It's worth noting that the Chinese government is in fact debuting a system to tr...

samatman · on March 15, 2011

The Chinese government also runs the Great Firewall using primarily open source technologies.

Free software on phones? If anyone can sideload whatever they want onto any platform they want, it's the Chinese. How does this help you, when the cellphone towers are tracking your phone's every movement, and when attempts to evade that tracking are sufficient to get you arrested or worse?

The nature of the license for the software running on a radio has nothing to do with the ability to triangulate that radio, sadly.

jrockway · on March 15, 2011

The nature of the license for the software running on a radio has nothing to do with the ability to triangulate that radio, sadly.

But you don't have to disclose the fact that that radio source over there is jrockway's radio.

Freenet-style routing is an idea that comes to mind for solving this problem with software.

drinian · on March 16, 2011

You're right, RMS could carry a Free Software phone right now, the OpenMoko. I think that your comment is basically condensing his argument. This problem is bigger than a Free Software issue, but any solution would require a Free Software base to resolve issues of trust.

That being said, it's going to be really tough to find a technical solution that allows people to be found in an emergency, but not tracked by a Big Brother government. The solution might end up being legislative.