This article is mostly a straightforward tale of a stalker getting caught before anything truly bad happened. A simple enough article. But...

It's one of those articles that propogates a myth or a misunderstanding about a technical subject, and does it in such a way as to be damaging to the industry/research/community that the myth is about. Here's the bad paragraph:

Quote:
Gabrielyan had purchased a Nextel phone device that has a motion switch on it that turns itself on when it moves. As long as the device is on, it transmits a signal every minute to the GPS satellite, which in turn sends the location information to a computer.

It's this very misconception that makes some people afraid of GPS satellite technology. A surprising number of people who might benefit from owning a GPS receiver never consider it because they think they can be tracked with it.

I don't know how Nextel's system works, but I know for a fact that it doesn't transmit a signal to the GPS satellites. I doubt it even receives signals from GPS satellites. If I recall correctly, most of the locator-cell-phones use cellular rather than satellite technology to provide position information. The only signal that phone transmits is to the Nextel cellular network.

The fact that "just anybody" could use a planted cell phone to track an unsuspecting target is a problem, I agree, but that's something we need to talk to the cell phone providers about. It has nothing at all to do with GPS satellites or GPS technology. That kind of technological slander (er, libel?) can be damaging to entire industries.