IM ON UR INTERNETS, TRAKKING UR D00DS

Yr Paranoid Dystopia Lede Of The Day:

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Internet probe can track you down
to within 690 metres

Online adverts could soon start stalking you. A new way of working out where you are by looking at your internet connection could pin down your current location to within a few hundred metres.

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For the non-technical people:

Every computer connected to the web has an internet protocol (IP) address, but there is no simple way to map this to a physical location. The current best system can be out by as much as 35 kilometres.

Now, Yong Wang, a computer scientist at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu, and colleagues at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, have used businesses and universities as landmarks to achieve much higher accuracy.

It’s worth mentioning that 690 meters is over two-thirds of a kilometer, so it’s not like the Thought Police or Wal-mart or whoever will follow the trail right to yr door. Also, the location technique can still be defeated by proxy servers.

But this was probably inevitable. Well before the end of this decade, everything that can connect to the network will have its own permanent IP address (rather than using dynamic addresses that change every time you log on like we mostly do now), which will eventually be mapped to a physical location.

That said, odds are yr mobile phone already has a GPS chip that can be combined with mobile networks and Wi-Fi access points to track yr every move down to within 20 meters. So by the time they’re able to map yr IP address to yr house, it won’t matter anyway.

So, you know, that’s good.

Hide and seek,

This is dF

GREAT MOMENTS IN MARKETING: IF IT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR BILLY DEE WILLIAMS, IT’S TOO GOOD FOR ME

This is Billy Dee Williams. And these are the rules.

FUN FACT: You could do ads like this on TV in the 80s.

Works every time,

This is dF

LISTEN TO IT #29: EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK

There are two new records out now that, musically speaking, can be classified under “diva dance-pop”.

One is from a seasoned veteran with a huge fanbase whose pop persona has morphed over the years but always sticking to the basic theme of “heterosexual fuck puppet” (i.e. schoolboy fantasy fuck puppet, bubble-headed fuck puppet, manipulative fuck puppet, space-age fuck puppet, robot-assassin fuck puppet, etc) that adheres strictly to male heterosexual fantasies.

The other record is from a plus-sized in-yr-face lesbian who expresses lots of sociopolitical opinions and has a penchant for appearing naked on magazine covers despite not having the socially acceptable body type for doing such things.

Guess which one I prefer.

Okay, I admit it’s an unfair comparison. For a start, Ditto isn’t a full-time pop diva – this is just a side project between Gossip albums. And I’m definitely biased, as I’m a big Gossip fan but can’t name a single Britney Spears song that I like even a little. Also – and perhaps more importantly – Ditto has never been married to K-Fed (who was Charlie Sheen before Charlie Sheen was Charlie Sheen – only with less talent).

That said, I confess I’d rather listen to Gossip than Beth Ditto solo, if only because the music (produced by Simian Mobile Disco) is fairly standard 80s-influenced danceteria-pop – okay for what it is, but not amazing.

But if we have to have pop divas – even moonlighting ones – I much prefer the Ditto version to the Spears version. She’s a better singer and a far better role model. I’d rather that impressionable teenagers watch/listen to the likes of Ditto and Lady Gaga than Spears, Aguilera, Simpson, Clarkson, Lavigne et al.

But then I’m with Gaga, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Not that innocent,

This is dF