friend…Go Google Go !
@ drucpec: lol good luck
co-sign @ 20 venomhed …. say I've been trying to find that movie but I get nothing when I google it.
#24:
http://thepiratebay.org/search/Nineteen%20Eighty-Four/0/99/200
there you go
NOW YOU CAN FIND YOUR HUSBAND WHEN HE SNEAKS OUT!
jesus CHRIST people its called the iPod Touch not the iTouch!!!
#27 something15525
Boy you are one touchy fussy muss
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