There has been a suspicion for years that the convenience of our society had the potential to reap corresponding harm upon us. It is, as they say, both a gift and a curse. Allice Hoffman is credited with the quote
"I really feel like the gift is also the curse. It's always half-and-half. Whatever brings you the most joy will also probably bring you the most pain. Always a price to pay."
In the classic Ghostbusters (Columbia Pictures, 1984), Dr. Venkman observes: "Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back." It is sarcastic, witty, and illustrates the more subtle and pedestrian worry of Dr. Stanz regarding the testing of equipment.
Similarly, we are all walking around today with supercomputers in our pockets (purses, belt-clips, computer bags, etc.). True, they are not nuclear accelerators, but they have potential to both benefit and harm us. The smartphone of the twenty-first century is amazing, wonderful, and capable. We all depend upon them daily and the various app (application) providers just keep pushing more tools toward us. These provide us information, convenience, and surveillance.
They are markedly more advanced than the computer that landed a man on the moon, and who knows, NASA may use smartphones to soon land a woman there as well (their program vehicle is called "Artemis," the Greek goddess, sister of Apollo of the last moon-shot fame). By "woman," they mean a human that identifies as the female gender (Slate notes "it’s impossible to keep politics out of the dictionary"). But, I digress.
Yes, surveillance. The purveyors of these tools are tracking us and recording our movements, habits, and predilections. For the record, I only stop at that particular vendor because it is close to the Interstate and has clean bathrooms. I do not even know what a Blizzard (TM) is. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I have, thus far, declined to install that vendor's and a number of other apps offered by the a variety of stores and restaurants, despite their marketing persistence, and the keen (a word of approval from the days of my youth) freebies they offer.
We were reminded in the dawn of the digital age that freebies are rarely without a price. Sure, we are not asked to part with our money to download them, but somewhere, someone is probably making money. Remember Liza Minelli taught us that "money makes the world go round," and Cyndi Lauper that "money changes everything," and, of course, many thought Tommy James, then Billy Idol, was on a rant about "money money," but that was a misconception, a misspelling, or both. But, I digress. Money is indeed at the root of applications. No one gives things away for free, there is always a price.
I recall a great cartoon about social media. It depicts two barnyard animals and their gratefulness for the free amenities of the farm on which they live. The caption notes that "if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer, You're the product being sold." Free apps are great, but in that same vein, you are perhaps not the customer. Somewhere, someone is making money.
Enter the Fog. No, not the obscuring ground clouds that made San Francisco famous before the bridge, the chowder, the homeless, the feces-covered sidewalks, the shoplifting, and the $20,000 garbage can (yes, that is apparently real). If the feces bothers you, there are maps to help you avoid it. In fact, there is an App for your phone to help avoid it, and the App is "free." What do you expect, it's silicon valley. But I digress.
The Fog in this instance is not even the humorous Phileas Fogg that took us Around the World in 80 Days (Jules Verne, 1873), though today there are apps to help you find your way on such a trip. This Fog is an "obscure cellphone tracking tool" that is following your every move. No, not because you installed Fog on your phone or someone surreptitiously snuck it onto your phone, but because someone, somewhere is selling your data in bulk to the purveyors of Fog. They did not even have to go phishing and trick you into this.
According to the Terre Haute Tribune Star (Terre Haute is a lovely town in Indiana, despite the contrary ravings of comedian extraordinaire Steve Martin), the authorities are using Fog Reveal to profile you and I on a daily basis. In an untoward invasion of privacy, government officials are literally tracking our every move. The Tribune alleges that police have
"search(ed) hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices, and harnessed the data to create location analyses known among law enforcement as 'patterns of life.'"
That company is quick to assure us that the police are not getting our names from these searches, nor perhaps any other truly personal data. But, instead, they are tracking our "advertising identification numbers." These are "unique numbers assigned to each device." They are numbers that allow the police to locate our smartphone (and thus, by implication, ourselves) at the Blizzard store. The implication being that I am, in fact, consuming ice cream, which is absolutely not the case, I assure you, seriously, why would I lie? But, I digress.
The Police may not get your name from this data, but they can note that this same device was at: your home address, your work address, a locale of a meeting for a civic group in which you are involved, etc., and in the process accuse you (falsely in this instance) of consuming ice cream! Perhaps even consuming ice cream frequently. Perhaps even too frequently (is it even possible to eat too much ice cream?). It is an invasion of privacy, but one to which we perhaps consent in the small print of the cell phone contract we never read or the "I accept" we click to download some app. But, I digress.
A "crime data analysis supervisor" in Greensboro, North Carolina has essentially outed the Fog. You might say alleviated some obscurity. This supervisor alleges that months were spent "voicing concerns about the Greensboro Police Department’s use of Fog to police attorneys and the city council." When that failed, the supervisor resigned from the position, and news media began to write about this intriguing tracking that has been apparently, allegedly, happening beneath our very noses.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am no computer expert. Many will tell you I am an expert in nothing, but that I can tell you much about Blizzards (believe it or not). So, it is possible that the very phone itself is being used to track us and report our positions for the purpose of documenting "patterns of life."
According to the Tribune-Star, "Fog says in its marketing materials that it collects data from thousands of apps, like Starbucks and Waze." Half a moment! Perhaps there is a reason that some vendors are willing to provide us an incentive for downloading their apps? Perhaps, just possibly, the data collected by those apps is being sold to companies like Fog? Perhaps, we are not the customer but the product?
