Warning: AT&T's New "Spouse Stalking" Cell Service

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: April 15, 2009 12:10:43 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Warning: AT&T's New "Spouse Stalking" Cell Service



             Warning: AT&T's New "Spouse Stalking" Cell Service

                 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000546.html


Greetings.  Earlier this month, the disturbing news circulated of a
man who shot his five children and himself after discovering his wife
with another man -- reportedly through the use of GPS cell phone
tracking ( http://www.thenewstribune.com/888/story/699340.html ).
While details regarding the GPS aspects of the case haven't yet
appeared, AT&T has now introduced a new service that may gladden the
heart of spouse stalkers all over the country.

Called "FamilyMap" ( http://www.att.com/familymap ), the service
allows the account owner to track the location of other cell phones in
the account over the Internet or on their own cell phones.  While this
concept isn't particularly new, the manner of implementation that AT&T
has chosen for this service is quite alarming.

Rather than following the conventional procedure of requiring
confirmation from a cell phone that its user wishes to permit
tracking, FamilyMap allows for the activation of tracking based solely
at the discretion of the account owner.  A tracked phone is supposed
to receive a single text message informing its user that they will
henceforth be tracked -- but if that message is ignored, missed, or
never received at all, tracking will apparently still commence
( http://tinyurl.com/familymap-sms ).

The tracked phone will not show any indications that its location is
being monitored, except reportedly for the attempted sending of
another text message to that phone -- but only once a month.

The abuse potentials of this situation are obvious.  It is difficult
to comprehend why AT&T would create a tracking service that doesn't
require positive confirmation of the target for activation before
initiating "silent" tracking for weeks.

AT&T is demonstrating exactly the *wrong* way to deploy a
location-based mobile service.  We can only hope that they realize
their mistake and change FamilyMap policies -- before someone is hurt
or killed after being unknowingly tracked by a spouse or someone else
in a shared account situation.

Shame on you, AT&T.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
  - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
  for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: LW1




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