Beijing To Track Citizen's Cell Phones

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Beijing To Track Citizen's Cell Phones

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 2, 2011 @10:27PM from the following-the-signal dept.

wan9xu writes "Purportedly to help alleviate Beijing's traffic congestion, the new initiative, literally translated as 'Platform for Citizen Movement Information,' proposes to track individual citizens' movement in real time via cell phone signals. Cell phones will be automatically registered at cell towers as soon as they are switched on. The rest is just like the phone tracking you see every week on CSI."

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You mean like people do already? by drinkypoo · 2011-03-02 22:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

U-TDOA except it should probably be named DTOA instead. I like how they keep changing the names of this stuff so you don't catch on.
Nothing to see here.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1. Re:You mean like people do already? by asvravi · 2011-03-03 00:43 · Score: 2
  
  Here is an extensive implementation of traffic tracking using mobile phone density for Bangalore and other Indian cities.
fun with tracking by Torvac · 2011-03-02 22:38 · Score: 5, Informative

www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten
german politician got his tracking data from telekom and visualized it, just press play.
1. Re:fun with tracking by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-02 23:08 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  A bit of background info, since Google translate is hardly understandable:
  German telecom providers had to store communication data of every citizen (currently suspended by the constitutional court but politicians and law enforcement already work on getting it reinstated). That data includes cell phone data. A politician sued his provider to hand over data they stored on him and then contracted a data visualisation company to create an interactive map that tracks his path on a map. Aside from his location it also shows phone usage (calls, texts, WWW) and links it with additional info available from Twitter, Blogs and Websites, if available, to tell what he was doing at a certain location.
Naming conventions by foolish_to_be_here · 2011-03-02 22:38 · Score: 2

Another patriotic naming convention (i.e. Patriot Act). It will be an easy sell. It's all about control. Nothing more than control.

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Hmm... by netsharc · 2011-03-02 22:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Cell phones will be automatically registered at cell towers as soon as they are switched on." ... err, as they usually do? Since otherwise, how would the cell company know how to route a call for you?
Of course TFA is in Chinese, and I don't know what it really says, but yeah, the very design of the cell network allows for such tracking, and there's a lot of potential for abuse there, whichever government does it.
I guess this is in response to the Arab protests, if you as the authority can see where people are gathered/gathering, you know where to send the skull-crackers to.
Oh, and logging individuals would make it easier to see which people (phones) show up at these things regularly, for whatever reason, so we can crack their skulls too!
I wonder what sort of techniques can be used to fight this; multiple phones (useless since afaik you need an ID card to get a SIM card), leave your phone at home, go to "airplane mode" at a random time before the planned demo? Should the protesters buy walkie-talkies and tune to xy frequency? (The police would then just skull-crack anyone caught with a walkie-talkie).

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What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
1. Re:Hmm... by MichaelSmith · 2011-03-02 23:01 · Score: 2
  
  Custom GSM firmware could theoretically connect to a less than ideal base station and fool the trackers as to the location. Maybe preferentially use towers with low signal strength. Maybe somebody could come up with a broad band frequency hopping walkie-talkie. Perhaps a unit which uses a lot of commercial frequencies at very low power. Such a device might be useful all over the place.
  
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  http://michaelsmith.id.au
2. Re:Hmm... by alt236_ftw · 2011-03-02 23:30 · Score: 2
  
  *Custom GSM firmware could theoretically connect to a less than ideal base station and fool the trackers as to the location*
  You can still track at that point, but with reduced accuracy. The neighbouring Cell towers will still record your mobile phone as it attempts to enumerate its neighbours.
3. Re:Hmm... by nobodie · 2011-03-04 02:45 · Score: 2
  
  Sorry, you don't understand the situation here:
  Of course we are tracked, but only if they know who you are,and they don't.
  "(useless since afaik you need an ID card to get a SIM card),"
  my SIM card is registered to the manager of the local China Mobile office because i "forgot " to bring my passport. Most cards are bought at streetside vendors who register the phones in their own name (so there are hundreds of phones listed in one individuals name). At least here where I am near Shanghai.
  What you don't know is that it is risky to have ANY unregistered meeting with more than 8 people. Outdoors would be even riskier. But people here know that and don't want to meet outdoors, they don't want to get caught and they know more about how to scam the system here than you can even guess. No, I won't talk about what is done (Duh) but it works and keeps them safe enough.
  
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  Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Re:Just turn the damn thing off by dtmos · 2011-03-02 23:17 · Score: 4, Informative

...and pull the battery out.
Re:USA already mandated GPS chips a long time ago by drinkypoo · 2011-03-03 00:21 · Score: 2

No they didn't. You have to provide E-911 services with a certain level of positional accuracy but how you achieve it is up to you. GSM providers overwhelmingly went with TDOA (Timed difference of arrival) which is like GPS in reverse; instead of one receiver figuring out the position of multiple transmitters based on their synchronized and highly accurate clocks, multiple receivers figure out the position of a single transmitter on the same basis. Since cell cites have sectored antennas, only one cell site is necessary to locate a user to a fairly narrow, curved strip. With two you can find out where they are to within a few meters.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Theres nothing irrational about the death sente by TapeCutter · 2011-03-03 00:54 · Score: 2

All I can say is that these "eye for an eye" people must have a great deal of faith in the infallibility of their justice system. Personally I can't understand why anyone would want to give the state the right to take it's own citizen's life, weather said citizen deserves to die or not is irrelevant.

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And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:Just turn the damn thing off by krenaud · 2011-03-03 01:53 · Score: 3

Sorry, no can do. iPhones have a fixed battery and special screws.
Re:Because it kills innocent people by Cyberax · 2011-03-03 03:34 · Score: 2

Standards of proof are already as high as they get. Yet still innocent people are killed by the death penalty.
You can argue that relatively few innocents are killed or that the ends justify the means.
But you can't argue with the fact that not only criminals are executed.