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U.S. Forces In Iraq Ban GPS Phones
Brian Enigma writes "According to a report last night on NPR and these two articles, Central Command has banned a particular satellite phone from reporters. It seems that it not only has a GPS--to help locate which satellite to use--but also (if activated) transmits the users location back to the phone company. Eavesdropping this signal is nontrivial, but still possible."
The satphones are effectively really high power transmitters, attempting to transmit a signal to an antenna hundreds of miles ahead. If it's possible to sniff the GPS signal, it's possible to triangulate the location of its emitter.
This ban makes it harder to track down the journalists, but not impossible. It does require three sensors in mutual contact, instead of one lone sniffer -- this is true.
I suspect there are signs they know where we are, and we're worried these phones are the reason why.
--Dan
A lot of times the reporters aren't allowed to reveal where they are and sometimes simply aren't told. I've listened to a lot of NPR reports where the journalists state that they can't reveal their locations
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The Times of London
5 8,00.html, currently doesn't work.
Sunday March 30, 2003
US Marines turn fire on civilians at the bridge of death
Mark Franchetti, Nasiriya
THE light was a strange yellowy grey and the wind was coming up, the
beginnings of a sandstorm. The silence felt almost eerie after a night of
shooting so intense it hurt the eardrums and shattered the nerves. My
footsteps felt heavy on the hot, dusty asphalt as I walked slowly towards
the bridge at Nasiriya. A horrific scene lay ahead.
Some 15 vehicles, including a minivan and a couple of trucks, blocked the
road. They were riddled with bullet holes. Some had caught fire and turned
into piles of black twisted metal. Others were still burning.
Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in
nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town overnight,
probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy
artillery.
Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the
coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of shell-shocked young
American marines with orders to shoot anything that moved.
One man's body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound. Tucked
away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes were turning to ashes.
His savings, perhaps.
Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a pretty
orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next to the body of a man who
may have been her father. Half his head was missing.
Nearby, in a battered old Volga, peppered with ammunition holes, an Iraqi
woman - perhaps the girl's mother - was dead, slumped in the back seat. A
US Abrams tank nicknamed Ghetto Fabulous drove past the bodies.
This was not the only family who had taken what they thought was a last
chance for safety. A father, baby girl and boy lay in a shallow grave. On
the bridge itself a dead Iraqi civilian lay next to the carcass of a
donkey.
As I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third child, Isabella, was
born while he was on board ship en route to the Gulf, appeared beside me.
"Did you see all that?" he asked, his eyes filled with tears. "Did you see
that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I could but
I had no time. It really gets to me to see children being killed like this,
but we had no choice."
Martin's distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction of some of his
fellow marines as they surveyed the scene. "The Iraqis are sick people and
we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate
this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get
hold of one. I'll just kill him."
Original URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-6282
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
GPS (Global Position System) is not necessary for locate phone. At least on Finland certain phone company provides location service which can locate GSM phone with just by receiving phone's signal via several link. Resolution is not as good as GPS, but is able to tell location better than on which "cell" user is. On towns resolution is quite good, on coutry side error is much larger.