Is this stuff for real? Whoever is pursuing this is obviously living in
some sort of dreamland. First of all I am supposed to make myself more
or less publicly trackable and possibly pay for that "privilege"
myself. Right.
Next, how about the practicalities: if someone's on the move, then he's
obviously on the move. "Deliver this to the location of this tracking
device" obviously means chasing after somebody. Otherwise it would be a
fixed spot which is what we can do today, but that's boring of course.
Imagine the effort and cost, not to mention timing problems ("oh...and
by 10am, mate."). What will happen to the 21st location-based delivery
package in the UPS van the guy couldn't get round to doing? Maybe
better to drop the stuff right from the DHL plane where the GPS locates
our man. Come on. Or I may be getting on the underground train... oh,
he's off the face of the earth now. The wife borrows my phone... bummer
about that registered mail delivery directed to me (just ask Osama bin
Laden about the opposite take on this effect when he gave his satellite
phone to someone else... of course the high-tech disciples followed
that other guy or dog or camel or whatever).
Then there's interference, GPS failure and jamming
http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/
0,10801,77723,00.html I haven't even started thinking about all the
other security risks... it's certainly great for having goods bought
with "borrowed" credit card number delivered after you, the list goes
on and on. OK, let's put biometrics on the phone then, ha ha ha.
Let's face it: this is a pipe dream, and while technologically possible
to some extent, completely impractical and the wrong solution for the
wrong problem.
Dirk
On Thursday, Jan 23, 2003, at 11:37 Asia/Tokyo, Funk wrote:
>
> this article makes an interesting argument how postal service can use
> mobile mail and GPS in phones to deliver mail right to the person, as
> opposed to their house. of course, any delivery service could use the
> same
> concept.
> http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=14479
> cheers,
> jeff funk
> kobe university
> http://www.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp/~funk/index.html
>
>
>
> This mail was sent to address d.rosler@jens.co.jp
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Received on Thu Jan 23 11:46:11 2003