This just in…

Bluetooth “Big Brother” tracks festival-goers

In a study looking for ways to develop data on concert goer activities:

“We have installed 36 bluetooth scanners across the site and along a few surrounding roads, as well as bus stops,” the university’s Nico Van de Weghe said on Friday of the project at the Werchter festival, northeast of Brussels this weekend.

Within a radius of 30 metres, the scanners track mobile phones equipped with bluetooth, a type of short-range wireless technology which allows different devices to connect with one another, often to transfer files.

How does that make your feel?   Almost all modern phones have a geo-location capability built in that transmits location information to the cellular provider, allowing E-911 compliance.  Some use bona fide GPS, others use tower triangulation.   Simply, you are being tracked by your service provider, every moment your phone is on, within range of a tower.   You may not also be aware that they can turn on the microphone, on your phone, and listen to conversations without our knowledge.   Yes it sounds like the ranting of a paranoid lunatic, but you can veriy my veracity.

This is going to another level entirely.  This is a 3rd party installing listening devices to identify (each BlueTooth node has and ESN/MAC that is unique to the device) and monitoring the comings and goings of various BlueTooth devices around the venue.  Now, depending on how you have configured your phone’s BlueTooth (mine is OFF 24×7, always has been) you might also be announcing your NAME along with your devices ID.

Now, the researchers have said this:

The researchers will only track the devices’ MAC address — a number that identifies each device on a network — which cannot be traced to phone numbers or personal details.

I don’t buy that for one section.  If there is anything I’ve learned working 20 years in the information business, if you can get a piece of data, it would be very rear indeed that they not store every piece of that data.   It’s just a practice.   As they say, “You never know when you might really need that extra bit of data we could have recorded”.

Now here is the paragraph that concerns me the most.  You draw your own conclusion:

The technique could also be used by security services to track suspicious movements, or monitor evacuations at mass events.

You have been warned.

FULL ARTICLE:

It’s been a hellish week at work, with our main webserver dying early Monday morning, and our backup web server so out of date it was unusable. After much wrangling I instructed my team to place the development server into production while we re-built from scratch, the server that decided to self-destruct.

That was Monday. The cluster continued forward on Tuesday with systems not running optimally, but all our customers back online. No data was lost (I’ve been careful to hide our data away from customer facing systems), but it was not our brightest hour for certain.

Then, when all well and back in order with the world on Wednesday… I’d agreed to go grab a couple of drinks with a co-worker, but first needed to stop by the colo to swap some virtual IP’s on the refurbished webserver. That’s when the feces struck the air circulater again.

90 minutes of down server, FedoraCore 10’s networking clusterf*ck nearly had me on the ropes. If anything, I’m relentless, and I finally bent it to my will. After that ‘quick stop’ I decided 2 drinks was clearly not going to be enough.

So, I closed up the cabinets, signed out of the colo and went straight to The Butts in Black Pants.  Some nice eye candy works there, and it’s just what the doctor ordered.  One of our regular waitresses was running the bar, and she good with the cocktail shaker. We were underway!

First up, a nice double Vodka Tonic.  Next, a burger they call ‘The Desert Heat’, drown in Frank’s Hot Sauce, and a set of onion rings covered with Cajun seasoning.  Then I decided to go off-menu.

I’d seen a drink listed at The Primo the night before, called a dirty martini.  We took a shot at it.  Chocolate liquer and vanilla Vodka.  Although they did not exactly have the required ingredients, we got close with Creme de CoCo,  Vanilla Stoli and a dash of coke. It was pretty good.  I’m still working on a name for this little concoction.     By now it was 8:00PM and it was time to hit Tacoma’s Whiskey Row, and take a walk.

Not far down Broadway, we came across this little place.  And I have to admit, there was more than a little childish snickering to be heard:

Carrying on down Broadway between 11th and 9th, we came across a doorway, that has been the subject of curiosity for some time.  Here are a couple of photos of that doorway, and the cornerstone plate at the bottom.

So I finally fired up the search engine and looked up what the organization is. The building itself is marked as ‘Commencement Lodge #7‘. According to the website for the Knights of Pythias, they are religious based Order, who’s charter is to promote Universal Peace.

Finally reaching 9th and Broadway, we turned north towards the river.  9th and Commerce to 9th and Pacific is such a FINE place for a couple of aging white guys to be walking as the sun goes down.  There are many reasons Tacoma’s downtown is pretty quiet most nights..  the local, uh, inhabitants might be a factor.

One on Pacific, we turned in a westerly direction toward the old City Hall. Along the way, I simply had to photograph another, granted juvenile, ‘by-chance’ location of two totall different businesses.

So..  how often do you find…  these two right next to each other?

After much laughing, we moved on down the road to our final destination…

Going to Meconi’s is just like coming home.  Jodi and Stacy were both there last night, and we received fabulous service as always.

So ends our little walk down to Tacoma’s Whiskey Row, until next time.