An appeals court recently rejected the FBI's attempt to use a navigation/roadside assitance system (probably On*Star's competitor, Tele-Aid) to eavesdrop on a suspect, but only after the FBI had listened for 30 days. It was rejected because using the system this way blocked its normal function, so in theory if the system were designed differently this could be legal. The article is here: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7491 A security expert I talked to once referred to things like On*Star, cordless phones, and wireless microphones as "self-bugging systems" because they make it easy for anyone who wants to listen in on you -- you've planted the bug yourself. I'm not sure people think about the privacy implications enough when they buy into this kind of technology.27 responses total.
I certainly do, and those (un)fortunate enough to be within range of my voice when an On*Star commercial comes on have been made aware as well. (I've even mentioned it in other contexts, when the opportunity arises.) If On*Star can track my car *after* it's been stolen, it can track it *before* it's been stolen, too.
Gee, Joe, it sounds like your house sounds like our house. STeve and I gag when those commercials come on.
my wife and i scream at them as well.
Only the truly paranoid...
I choose to be silently indignant.
"What do you give the man who suspects everyone?"
Re #4: Better paranoid than destroyed.
r4: or those that live in the land of ashkkkroft.
THe question is not if I am paranoid, the question is, am I paranoid enough.
becoming a voluntary , seduced, ward of the state has a seductive appeal.
Yeah, life these days is just one Orwellian terror...
This is no surprise. Your cellphone can be turned into a bugging device if the your service provider's engineer wishes so. The protocol allows for the phone to be turned *on* in order to eavesdrop on conversations within the phone's vicinity. Lesson: Don't scream at that support engineer at the call-centre when your SP overbills you ;) You don't know whom you might be pissing off. Technology has entered daily lives so fast that its possible abuses were totally overlooked.
"support engineer"? Is that supposed to be a joke?
Whats funny about *support engineer*?
(it's funny that a service provider actually has support engineers.)
You've probably never talked to a "support engineer" in your life when calling a phone number to obtain home end user help. The title would imply they have an engineering degree. "Support engineers" travel from site to site, doing hands-on analysis to determine the cause of difficult problems for other corporations, or more likely, work behind the scenes to help on-site techs who do that. When you talk to a support rep on the phone for any type of consumer assistance, you're probably talking to someone making $8 per hour in an entry level job. If they seem unusually competent, they might be making $10-12 per hour and are probably in a union. When they say "let me check that out", it probably means they're in their first few weeks on the job and need to ask someone else for an answer. It could mean they're looking for an answer in a database. The people I call when I have (not infrequent) problems with Cingular Wireless are certainly not engineers. They're all right; they care about my problems, and know about basic issues. Pretty often, if I were to call back and state my problem to someone else, I'd get a completely different answer, though. I work in software support. From time to time, an employer calls me a "support engineer", but I'm no engineer or anything resembling one.
My point was that the notion of an actual engineer with the ability and authority to turn your cell-phone into a bugging device being in a position to provide customer support to people pissed off and dealing with a call center is patently ridiculous. But then, this is far too deep a discussion of what I'm sure was an offhand remark anyway.
:) Yes, I can understand that. I was referring to situations where someone who actually understands how the damn thing works has to come on the phone instead of your friendly neighbourhood support rep. Example is, I was trying to setup the WAP service on my cell when the SP had just launched it. The call centre rep had no idea what I was talking about. Other times I had to talk to a support engineer was trying out GPRS, VPN over GPRS, checking the feasibility of using GPRS with portable lottery machines etc etc.
First-line support reps have a database of problems & solutions, as well as a few simple rules like rebooting for the first fix. If they can't figure it out you might get escalated to an actual engineer.
(Programmers without engineering degrees quite commonly call themselves "software engineers".)
Yes, but those who design as well as code their software are actually engineering something, which is not something I would say of someone who staffs a support call center.
Software engineer is different from software programmer. A programmer may not necessarily engineer software. A support guy might be an engineer by educational qualification.
a CALL CENTER support staffer who is a qualified engineer is under- employed.
Certainly.
I have worked with people in support positions who have master's degrees, but no one with a degree in engineering. One of my co- workers, once, had an MBA. Boy, was he ever underemployed.
whore.
?! whore.
You have several choices: