Sprint fed customer GPS data to cops over 8 million times: ars technica

“A blogger has released audio of Sprint's Electronic Surveillance Manager describing the carrier's cooperation with law enforcement. Among the revelations are that Sprint has so far filled over 8 million requests from LEOs for customer GPS data.

“By Jon Stokes | Last updated December 1, 2009 5:38 PM

“Christopher Soghoian, a graduate student at Indiana University's School of Informatics and Computing, has made public an audio recording of Sprint/Nextel's Electronic Surveillance Manager describing how his company has provided GPS location data about its wireless customers to law enforcement over 8 million times.

“Through a mix of documents unearthed by Freedom of Information Act requests and the aforementioned recording, Soghoian describes how ‘the government routinely obtains customer records from ISPs detailing the telephone numbers dialed, text messages, emails and instant messages sent, web pages browsed, the queries submitted to search engines, and geolocation data, detailing exactly where an individual was located at a particular date and time.’”

Sprint: 50 million customers, 8 million law enforcement GPS requests in 1 year from Christopher Soghoian on Vimeo.

Why Privacy Concerns are Ruining Facebook

PC World seems troubled by Facebook's elimination of regional networks:

"Facebook was built as a...social connector, allowing users to befriend others with similar interests, locations, schools, and more. But as privacy concerns mount…Facebook is eliminating regional networks -- or groupings of people based on where they live…

"Regional networks granted access to wider swaths of potential friends, but therein was the concern: how much is too much? Do we really want the entire city of Boston looking at last year's Halloween pictures? Is making friends with these strangers something I want to do?

"Facebook has had more than its share of privacy problems. There's the Beacon fiasco; the lawsuits; the federal complaints; international investigations; and schemes galore. There are also...methods to protect your privacy both on Facebook and online in general.

"Brennon Slattery

"Dec 2, 2009 9:29 am"