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Feds Have Access To Cellphone Tracking On Request
Mike writes "According to a Washington Post article, federal officials are routinely asking and getting courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data on subscribers. The data is used to pinpoint the whereabouts of 'criminal suspects', according to judges and industry lawyers. In some cases, judges have granted the requests without even requiring the government to demonstrate probable cause that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime 'Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives. Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.'"
...and in unrelated news, Reynolds America Inc. ( http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RAI ) reported a rise in their stock price following record sales in their aluminium and tin foil divisions.
Every day it's either some government agency or some giant corp that is tightening the screws on US citizens. When will there be a tipping point where Joe Apathetic says "enough!" and takes to the streets? It's alarming that so many people are so docile.
Another reason I prefer not to own a cell phone. Modern ones all have at least rudimentary location tracking built in. With the way the US Govt. abuses powers it shouldn't have, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they will try to exploit it so they can track people "in need of public safety"... because we all know how the average American (and yes, I'm an American citizen, so I'm bashing my own country, not yours) will roll over and play dead anytime the Govt. pulls out the safety card. It's pathetic.
I think we have to realize that a surveillance society is an inevitable consequence of surveillance capability. If anything, history should show us that when groups of people are granted powers over other groups, they tend to abuse them (see the "Stanford Prison Experiment" for psychological evidence). Thus, any monitoring, surveillance, or other oppressive capabilities, are likely to be realized. As technology removes the barriers to total surveillance, in terms of both the monitoring itself, as well as information processing, I do not see any option rather than for a total surveillance society to emerge.
Call me paranoid, but I still think that the above is a rational assessment given historical evidence.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
What exactly makes you think that a revolution will help in any way?
Meet your new boss, same as old boss. But with bigger guns.
This doesn't require GPS to the best of my (limited) knowledge.
The cell phone needs to be in contact with a tower in order to have a signal. For billing purposes, they need to know who you are.
I think this works far more through radio triangulation than GPS. GPS, however, probably makes it easier. Of course, it makes one wonder if you suddenly noticed your battery life falling off would it tip you off that the cell tower is pinging you?
(Anyone who knows this better or wants to correct any blatant errors feel free to chime in.)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Not happening. Joe Apathetic is more worried about his dumb ass ring tones.
...and this was done under the guise of "So 911 can find you!"
Signature applied for, Patent Pending
I'm normally the first to whine, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that Judges are required. Isn't that how we want surveillance to work?
There is an element of truth to this. The practical effect of this is to spread fear and apprehension among "innocent nobodies" who happen to be paying attention. The myth of government omniscience (and, by extension, omnipotence) is a powerful tool of preemptive social control.
It's like torture. Newsflash: the people who torture know it doesn't really "work" on (i.e., produce valuable information from) the victims. It's a form of state terrorism -- it works best on the rest of us.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
Probably when they get too impatient to grab ALL the power that's left in one shot like Musharraf did in Pakistan.
The Corps and the rich folks behind them are trying to sneak control and $ away from the people gradually so that Joe Apathetic doesn't see anything wrong until it's too late. When they'll be done, the US will look like the Alphaverse in Charlie_Jade. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Jade)
I doubt it will happen because Greedy people can only hold back for so long...
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Good. It's about time they weed out the criminally stupid.
What moron doesn't know they can buy a throw away cell from Walmarts for cash?
If you're dumb enough to be a crook AND use a traceable (i.e. contracted) cell phone you deserve what you get.
I *just* heard a news story about this a day or so ago- take it seriously!
A car was stolen by three guys, and the guys rammed a police car during the chase.
The police opened fire on the vehicle, killing the driver. They also wounded one of two other guys in the car who bailed and ran off into the night.
Here's the part that made me take notice: The news guy said that by using the cellphone number of the driver, they located and captured the other two guys within 20 minutes... by using location tracking of the fugitive's cellphones.
Considering that a) the driver was dead and b) they didn't know who the other two guys were when they bailed out of the car and took off, 20 minutes seemed awfully fast. But how can you track down a cell phone's location without knowing the number or who the owner is?
This means (obviously) that there must be an easily accessible database tracking both caller history (to find out who you called, or called you) AND those people's current locations. I knew things like this were in place for DHS and the FBI (a lot of bank robbers get caught because they have cell phones on them or in their cars), but that local LE had access to this stuff was a surprise.
That means that you and I, joe geek guy, are already in this thing.
Pretty cool, huh? It's *way* too late for tinfoil.
You are correct. GPS only makes it easier and more accurate to locate a phone. The location services provided by phones and carriers are *intended* for consumer applications (e.g., all those GPS applications your wireless company is willing to sell you) and emergency/911 calls.
At least for the commercial applications, the software is designed to require a response from the phone saying in effect "Yes, you can determine my location at this time". The software will then use the GPS in the phone (if it is installed and turned on) or triangulation using the cell towers nearest the phone to determine your location.
The software is not in and of itself bad - recently it was used to locate a mother and child attending a concert to let them know that a transplant donor had been located for the child and to get to the hospital. The issue is more that courts are approving the government's requests without requiring the government to demonstrate probable cause that a crime is taking place. This increases the potential for abusing the process.
Never let reality temper imagination
Never let reality temper imagination
duh, he posted about it on slashdot. and maybe his blog.
Finally, the REAL reason why just about every phone nowadays comes with a built-in GPS receiver...... so the phone can tell the carrier-- and thus the government-- where it is.......
My phone has an option to turn off GPS unless I dial 911. Are you saying that this feature doesn't really work? Or that the phone company can override it?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
As a radical drug-dealing terrorist pedophile, I have to disagree.
RT
--
Your Bookmarks. Anywhere. Anytime.
And you seriously think this is different anywhere else? Western European nations, for example, were routinely tapping phone conversations of their own citizens behind the iron curtain, without probable cause or any other justification and nobody even raised much of an eyebrow about it. In the US, people at least make a fuss about it.
I feel like privacy issues are incredibly important... and that I'm the only one who feels this way. Well, me and my friends who read slashdot. And the four libertarians I know.
The government only does this stuff because they feel like they can get away with it, that's what kills me.
spacefem.com
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
My phone has an option to turn off GPS unless I dial 911. Are you saying that this feature doesn't really work? Or that the phone company can override it?
The feature to turn of GPS is likely working. Its reasonably improbable that they'd be able to remotely stealth turn it on.
However, cellphones talk to multiple towers simultaneously. Carriers can a locate a phone relatively accurately even without GPS. Additionally cellphones regularly communicate with the towers to let the network know where it is, so that the network knows where to route an incoming call or sms. So you can assume the carrier gets regular positional updates from the phone provided its on, even if gps is off.
It does not on GSM (dunno about American specific tech).
GSM needs to keep track of phone locations very precisely because the primary means of synchronising the phone to the network is by altering the timing advance which tells the phone when to start transmitting.
3G is nowhere near to GSM in terms of location precision. In uses reflected signals in a positive feedback filter to improve the phone signal to noise ratio. If you look at the data before the filter you cannot make sense of it (it is combined with the rest of signal processing). If you look at the data after the filter you no longer have a true measurement of the signal produced by the phone. You have a measurement of a function of that signal combined with all reflections. As a result you no longer have the same precision on the measurement of time between the phone and the radio access network as in GSM. From there on you can no longer determine the phone locations as precisely.
So I would not be surprised that the drive to bundle GPS in newer phones has something to do with it. For the older ones (especially GSM) it was totally unnecessary. You could get their location down to a meter in some places.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Damn them! How dare they have a phone turned on during a concert! By god and all that is right those signals should have been jammed! I don't care if she has a terminal illness... nobody should be able to interrupt my enjoyment of the Teletubbies Christmas Jam! /sarcasm
Uh... you realize nearly all phones have both a silent and a vibrate mode.
Moreover, that the ability to locate them like this would be *needed* at all suggests that the phone was at least either silent or off. (Otherwise, they would have just CALLED them repeatedly to let them know.)
But since the phone was either silent or off, they looked up its position. (either its current reported postion if "silent" or last reported position if "off") and sent someone over to physically find/get them.
Every day it's either some government agency or some giant corp that is tightening the screws on US citizens. When will there be a tipping point where Joe Apathetic says "enough!" and takes to the streets? It's alarming that so many people are so docile.
When the actions of the government affect the TV viewing and high fructose corn syrup eating of the American public. Until then? Everyone will continue to sit on their asses smiling that they did "great work" at their pointless jobs and consider themselves successful.
Hey, im bored today lets track down soandso and see where that hot girl is today.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
when do we get our required RFID tags? I still can't believe that some companies actually require their employees to be surgically implanted with these little tracking devices under the guise of security. Hopefully the precedent that California set will stand, unless of course the Supreme Court tries to take a look at it and decides that our privacy means nothing in terms of die Staatssicherheit (national security).
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Every day it's either some government agency or some giant corp that is tightening the screws on US citizens. When will there be a tipping point where Joe Apathetic says "enough!" and takes to the streets?
I'll tell you the answer, but you won't like it.
The reason people are apathetic about these things is because it doesn't affect normal citizens to any great extent. There will ALWAYS be government abuses -- that's just the nature of power. The question is whether there are widespread enough abuses to make people notice (i.e., it happens to someone they know), and there just aren't.
When government power really does get out of hand, then it'll be reigned in (see: the 1950s communist witch hunts). People don't care because there's nothing to care about yet.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Reasonably improbable? I think not. Most (all newer?) phones can even have just their microphone turned on remotely. I think it is actually "Highly Probable" that GPS features have the same override.
A rubber-stamp judge slows things down for no useful purpose. You might as well just let the FBI write their own warrants.
A real judge that does his job will slow things down to make sure only people who really should be under surveillance are put under surveillance.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I could think of this possibility.
1. Cellphones can be tracked very accurately.
2. Government can tap the records at will.
3. Bank robbery happens at 4th and main.
4. Police notify FBI.
5. FBI calls the cell carriers and says "we need all active numbers in grid 34,53 at 12:03 pm when a robbery occurred" List please.
6. FBI asks for the above mentioned numbers, "Which moved away from grid 34,53 at 12:05 at where are they now" List Please.
7. FBI asks what was the duration of movement, and speed of numbers in list 2 please, and where are they RIGHT NOW.
That was the reference flying right over your head, just above hairline level.
A few weeks ago, /. had a front-page story called Cell Phone Jamming on the Rise, talking about how establishments are jamming cell phone frequencies so their customers can have an evening in peace without some idiot yapping away on his cell phone. The sarcasm above was a parody of many of the comments.
John
Hey now, don't raise a voice of reason just yet. It is too early in the thread. If you point something insightful like this out, you might deny someone the chance for a mindless rant and bashing session. They might explode!
Do you want to be know as the guy who made someone explode? Somebody do humanity a favor and mod this down for another ten minute or so.
If you didn't get the tongue in cheek there, Good point.
Maybe we should get a big hippy jam circle together. That will show them.
Could the same logic be applied to why high-end phones (the iPhone is the only one that comes to mind) don't have user-removable batteries? After all, if you can't cut the power to the phone, the only way to stop being tracked is to throw it away.
Everything is subjective.
Maybe Joe Apathetic has a better grasp on the situation and isn't alarmed at everything. Maybe he is one of the old school naive people who still think the government for the most part is good and that cops protect you from bad guys. Maybe every day, this idea is reinforces with him because he sees cops dealing with bad guys on the TV, hears how the government is going to protect him from something he otherwise wouldn't be able to, and he has a decent job making decent money with a halfway decent family. You know, he could just be content and liking life. Maybe Ring tones is the biggest upset in his life.
You know, how good would you feel if ring tones was the biggest upset in your day to day life.
But Big Brother is always looking out for us! He sees everything! He loves us so he watches over us always, awake or asleep. He even loves us enough to bring us back into the fold when we stray.
SRSLY.
Come on folks. We've watched enough '24' and 'CSI' to know how tracking works. We know better then to carry our own cell phones while committing a crime.
Have gnu, will travel.
When I worked in this field, it was (as far as I knew) only used to find your location when you called 911.
Richard Stallman is famous for being very careful when he makes predictions. They always seem to turn out to be true. But, in one of his interviews, the interviewer's cell phone rang and RMS said "Will you please turn off your tracking device?". (sorry, couldn't find a link) He went on to talk about cell phones being used by the government to track people.
Now, when I saw this, I was thinking, "I doubt it. He has got to be wrong about this one. This is just tinfoil-hat stuff." But it turns out Stallman was right all along... again.
Not only is there crazy GPS going on, but there was an article about 3 months ago that stated that anyone with a decent radio transmitter can listen to a conversation as long as your cell is on diagnostic mode. The phone doesn't need to be on either.
If you don't want people to know where you are then don't buy a cell, don't have ccards, don't have an internet connection, don't use a land line. Live in a shack in North Dakota and talk to your family in a set of cans connected by a string.
Posting as AC, as I have mod points.
I think you're (partially) missing the point: It still is illegal, the intention behind the law is ignored in lots of cases and you just compared "the land of the free" with a regime that was universally accepted as totalitarian (everything behind the iron curtain). That should tell you what "the land of the free" is on it's way to become.
Behind the iron curtain nobody was making much of a fuss about it, because those who did got in trouble, fast (the government was the biggest bully around and it didn't tolerate dissident voices).
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
So much for posting as AC :)
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
Simple encryption should make it easy to avoid eavesdropping. Encrypted VOIP, from PC, or mobile through Wifi, or else convert sound into data which is transmitted through cell phone company as data, ought to keep any eavesdropping 100% at bay.
I've been saying this for about five years. This is pretty much a So Nineties article.
The FBI, at least the pre-Bush FBI, required a search warrant to tap into the GPS signaling that phones and OnStar provides. So as a work around they employed the cellular companies to provide them with regristration information on the cell and node that your phone has recently passed into/out of as you travel. This won't give the resolutions to 10 feet, but they certainly know when you are one the move and where you are going. It makes building out your social network rather trivial.
And the best part about this is that they never need to actually touch the phone. The phone provides all the information that they need without violating the legal definition of privacy.
If you want your where abouts unknown, turn off your phone while you go to your local neighborhood crack house. Even Bin Laden knows this much.
Because nearly every cell phone in use today has one of two types of GPS capability. One method does not use satellites but rather triangulation with cell phone towers. This is not as accurate as say a Garmin hand held GPS device but it can at least get the cops into the general area. The other kind uses the normal GPS satellite geolocation system or a combination of cell phone triangulation and satellite triangulation.
These services are mandated by law and have been required for long enough so that almost all cell phones in current use have these features. To some degree they are controllable, you can choose to make the data available to anyone who wants to see it or you can shut it down so only the cops can have access to it. You can not completely disable it.
It is an interesting system to play with. On my cell phone, I can dial 922 and get my latitude and longitude. It works even in the basement of where I work; standard GPS does not do this.
The bottom line: the government will use whatever information resource it can, be that people, phone call records, GPS, etc... Create more information, the gov't is automatically interested in having at their fingertips.
Keep in mind, the government can make the right *environment* for all sorts of
new information to be tracked and provided, by creating laws, incentives, etc... so while the companies generating the information may not have any evil motives, some people in the government (and in criminal organizations) can.
From the story to which the link goes:
/=============
Another magistrate judge, who has denied about a dozen such requests in the past six months, said some agents attach affidavits to their applications that merely assert that the evidence offered is "consistent with the probable cause standard" of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The judge spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
\=============
Regardless of which side of the question you're on, how can you not frightened by the idea that judges will talk about important current issues of law only under cover to anonymity?
Uh, "GPS" does not equal "determining location". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gps.... The phone & the company's system knowing where you are via the towers is hardly new -- that's necessary for a cell phone to work in the first place.
I don't understand your "...standard GPS does not do this." GPS doesn't do what -- give your location in lat/long? Or it doesn't work in the basement? If the latter, it sounds like your phone is either giving you the last location for which it had a GPS signal or it's giving you a estimate. Triangulation from the towers is nowhere near accurate enough to give a true lat/long.
I don't know about other carriers, but you certainly can with Sprint. Assuming you want to pay extra, of course :-( They will sell you several apps that use your location info.
The weird thing is that the Sprint broadband card my company supplies me has access to the location data by default. I have access to a really nice search feature on any number of web mapping sites -- it can use my location & show me the closest whatever-I've-searched-for. I guess it could be just part of a separate package they've purchased; I don't know. But I don't think so.
Give me the location while I am in the basement. I am sure that it is an estimate but it is an estimate based on triangulation from different cell towers and is probably pretty darned close. We have tried a GPS from this location and it would not give us anything.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'd feel pretty damn good if the biggest upset in my day to day life was a bad ring tone. Unfortunately that is not the reality we live in.
Whether someone chooses to stick their head in the sand about the problems we face in our society is their business. But when enough of them do it then it become my business and everyone else's for that matter. "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing" - Unknown, but often attributed to Edmund Burke.
We see this happening in our society today (much like the Romans before their fall) where apathy and "Bread and Circuses" take over society. Several years ago, I used to be blissfully ignorant of the country we live in. Other than what appeared to be some minor problems here and there (nothing endemic), I didn't see anything majorly wrong with this country and the direction it was heading. I saw this country for what it has been idealized in the media rather than what it actually was. Now things are coming into focus.
The road we currently walk as a country is one that's going blindly over the cliff. We are such a strong nation but like strong nations before us, it is ultimately the internal problems that destroy us not the external threats.
There will have to be some event, or series of events, for people to wake up and see the decaying corpse for what it is. But it will have to be something that affects their everyday lives or it won't work. That is what it will take for "Joe Apathetic" to realize that it does matter what the government does.
I realize that most of my post has been very "doom and gloom" but you have to look for the light to keep going. I know there are still plenty of good people in the world and I do what I can to help them get into the right positions to help change things for the better.
We should all do the same where ever we can.
*Steps off the soap box*
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
I think your missing the point. Your in the minority of opion for a reason. Now the questions can be is that reason because you see things differently then others do and it isn't near as bad as you want to make it, or somehow, did you all the sudden wake up and become smarter then everyone else and now are able to spot immoral acts and bring them to everyone else's attention.
I'm going to put my money on a combination of both to some degree. You seem to be at an extreme end of the spectrum. This typically means that you are going overboard. The chances of being right in the face of all the other eyes on the picture is mindbogglingly low.
While I'll admit that I'm in the minority, that do not mean that I can't be right about an opinion.
In my daily interactions with people I know in person and online, I see a growing number of people waking up and seeing that things have been getting worse here as a more systemic problem and not something limited to a minor issue here or there. We talk about lots of the negative things going on in our society here on Slashdot on a daily basis. Sure, some of it is overblown or completely false and many people point out when something like this comes up.
But overall we are faltering as a nation. We have the most terrible sock-puppet president I could imagine with several of "his" people behind the scenes trying to take away our liberties in the name of security. I believe we very well could be months away from war with Iran which will almost certainly mean a draft. We've almost doubled our national debt in the last 7 years. Our currency is in a freefall as well as our economy. More people care about American Idol than electing good leaders. Of the less than half of eligible people that do vote, most will just vote along party lines and not care who it is as long as it's "their party".
There is plenty more which I won't get into but suffice to say we are decaying as a nation and something like what happened to Roman or Germany (post WWI) is likely to be in our future unless we can steer this country back on course. Of course it's hard to predict the future and I'm not claiming to be a profit of any kind. But it doesn't take a genius to take what you are seeing and follow it to it's most likely conclusion. A lot of people don't do this in their daily lives and that is why I made a reference to "Bread and Circuses". They just worry about their own little world and as long as nothing comes along to disrupt it then in their view they don't have to worry about it.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
No, it doesn't mean you cannot be right, it just means that you aren't likely to be right. there are people a lot more intelligent then we are that don't have a bias on the situation who just don't see it in the same light as you do. Most people who see things as negetive as you have expressed, have an agenda or bias on the situation. Those that see it as a bed of roses do to. But here is something to keep in mind, if it doesn't happen 8 in years, it isn't going to happen unless it isn't as bad as you think. A lot of things, don't even effect you or anyone around you but we are led to believe it does for the simple reason of recruiting support for their cause.
Sure. You will find that it is more rare for political opposites to hang with each other then it is for like minded people to do the same. Like minded people tend to find things they have in common to talk about. But who and what you talk about can also influence your opinions and positions greatly without even knowing it.
After reading the story of Jobe(?) in the bible, Some friends and I started talking and decided to see how loyal other people would be to the company at work. So we started trash talking some mythical guy who was supposed to be the head of current management at work. We made him sound like the devil incarnated and you wouldn't believe how many people started taking normal every day policies that they slightly questioned as the worst thing since Hitler. It only took about 6 months and they all seemed to blame it in this guy we made up. Long story short, I ended up getting fired from that job. But these people were perfectly content with the attendance policies, the amount and frequency of breaks, the selections of hot soup in the dispenser in the break room, until they had an evil genius to accuse of being behind everything. Do you think something like that is remotely working in your interactions with the people you know and talk about? I mean it starts early in life, in the schoolyard where something happens and someone isn't "liked" anymore then other tend to either like or not like them, at least to your face, they might have another opinion behind your back. And it isn't really childish, it is instinct to stay away from certain things because people that you take cues from do so. You would just be surprised at who you take cues from and who takes cues from you.
I don't seriously think someone is sitting behind the scenes rubbing their hands together going, "pretty soon, we will have all their liberties". I mean what is the end game? Eight years at the most and someone else is in office. There are as many democrats as republicans that have to somewhat support the Ideas in order for it to have some lasting effect. Otherwi