Sex Offenders: They have an app for that?

Thanks to online sex offender registries, many neighbors are telling registered sex offenders to "get lost!" (Some more aggressively than others.) Now, thanks to a new GPS-enabled iPhone app, sex offenders never have to get lost again. The Sex Offender Locator, re-released in Apple's App Store today, uses the iPhone's built-in GPS to display a real-time moving map of every registered offender near your current position. Perhaps, not the best example of using cutting-edge technology from the war "over there" to secure citizens "over here". Much as another iPhone app, Trapster, helps traffic violators circumvent the law, the Offender Locator also helps people circumvent violators who couldn't circumvent the law.

One unintended consequence that probably won't please neighbors who take offense to the presence of offenders in their neighborhood: In a pinch, the app also serves as an ad-hock guidance system to help offenders find their way home.

Not to be accused of favoring one violator over another, Apple removed the "Top 10" listed application from it's app store on August 6, 2009, just a few days after release, because it violated another law: The one that says it's illegal to sell people's personal information in the state of California. In an ironic twist, the developers could have obeyed the law, and simply given the software away for free, but instead chose to sell it in blatant exercise of capitalism and violation of state statute.

For no apparent reason, Apple re-released the software today--for profit. (Which might be the most apparent reason.) So, whether you're looking to meet sex offenders or to avoid them like a speed trap, you'd better buy your copy now, before the law catches up with them.

Read more @ Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/5331700/apple-yanks-sex-offender-locator-from-app-store-to-the-relief-of-perverts-everywhere)

About Jeff M. Fischbach

Jeff Michael Fischbach is founder and President of SecondWave Information Systems (SecondWave.com), a consulting firm specializing in Forensic Technology. Since 1994, he has served as a board member and technology adviser to numerous professional organizations and corporations. Mr. Fischbach has been engaged as a litigation consultant and Forensic Examiner, offering expert advice and oversight on matters involving intellectual property, computers, information systems, satellite, tracking and wireless communications technologies. He has advised law enforcement, foreign government representatives, judges, lawyers and the press.