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

581–590 of 622 posts

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#581

Post by trimethylpurine »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #568
trimethylpurine wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You avoided the question though. Maybe you don't want to answer it, and that's okay.

You don’t think that Republicans outright celebrating and defending Nazis and what Kirk said - and praised by Republicans is considering a race inferior?

I vehemently oppose Nazi anything. Also I think you've subscribed to a very biased view of Republicans that doesn't describe anyone I know. That said I'm not politically aligned with either she so my take shouldn't serve as a defense for anyone's view. But from outside the fishbowl I can't say I subscribe to this description.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#582

Post by lrvick »

epsylon wrote: post #562
lrvick wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Phones are required Depends on how you define a phone. Cell phones are not required but SMS capable phone numbers kind of are. I ported my cell phone number to a voip provider and get SMS and can even take calls from my desktop, or laptop, or simple voip capable DECT phones around my home as needed.

many services that require SMS 2FA outright won't work on VOIP providers

Not once have I been unable to sign up for something. Likely because I ported a number that once belonged to a real cell phone carrier.

Mandatory SMS 2FA is always a red flag on a product anyway as SMS is wildly insecure. FIDO2 or GTFO.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#583

Post by lrvick »

microtonal wrote: post #423
lrvick wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a security engineer and I live and work in Silicon Valley with an active social life. None of these things require a phone.

I can understand that in some social contexts it is possible. For me personally it would be very hard. E.g. most school-related stuff of our daughter is coordinated through WhatsApp, same with birthday parties, playdates, etc.

Simply say it is against your unspecified religion. No one ever questions that.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#584

Post by lrvick »

alt227 wrote: post #577
lrvick wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put them in airplane mode they are no longer permitted to contact cell phone towers by law and it is easy to form confidence the baseband modem is actually off because your battery life is so much better. Or pull out an SDR and prove it if you are extra paranoid. This turns them into wifi tablets. I started out doing this for a couple years before abandoning mine.

I am not trying to push conspiracy theories here. But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too? If you are using it on wifi its game over anyway, hard internet connections are easy to track by law enforcement via ip and ISP. Even if you use a VPN your device is still connected to the wifi and can be pinged…

> But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too?

We do not need to wonder, because this is a physics problem and we have science. Radio waves are easy to measure. There have been plenty of experiments with putting phones in faraday chambers with SDRs proving a phone in airplane mode does not emit any cellular frequencies.

You could prove this yourself with cheap home equipment if you wished.

But also, implementing airplane mode that did not actually disable the baseband modem would be an outright violation of FCC law that would be noticed by curious members of the public if this was widespread.

That said a specific targeted device with backdoored software can just make the airplane mode button do nothing, to your point, so physical switches for the baseband are always best, though few devices support them.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#585

Post by Forgeties79 »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #549
Forgeties79 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a theory in the same way gravity is. Both parties have experienced both gradual and sudden, major shifts and realignments throughout history. Most of the dispute is where and when these changes occurred and what constitutes them exactly. The changes clearly occur, usually over several decades but sometimes more quickly. I’m still curious what your response is to my Strom Thurman question. It illustrates the ent…

The same as gravity? I wouldn't go that far. Gravity can be measured repeatedly and no objections have even been made to its effect. The theory is sound because it accurately makes predictions about the universe. Theory is just an explanation for what we observe and I think this theory explains some things better than others. The two items I listed are are clear contrast to the theory. Let's say it's not a unified th…

> I gather he was a political "spy" of sorts, working from the inside to further the opposing party's goals.

Strom Thurmond was a Democrat who changed parties - swapped to a Republican - when democrats supported and pushed integration. It is surprising to see you repeating a fringe conspiracy explaining his racism having never heard of him only minutes prior. This is the man who yelled, “segregation now, segregation forever” on the senate floor during a 24hr+ filibuster attempting to thwart reintegration. There’s no secret here, he wasn’t a spy. He swapped to the party that cultivated “the southern strategy” on the heels of ending Jim Crow: the Republican Party. Any claim to “the party of Lincoln” was forfeited by that time.

You’ll never hear me call the Democrats “saints” but they were on the right side of history with that one and I hope we both can agree on that.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#586

Post by Forgeties79 »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #581
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think that Republicans outright celebrating and defending Nazis and what Kirk said - and praised by Republicans is considering a race inferior?

I vehemently oppose Nazi anything. Also I think you've subscribed to a very biased view of Republicans that doesn't describe anyone I know. That said I'm not politically aligned with either she so my take shouldn't serve as a defense for anyone's view. But from outside the fishbowl I can't say I subscribe to this description.

It’s hard to believe that when you are repeating very common MAGA/republican talking points and digging in your heels calling into question political party realignment, a very established concept, to claim democrats are a pro-slavery party. That is a very striking claim from someone “outside the fishbowl.”

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#587

Post by DeepSeaTortoise »

f1shy wrote: post #497
donatj wrote: post #442

My friend was going through a pretty massive depression after his mom passed. He'd been with my wife and I at our house for a number of hours talking through it, and apparently not texting his sisters back. They called in a welfare check. We live in a reasonably dense suburb. Police showed up at our front door and asked to speak with him. They just wanted to make sure he was doing OK. He asked them "how did you find…

In 2009 I worked with a triangulation system in a dense populated area. The precision of location was comparable in average to GPS (meaning sometimes better) when indoors, it was orders of magnitude better as GPS. That was 3G, some yeras ago… I assume today is much better, as the density of cells increased

I'd be very interested in more info, but am going to doubt this for now. Usually just the intra-day deformations of the terrain between the towers through hydrological activity should far exceed what GNSS can achieve.

It is just VERY VERY hard to beat the predictability of orbits.

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#588

Post by [deleted] »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #551
Forgeties79 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking about other people. I am talking about the statements you can make based off the polls. I don’t understand what the objection is here. I personally think ICE is terrible both in their mission and how they conduct it. I am against this.

I am not casting aspersions on you or anyone else I’ve been replying to here. I am saying that people - including Michelle “this isn’t who we are” Obama who excuse the voters who still support this have their heads in the sand. This is exactly who 40% of the US is.

[deleted]

Re: Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

#590

Post by Ajedi32 »

codedokode wrote: post #476
gregoryw3 wrote: post #449

I’m not super sure about the specifics but having taken a 5G class, the professor made it quite clear that due to the latency and bandwidth requirements of 5G, precise tracking is required to allow towers to correctly do beam forming. If anyone wants to look at the future of 5G (well ORAN) here it is: https://gitlab.eurecom.fr/oai/openairinterface5g When talking about the 5G system, cell towers can request a users es…

This would not be a problem if you phone did not have IMEI and IMSI, and if the telco only provided an anonymous Internet channel. The problem is that you must have a phone number, often linked to your ID and pay with a bank card, linked to your ID, instead of cryptocurrency. Towers and beamforming are not a problem at all.

Yeah, whether or not precise location info is required, even coarse 24/7 location tracking is a huge privacy issue. Privacy was simply never a part of the core design of our phone system in the first place. That needs to change. Device anonymization would be a great first step.
Post reply on HN