Reading this piece on mobilecrunch is disappointing.
It’s not disappointing to me that someone might want to install a snooper on someone else’s cellphone. It isn’t disappointing that there are legal implications to using this software. It even isn’t that disappointing that other people feel that THEY _HAVE_ to *STOP* the terrorists.
It’s disappointing that this has to be marketed in this way. This software is one-of-a-kind. It’s interesting. It solves a problem that isn’t solved in any other way. How can I, a cellphone user (and mobile software developer) view my call logs on a website? How can I lookup who I messaged last week about such and such? I can’t. The packages that carriers provide are all hodge-podge and mostly useless in this regard. The data is obviously the user’s– why can’t they see it? (They’ll get to see some more of it on their bill, if they’re lucky, but disregard that for now.)
The phones are capable of it. The networks are capable. The web is definitely capable. But, the only people doing anything about it are forced to sell their software as “spy” software. And we’re chastising them for it.
Shame on us.
April 4, 2006 at 12:33 am
yes. i own my call-log + usage data. any mobile data company that doesn’t get this just isn’t extinct YET.
all hail the future unholy union of Nokia Lifeblog + Mobical.net at the hands of team ph3zy
April 4, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Thanks for the comment on MobileCrunch. I always appreciate different opinions. In the case of your comment and associated post, I would have to say that while I completely agree with you that every aspect of our communciations should be “our own” that is recordable, reviewable, and openly and immediately viewable by the owner commending a company that wrote software for an entirely different purpose is a bit like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Yes, I agree we want and have a right to our CDR and messaging records, but I don’t like the idea that the FlexiSpy tool has been created for quite different reasons and it will be the rarest of cases that it is purchased for the sole intended purpose of getting this information off of your own phone.
No, this is (and is advertised) for nefarious purposes plain and simple. The “testimonial” on the site clearly implies that the “divorced gentleman” used FlexiSpy on his wife’s phone, not his own. I wonder what her lawyer had to say about that in court?
I would love to see software that makes all of our own usage transparent to us but I am far from favorably inclined towards companies that author malware for profit, particularly when such malware clearly leads to violations of the law in almost every conceivable useful installation save monitoring of your own phone.
Sincerely,
Oliver Starr
http://mobilecrunch.com
April 4, 2006 at 6:33 pm
[...] via : FlexiSpy, a so-called activity logger. What it does is keep track of someone’s calls, texts gprs activity, the lot. You are supposed to install this piece of software on someone elses series 60 phone. I’m not really questioning wether or not it’s bad or illegal to spy on someone, it obviously should never have surfaced in this form. I share the view of ‘the royal road’, in that it actually provides services for phones you could really use, to control your own usage and look back what you’ve sent using your phone when you want to. Let’s see if someone picks up on this, and creates a non-hidden version of this piece of software. [...]
April 5, 2006 at 1:08 am
Hi Oliver,
Thanks for the comment, the post and for all your work at MobileCrunch– I’ve been reading since it started.
I never meant to commend FlexiSpy. I guess my rather negative post isn’t the right way to say that I just want to be able to ignore the nefarious uses of FlexiSpy and focus on the technology, myself. Similar technology has existed for a long time for recording POTS phone conversations, &c., but I don’t worry about it much (unless I’m watching _The Conversation_).
This type of cellphone-logging technology should be available to all of us at this point. It’s not complicated stuff, obviously.
And the carriers seemingly aren’t ever going to give it to us. I’m a Sidekick user, and am happy to access most of the data on my phone via the web. But, none of the data is SMS or call related. Why squash that?
At the same time, it’s not a surprise that someone with dubious interests is at the forefront of technology. I think that’s an age-old situation.
So, where else can we get this service? Who wants to build it? I’ll help. ;-)
Thanks for reading.
Ciao,
Evan