XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: idiots@all-democrats.com   
      
   We'll make a law against it and criminals will no longer be able   
   to write these apps.  But the government must have them.  Stupid   
   fucking democrats.   
      
   When federal authorities recently arrested a man for making and   
   marketing a so-called "stalker app," Cindy Southworth of the   
   National Network to End Domestic Violence was thrilled.   
      
   "My gut reaction was, 'yippee!'" Southworth told 48 Hours'   
   Crimesider. "One down, hundreds to go."   
      
   Hammad Akbar, a Pakistani native and the CEO of the company that   
   makes StealthGenie, is accused "selling a mobile spyware   
   application that illegally intercepts wire and electronic   
   communications made using smart phones," according to the   
   federal complaint.   
      
   Marketed to people who suspect their significant other is   
   cheating, StealthGenie boasted that it is "100% undetectable"   
   once uploaded to a person's phone, and immediately starts   
   allowing the user to monitor the communications from that phone   
   via an online server, the complaint states. But according to   
   Southworth and others, these apps make illegal activities - like   
   stalking - dangerously easy.   
      
   "We try to minimize the victim's exposure to the stalker, and   
   technology like this thwarts it," says Michele Archer, a   
   director at the victim's advocacy group Safe Horizon. "You can   
   be a living room stalker. It's a lot less effort."   
      
   Archer says Safe Horizon is seeing more and more women who say   
   their abuser or stalker seems to know where they are all the   
   time, and worry they may be reading their emails or tracking   
   them via the GPS locator on their mobile phone or a vehicle   
   security system like OnStar. This can pose a particular problem   
   for victims who share a mobile plan with their abuser.   
      
   Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has been pressuring federal agencies   
   to investigate the makers of these spyware apps since 2011. In   
   June 2014, Congress held a hearing on his bill seeking to outlaw   
   apps that allow a user to monitor a person's location via GPS   
   tracking and read their text messages or listen to their   
   voicemails.   
      
   "My bill would shut down these apps once and for all," Franken   
   told the Senate's Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology   
   and the Law.   
      
   According to a National Network to End Domestic Violence survey,   
   72 percent of programs serving domestic violence and stalking   
   victims in the U.S said their clients had reported being tracked   
   using GPS devices. And both Archer and Southworth say that   
   telling victims to just turn off their phones may cause as many   
   problems as it solves: the lack of a mobile phone makes it   
   difficult to call for help, or locate nearby services if you are   
   in danger.   
      
   "Domestic violence is about keeping the victim under your   
   thumb," says Southworth. And what better way to keep someone   
   under your thumb than to install a difficult-to-detect   
   application on their phone that will tell you where they are at   
   all times.   
      
   "Imagine the trauma of surviving domestic and sexual violence,"   
   testified Anoka County Minnesota Detective Brian Hill at June's   
   Senate subcommittee hearing.   
      
   "Now add cyberstalking to that trauma. Stealth stalking apps   
   endanger domestic violence victims' safety, financial stability,   
   and social well-being."   
      
   After Akbar's arrest on Sept. 30, Sen. Franken issued a   
   statement urging fellow lawmakers to act on his bill, called the   
   Location Privacy Act of 2014.   
      
   "Currently there is no federal legislation banning the secret   
   collection of location data," he said. "My bill would finally   
   put an end to GPS stalking apps that allow abusers to secretly   
   track their victims."   
      
   While surreptitious location tracking remains legal, Safe   
   Horizon's Archer, herself a survivor of stalking, says she   
   advises victims who suspect they're being tracked or spied on to   
   turn their phones completely off when they are visiting places   
   they wouldn't want their abuser to know about - a battered   
   women's shelter, for example, or an attorney's office.   
      
   Archer also emphasizes the importance of keeping a record of the   
   abuser's behavior, including saving messages and logging dates   
   and times when he or she showed up at a place you didn't tell   
   anyone you were going to visit.   
      
   "If you can show a pattern of behavior that would give a   
   reasonable person fear," says Archer, police can take action.   
      
   http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stalker-apps-are-legal-but-maybe-not-   
   for-long/   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)