Where in the world is ... ?

In recent years it has become increasingly difficult to get lost,
thanks to the use of the global positioning system (GPS).

Covering the entire planet, GPS is based on signals from a network of
24 United States military satellites launched about a decade ago. These
signals are available for civilian use, which has become widespread in
navigation and many other areas.

The only catch is that the satellites actually generate two signals.
The first, which the military can decode, is 10 times more accurate than
the second one for civilian use. You might know your position to within
100 metres, but the military can have it figured to within 10.

In May, the US government announced that the more accurate value would
now be available for civilian use. The US military is reserving the right
to cut that off where it is fighting a war, but for most of the world,
GPS just got a lot more precise.

The main reason for this is that the US government sees a significant
commercial opportunity for vehicle navigation systems and is doing its
best to help out. This is consistent with its tradition of publicly funding
the development of technology which is then handed over to US corporations
to profit from.

Location is fast becoming an obsession with US corporations and this
is now invading the internet.

To date, there is no way to determine where an individual internet user
is located, although there are some hints. The user's internet service
provider (ISP) could have a particular location, with a country code at
the end of its name. The time of day and language settings on a user's
PC might give an idea. To get technical, the “autonomous system” number
of the network that a user connects from could provide part of this information.

But all of these have flaws. Millions of people connect to the internet
from America On-Line, which doesn't follow any of the normal rules. Or,
because of odd ISP habits, users could appear to come from thousands of
kilometres away from where they were actually based.

Some services can't be provided over the internet until this is resolved.
For example, in the US there is a requirement that the location of someone
calling a 911 emergency service number needs to be known. Internet telephony
(Voice Over IP) can't do that at the moment.

There are two main commercial reasons for identifying where a user comes
from on the internet. The first is so that if they want large amounts of
data (such as a video of a rock concert), it can be sent to them from a
nearby site. This requirement doesn't care where a user is, it just wants
to know where they are close to. The second and latest requirement relates
to advertising: it wants to know which country, city and suburb someone
lives in so that it can advertise the closest pizza outlet on their screens.

Companies such as Mirror Image and Digital Island have major investments
in this technology. They want to be able to pinpoint every user while they
are logged on.

Of course, this is a significant change to the original promised anonymity
of the internet. Within technical circles there is debate about the validity
of making it easy for the internet's technology to do this.

The surveillance implications are also significant. In contrast to television
and radio broadcast reception, once in place it would be very easy for
centralised monitoring to track the location of visitors to particular
sites. This issue will assume increasing importance over time.

BY GREG HARRIS

From GLW issue 420