Mobile phones expose human habits

Mobile phones expose human habits By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News

People's movements were not as random as predicted
The whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users have been tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements.

The study concludes that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again.

Most people also move less than 10km on a regular basis, according to the study published in the journal Nature.

The results could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic, the scientists said.

"It would be wonderful if every [mobile] carrier could give universities access to their data because it's so rich," said Dr Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University, Boston, US, and one of the authors of the paper.

Dr William Webb, head of research and development at the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, agreed that mobile phone data was still underexploited.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he told BBC News.

Money search

Researchers have previously attempted to map human activity using GPS or surveys, but it is expensive.

One innovative approach tracked the movement of dollar bills in an attempt to reconstruct human movements.

The study used data from the website wheresgeorge.com, which allows anyone to track a dollar bill as it circulates through the economy. The site has so far tracked nearly 130 million notes.
All of the mobile phone data was collected anonymously

Studies such as this suggested that humans wander in an apparently random fashion, similar to a so-called "Levy flight" pattern displayed by many foraging animals.

However, Dr Gonzalez and her team do not believe this approach gives a complete picture of people's movements.

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This is complete crap that they can do this without consent

That's not right... They have been able to do that with internet and now cell phones, soon to be in 2009 with direct tv. The government is getting to out of control if you ask me. Their tracking us like ****ing dogs...

As long as they don't share the data and they donn't caught me doing embarassing things (e.g. with prostitute) on camera and upload it to youtube, I wouldn't mind.

There's more to it than that. They would be able to track us down in a heart beat, and when everything is corrupt and we don't have a say in things anymore, guess what? Well, I guess we are as good as dead. Just take a look at the video I have in my thread:

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...p;#entry2334959

Annoying market researchers knowing your every move is the least worrisome thing about this intrusion, what happened to our rights? People can go to jail for the federal crime of opening our mail but these a***oles can track our every move without consequence, how archaic are our laws?

If you don't like it, don't use a phone system that depends for its operation on details of your (approximate) location being held on computer.

I don't like the idea myself or where It's all heading but just like anything hi-tech thats 'introduced & eventually accepted as the norm', theres very little that can & will be done about it...eg, I mean think about it...'Try going a just a few days (24hrs even) without your mobile/cell phone eh, withdrawals anyone?...'


Next; Microchips...bend over please.

It's all about privacy and personal information being used without consent ... you missed the point (if you read the article at all)

So Its a matter of them just keeping track or can they actually hear convertations or read texts??? If they cant hear or see whats been said written or done then I sposse these so called Dr's of research are pretty boring.

Although now........... Im reluctant to use my video phone.

Since the mobile phone system depends for its operation on this data being held on computer, if you don't want anyone to be able to track your movements, you only have two alternatives: trust the phone company not to pass the data on or don't use the phone.

This is the problem the information is being used without consent

You can't escape all the communication hi tech coming i tell ya...
I have two of em, one for work (Sonim it's passed my torture test already & then some ) & one for play, the Nokia 6110 err with satellite navigator, internet access & receiving etc for easier ''tracking'' lol! A buddy of mine has the LG KU990 (full touch screen with internet etc) <--it's a frigg'n mobile PC that makes 'phone calls'...as an added optional extra

This is why we need updated laws to protect our privacy . the Government is light years behind the times (go figure) lol

I hear ya Mac, imo I don't think governments really give a f**k about our privacy. It's always been the little bloke asking the questions & raising awareness. Businesses big & small are relying more & more on mobile phone technology (receiving & sending data etc etc)...ya know the ol saying...''Time is money''


Later man

Its like breaking in a new dog. You must learn the rules. Then you must be unafraid of them. This mobile snooping amounts to nothing more than a dry run of what is soon to happen.

It's the marketers who are doing this, they know far more about you than the government. (see "junk mail" and "grocery member cards").
They are the ones that "tell" us what's fashionable, what's "cool", what's "in". It's just a question as to whether you listen to them or not.

I'm just too old and ornery to be sucking ****** and slathering Just for Men all over my head, drive some impractical SUV or "chick magnet", buy the latest toys...but I guess there are a great many suckers all the chatter is affecting. Folks need to learn to be happy in their own skin. (I did buy a bike a few years back, but I blame my son for that...not a Harley, a little 55mpg 650...which has become very practical for running around town...no leather jacket.)

The easiest way to beat these marketeers is to ignore them....and leave the damned cell at home, or turn it off unless you really need it

(edit..interesting...the board edited out v.i.a.g.r.a..)

It's an anthropological study, utilizing the approximate locations of a large sample of folks who use cell phones to study human movement patterns.
Big deal.

The cell phone user concedes to being trackable once he or she decides to buy one and use it. Criminologists use this data to track nasty folks all the time.

You honestly think that anyone cares about individuals in this study?

I swear, the lack of understanding about the technology we use every day is frightening. Further, the lack of understanding of the difficulty in "big brother" watching your every move...on a cell phone, on a computer, whatever, or the untenability of such a process on any scale at all, is astounding.


But I should think that mobile phones do expose people's habits--not only in respect to their movements (which is really interesting (not... ), but in respect to how mindless and stupid so many people are.

You can drive along any highway any day of the week, and watch some moron wailing away on a cell phone while driving their car in erratic, and inattentive fashion. That's alot more interesting than tracking human movements.

I'd personally love to have someone tracking the idiots who do this every day of the week--so they could catch them and fine them heavily for being so dumb!!!

I'd love to know what the "perceived need" is today (not the real and logical intent of a cell phone, but today's general usage).
What makes people who work in factories need a cell phone and talk on it while working?
What makes people commit distracting and unsafe acts through the use of their cells?
What is it that posesses someone in a supermarket line...or anywhere else in public, to talk loudly into a star-trek ear thingie, which of course makes all the regular folks look at him or her as if they're being addressed!?



That would be a hell of a lot more interesting than some study of people's movement patterns!

Good thing I effing hate my cell as it is, and will not be getting a new one when my contract is up. I just don't get why everyone seems to think they need one... I mean, people were fine w/out them 30 years ago... and now this crap?

I'm of the "Ron White" school of cell phone etiquette...sidle up next to someone chatting on a cell phone and just listen in...when they ask "could I have some privacy??!!" the answer is "...not in PUB-LICK"!!!
I remember the first time I encountered someone with a bluetooth, didn't see it and thought I was next to a loonie..scared the hell out of me! He was just chatting away waiting for his luggage. God, I hate those things...I keep answering when people say "how are you"...and they're talking to someone they don't have time or desire to be with.

Part of human nature, me thinks...it's pretty silly, but it's true: perceived need follows any innovation. Perceived need doesn't actually have much to do with real need, but it's a real phenomena.

Think of Fedex.
Once upon a time, they started a service to major markets which could get a package or a letter somewhere the next morning. It was for when it "Absolutely, positively had to be there overnight." Next thing you know, everything absolutely, positively needs to be there overnight.

Of course, hardly anything actually does need that kind of service.

Of course, a cell phone can be used to great effect, for certain people in certain applications (people who work on the road, sales people, service representatives, etc. Police and emergency services people. The emergency call from the road, things like that). But perceived need has resulted in marketing and manic buying patterns which result in the lunacy we frequently see.

As Mr. B. said:




That's great!

Ever notice Mr. B, when you answer some nut talking on a bluetooth, how they look at you as if YOU'RE nuts???

No one concedes their information being used or shared when they buy a cellphone

Monitoring cell phone/wireless calls is quite easy (it was a hobby of a neightbor of mine some years back)...what was the flap some years ago about the old couple listening in on some republican by just using their scanner...guess it was legal as they just "happened" upon the conversation. I don't use a wireless phone anytime I'm taking credit card #s and other personal stuff...just too easy to intercept.

If you use a wireless, you're a fool to think noone is listening...it's not illegal. Now, using it as evidence in court, that's another bag of goo...

That would imply no one is abreast of the nature of wireless communication.

Frankly, believing that is impossible (lots probably don't understand it, but "no one" implies a complete lack of sense, and I refuse to believe that everyone is so possessed. Lots of folks, yes, but everytone, no way.).

I don't know, but I'm relatively sure that wireless companies aren't publishing disclaimers when they sell you a cell phone which says,

"Be aware that wireless communication is not necessarily private. Your conversations may be listened to legally by anyone so inclined and with appropriate equipment and training, without court order or without wiretaps. Additionally, your whereabouts may be tracked by means of your communications with this device."

I venture a guess that it's perceived as common knowledge...but then again...

You forgot to belittle the point about our privacy being compromised

You know, it is often trying when people don't see the point.
Everything about the nature of cell phone communication has been explained. You've even been given a direction by which you might realize this, but apparently, the efforts have gone to no avail...


I didn't forget about it...it's understood by the very nature of the beast...to some of us.

When you choose to go wireless, it is encumbent upon you to understand that you are, by the very nature of your communications mode, acknowledging the miniscule ( and highly improbably, yet present) possibility that someone, somewhere, could track you by virtue of your signal being on the airwaves. You should, reasonably, also understand that NOTHING sent over the airwaves is 100% incapble of being intercepted and listened to.


You CHOOSE to allow this potential to exist when you buy a cell phone!

You should KNOW THIS. It is not difficult to learn about.

This of course is not to say that someone is listening to you, just as in the case of this anthropological study, where no one's listening to anyone (most people are decidedly un-interesting, especially as pertains to the nonsensical conversations which occupy the majority of cell phone user's content). However, the educated person, the person of curiosity and intelligence, should, I expect, understand that you're talking on a device which is pumping out every word you say into the airwaves, where they can be heard...by anyone so inclined to do so.

This is not a matter of belittling anything. It is rather of matter of my own personal error in assuming that most people understood that they've potentially given up some of their privacy (albveit to a miniscule and improbable degree) by indulging in a cell phone.

If i could swing this slightly off topic for a bit, mobile phones are a frigg'n road hazard, some d*ck head involved in an traffic accident few weeks back was found to have both mobile phone & ipod ear pieces in each ear lol! (then they wonder why road rage is on the rise) I was in the left lane three cars back from the truck driver involved that collected mr earplugs up the rear. The truckie was ready to b*tch-slap him till he realized he was only a teenager. Surveys done put em up there with driver fatigue & drink driving as the top causes of road fatalities.


err that it, please carry on...

They can reportedly do the same with inventory microchips found in some clothing items.

Depending on the mobile network provider you use, location information can be withheld.

For example - from O₂'s Terms and Conditions:

Thanks Tiggs, This is what I wanted to see

What I find interesting is that certain members of the "right" find this completely ok. The one's that have 100 % faith in there goverment. The same ones that have 100% faith in that the goverment that they pay for tells the 100% truth., makes me shake my head when so many lies have been said as truth. Our freedoms and our liberties are gone, all in the name of fear. I do remember a day not long ago I could drive or walk across the border, gone are those days, all because of fear.

Mid you are a hard core righty and believe what ever your goverment tells you/us. I had alot of respect for you, but more and more I see you being blind sided. You may have worked for NASA and that might be why you don't question your goverment like you should. You can see no wrong in "your" and yes I will say it "beliefs" the more you post like this the less I can take you at face value.

To blindly believe in a goverment that has lied so often and then come out in full support makes me think twice about you, and thats a shame, as I really did hold you in High esteem. This is not once but twice Mid that I have to question where you hold your values. I know you are red white and blue to the bone, but I can no longer understand where you are coming from. I would have thought you wanted the best for America, but I see as many that it is lost in the confusion.

the goverment can watch and track alot more than it lets on.
anyone see the film enemey of the state with will smith. i give it about 2 years before thats a reality hey it may even be know i wouldnt put it past them. they have the technology and are very capable. england the most watched country in the world has more cctv cameras than any other london alone beats most places. i dont believe its for our safety though. something else is going on.

100% faith in my government? No, that's what the post Katrina howling crowds had...they expected, demanded 100% instant relief after a major disaster...they did not think or act for themselves before the storm, they simple expected the "government" to take care of them. The "right" doesn't have near this faith in "government" as the more liberal population does. We don't see them as efficient in running the local schools, in taking care of our financially struggling next door neighbors...that's a "local" issue and getting the feds involved is wasteful and ripe for waste and abuse. No, we "righties" have little faith in the feds, except in very limited federal roles.
But, in the coming election, we will have a liberal President and a liberal Congress. Oh, we'll get change all right. Be careful what you wish for.
My "government" tells me that global warming catastrophe is at hand, and we must sacrifice (i.e. "pay dearly") to alleviate it. We must NOT drill for more oil, but instead punish those who provide it to us. My government teaches ludricous economic supply and demand theory that any professor in Harvard would be fired for. It subsidizes bio-fuels which have been clearly proven as very carbon negative, wasteful, and responsible for rising food prices, deforestation, and rising hunger. Blindly believe my government...no, not hardly.
And if I don't want someone following my movements via the cellphone, I turn it off. I managed most of my life without one, I'll manage tomorrow.

The concern I have is with this information being shared with third parties or used without my consent, this is where laws should protect our privacy (I can't see why anyone would have a problem with my point of view on this)

I am with you. I think the Bush Administration has made it clearer than ever that a government can have an agenda of control more than that of governing. As of 2006, all U.S. passports, for instance, have a microchip that can track the owner wherever he goes. We are faced with the need to interpret our "right to liberty" and determine if that includes intrusions to our personal lives and privacy. The attitude that "it doesn't bother me" expresses the same naivity as existed with the German Jews of 1937.

Thats just it people say oh I don't plan on breaking the law so it won't effect me or I'm a model citizen so I have nothing to worry about. That kind of thinking well leed to more and more goverment getting involved in people's personal life wether your a modle citizen or not it's wrong. Some may think it's fine now but given enough time they will have so much control there will be little anyone can do about it aside a war or a revolution. It's scary what the goverment can do today to it's citizens, but it's much more scary what thay might be able to do tommorow.

According to Georgie & his administration Mac, most Americans gave up that right when they allowed him to sign the original Homeland Security Act (2002) then later down river the Homeland Security Appropriations Act (2006) (my guess without fully understanding or even comprehending the future true impact it'll have on society as a whole & future generations to come).


jmo.

Not enbtirely off topic, REB...

I think it came up a while back in the conversation.
You're absolutrely correct.

That driver doing 45 in the passing lane of the highway, the one who's left and right, the one who suddenly changes lanes or dives for an exit ramp from across lane...9 times out of ten, that moron has a phone glued to his f-ing ear. I conservatively estimate seeing no less than ten such poo heads every single day.

The surveys are correct. I wonder how many people have heard their loved one's last gurgle as he or she died in a crash from talking on one of things when no one really oughta be...?




About two months ago I was right next to a crash involving a cell phone. Traffic's slowing down approaching a red light, easy enough, everyone knows it's coming, traffic backs up there every day. I note some guy pass me, doing about 60 when he should've been at about 35...with brakes on (what the hell, no brake lights?!)...phone in his ear gesticulating and having an animated phone conversation at 7:00 am on a busy highway (what the hell are you talking to someone at 7:00 am for, on your way to work? What could be so important?).

People seem to get in their cars in the morning, and stuff their phone in their ear as a habit. I've never had a cell phone and can't imagine wanting to talk to anyone on the way to work....

Sure enough, he rear-ends a lady in front of him, making a mess of her rear end triggering his air bags...as well as giving his front end a major face lift (no more radiator, no more driving that baby...).

I pull off and check out the lady. She's as cool as can be, and just fine, albeit a wee bit annoyed. She can drive away--pulls out her cell and calls 911.

A few minutes later, there's cops all over the place, looking for statements.

I gave them about three pages of detailed description...my answer to a SGT. who asked me if I saw what happened, was, "Yea, sure!"
He asked me about it...I said, pointing to the guy in the car to the rear, "Cell phone."

He just grimaced and nodded knowingly...

Using a cell phone whilst driving has been banned in the UK for a while now. I could be wrong, but I think a ban was recently introduced within California, as well.

I'm fairly certain they are illegal in most states while driving.

Silver:

What Mr. B. said...

Further:

I am not a hard core rightie (I am not exactly sure what that actually means...). I am a conservative, something which happened to me after the Democratic party became socialist in it's basis, sometime in the past few decades (the party of Kennedy (which I was a member of) died with Bob in 1968...and it's headstone was placed in the 1976 Presidential Election, when Carter got elected).


If you really pay attention to what it means to be conservative, you may understand that it means the exact opposite of 100% faith in government. A conservative realizes that government is the source of most problems, not a solution. It realizes that government can't be trusted to manage s***, and shouldn't be involved in peoples lives.

I do, and have questioned my government...much more than any liberal I know has (these people want to elect Obama...a man who will take government to new levels of ineptitude and power they don't deserve).


I do want the best for America...I actually want it to be the way it was some time ago, where government got out of the way, where free enterprise was promoted as the solution to problems, where the American people's abilities were the strength of this country and nonsensical notions weren't promoted or accepted by people.


The restrictions on your freedoms, the suppression of industry, the idea that oil companies, for instance are evil and making windfall profits (which they are in no way making, which rather explains today's stopping of the Carteresque windfall profits tax...someone's thinking correctly), and Congress' time wasting insistence on vilifying companies that make the American economy run...as well as the prices of oil and gasoline, and the escalating prices on everything else we've seen in recent months...are ALL results of Congress' action, now, and in the past several decades.

Yes, I know...President Bush's approval rating is pretty low. Before you say it, Congress' approval rating is historically lower, in fact, the worse it's ever been, less than half of that of the President, and people like Obama are among the primary reasons for that.

Conservatives understand this, and want to stop it.


Conservatives, like myself, believe nothing. They know what works, they know what's up, and they realize that government has NEVER been a solution to problems. People are.

I addressed the simple and seemingly unknown (?) fact that when one accepts a cell phone, one conceeds to the possibilities inherent in wireless communication. That's a matter of personal responsibility, something that many people today do not accept or even acknolwedge. It in no way implies that anyone IS listening in, or tracking you...it simply states that the astute person realizes that the potential exists.

You have those of us who accept personal responsibility, for everything, all wrong.

You see, personal responsibility and accountability, and personal awareness of that which is readily available to learn, is what I want, and there is no confusion about this...nor about my position. The confusion, quite frankly, is possessed by those who seem to think that what's best for America is to be found in profoundly un-American, and skewed principals.

Theres been cases where fatalities were caused by drives 'text messaging' here Mid...
I mean ya gotta be a total frigg'n brainwave to do something like that lol!


Same here Tiggs, for memory theres a $250 fine, 2/3 demerit points deduction off ya licence attached, hence why mobile phone companies came up with the headset later 'cordless' making it legal but by no way near as safe...(err driver concentration must go right out ya car window eh)

More and more, fortunately, as time goes on!


It's a tough thing to enforce, however....

I found the first bill Rebs H.R.5005 Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate) not enough time for me to read it all on a weeknight though brother lol

You would be correctamundo, REB..."frigg'n brainwave" is a good term.

I saw a woman one morning, who I rapidly passed, again on a highway during am rush, with a cell phone in her left ear, being held by her left hand (of course), and at the same time, putting lipstick on with her right while looking in the mirror behind her driver-side sun visor. She was leaning in an awkward position, using her right elbow on the steering wheel...an object which seemed to be a nuisance to her.

I got away from there right quick...I wasn't too keen on seeing the potential carnage that might result form such idiocy...

I'm going to tell you guys something that you should have already known.



Ever read 1984? Well most people think that the world is truly being led into a world like that of 1984...however slowly.

The one centralized ideal committed by the Orwell through the book is something we call Totalitarianism. For Totalitarianism to succeed the people must be willing to accept it and without total acceptance it will not work. True...those that choose to rebel can be killed but the other main factor of the book is plain and simple: stupidity and ignorance.

Until we are all stupid and ignorant to moral opinion and comparison then something like 1984 will never occur.


At the moment my only worry lies in the Patriot Act and what amount of exploitation can be torn from the words scrawled onto that pathetic document. Perhaps cellphone tracking is truly something to worry about but in this case I doubt it.

The researchers were merely tracking peoples day to day whereabouts, not the conversation of any phone-calls, text messages, voice-mails etc. That would be quite illegal especially if something confidential were to come up in the span of any conversation.


The last thing a communications company wants is a lawsuit that actually makes a lick of sense....

Yes...it was a work of fiction...and totalitarianism fails eventually...which has been profoundly illustrated across the world where it has existed.




Which might explain why, 59 years after it's publication, it hasn't occurred.




Yea, me too.
Anything's possible, but as to the Patriot Act, a knowledge of how to read legislation is very, very helpful in understanding what it's actually about. Most people have no idea how to read a legal document, or interpret it...this has been illustrated time and time again on forum discussions with people who have never had experience in law, and who haven't even made the effort to actually read a piece of legislation.



True. As I said, it was an anthropologic study...nothing more.

Yea, me too.
Anything's possible, but as to the Patriot Act, a knowledge of how to read legislation is very, very helpful in understanding what it's actually about. Most people have no idea how to read a legal document, or interpret it...this has been illustrated time and time again on forum discussions with people who have never had experience in law, and who haven't even made the effort to actually read a piece of legislation.

Forgive me if I am a skeptic when it comes to the dealings of government . . . . especially THIS government. Whether one can read a bit of legislation or not does not diminish the consequences of the legislation. An American citizen needs a passport to re-enter his own nation. His telephone, mail and e-mails can be intercepted and monitored without court permission. He can be jailed and held without charges for any amount of time the government wishes. The Military Commissions Act . . . another bit of legislation . . . . suspended habeas corpus.

True. As I said, it was an anthropologic study...nothing more.[/quote][/b]

And the experiments at Dachau were only in the name of medical science.

Does anyone here expect, with the upcoming election resulting in a liberal President and Congress, a sudden repeal of the Patriot Act? If so, be ready for a disappointment.
Aside from yet bigger government and it's heavy hand, little else will change. The bueracracy still remains, with it's gargantuan inertia and political clout...appointed and employed, but not elected.

Change...yeah, right...

History has proven that once legislation is enacted, it stays much longer than anyone wants. Only when the legislation affects the economy . . . . prohibition . . . . does it find itself being changed.