Does anybody have info on how this works on a technical level? I.e., is it an actual report of the phone’s GPS position, or is it tower-side triangulation? If the former, do all devices support it?
Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
21–30 of 271 posts
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#22Chesterfield County, Va. can be generally understood as one of the most, if not the most, pro-cop (densely populated) counties in the whole country. You don’t want to be arrested there Edit: not sure the reason for the downvotes, this fact is useful context and first-hand
Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police laws, at least re: driving. The lesser of either 20 over the speed limit or any speed over ~80~ 85 miles an hour (thanks jmisavage) in Virginia is a misdemeanor, and at least one auto journalist has been jailed in Virginia. https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my... It's also the only state to prohibit radar detectors.
Considering the effects of driving at these speeds, I'd say the legal absurdity is the other 49 states not having similar punishments for people who drive at these incredibly dangerous speeds. An enormous amount of people die or acquire permanent, life-altering disabilities at the hands of people who were speeding and crashed.
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#23Could the wireless carriers track phones even if they were carrier unlocked or factory unlocked?
The cellular modem usually has GPS and SMS capabilities integrated in one hardware package.
Also, separately, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS#Silent_SMS
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#24Chesterfield County, Va. can be generally understood as one of the most, if not the most, pro-cop (densely populated) counties in the whole country. You don’t want to be arrested there Edit: not sure the reason for the downvotes, this fact is useful context and first-hand
Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police laws, at least re: driving. The lesser of either 20 over the speed limit or any speed over ~80~ 85 miles an hour (thanks jmisavage) in Virginia is a misdemeanor, and at least one auto journalist has been jailed in Virginia. https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my... It's also the only state to prohibit radar detectors.
> Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police laws, at least re: driving
(Full disclosure: have never driven in the USA), but without wishing to sound like a know-all, how about sticking to the speed limit?
I've been dinged exactly twice for speeding since getting my licence almost exactly 30 years ago this month. No points in either case. It's not hard, honest. My wife might disagree, but her licence, her problem :)
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#25T-Mobile is charging police $900/customer/month to track us? I want a rebate on my cellphone plan.
Agreed. I think we need to put as much blame on the carriers providing these capabilities to anyone, let alone the police. That the police are publicly funded and are buying this data with my money is also a huge issue to me, but if I had to pick one thing to change, I’d make selling this data illegal. That way, no one could have it.
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#26> we will use all lawful tools at our disposal
Interpreted precisely, this sentence doesn't rule out the possibility that they use unlawful tools too.
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#27Does anybody have info on how this works on a technical level? I.e., is it an actual report of the phone’s GPS position, or is it tower-side triangulation? If the former, do all devices support it?
Both, depending on what features are supported by the handset and/or network. Earlier phases of e911 compliance did it with triangulation, and later phases do it with GPS location.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1#Wireless_locati...
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#28T-Mobile is charging police $900/customer/month to track us? I want a rebate on my cellphone plan.
Agreed. I think we need to put as much blame on the carriers providing these capabilities to anyone , let alone the police. That the police are publicly funded and are buying this data with my money is also a huge issue to me, but if I had to pick one thing to change, I’d make selling this data illegal. That way, no one could have it.
That’s what the warrant requirement is all about, that’s where it’s broken. This technique should only be used for major felonies.
On the flip side, if you want to commit major felonies, don’t take your phone!
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#29T-Mobile is charging police $900/customer/month to track us? I want a rebate on my cellphone plan.
Agreed. I think we need to put as much blame on the carriers providing these capabilities to anyone , let alone the police. That the police are publicly funded and are buying this data with my money is also a huge issue to me, but if I had to pick one thing to change, I’d make selling this data illegal. That way, no one could have it.
I assume they target these people because they can seize assets. And drug dealers often deal in cash. Why else would they be so absolutely inept solving or prventing most crimes (looking at just about any metric available), yet still be laser focused on these certain crimes.
Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones
#30Simple improvement: ban carriers from charging for this surveillance. Could even introduce it as a pro-cop anti-corporate measure, which should take care of the political fringes. That removes the incentive to make it easy.
Next, some manner of heightened threshold for more than N consecutive tracking requests or M requests in a twelve-month period. Maybe probable cause? This will be harder, politically, particularly in a law & order cycle. (Maybe it could be accomplished through rulemaking at the FCC.)