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Spy Stuff article

ET

Everybody can be Big Brother now

Not only do 'they' know a lot about 'us', we are increasingly willing to give up our privacy, too. And DIY gadgets widely available enable us to spy on others, reports Wendy Grossman

BIG BROTHER - the Orwellian variety - is closer than we think. It's not just that closed-circuit TV cameras have popped up on every street corner to watch and record our movements. It is also the arrival of an entire generation of electronic devices that are internet-enabled or hooked up to phone lines. These can collect data about us and pass it on using their internet connections.

Even though many promise to use the data they collect only for good, not for evil, the fact is that all kinds of data are being collected, and we don't know where this information will end up.

Look at it this way. If you asked people whether they wanted to allow the powers that be to create a database of everyone's movements around the country or of everything people read, listen to, or watch, almost everyone would say no. Present it instead, though, as a credit card to let you pay for things more easily, frequent flyer miles that will get you a free ticket, or a supermarket loyalty card giving you discounts on favourite items, and people go for it immediately.

Richard Smith, who runs the Privacy Foundation, and loves gadgets, is concerned about the trend towards unthinking consumer acceptance of devices that give a moderate amount of convenience in return for you allowing them to collect data about you.

Now it is the turn of electronic devices to conceal a darker purpose beneath their clever wizardry. What follows are some of the more interesting surveillance methods and gadgets Smith has spotted, some of which enable the more nosey of us to get in on the act.

eSniff

This $5,000 computer based on the Linux operating system (www.esniff.com) is intended to stop abuse of corporate internet systems by employees. It sits there, passively monitoring and logging all traffic - email, web requests, online chat and even print-offs. You define an acceptable use policy, and it copies and reports any abuse it finds.

"In most situations an employee has no right to privacy," the website says helpfully. Ideal for the unscrupulous person who wants to get a temp job in a competing company and plug one of these things into its systems somewhere.

Televison

Time was that if someone said his TV was spying on him you would sidle gently away muttering soothing words. These days, he may be right. Newer digital systems, such as Sky's Digibox, require you to hook it to a phone line so they can send back data on viewing habits.

Privacy advocate David Burke, author of the 1999 book Spy TV, believes interactive TV has the potential to be frighteningly manipulative as your TV company harvests data from interactive TV services such as shopping. Recording devices, such as Tivo, are in fact sold on the basis that they will get to "know" your tastes.

Websites

Yes, websites can spy on you and not obviously by asking for your name, rank, and serial number, but by embedding tiny bits of code that track what you're doing and sending that information back to a database.

One of the most common uses for these tiny software trackers, known as Web Bugs - is to tell advertising agencies such as DoubleClick what you've been looking at so they can spit targeted ads at you.

There are worse things in life, but it's disconcerting that websites don't tell you when these bugs are present, nor what they do with the data.

Toll booths

Britain has few toll roads, but the northeastern United States is full of them. In the past two years several states have deployed systems to collect road tolls electronically from a transponder fixed to the inside of your windscreen.

Of course, you could make this a cash-up-front anonymous system, but the states have all chosen to make it an account system payable by credit card.

The upshot is extensive logs of everyone's movements through toll booths. Few laws exist to cover how long the data may be kept (though the credit card companies mandate several years at a minimum) or who gets access to it. Bear in mind, toll roads are top of the list as an alternative means of funding further roads in the UK.

Sportbrain

This spherical little bit of electronics looks like a miniature flying saucer (www.sportbrain.com, $100). You clip it to some part of your clothing, and it tracks how much you walk or run during the day. Then you take it home, snuggle it into its docking station and log on so it can send the data it has collected to the company's website.

The site takes the data and formats it to show you how much exercise you're getting and your progress towards whatever fitness goals you've set yourself. It also uses the data to help

the company's partners post products for you to buy, though it promises that the data is made anonymous.

Casio Wrist Camera Watch

Who wouldn't want a $230 (£150) watch that could take pictures of the people you're talking to (www.casio.com/watches/ then select Wrist Technology)

With it you get an adaptor and software so you can dump the pictures onto your PC. Think of the endless fun while you take pictures of your friends and family without them ever knowing.

Up to 100 pictures can be stored in the watch, all time and date-stamped, and up to 24 characters typed in - name and phone number, presumably - for each one. "Time for your little black book to grow up," says the ad, featuring scantily clad women.

Xray Vision Wireless Internet Kit

No, we're not kidding (www.x10.com/xrv). Prices start at $130 (£90) for a small colour camera you can hang anywhere you like within 100 feet of your computer.

You can set it to take pictures as often as you like or only when it detects movement and it will transmit the pictures wirelessly to the computer. You don't even need a permanent internet connection - you can dial in with a special ring and it will log on and send you the pictures it has collected.

You can even network the things with as many as 16 cameras placed all over the house. Spy on your loved ones, or create a useful souvenir if you get burgled.

TravelEyes2

This cigarette packet-sized Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) locator device (www.traveleyes.com) can be hidden in a car and used to track its location, mileage, destination and speed. Later, you take it out of the car and plug it into your PC to see where the car went and the addresses where it stopped.

At about $700, it's a lot cheaper than hiring a private investigator to tail people and see what they're up to. Unlike the Tracker (www.thankstotracker.com) device sold in the UK, which is linked to police computers to enable law enforcement to retrieve stolen cars, TravelEyes is completely DIY.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001