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View Full Version : Pocket P C and GPS


leefox2
05-26-2006, 11:50 PM
My Company has isseud the Verizon xv6700 to the Sales force. Is it possible to use the device without sending your location via GPS? I know about "flight mode" but want to know if a program can be down loaded to let me fully use the device without sending a GPS location.

AdamaDBrown
05-27-2006, 12:47 AM
You only send a GPS location when you dial 911.

leefox2
05-27-2006, 01:58 AM
Thanks for the reply, If we are transmitting data to a central office, we are not transmitting location? Devices such as On Star, and Lo Jack work on the same principle as this Pocket P.C. where info is transmitted via Satelite.......Again thanks for replying to my question.

AdamaDBrown
05-27-2006, 05:12 AM
No, there's no GPS data in the internet connection. The only way that you can pull GPS coordinates from the phone is with a 911 call or a court order.

GPS doesn't actually involve transmitting anything by satellite--a receiver simply listens to the broadcasts of the GPS sats, and if it can hear three or more, it can triangulate your location. The receivers inside a device like the 6700 work a little differently--they need the help of the local cell phone towers in order to establish a location. Because of this, it's not practical to use it in the same way as a standard GPS system.

Sven Johannsen
05-28-2006, 03:58 AM
My Company has isseud the Verizon xv6700 to the Sales force. Is it possible to use the device without sending your location via GPS? I know about "flight mode" but want to know if a program can be down loaded to let me fully use the device without sending a GPS location.

Regardless of whether they can or can't, I am a bit curious about what you intend to do with the company provided phone that you would be concerned about their being able to track you. You do have the option of paying for your own phone and turning theirs off in those instances, or if you are indignant about their invasion of your privacy, or big brother tactics, find a new company.

AdamaDBrown
05-28-2006, 04:14 PM
Regardless of whether they can or can't, I am a bit curious about what you intend to do with the company provided phone that you would be concerned about their being able to track you.

If that's the way you feel, I'm sure that you'd have no problem with your employer putting a tracking collar on you during business hours. :lol:

Sven Johannsen
05-29-2006, 04:11 AM
Regardless of whether they can or can't, I am a bit curious about what you intend to do with the company provided phone that you would be concerned about their being able to track you.

If that's the way you feel, I'm sure that you'd have no problem with your employer putting a tracking collar on you during business hours. :lol:

Yes I would, and I wouldn't work for that company. But I don't out of hand think that the company doesn't have the right to know what I am doing on their time and where. Certainly not unusual in the trucking industry. As I said there is a simple way around it entirely. Turn the company phone off and use your own when you are at the bar placing bets at 2 in the afternoon. I didn't get the sense from the OP that the company passed out the units and said "so we can keep tabs on you". It seemed a concern of the OP that they could. I rarely am concerned about being caught, unless I am doing something I could be caught at.

AdamaDBrown
05-29-2006, 07:27 AM
Trucking is a bit different, as they're tracking the valuable goods instead of the person. And if it became common practice to track employees, you might not be able to find a decent job where you didn't have to deal with such things. Better to try and stamp them out before they start.

In any event, I'm simply pointing out that there's a big flaw in the "if you have nothing to hide..." reasoning. Even if everything you did was aboveboard, I doubt that you'd want somebody monitoring you, regardless if it were just during working hours. And if you have to have your work phone on you all the time for emergencies... I doubt that most people would be comfortable with having their every movement tracked by their employer, particularly given how companies tend to use information like that. Suppose some mid-level manager doesn't like where you hang out, or if you made an excuse to get out of work for family business, or any of a dozen other things?

leefox2
05-30-2006, 01:45 AM
No, I don't have anything to hide, but It is the "Big Brother " watching that is my concern. My company is encouraging the sales force to stop using our personal phones and use the VX6700 for everything, even off company hours. My division is a test district for these phones to be handed out across the country......To leave this company is not an option, I have 29 years of service here, and plan to make it 5 more years to retirement. The phone has an off button, which I plan to use between 5 PM and 7 AM every week day

Sven Johannsen
05-30-2006, 05:36 AM
I'm a bit surprised that you would assume that this company's motive is to place surveillance on it's employees. Maybe after 29 years you know how they think. Could it not be that they are actually trying to provide a useful tool and believe they are helping the employees out by encouraging it's use for your private needs? Maybe not, but I would prefer the latter to the paranoia indicated by the former. There is some potential that they can get locations, but do you get the sense that they are setting up an intel center with real time maps of the area with little blinking dots showing where all the salesforce is and hiring monitors to man the center 24/7? If there is a significant and legitimate concern over the invasion of personal rights, the ACLU lives for that stuff. Of course you should probably have someone with less to lose blow the whistle.

leefox2
05-30-2006, 11:01 AM
No, I don't think that the possible tracking of it's employees is the company's main objective, but an option that could be used to weed out a bad employee, which could have some merits to keeping only productive workers on the sales force.

I posted the original message not to get into the ethics or political aspects of GPS tracking, but to ask the question, is it possible to track the VX6700 Pocket P.C.

Sven Johannsen
05-31-2006, 06:44 AM
I posted the original message not to get into the ethics or political aspects of GPS tracking, but to ask the question, is it possible to track the VX6700 Pocket P.C.
I guess the short answer is yes. I think by law now the phone company is supposed to be able to localize a mobile handset for 911 purposes. If it is possible, it is possible. Is it economical to do it on a widespread, continuous basis? Is it legal/ethical to do it, on a salesforce, on an individual?

I am pretty comfortable in saying that without adding some specific software to relay the position of the device, you are not going to be tracking the unit real time. While the PPC might be able to deliver it's position to the phone provider, there is nothing in the normal operation that would pass that on further. In fact the position wouldn't be transfered unless it is asked for, and it would only be asked for in an emergency or court ordered situation. Now you could develop an application that sends a position periodically, or responds to requests (like the always up to date e-mail system used an SMS to trigger retreiving mail) but there would be a longevity and data usage hit for that, and it would be something that would need to be deliberate on the part of the company.

I wouldn't sweat it, unless the company is one of those that logs every keystroke and gets on your case if you occasionaly check your personal hotmail account.