The Nike + iPod Sport Kit sounds like a moderately cool, if completely unnecessary, device: Runners stick a sensor in their shoes and plug a receiver into their iPod, and the music player keeps track of the distance they have traveled and the amount of time they have been working out. There's even a "PowerSong activator" — a button that lets users automatically play "the one song that always gets you through the home stretch."
But the Sport Kit could have a sinister side, according to a team of doctoral students at the University of Washington. The researchers — led by Scott Saponas, himself a Sport Kit owner — say the shoe-bound sensors transmit signals, each with a unique signature, that can be picked up by any Nike + iPod receiver within about 60 yards. In other words, the kit could become a crude surveillance tool.
Mr. Saponas and his colleages imagined a situation in which Marvin, a jilted ex-boyfriend, could place receivers at remote locations and use them to follow his former flame, Alice, around town. "At a minimum, Marvin could somehow 'accidentally' find himself bumping into Alice at 'random' places, as if by coincidence," said their report on the device.
Mr. Saponas told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he is not trying to stick it to Nike or Apple; he is just concerned that new gizmos often seem indifferent to their users' privacy. Nike and Apple officials did not comment on the report. –Brock Read
