On February 10, 2013, the British newspaper, The Guardian, ran a story on it's website with chilling implications for social media. The American defense contractor, Raytheon had recently developed - but not yet marketed - a new software program that can uncover where you have been, track where you are now, and predict - with some accuracy - where you will be in the near future.
Raytheon's software, known as Riot (Rapid Information Overlay Technology) exploits easily acquirable user data, such as GPS location, date, and time information found by trolling social media sites, which intelligent algorithms then use to deduce information about you.
Soon after the Guardian article, other established organizations, such as Zdnet, PCmag, The Telegraph (another British newspaper), and the ACLU offered their own take on Raytheon's Riot software. While their responses ranged from calling Riot "Google for Spies" (Guardian), "stalking software" (Telegraph), and "Business as Usual" (ZDnet) the ACLU noted, with some alarm, that "Riot could be used as a way to schedule a black-bag job to plant spyware on someone’s laptop".
Check out the articles for yourself.
This is my blogging exercise 1
As soon as I got my first iPhone (and this was fairly recently) one of my friends showed me how to turn tracking features off. I thought he was being paranoid. Now methinks maybe not.
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DeleteAmen to that. I avoid posting my location whenever possible.
DeleteThis software was not developed for hackers, but to be able to track terrorists and criminals. Yes, it is frightening to consider that it could fall into the wrong hands, as Tereza's film did in Prague, but I believe the intent of development was to push technology and protect the public.
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