Just thinking about the other thread with Chris McKinstry --

What if something bad happened to you while you were online? Not necessarily self-inflicted, but say .. a heart-attack while you were IMing with some people.

This may be the only good reason to have a IP-to-GPS mapping being done when a connection is made.

Well, if you could type "I'm having a heart attack" presumably you could type "I'm at 11 Acacia Avenue, SpuriousTown". In the unlikely event that you only got the first sentence out well, yup, that's a problem.

Not to make light of the (possibly) serious issue in the suicide threads, but the whole idea of typing "I'm having a heart attack," or whatever, always makes me think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the chisled inscription about the Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrgggghghhhh!

Eeither that, or the hacker that fell asleep on his keyboard and sent 3 hours of "hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"'s to a telnet session.
:-)

I think the problem is:
1. If there's an emergency, you want your online friends to be able to communicate to emergency services where you are.
2. At the same time, you don't want anyone else to have that information (stalkers, thieves, etc.)

How to do this.... mmmm.

Just call 911.

Simple. Always have a cell phone.

The truth is, if you're relying on your internet friends (or enemies) to keep you alive, you've probably failed the game of life already. Me too.

"This may be the only good reason to have a IP-to-GPS mapping being done when a connection is made."

Yes, this is the exact same justification that was used to put tracking devices in every cell phone in the world. And as you have made it, the argument will be used to make sure there is no anonymous net communication.

Because you have to think of the children and the old folks like grandma and the puppy dogs and apple pie.

Another good idea is to require trackers to be implanted in each labor resource at birth.