I’m hoping right now that Google really isn’t in bed with/run by the CIA. Call it paranoia, but somehow I’m both excited and freaked out a little by Google’s new toy, Latitude.
What is it??? Well… Latitude is a GPS enabled piece of software that interfaces with Google Maps. At any one time you can log in and see all of your friends and see where they are at. Just around the corner from you? Catch up for a coffee… COOL TOYS!
And how does it work? Well the premise is pretty simple. Anyone with a GPS enabled phone with mobile internet connection (coz we all have those???) can install the latitude App and Google Maps. I mean… Google Maps is pretty cool on it’s own – turn it on and (assuming a GPS enabled phone) Maps will tell you exactly where you are. Trippy. Add in Latitude, and your position is not only updated on your phone, but updated on the interweb for anyone in your friends list to see! AWESOME!
I can see some pretty cool applications for this from a business point of view. A customer calls and needs some product delivered urgently. You’ve got 10 sales reps on the road and you know they all have the product on board. Who’s closest? Don’t make a phone call, just check Latitude!
I can also see some pretty stalkerish scary applications for it. I didn’t suggest this, but imagine some psycho hosebeast grabs your phone at a party and installs Latitude on it, signing into it with a phantom account he/she has already created. It can run in the background so as not to be obtrusive to the end user, and suddenly, everywhere you turn you see Hosebeast. YIKES! Of course the good news with that is that you can always turn it off, or in fact turn it ON Hosebeast because if they can see you on Latitude, you can see them!
And Big Brother? Google say they don’t read your Gmail, but they COULD. If they really are the CIA, then any dodgy dealings could see them paying a quick visit to the Latitude database finishing up with the five O up in yo’ crib puttin’ a cap in yo’ ass. Extreme, but tell me honestly that you don’t think it could happen!
Posted in Journal
So have you installed it? I’m tempted to install it just to see what you do all day
STALKER!!!! ARGH!!!! STALKER!
Yeah I installed it on my work Blackberry. But I’m about to change jobs and my freebie Samsung doesn’t have GPS.
You can manually update your position too via the web.
Hey, I freely admit to being a stalker, just ask Wayne
Every damn email in the world is scanned and keywords picked up on for reporting to cia/cis/csi whoever it may be.
its just 99.99999999999999999999999% of them are harmless.