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Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

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Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#51

Post by bmacho »

tekla wrote: post #20
Plasmoid2000ad wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they? It's basic privacy no? Just because I want to pay money to carrier to provide me with data and phone service, I shouldn't have to give up my location from my device. I expect them to know my approximate location from cell tower data. Generally I'd not expect them actively triangulate my exact location, but I'd realise that's at least possible - but GPS data, wake my phone up, switch on the GPS radio,…

> but GPS data, wake my phone up, switch on the GPS radio, drain it's battery, send that data back... no. That wouldn't be legal where I live either, let alone expected. Where does the article claim this turns on the GPS if off?

It .. probably does turn the GPS on?

While this is an important question, I don't see the sources mentioning it, what the standards mandate, and how the phones behave.

For example the wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_resource_location_servic... describes the protocol as using the GPS and not as getting the location info from Android.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#52

Post by metaphor »

mcculley wrote: post #23
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #16

Do they really need it? They can likely triangulate you without GPS regardless.

Cell tower triangulation does not provide the same precision as GPS.

What makes you think cell tower triangulation is the only data point being exploited to minimize position error?

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#53

Post by iamnothere »

meindnoch wrote: post #45

What if I told you that carriers can also activate your phone's microphone without your knowledge and listen in on your surroundings?

What if I told you there are phones out there with hardware kill switches to physically cut power to microphones, cameras, and GPS?

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#55

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #31
Etheryte wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this should be happening without the user's knowledge and consent. Swap out your phone carrier for Facebook and it should be plainly obvious why the current state of affairs is undesirable.

You know about it because your regulatory body requires the system exist.

And it’s typically disclosed in one way or another.

Between buying a phone and reading the OS EULA to providing an E911 address to my carrier, I can count at least three disclosures of this feature.

Nothing is secret or magic here.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#59

Post by winstonwinston »

roywiggins wrote: post #25
hammock wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that work?

The phone could literally pop up a consent alert asking whether to respond to a GPS ping request from the carrier. Or just not honor the pings at all unless you dialed 911 within the last hour. This is a specific service inside the phone that looks for messages from the carrier requesting a GPS position, it could just refuse, or lie. It's not the same as cell tower triangulation.

The article does not explain in detail how all this works. But educated guess is that if a baseband SoC provides this information, that's it. The phone operating system (iOS, Android) does not get a chance to decide what to do, since baseband soc is a sort of autonomous computer, it has its own firmware, cpu and ram.
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