locating via GSM, revisited (legal issues?)

[joerg at openmoko.org]

Am Di  22. April 2008 schrieb 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/
> ============================================================================
> Software for the world's first truly open Free Software mobile phone
> 

ACK!
I never  would suppose OM or FIC should start such a project out of 
themselves, just tell community which way it's a nice landscape... :-)

CU in a few hours ;-)
/jOERG