In debugging computer code, I can't think of a situation where no data doesn't trump bad data. Why? Because when you expect data and don't see it, you know something's wrong. Bad data, by contrast, can lull you into the proverbial false sense of security--thus, making it more expensive to backtrack and fix the error that no data would have made glaringly obvious.
Best friend H. posted Time's "What Your Cell Phone Could Be Telling the Government" on her Facebook page. H. is--and will always be--a far more experienced and competent programmer than I, so I can only assume that posting it from her phone was an act of supreme irony.
I suppose on the Civics level, geo-tracking and wire-tracking are equally repugnant. But from a Computer Science level, there's a difference. And the reason I consider geo-tracking worse than good old-fashioned wire-tapping is that the data can be so much more easily hosed by those who have an interest in hosing it.
The difference boils down to this: If you're snooped while conspiring to do something baaaad, you're pretty much dead to rights. The data's there or it's not--it's just that binary. But...need an alibi to inject that bit of "reasonable doubt" into your trial? Send your phone elsewhere with an accomplice. Enter ambiguity. Which is something I like to do when organizations who haven't earned my trust are a little too interested in my...demographics. (That's how Microsoft has 110 year old programmer on file at MSDN thanks to their nosiness--and the fact that their drop-down list goes back to 1900.)
Now. Were I independently wealthy enough to become a professional mischief-maker, it might even be amusing to pick up a second (or third or fourth...) do something like the whole Amelie garden gnome schtick. Just for the sheer pyromanaical joy of watching another data point go kablooey.
In the meantime, however, I despair at the lack of brains involved, It's a simple signal-to-noise proposition, and there's no way around that. Jack Bauer codswallop aside, you don't catch the information that will stop the ticking bomb by floating a hundred driftnet. Just like you don't thwart another 9/11 by shaking down Medal of Honor recipients. Bad data, folks: It just makes the errors that much more expensive. Because doubling the powder when the gun's aimed at your own foot is not what I consider smart.
