Strange new off-white boxes popping up in downtown Seattle use wi-fi
networks that can record the last 1,000 locations of a person using
their cellphone’s MAC address, but the Department of Homeland Security –
which funded the network to the tune of $2.7 million dollars – has
refused to address the nightmare privacy implications of a system that
could lead to the permanent tracking of an entire city’s population.
A report by The Stranger,
a weekly Seattle newspaper, exposes how the boxes, which are attached
to utility poles and include vertical antennae, can track cellphones
even if they are not connected to the system’s wi-fi network.
Aruba – the company that provided the boxes to the
Seattle Police Department – brags in its technical literature about how
the boxes can keep track of “rogue” or “unassociated” devices, in other
words your cellphone even if you have refused to let the system access your device’s wi-fi component.
The user’s guide for one of Aruba’s recent software products states: “The wireless network has a wealth of information about unassociated and associated devices.” That software includes “a location engine that calculates associated and unassociated device location every 30 seconds by default… The last 1,000 historical locations are stored for each MAC address.”
When reporters Matt Fikse-Verkerk and Brendan Kiley
asked the Seattle Police Department and the Department of Homeland
Security to explain what the boxes were for, the DHS refused to comment
and Seattle Police detective Monty Moss would only state that the
department “is not comfortable answering policy questions when we do not
yet have a policy.”
Detective Moss also added that the mesh network would not be used for “surveillance purposes… without City Council’s approval and the appropriate court authorization.” Note that he didn’t say the mesh network couldn’t be used for the surveillance functions we asked about, only that it wouldn’t—at least until certain people in power say it can. That’s the equivalent of a “trust us” and a handshake.
The justification for the mesh network is that it will
allow police, firefighters and other first responders to communicate as
well as stream surveillance video on a private uncluttered network
during an emergency.
However, the system is, “adept at seeing all the devices
that move through their coverage area and visually mapping the
locations of those devices in real time for the system administrators’
convenience.” The SPD has also indicated that it plans “citywide
deployment” of the network, opening the door for mass unfettered
surveillance of Seattle’s 634,000 residents.
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