Nathan Eagle's Forum Nokia Blog

Nathan Eagle's Forum Nokia Blog http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/nathan-eagles-forum-nokia-blog I'm currently developing a mobile phone programming curriculum at the University of Nairobi, while simultaneously pursuing my ever growing list of research areas as a Research Scientist at MIT. natecow 2009-11-23T22:37:11Z Who Owns YOUR Location? http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/nathan-eagles-forum-nokia-blog/2006/11/09/who-owns-your-location I recently finished serving as an expert witness in a court case in which I had to provide my opinion about the possible locations of a mobile phone given cellular tower IDs and base station positions. While this information had to be subpoenaed from Verizon as part of the litigation, it may be disconcerting for some to acknowledge that in databases distributed throughout the world, mobile phone service providers are storing records of location and social network data for one out of three people on Earth. Besides the data’s obvious utility in courtroom trial cases like the one I was testifying in, I’m curious about the long-term consequences of commercial companies recording a time series of locations and communication events for billions of people. Who legally owns this data? Because carriers like T-Mobile & Sprint now publicly disclose the locations of their towers, base station locations are no longer the corporate secret they once were, and subsequently can’t be used to prevent customers from obtaining the location information collected about them. If I ask my T-Mobile representative to provide me with my call log history, they don’t seem to have a problem with disclosing my communication events to me. However, when asked to provide me with an approximation of the locations associated with each of my calls, they still claim this is prohibited. So, empirically at least, it doesn’t appear that the customers own the location data collected about them. And if the customers don’t own this information, then I imagine by default, the mobile operators are the ones who own the records of movement data for all of their customers. What guidelines do mobile operators have to abide by when using this data? Can it be sold to a 3rd party? How much would a detailed time-series of my locations over the last five years go for on Ebay? Who would be the highest bidder? Urban planning consultants interested in public transportation usage? Companies working on developing the next census? Wall St traders interested in where I’m doing my grocery shopping? This data clearly has value. Already carriers are selling real-time location information to <a href="http://www.airsage.com">companies</a> <a href="http://www.intellione.com">who</a> use this information to extrapolate the location and speed of the individual and use this data to offer road traffic updates and forecasts. As the major carriers’ billion dollar networks turn into a commodity infrastructure, mobile operators are going to be ever more interested in monetizing the location data generated from their customers. (“This speeding ticket has been brought to you courtesy of <insert your mobile service provider of choice>.”) So here is an exercise for the interested reader – call up your own service provider and ask for the location information associated with your call logs. Let me know if you’ve had any luck. Business Opportunities/Services Location Based Services 2006-11-09T13:25:35Z natecow EPROM - Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/nathan-eagles-forum-nokia-blog/2006/08/13/eprom-entrepreneurial-programming-and-research-on-mobiles   <center><a href="http://web.mit.edu/eprom"><img width="212" height="70" src="https://blogs.forum.nokia.com/file.html?id=215&file=eprom_logo.jpg" alt="" /></a> </center>   Wanted to spread the word that we will soon be launching EPROM (Entrepreneurial Programming and Research On Mobiles) jointly at MIT and the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Nairobi</st1:placename></st1:place>. The premise behind the project comes from the fact that today’s mobile phones are designed to meet Western needs. Subscribers in developing countries, however, now represent the majority of mobile phone users worldwide (1.4 billion mobile phone subscribers live in the developing world!). We believe the adoption of new technologies and services within this vast, emerging market will drive innovation and help shape the future of the mobile phone – and we want to help make this happen. We have focused on Africa because it is currently the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world, and I’ve moved to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kenya</st1:place></st1:country-region> for the year to get the project off the ground. What Kenyans are starting to do with their phones is amazing. Today, in my small town of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kilifi</st1:place></st1:city>, I can buy milk, pay for a taxi ride, even check the local vegetable prices on my mobile... I describe this phenomenon in more detail here:<o:p></o:p> <a href="http://web.mit.edu/eprom/whyafrica.html">http://web.mit.edu/eprom/whyafrica.html</a>   <o:p></o:p> One of the key activities of EPROM is to this facilitate the development and deployment of these new mobile phone applications through the creation of a mobile phone programming curriculum for African computer science students. In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kenya</st1:place></st1:country-region>, only 200,000 households have electricity, which has not seemed to have deterred the almost 6 million Kenyan mobile phone subscribers. Having an infrastructure of devices that have the computational horsepower of the PCs from a decade ago while not being dependent on a steady supply of electricity makes exclusively teaching Western PC-centric computer programming in African universities increasingly misplaced. At such a critical point in the evolution of computing technology, <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>’s adoption and innovative use of custom mobile phone applications confirms the need to equip African computer science students with the skills to develop mobile phone applications specifically for African users. More information on the curriculum is here:<o:p></o:p> <a href="http://web.mit.edu/eprom/courses.html">http://web.mit.edu/eprom/courses.html</a>   <a href="http://web.mit.edu/eprom/courses.html"> </a> <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p>Cheers from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kenya</st1:place></st1:country-region>...<o:p></o:p> -Nathan.<o:p></o:p> Business Opportunities/Services Connectivity Location Based Services 2006-08-13T13:44:08Z natecow