A new report has discovered that it’s possible to track people using the Nike+iPod running and fitness system that works with the iPod nano and 12 different models of Nike shoes. Should we be worried?

The full report does make for interesting reading about the problem. What T. Scott Saponas, a computer science student at the University of Washington and his colleagues discovered, after Saponas purchased a Nike+iPod system and wondered whether or not users who used the system could be tracked, is that tracking was indeed possible – if you went to the trouble of setting up a monitoring system.

Of course, that’s exactly what Saponas and his colleagues did, figuring out a few different ways of constructing tracking systems, from using Windows XP computers to mini ‘gumstix’ trackers that could be hidden in trees, a fence or elsewhere. A picture of the gumstix device is available at the report, which shows that it does need an antenna, meaning you’d have to hide it carefully or it could be noticed.

Nefarious uses for tracking people included people stalking on others, thieves casing home where Nike+iPod wearing owners live to discover when they had left home, and other bad sounding scenarios.

Interestingly, the system could be mapped to a GoogleMaps system, so people could be tracked in real time, and doubly interesting is the fact that Nike+iPod wearers don’t even need to be carrying their iPods with them as the Nike+iPod transmitter, which fits into the sole of compatible Nike shoes, is the transmission device.

While the transmitter can be turned off when not in use, this is something the user has to do manually, and few users bother to do this, or so it would seem.

As the transmitter has a unique identifier that can be picked up by any iPod (or other tracking device), users can be tracked at a range of 60 feet, which is a much greater distance than most Bluetooth devices.

Apple and Nike had no comment to make at the time of the reports hitting the Internet, and are no doubt deciding what their official reaction will be. Reaction from the public is mixed, with some not really worrying about the problem, while others consider it most Orwellian.

Nike and Apple will likely have to come up with some kind of better security model for the transmission of data so that only an authorized and paired iPod can pick up and decipher the signal. For now that is clearly not the case.

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Entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 7:35 am under Technology.

Read more entries by Alex Zaharov-Reutt.
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