[chbot] Traffic lights and bluetooth

[Mark Atherton]

I guess I have a more cynical view about protecting long term privacy 
than you.

If you understand possible threats and choose to ignore them that is 
fine, good luck to you - each to their own.

All I pointed out was one example where aggregation of tiny amounts of 
data could lead to some larger conclusion - that's all. And the more 
amounts of tiny data we allow to leak, the larger the picture that can 
be drawn.

-Mark


On 3/09/2015 8:17 p.m., Charles Manning wrote:
> Your BT is basically hanging out the window screaming "one two three 
> four five" every second or so.
> They notice when that goes past one place.
> They notice when it goes past another place.
> They time the difference.
>
> I doubt they're writing it in a database or anything that lasts longer 
> than an hour or so to run their algorithms.
>
> If you want nefarious usage of this info, then look at marketing...
>
> There certainly are systems that track BT inside malls etc. There is a 
> system used for evaluating foot traffic in malls that watches movement 
> of BT devices.
> They see how far people go into shops.
> They see how people linger in front of shops.
> They track if people cross from one side of a mall to another.
>
> I don't think they store anything long term, or try to associate ids 
> with people - just watch movement. This gives them an idea as to 
> whether their advertising and display windows are working. eg. person 
> walking along, but stops probably looked at the display window. Did 
> they then go inside or not? Where else did they stop? Where did they 
> actually go in? They stopped next to the ice cream freezer in the 
> supermarket,where did they go next? Do people have different patterns 
> at different times of day?
>
> But they've been doing this sort of tracking for a long time - long 
> before BT. Some supermarkets embedded RFID tags in supermarket trolley 
> handles allowing them to track movement around the supermarket. This 
> gets used for optimising product placement (eg. put the milk and bread 
> at the back of the supermarket, but set up the flow so most people go 
> through the junk food isle too).
>
> As for tracking Mark and noticing he stopped at McD three times this 
> week, so let's jack up his life insurance premiums... I doubt that's 
> happening.
>
> -- Charles