Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

an.dywa.ng

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 622 posts

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#241

Post by ssl-3 »

AstroNutt wrote: post #124
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered if they can also find you by what wifi or Bluetooth devices are around. Odds are one or more humans nearby has their GPS on. Your device can snitch on what's around or those other devices snitch on you.

I've thought that too... especially Bluetooth. I know it's possible with Wi-Fi signal strength. Is it a coincidence most smartphone manufacturers were suddenly all on board with removing the 3.5mm jack and forced Bluetooth? A mesh network of sorts like Amazon is doing with Ring. I even sometimes forget to save my battery and turn Bluetooth off when I'm not using my earbuds. It's probably a false sense of security hav…

No. There's no conspiracy relating location services to the removal of the headphone jack: The latter is just a dumb design decision from a famous fruit company that ultimately wants their products to be completely featureless rounded rectangles.

This kind of trilateration relies on beacons that don't move around (much). (And phones move. That's kind of their whole point.)

Fortunately for location data, there's a ton of Bluetooth beacons that are in reasonably fixed locations: Google used to give them away for businesses to use, but things like smart TVs, speakers, and game consoles are all pretty chatty about broadcasting their presence over Bluetooth to anyone in earshot. (And it's easy enough to observe with any app that displays nearby Bluetooth beacons. I see over a dozen right now where I sit in my suburban home.)

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#243

Post by heraldgeezer »

themafia wrote: post #183
jmward01 wrote: post #90

"and notify the user when such attempts are made to their device." We aren't going to remove the security state. We should make all attempts to, but it won't happen. What needs to happen is accountability. I should be able to turn off sharing personal information and if someone tries I should be notified and have recourse. This should also be retroactive. If I have turned off sharing and someone finds a technical loo…

> We aren't going to remove the security state What security state? They aren't doing this for anyone's safety. This is the surveillance and parallel construction state. > What needs to happen is accountability. No agency can have this power and remain accountable. Warrants are not an effective tool for managing this. Courts cannot effectively perform oversight after the fact. > The only way to stop the rampant abuse…

You people are so cynical.

Its simply made for 911 calls.

In the 2G era there was no compute space to just put in extra evil shit for fun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_resource_location_servic...

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#244

Post by iamnothere »

tavavex wrote: post #231
iamnothere wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So people can give you a call even if you're not home? I mean, this has been the main selling point of mobile phones for over 30 years, and especially before smartphones became a thing. If you don't take your phone with you, you might as well wire in a landline and just use that.

You making a lot of calls in 2026? Messaging services seem to be more popular with people I know.

I have a phone so I have options if I need to be reachable or reach someone immediately while out (rare), or for travel. And because some services, mostly banks, refuse to accept VOIP numbers but require a verified phone number.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#245

Post by heraldgeezer »

Gobd wrote: post #203

Nothing can stop the tower equipment manufacturer like Ericsson from knowing the location of your phone and cooperating with advertising or mobile tracking compainies to aggregate that data in useful ways. If you have a phone, people that want your location have it and there is nothing you can do.

So... Ericsson has a backdoor into every RAN and Core equipment they sell?

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#246

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

heraldgeezer wrote: post #243
themafia wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We aren't going to remove the security state What security state? They aren't doing this for anyone's safety. This is the surveillance and parallel construction state. > What needs to happen is accountability. No agency can have this power and remain accountable. Warrants are not an effective tool for managing this. Courts cannot effectively perform oversight after the fact. > The only way to stop the rampant abuse…

You people are so cynical. Its simply made for 911 calls. In the 2G era there was no compute space to just put in extra evil shit for fun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_resource_location_servic...

Made for, and used for, are two different things. The article gives an example of Israel slurping down that data constantly to track everyone, and you can bet they aren't the only ones doing that.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#247

Post by iamnothere »

throw1771 wrote: post #240
iamnothere wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux USB stack improves over time, and besides, implementing it with USB makes it easier to implement hardware toggle switches. (Cutting power pins to the USB modem is like unplugging it.) Edit: I’ll add that I think smartphone “security” is almost impossible to achieve, given the complexity of everything and the opacity of modem vendor stacks, which is why I just assume endpoint compromise. I use my phone rarel…

Just FYI the person you're replying to is intimately familiar with GrapheneOS (Founder/lead dev/ex lead dev, can't recall exactly)

Yes, realized that after I replied which is why I added the comment about Graphene. I think they do a stellar job, but I also think they are fighting an impossible battle. If there were a GrapheneOS phone that had kill switches, I would use it in a heartbeat.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#248

Post by heraldgeezer »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #246
heraldgeezer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You people are so cynical. Its simply made for 911 calls. In the 2G era there was no compute space to just put in extra evil shit for fun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_resource_location_servic...

Made for, and used for, are two different things. The article gives an example of Israel slurping down that data constantly to track everyone, and you can bet they aren't the only ones doing that.

[flagged]

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#249

Post by ssl-3 »

benSaiyen wrote: post #236
ssl-3 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 service…

We also had phone books with everyone's name and address listed. Everyone was effectively doxxed yet it was never a security issue.

Sure. But we usually didn't need it: We kept the phone numbers for our friends, family, and our favorite pizza place memorized.

And if the phone rang, it was answered. It was almost certainly a real person calling; spam calls were infrequent to the point of almost never happening.

It was a different time, and it is lost to us now.

(We do still have public name-to-address databases, though. For instance: In my state of Ohio, that part of a person's voter registration is public information that anybody can access. Everyone is still effectively doxxed and it's still not a security issue.)

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#250

Post by sib »

iamnothere wrote: post #212
Gobd wrote: post #203

Nothing can stop the tower equipment manufacturer like Ericsson from knowing the location of your phone and cooperating with advertising or mobile tracking compainies to aggregate that data in useful ways. 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 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.

>> Nothing can stop the tower equipment manufacturer like Ericsson from knowing the location of your phone

> False. You can: > 1) Leave the phone at home

If you're going to be pedantic, at least be pedantically correct. The tower (and carrier) would still know the location of your phone in that case. (It just wouldn't be with you.)

Post reply on HN