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Cell Phones: Tracking Devices That Happen To Make Calls
An anonymous reader writes "An article in the NY Times argues that the devices we call 'cell phones' should instead be called 'trackers.' It would help remind the average user that whole industries have sprung up around the mining and selling of their personal data — not to mention the huge amount of data requested by governments. Law professor Eben Moglen goes a step further, saying our cell phones are effectively robots that use us for mobility. 'They see everything, they're aware of our position, our relationship to other human beings and other robots, they mediate an information stream around us.' It's interesting to see such a mainstream publication focus on privacy like this; the authors say that since an objects name influences how people think about the object, renaming 'cell phones' could be an simple way to raise privacy awareness."
They can triangulate you without gps.
I thought that stopped to be news after the first 20 or so TV mysteries where the police requested the phone details of the murder suspect, so it MUST have been around the first half of the 80s.
It has been mandated by the FCC since 2001 that every cell phone has to be tracked.
Morale of this story is when you go off to murder that guy, leave your cell phone at home (Or stick it in the wife's glove box!) Bin Laden's courier would take the battery out of his until he was in the next town over.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The most basic tracking function is achieved by monitoring the RSSI and cell ID of surrounding signal masts. Possible on any phone.
Uploading this data can be done over GSM or even SMS, which any old phone can do too. They too have some personal information about you to link with this, but of course not as much as smartphones.
People often forget that the phone is an autonomous device that can do things on it's own and without showing any of that activity on it's UI side. They only see it do things when they push buttons, so they assume that pushing buttons is a required part for the phone to be able to do things.
Honestly you really think they aren't putting tracking devices in disposable phones?
No, I don't think they're putting tracking device in disposable phones, but using DTOA from a single sectored antenna is enough to place your location in a pretty narrow arc, and with two antennae you can be located within 30 feet or closer even in very crappy conditions. The phone plus the network is a tracking system whether there's any tracking-specific hardware in the phone.
However, super-crap phones like the LG I got from tracfone don't have a camera, magnetic sensor, or a lot of other things, so the only things they can do are track my location and maybe listen in on me whether I'm using the phone or not. That's offensive enough, but it doesn't leak as much information as a cleverer phone could.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
i know someone who used to do that when he had his first cell phone years ago. no law says it has to stay on all the time
Nope. The very fact that you've made the call will give a rough geolocation, typically within 20m or so in a city. Other calls can be similarly located, also texts and any other time the phone pings the base stations. Your daily route can be tracked and analysed from day to day. That's just with a basic phone. Connect to the internet and install a Facebook app, well, say goodbye to your privacy in theory.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
You don't have to make a call to be triangulated. That bars signal level indicator, what is it doing? It's pinging every tower in range.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's just measuring their signal strength. The pinging happens if the phone wants to change to a different base station, or if it wants to inform the base station it's currently connected to it's still alive. Not that it matters a lot, since they will have a rough log of where you've been for months/years after the fact, depending on how long your cell phone company is required to keep the records. The roughness is because they'll only have the base station you're logged onto and no triangulation, plus the fact that there are multiple minutes in between the time stamps, especially if you're not moving a lot. Once the police has a warrant, the cell phone towers will start pinging you and triangulation will take place with a frequency that can easily be once a minute. Depending on cell density, they might be able to locate you almost as precise as with a GPS.
With a smart phone, it's a different story. If you have apps that call home regularly to check for messages, you'll typically be exchanging data with base stations much more often. If you have GPS enabled (battery hog, so unlikely for a lot of users) and an app that stores your data (like google on android does themselves), it's dead easy to track you. The alternative, wifi base stations that get logged by google for every android phone unless switched off, is much more common since most people leave wifi on on their phone. Not so accurate as GPS, but within cities, usually sufficient.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
You've clearly never been stalked by an ex.
The big point here isn't what can be done, but what is done. All of this technology exists, and can be very useful in, for example, locating missing people. It could also be used to track people at protests to identify ringleaders. The technology is already here, we can't close the box, the important thing is whether suitable laws are in place to prevent misuse.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
What exactly are you doing that you're so worried about people knowing your location?
I don't really care if people know where I am. What I care about is if they try to contact me or interfere with my movements. Simply having knowledge of my location doesn't really amount to much.
Why should you be worrie about people knowing your location? Ask the kid in Long Island, NY, who, after leaving a party one night, was 'tracked' by thugs who used easily purchased 'tracking apps'. He was shot and killed on a highway miles away from that party. All those thugs had to do to track him was to enter his phone into a $30 app. Oh, you can ask that kid, but he can't answer you, because he's DEAD. Dead because he somehow pissed off some thug with an app and a gun somehow. What if one day that kid is you, will 'ease of tracking' still be a non-issue for you?