The wonders of GPS

A Sydney Morning Herald story on the wonders of GPS.  I have GPS both for the car and on my phone and it is a wonder.

It’s interesting that up until 2000 they deliberately transmitted an error so that your location was incorrect by up to 30 metres.  This was to keep it primarily for military use.  Now it is generally accurate to under 10 metres.

I suspect within five years GPS will be a standard feature of new cars.  It will take longer to be a standard feature of new phones, but will start to become a regular option for phones with data capability.

The privacy issues are going to be fascinating as more and more people are transmitting their locations.  I wonder how many burglars might get caught because they were stupid enough not to turn off their GPS phone, which will prove they were in a location.

I wonder if you can reverse search GPS?  As in could one find out how many devices (and who they belong to) were in a 10 square metre area between two times?  Could be very powerful.