Chapter 17: Surveillance Tools for Information Warfare of the Future | Computer Forensics: Computer Crime Scene Investigation (With CD-ROM) (Networking Series)

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OVERVIEW

Wireless systems capable of monitoring vehicles and people all over the planet (basically everything) are leaving businesses and the military aglow with new possibilities, and some privacy advocates deeply concerned. Companies seeking to tap the commercial potential of these technologies are installing wireless location systems in vehicles, hand-held computers, cell-phones—even watchbands. Scientists have developed a chip that can be inserted beneath the skin, so that a person’s location can be pinpointed anywhere.

For example, the owner of a small company in Dallas that installs automobile alarms, uses a wireless tracking service to monitor his fleet of six Dodge Dakota pickup trucks, and the equipment alerted him recently when one of his trucks turned up in the parking lot of the Million Dollar Saloon, a strip club. When he signed up for this service, he told his guys, “Big Brother’s keeping an eye on you, and I’m Big Brother.” After he fired that one fellow, you bet they all believed him.

These technologies have become one of the fastest-growing areas of the wireless communications industry. The market for location-based services is already estimated at nearly $700 million and is forecast to approach $6 billion by 2004.

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