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Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

an.dywa.ng

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Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#431

Post by jll29 »

Zetaphor wrote: post #366
voidfunc wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idealist views like this get us nowhere either tho. The reality is somewhat more murky. On a long enough time horizon your point makes sense, we might be able to get rid of the security state by slowly chipping away at ig over hundreds or thousands of years. Most of us are going to be dead in about 40 years tho. Security state isn't going anywhere in that timeframe.

I'm curious to hear someone explain why you're being downvoted

Out of all places on the Web, this one should be where solutions to (get rid of/limit the surveillance state) are devised. If the HN community doesn't have the will or skill, who else has?

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#432

Post by trympet »

lrvick wrote: post #368
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…

I turned off all cell carrier tracking 5 years ago. 100% of it. By canceling my cell phone subscription. I know I know, I must be amish, I have heard it all. But I run two tech companies, travel, have a family, and do most of the things most around here probably do other than doom scrolling. So much more time in my own head to think.

How do you work on the go? I use personal hotspot quite often. Not only when on the go, but if there is unstable WiFi. It’s saved me on multiple occasions - both for live-site incidents and for random meetings.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#433

Post by ErroneousBosh »

heraldgeezer wrote: post #415
themafia wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 2G era [...] ...you could just listen to calls in the clear. Pager traffic was completely unencrypted as well.

GSM is encrypted.

Well, "encrypted", sure.

In the same way that a Yale lock on your door means it's locked and secure, until someone comes along with two thin flattish bits of springy metal.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#435

Post by ErroneousBosh »

jolmg wrote: post #197
iamnothere wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s “open” but not libre or patent unencumbered.

That's interesting. That's the first time I've seen a "[deleted]" comment. IIRC, HN would just disallow deleting if somebody replied. Maybe this is from replying on an already deleted comment.

I've seen a couple in this post overall. Strange.

How would you reply to an already-deleted comment? I guess the "comment" still exists but the content is deleted, and then if I click , you delete your comment, and I post my comment, some sort of really slow race condition occurs.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#437

Post by ErroneousBosh »

butvacuum wrote: post #419
Spivak wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean we kinda did when we decided that emergency services calls would be special and give first responders the ability to find you. Wireless carriers are required to provide GPS quality (actually better than GPS) location data to EMS and this is how they built it. The only way to actually do this was develop a way to ask the phone because the tower isn't accurate enough. In the US it could have been more privacy pr…

911 is the only actual emergency number with regulations around it in the US. police and fire have _non_ emergency numbers that differ, my local hospitals will tell you to call 911; and gas, water, power, and other immediate risks to life safety are all 911 anyway (at least as the first call). Sometimes it seems dumb, but as long as its an honest report I've never heard of anything more than an annoyed patrol officer…

In general the emergency services would rather come out for something that sounds on the face of it stupid ("This sign is hanging down above the road and flapping in the breeze, can you come out to it?") and deal with it with plenty of time.

Far better than getting the call "This sign has come down and chopped a bus in half, and then four cars have run into the back of the wreckage".

Build the fence at the top of the cliff, not the hospital at the bottom.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#438

Post by ErroneousBosh »

AlexanderYamanu wrote: post #41

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…

Do you use triangulation or GPS? EISEC in the UK only uses GPS, never triangulation.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#439

Post by lazide »

jll29 wrote: post #430
lazide wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what - printed maps? No ‘where are you?’ texts or the like? No looking up nearby anything you’re curious about but didn’t know about before hand? Certainly possible, I guess, if everyone in your circle does the same, and has a ton of patience, and you spend a ton of extra time doing all the prep in advance. And don’t need to deal with things like traffic jams right now, or the like.

When you agree to meet someone somewhere at some time, all further communication is redundant (I expect you to be reasonably punctual and I don't need your SMS updates "Hi, leaving the house now." followed by "hi, I'm running 5 min late", I will wait, and if you are not coming, you can call me to apologize if you care one bit). For people who don't know their way, you can use in-car navigation systems rather than sma…

Ah, so I’m guessing 40+ and with a very select group of friends with a long term history.

While I agree, that isn’t something 99.9% of the population is going to do successfully.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#440

Post by wongarsu »

hpdigidrifter wrote: post #376
lrvick wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I turned off all cell carrier tracking 5 years ago. 100% of it. By canceling my cell phone subscription. I know I know, I must be amish, I have heard it all. But I run two tech companies, travel, have a family, and do most of the things most around here probably do other than doom scrolling. So much more time in my own head to think.

Pardon my skepticism but I find it hard to believe you can actually participate in western society without choosing to have a government mandated tracking device? Maybe you live somewhere this is possible but it's definitely not in the developed world

Phones are required, insering a SIM isn't. Your work and home probably have wifi, and services meant to be used on the go are commonly built with offline use in mind. Especially those you actually need in society

A burner phone left at home just for the ability to receive SMS would be helpful for account registrations though

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