Lowell Deeds

Today’s Globe had a story about Loki.com, a new, “Internet based location and navigation” website. Here’s how it works: Loki has had employees drive around major American cities and plot the location of wireless routers. Each router emits a unique electronic signal. By knowing the location of these routers and the signal emitted by each, Loki can tell someone with a laptop computer exactly where they are located. The technology uses what I came to know as Direction Finding. I became familiar with it 25 years ago while serving in an Electronic Warfare unit in the US Army. Of course, we used it to locate targets of our potential enemies, so while I understand how it works, I have some hesitation using it. You see, if you can use the system to establish your location, the people running the system (and others too, perhaps) can use it to track your location as well.