Scanning my blog stats a couple of days ago, I happened upon a referring URL about a product called mSpy. It appears to be a mobile phone and other device monitoring software thing that can sit on a phone and silently track and log its activity. The product is sold as a way to "Remotely read SMS, Call Logs, Emails, Listen Surroundings, Track phone location and more.".
The web site discloses things Clique Space is theoretically capable of doing (at the moment, almost everything about Clique Space is theoretical) but Clique Space appears to take a very different view about device control. Clique Space logs any device activity that an Identity (nee the Active Affiliation) permits in the circumstance only if the individual using the given device has permitted this purpose. When an Identity acquires a Participant, that Participant has only been acquired because the user to whom the Identity relates has sanctioned activity that the Identity and its component Elements permit.
Clique Space operates a constraint-based model: the stability of a Clique Space depends on the accurate maintenance of Limiting Constraint affinity. So, even if, say, an employer wanted an empoyee to use a phone in a certain way, the individual having a potential to act as an employee would have to explicitly accept this way of operating a device by activating an Affiliation (thereby realising this potential) created by their employer before it could be used.
Although I am not discounting the utility of the quoted product's offering, I do find such propositions as mSpy (there are many other products) to be a less portable solution than what I'm talking about with Clique Space. If a user wants to use their phone with Clique Space, they'll install client side code for the appropriate Clique Space's Media Profile spine, and when one turns on one's phone, one will explicitly claim assent to a particular Identity to which an Affiliation supplied by their employer for this purpose has been activated.
Before one can obtain a Participant by joining or forming a Clique (before operating the Clique Space aware phone in some way), one selects which Limiting Constraints of the Identity's component Elements (Media Profiles, Account Profiles, Connections, Affiliations, and the user's Account) are appropriate for expression in this Participant against the Clique's Limiting Constraints. If there are constraint contradictions which cannot be resolved, then the Participant cannot be acquired and Clique Space will not model and control the phone's activity to make calls, send texts, etc.
Now, the individual's employer might own this phone. If this is true, the employer might tell Clique Space this when the phone obtains its Connection by setting a Limiting Constraint advising Clique Space that a Participant involving this phone can only be acquired against the employer's Affiliation, and possibly only with a certain Identity nominated by the individual. The user cannot use the phone without activating (and possibly only activating) the given Affiliation because this phone is also configured by the employer to work only when it is being used in the one or more Clique Spaces where the employer has created their specific Affiliation. Hence, the user can only use their employer's phone by activating a given Affiliation. This Affiliation may itself contain Limiting Constraints, or be associated with an Account Profile hierarchy which contains Limiting Constraints, which shape the functioning of the phone to whatever purposes the usage of the phone is governed by the employer's authority.
The Clique Space data model is a very powerful way of asserting control over a device such that all stakeholders have claimed assent to this control. The same Limiting Constraint mechanism that covers control and authority also covers access to device activity by other users. Hence, the phone's activity can only be logged by individuals who possess a pre-determined reason, and this can only be done when final assent has been given by the device's operator.
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I mean no disrespect to the mSpy product developers. I have avoided making specific statements about how their product operates because I just had a cursory look over their web page. I lack any association with this company or its products. This product is quoted merely as an example of impressions I receive from products as I see them, and I most certainly do not intend to be an authority over anything I say in anything else but Clique Space. People who read this blog should visit mSpy themselves for any authoritative opinions.
Maybe the impressions I have given here, misinformed as they may be, are incorrect in some substantial way. If statements I have made are incorrect, let me know and I'll correct them. In any case, I wish mSpy good fortune.
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