Re: Here comes the cell phone ad disaster!

>Actually all my phones have been registered with DO NOT CALL.  I still
>received a text message in a shopping center a month ago from some
>local robot that sensed my nearby cellphone. I thought it was neat and
>at the same time I was annoyed that they could do that.

That part is scary:  your phone should not be identifying itself
to the immediate area around you.  If it can, that means any terrorist
or hit person or ex-wife can build a bomb that goes off when YOU,
and only YOU, approach it.  It's great if you are a hit man.  It's
not so great if you are a person with a serious enemy, like most
government officials of any country, or are someone who annoyed
some psycho on the freeway yesterday.  It may be possible to do
that with a phone's ESN, anyway, but even most phone owners don't
know their own phone's ESN, but they do tend to hand out their phone
number to at least close colleagues.

HEY PEOPLE WHO DESIGN USA PASS****TS:  PAY ATTENTION:  RFID in
American pass****ts is great for terrorists who want to blow up
Americans, since the bomb can detect American pass****ts nearby as
a trigger.  WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING?  Bar codes, magnetic
stripes, etc. that can't be remotely read are much more secure.

How, technically, does it do this?  I can see where it might sense
bluetooth devices, try to connect to them, and if it does, try to
get the phone number.  That sounds like a really good plan (NOT)
for the merchant: the way IN to the store (and probably OUT as well)
is clogged with people fiddling with their phones, so anyone who
really wants to go in to the store to BUY something has trouble
getting around the jamup of people.

Or can it snarf cell tower polling or incoming calls from the airwaves
and your phone responding?