Parents Implanting GPS Tracking Devices In Their Kids' Cellphones

by SYN 20 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  Satans little helper

  see this is the thing, on the one hand I could say that I was a real pain in the butt so when i have kids I will be super vigilent but thinking about it Clare and I have decided to be honest and give them some leeway so long as they let us know what they are up to.

  Point in case would be smoking. I started when I was 14 and up til then I had always said I would never smoke. I stopped smoking 3 months ago, so 17 1/2 years later. Now can I turn round to my kids and forbid them to smoke or would it be more productive to say 'ok, you can smoke but this is what happens if you do'. To be honest I'm not sure if this would work but if the kid is going to smoke then there's no way you can physically stop them, so what do you do?
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  joenobody

  Can't see this working all that well. GPS requires line of sight to the satellites outside. Wouldn't work if the cell phone was in the purse. It's only good if the kid whips it out and the GPS embedded in the phone can get a read as to where it is (and then presumably transmit that). When I turn my GPS (fairly new one) on in an area that is not the same as where I turned it off, it takes a few minutes to get a proper fix. I can see this process being spotty at best.
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  Satans little helper

  I'm a telecoms engineer and it's a bit more complex than simple GPS. As an aside GPS doen't need line of sight. You can secrete one of these trackers in an out of the way place on a car under the bonnet or in a tyre well etc and it still gets picked up.

  Currently you can tell the general area that a phone is located in by the nearest cell - that will give you a location down to perhaps a 500m radius in a city but could be several km radius outside of a city. Potentially each cell has a range of 30km but practically you only have a limited number of time slots on the signal so have to heavily overlap. It's a pretty inexact science at the moment but you can sort of triangulate the location of a phone by taking the registered power levels from the 3 adjacent cells. Pretty soon we will be producing phones with gps like trackers but it's all a bit of a smokescreen. With the advent of 3g you will be able to accurately pinpoint the location of a cell phone anyway due to the signal process and the fact that these phones maintain a constant IP connection.
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  joenobody

  SLP - I honestly can't see how GPS will work without line of sight unless they are also using the Coast Guard beacons etc. If you are in a concrete shopping mall, you are going to get a read on the satellites.
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  Satans little helper

  the way it works is with radio signals. When you warm up your gps unit it squawks a signal that is picked up by several sattelites which then triangulate the signal's position in the same way as you would triangulate a position using land based tracking systems. That's why you get a delay - it takes a minute to lock onto the right frequencies for the sattelites in your current hemisphere. Once you are logged with those sattelites you can then have your unit send regular signals (say one per minute) to recalculate your position. This works whether it's in your pocket or not. Ever had a cellphone start ringing in your pocket?
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  digderidoo

  I've heard of a site, where you can enter the phone number and so long as the phone is on it will tell you the location, pinpointed through the phone masts.

  Anyone else heard of this?

  Dig
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  Sara Annie

  What is this nonsensical attitude held that seems to support the ludicrous notion that teenagers have some inherent right to go someplace without their parents knowing? My kid gets a cell phone (they won't) they get the GPS tracking if I can afford it.

  Damn straight. Our minor children are not our peers, and the same standards of privacy do not apply. Will teenagers feel 'violated' and 'upset' by this? Yes. Too bad. I am their parent, and that relationship is one that entitles and requires me to know where they are at all times.

  I find it most interesting that people who do not have children are the most vocal on the side of a child's unmonitored right to privacy. Heck, I can't count how many ridiculous ideas about how parenting should be I used to have, and how I used to pass judgement on parental behavior before I was one. I often feel like I should go and find every parent I shook my head at when their child misbehaved in the grocery store and give them a hug and tell them I'm sorry for thinking "That will never happen with MY child".
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  joenobody

  SLP - I hate to beg to differ, but traditional GPS doesn't "transmit" to satellites. It merely picks up the signal from a series of satellites and calulates position. I would assume that these phones would transmit a signal (on the cell phone spectrum) to feed location - not up to the satellites.
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  Satans little helper

  sorry, I was referring to the proposed system which will be used in phones - it squawks to the network letting the network know it is still alive and the triangulation is done on these signals by satellite recievers

  This system wouldn't work with traditional gps if it is a passive system
• 

  Yerusalyim

  Elsewhere said,

  Yeah, but you turned out ok... or would you beg to differ?

  I'm sure several poster on this board would differ...yes, I turned out ok, but the road between here and there showed me doing B&E's as a side line, a little selling of herb, picking up and then dropping a crack habit, drunk driving while drinking underage, etc etc etc,...none of that was harmless kid stuff (ok, the crack was adult life, and not harmless). I came out alright inspite of myself, not because of myself...my folks get all the credit.