Recently, two death row inmates were arrested in Nakuru GK Prison after being tracked through the assistance of mobile services firm Safaricom. More than 10 mobile phones and a number of SIM cards that were used to transact more than Sh300,000 were confiscated. The inmates colluded with people outside the prison to provided them with phone numbers of wealthy people who they called and threatened with death if they did not follow orders. Police launched investigations into how the convicts had separately received Sh350,000 and Sh40,000 in their welfare accounts when the racket that was unearthed in February.
[From Daily Nation: – News |Police probing mobile money transfer racket]
Nice mobile payment application — call people up, get them to send money back via the mobile payment system — but only if you’re a really stupid criminal, since the phone company knows where you are and will tell the police. And the police will be able to track you, and they will know the details of anyone else you call. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a prepaid phone not registered to you, because knowing where you are and who you are calling is pretty useful information.
The tracking is especially useful and in the future we will come to accept that we know where stuff is, all the time. As an aside, this doesn’t mean the end of privacy, but I think it does mean new notions of privacy.
Within seconds, a Tampa map appeared with a blinking orange dot moving away from the park. “We’re thinking to ourselves, there are our cell phones going down the road,” Jennifer Jensen said. The dot left the park, headed down McKinley Drive, headed south of Fowler Avenue and stopped less than 4 miles away from where it started… Caroline switched to satellite mode, and they were suddenly looking at the outside of the Bentley Court Apartments, 11603 N 22nd St.
[From There’s an app for that, too — Tampa cops find stolen iPhones with GPS – St. Petersburg Times]
At one level, this is just a fun “there’s an app for that story”. But think about it more as a window into the “internet of things” future. When everything is connected to everything else across an infrastructure then the idea of stealing something will become outdated (although, to be fair, some idiots still rob banks with shotguns). What’s the point of getting into my car if you can’t drive it without my RFID keyfob, what’s the point of stealing my TV if it will only decode encrypted signals if it is in range of my router and what’s the point of running off with my mobile phone if it won’t allow you to make calls unless you can mimic my voice? And what’s the point of stealing any of them at all if I can log in to any computer anywhere in the world and see where they all are?
