I'm concerned that 02/genie may try and trace me (location). Are there any phones that allow you to stay private

In message , JaffaB writes

I have told on here a number of times about an occasion parked at traffic lights when a gang of drunken youths crossing ahead of me decide to use my car to practice flying kicks on as they went by, causing serious damage. The police didn't even attend to take a statement, let alone catch and punish the offenders. I've told of how a hit and run driver wrote off my car as it was parked outside my house and was never caught. I've had my bank card stolen and £1000 emptied from my accounts by the thief. So you see, I'm not living in an ivory tower where nothing ever happens to me so I don't understand.

These things have happened to me and those who say "when it happens to you, you will change your mind" are therefore demonstrably wrong.

Once again, you say how current punishments are far too lenient without suggesting what would be, in your opinion, a fair sentence and how we would manage to implement those sentences.

The case we are talking about here is one in which somebody poured paint on a car and was sentenced to detention and community punishment, not a suspended sentence. It seems reasonable to me.

In message , JaffaB writes

Well I suppose that's true. I recently did a Belbin test which told me that I can sometimes be a person who causes friction by the way I respond to others, I suppose I knew that already. I do try not to, but when I see the expression of a mindlessly prejudiced and thoughtless view I feel compelled to challenge it. I will try to temper my responses.

I will, but I don't really need to. I have visited and met hundreds of people in debt and so know what their lives are like rather than speculating from what I think I see in the background of a TV interview.

Some were in their current position entirely through over committing themselves and living beyond their means, pure and simple. One man was refusing to give up his SKY TV despite the fact he hadn't paid the mortgage and was being evicted in a few days time. I remember telling him that I hoped WHSmith would allow him to put up his satellite dish in their shop doorway as that was where he was going to end up living but it failed to move his opinion.

The *vast* majority were not in this position at all. Yes they had taken on debt, as most of us do at some time or other, be it a mortgage, a car loan, credit cards used on your holiday or just to smooth out the edges of our financial lives and have things now that we can pay for later. Nothing wrong with that, its the basis of the entire credit industry. Then something happens. Redundancy, separation, illness, something that means we can no longer repay what we thought we could. They feel dreadful, they panic, they don't know what to do and in many cases they put repaying their credit card debts above such things as having heating and food. Those people do not deserve to be called "fat and lazy" or be accused of borrowing money with no intention of repaying. Those people are any one of us.

Nor can I accept the view of the poster who claimed that good payers like him were having to make up the loss. Of course they aren't. The lending institutions are making VAST multi-billion pound profits each year even after allowing for bad debts. The only lifestyle the poster is paying to support are the lavish lifestyles of bank executives and the premiums of bank shareholders. The bad debt may leave a slight dent in the bank's profit, but if they raise their charges to make up that profit then that is down to THEIR greed, not the debtors.

I've visited debtors homes so squalid that I was afraid to sit down. I've taken tablets off debtors who could see no way out other than to end it all. The very concept that these people can be referred to in a sweeping generalised statement that they are fat and lazy and living as parasites of others is something I find genuinely offensive.

Perhaps. But they're part of a shift in society which no longer values having a cushion of savings to fall back on in difficult times. They fail to appreciate that all those small, medium term debts marketed at us day and night are nooses laid loosely around their necks. They only find out how much slack there is when they stumble.

Laziness comes in many forms, and lazy thinking is as dangerous for your financial health as laziness is for your heart.

Andrew McP

Excellent post Mike.

An excellent post Mike. I can't say that I am familiar with debt myself but have a lot of time for those who find themselves in a mess. It's easy to get into and very hard to get out off.

Roger Mills wrote, On 27/02/2007 17:17:

..

...

I've used a mobile tracking service

and can say with some confidence that they don't know "more or less" where you are. The best location that it gave for my phone had a calculated accuracy of

1.7km, and was infact 400m away from where I was. A 1.7km radius circle is massive, and would take a bailiff weeks of door to door searching. If he even knocked at you door during that search, you would need to give him your name in order to be caught, how else would he know who you were.

Also, the location data is more accurate using the GPRS network than the GSM network, so the OP is correct in thinking that an old phone will disguise his position more effectively. I once ran a track on a GSM phone and it gave my location as somewhere within a 4.5km radius circle.

I think that's a pretty good definition of "more or less" - since it shows that you're in Cambridge (say) and not in Scotland! I didn't say that it provided sufficient precision to be useful to a bailiff - although I'm sure that the accuracy *can* be better than 1.7km, depending on the frequency and proximity of masts.

Where these traces done in the middle of a very busy metropolitan area, with a high density of cells, or in the middle of the countryside, with much bigger cells?

Simon Finnigan wrote, On 01/03/2007 16:14:

All were done in South Cambridge with a Vodafone SIM. The signal on the phone was at full strength each time. Of course, in a city centre where the location data might be better there will be 100X more address in which to hide compared to the countryside.

Often in cities and built up areas, the signal can be completely attenuated by a combination of tall buildings or structures, I wonder how often the phones can only be seen by one mast.

I wasn`t being funny in my post BTW, just curious. It did seem like it was giving a huge area for a city centre. Has anyone done this in an area with a high concentration of cells, and is able to give a rough idea of the accuracy quoted?

Simon Finnigan wrote, On 01/03/2007 17:46:

No probs, I find it all pretty interesting. You can carry out four phone tracks for £1+vat at world-tracker. Cambridge is barely a real city, it would be interesting to try it somewhere more civilised.

A Guardian journalist signed up his girlfriends phone with out her knowing, he then tracked her movements during one day. He then wrote an article about invasion of privacy, and evils of spy technology.

I`ve been to much worse places over the years :-) I`ll give it a try when I can track a phone in a real city centre, and see what the results are.

snipped-for-privacy@localhosts.net declared for all the world to hear...

Well it's really quite straightforward. Lengthier prison sentences, and more prisons.

The punishment does not fit the crime. Not even close.

In message , Jon writes

At least its a suggestion. However, the prison population has almost doubled since 1990 so the practicalities of continuing to put minor criminals in prison for a long time need to be addressed. The fact that victims of crime emotionally demand ever longer sentences doesn't give us the ability to deliver that (nor indeed does it mean we should).

That's simply a matter of opinion on which we don't agree.

Maybe not enough criminals are being locked up? The prison population might have to be 100,000,000 to protect the remaining 60,000,000 from crime.

Mike_B posted

It depends what is meant by "minor". I would 'azard the guess that there are plenty of people in jail for offences that most of us would regard as better punished by heavy fines or (as an earlier poster said) enforced compensation to the victim.

There are plenty of people in jail for crimes that are essentially victimless. The victims of those crimes won't be demanding longer sentences.

In message , Aaron B writes

:) Indeed. Or perhaps 159,000,000 to protect the other 1,000,000 from crime. Perhaps eventually, when we are left with the people that obey every law on every occasion, the 6 of them will have a very lovely, if extremely regulated life.

David - THANKS FOR YOUR POST

(and thanks to everyone else who has contributed)

I am in central London in a high rise building.

So I conclude that it's not impossible, but unlikely

I need a bluetooth GSM phone then (as GSM is harder to pin-point than a GRPS phone)

(Maybe i'll just use a good old Nokia 3210 - nice & simple phone for SMSing)

(I want bluetooth so I can text from my computer. It is much easier to type on a real keyboard than on a tiny phone keypad)

Isn't Gordy Browns PFI on hospitals, etc irresponsible debt. If so, for billions of PFI debt how many lifetimes in debtors prison should Gordy serve? and then this Gov has the cheek to expect respect for it's laws and order

Steve Terry