TruePosition is a ghost . Few know anything substantive about the surveillance company , yet concord to Wired ’s Spencer Ackerman , governments are salivating over the company’sLOCINT product , which has the power to toil up plenty personal information through our cellphones .
TruePosition does n’t cover up who they are . However , the specific item of who they deal with and what services are put up to specific clients is kept under lock and tonality . their main engineering science , LOCINT , stand for location intelligence , and utilise a proficiency called geofencing to conglomerate entropy from cellphones .
As a homeland security peter , it ’s alluring . envisage an “ invisible barrier around sensitive site like critical infrastructure , ” such as rock oil refineries or power plant life , TruePosition ’s director of marketing , Brian Varano , tells Danger Room . The barrier comprise a list of know phones belong to people who forge there , allow them to pass freely through the covered r . “ If any phone enters that is not on the authorised leaning , [ authority ] are immediately notified . ”
The datum call for in these geofences can be analyzed in realtime , and its contents stored for late use . It can also determine the location of soul who were called and texted by the targeted earphone . But what has some people on edge is the fact that strange government activity are now buying the technology for unspecified uses .
And if some repressive governments are in that mix , TruePosition ’s status is that what they do with LOCINT is on them .
“ We ’re providing this tool to authorities and it ’s the governments ’ burden to adhere to jurisprudence on its consumption , ” Varano says . In western countries , he says , warrants , court orders and other safeguards prevent LOCINT abuse . But surveillance works differently elsewhere : “ It ’s not being used like that in the U.S. or westerly societies , but in other portion of the world , the potentiality of doing mass tracking is possible . ”
TruePosition uses signal latency between multiple , pizza pie box seat - shaped internet telephone receiver and mobile twist to learn localisation of individuals . But what can they do with that engineering science ? Hypothetically , it could be used to get across the source of a terrorist attack .
“ We get which phone cry that phone – that ’s our torpedo . Then we ascertain which telephone set they call – the initial suspects . If they held onto that phone , we ’d be able to see who that phone reach . ” And where they are now , in real clock time .
But it ’s not all cloak and dagger paranoia . The LOCINT technology is also used for Enhanced 911 , which mobile carriers can expend to locate any phone whose radio is turn on . According to Ackerman , one such instance involved an abducted corrections ship’s officer in Kentucky who was stuff in a trunk by a probationer , and had their telephone set tossed along side a main road . But law were capable to trail the sound and find out the route the criminal had taken . They set up a barrier and pick up him .
That said , how much should we really trust a company who chiefly operates in a hole-and-corner mode ? For more on TruePosition , be sure to find out out the entire lineament on [ Danger Room ]
icon via Flickr / William Hook
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