locating via GSM, revisited (legal issues?)

[Harald Welte]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 08:55:09PM +0800, joerg at openmoko.org wrote:
> > the problem is that there is no legal way to acquire that information
> > unless you have explicit permission by the operator to use it.
> 
> At O2, it's GSM-CellBroadcast, this is _explicitly_ _designed_ to be received 
> by *any* cellphone (permission included). Grab your phone, activate 
> Cellbroadcast channel number 221, and if you're in Germany and on O2, you 
> *for* *sure* have *legal* info about the exact position of your BTS. No 
> database needed, O2 is giving it away for free :-)

ah, ok, my fault. if it's cell broadcast, then I think I agree.

> You're not going to say I can buy a simcard + phone at any O2 shop, but I'm 
> not allowed to press the buttons on this phone to enable cell-broadcast. Are 
> you?

I might still tell you that one of the following cases is true

a) you might not be able to use that information 'geschaeftsmaessig'
   (which is included but not limited to commercial use)

b) distributing that information might not be possible, i.e. it might
   well be that O2 customers are able to receive, but not allowed to
   further distribute/publicize the information.

I just want to state: Be careful... law is weird, especially when it
comes to IT :)

-- 
- Harald Welte <laforge at openmoko.org>          	        http://openmoko.org/
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