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Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

an.dywa.ng

221–230 of 622 posts

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#221
post #211

euhm, well. 112 programmer here. There are multiple levels. Cell tower triangulation come in automatically from providers. But they are only in tower numbers. They might be wrongly entered by engineers, hence the confirming question about where you are. Second is subscription information, as in registered address. Chances are if called from nearby your address, you are at your address. Next is a text to your phone nu…

Did you read the article or are you merely responding to the title? The article begins by acknowledging triangulation and then moving on to the point of the article. The article is about commands built into the UMTS and LTE specs for requesting GPS from the device. Your comment seems to be about everything but the main point of the article.

Did you read the complete comment?

> Next is a text to your phone number, which is intercepted by firmware and sends gps coords back.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#223
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. You can: 1) Leave the phone at home 2) Use a phone with a hardware toggle switch that physically kills power to the cell modem, or turn off the phone and put it in a tested Faraday bag 3) Conspire with other citizens to make such location tracking illegal and to enforce that law I’m tired of privacy doomerism. You have options, use them.

> If you have a phone, people that want your location have it and there is nothing you can do. > False. You can: 1) Leave the phone at home Then you dont have a phone, do you? Come on you are being pedantic for no reason.

Not all the time, no. But I can make calls over wifi and forward texts to myself. And nobody’s tracking me. Why would I always need the phone with me?

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what GDPR does.

Does it apply to the government like it applies to people? Is it enforced against governments like it is enforced against people and corporations? A core issue here is that laws, and the application and enforcement of laws, generally do not. Having said that I applaud the attempt and encourage pushing forward on the anti-surveillance aspects of GDPR while recognizing all laws are flawed.

State actors are inherently only subject to their own oversight

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#225
post #221
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article or are you merely responding to the title? The article begins by acknowledging triangulation and then moving on to the point of the article. The article is about commands built into the UMTS and LTE specs for requesting GPS from the device. Your comment seems to be about everything but the main point of the article.

Did you read the complete comment? > Next is a text to your phone number, which is intercepted by firmware and sends gps coords back.

Yes I saw that and also took it to mean the person didn't read the article. A text to your phone number? The article never mentions SMS. Heck I think the 2g/3g "feature" does not even require the phone to even have a SIM installed. This next sentence also seems to have been written without reading the article: "This can be turned off, since implementation."

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#226
The Google Pixel 10 can give you notifications when your location is tracked in this manner as well. I turned it on and have been notified a few times.

It is interesting that we let this happen. Modern phones are very useful devices, but they're not really mandatory for the vast majority of people to actually carry around everywhere they go, in many cases they merely add some convenience or entertainment, and act to consolidate various other kinds of personal devices into just one. If you wanted, you could more often than not avoid needing one. Yet, we pretty much all carry one around anyways, intentionally, and this fact is somewhat abused because it's convenient.

Having watched a fair bit of police interrogations videos recently (don't knock it, it can be addicting) I realized that police have come to rely on cell phone signals pretty heavily to place people near the scene of a crime. This is doubly interesting. For one, because criminals should really know better: phones have been doing this for a long time, and privacy issues with mobile phones are pretty well trodden by this point. But for another, it's just interesting because it works. It's very effective at screwing up the alibi of a criminal.

I've realized that serious privacy violations which actually do work to prevent crime are probably the most dangerous of all, because it's easy to say that because these features can help put criminals behind bars, we should disregard the insane surveillance state we've already built. It's easy to justify the risks this poses to a free society. It's easy to downplay the importance of personal freedoms and privacy.

Once these things become sufficiently normal, it will become very hard to go back, even after the system starts to be abused, and that's what I think about any time I see measures like chat control. We're building our own future hell to help catch a few more scumbags. Whoever thinks it's still worth it... I'd love to check back in in another decade.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? If the device is connected to a cell, they can still triangulate it just like normal.

Triangulation does not provide granularity needed for emergency response. You want EMS looking for a needle in a haystack while you are suffering a heart attack?

Indeed.

How might people suggest that this would work, do you suppose?

"We've narrowed the victim's location down to one city block, boys! Assemble a posse and start knocking on doors: If they don't answer, kick it in!" ?

(And before anyone says "Well, it can work however it used to work!" please remember: Previously, we had landline phones in our homes. When we called 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3 for emergency services, there was a database that linked the landline to a street address and [if applicable] unit.

That doesn't work anymore because, broadly-speaking, we now have pocket supercomputers instead of landlines.)

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#228
post #54

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

I would ask for your source

"Mobile phone (cell phone) microphones can be activated remotely, without any need for physical access"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_listening_device#Remote...

And the linked sources are:

- Kröger, Jacob Leon; Raschke, Philip (2019). "Is My Phone Listening in? On the Feasibility and Detectability of Mobile Eavesdropping". Data and Applications Security and Privacy XXXIII. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 11559. pp. 102–120. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-22479-0_6. ISBN 978-3-030-22478-3. ISSN 0302-9743.

- Schneier, Bruce (5 December 2006). "Remotely Eavesdropping on Cell Phone Microphones". Schneier On Security. Archived from the original on 12 January 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2009.

- McCullagh, Declan; Anne Broache (1 December 2006). "FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool". CNet News. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 14 March 2009.

- Odell, Mark (1 August 2005). "Use of mobile helped police keep tabs on suspect". Financial Times. Retrieved 14 March 2009.

- "Telephones". Western Regional Security Office (NOAA official site). 2001. Archived from the original on 6 November 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2009.

- "Can You Hear Me Now?". ABC News: The Blotter. Archived from the original on 25 August 2011. Retrieved 13 December 2009.

- Lewis Page (26 June 2007). "Cell hack geek stalks pretty blonde shocker". The Register. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 1 May 2010.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#229
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a phone, people that want your location have it and there is nothing you can do. > False. You can: 1) Leave the phone at home Then you dont have a phone, do you? Come on you are being pedantic for no reason.

Not all the time, no. But I can make calls over wifi and forward texts to myself. And nobody’s tracking me. Why would I always need the phone with me?

I do the same… and I don’t own a phone!

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what GDPR does.

Does it apply to the government like it applies to people? Is it enforced against governments like it is enforced against people and corporations? A core issue here is that laws, and the application and enforcement of laws, generally do not. Having said that I applaud the attempt and encourage pushing forward on the anti-surveillance aspects of GDPR while recognizing all laws are flawed.

The telco would be the one collecting it first, I assume. It would be interesting for someone in the EU to request their data from their telco, and if it contains these precise locations, question the usage.
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