Google and Apple tracking your smart phone

[the.rf.consultant]

What's your take on this and how they are able to triangulate your smart phone position?

Apple denies iPhones store user location - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110427/ap_on_hi_te/us_apple_iphone_tracking)

[Stantheman]

"RF Consultant" .. triangulation on cellular systems is nothing new, try a Google on it and you will get results like the following:-

Mobile phone tracking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking)

to understand the basics of triangulation:-

Triangulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation)

If your smart phone has a GPS (most do now) they would be able to use that as well.

If you have a cell phone you can be tracked, monitored and recorded in real time, anywhere there is coverage, by the powers that be ... Now corporations want to do it as well, as it is worth money to them.

[the.rf.consultant]

Stantheman,

I'm using Android Froyo and can correctly locate myself geographically even with my network connection status as "out of service state" and GPS off because my roaming service is not working in the country where I'm at now. This happens only when I'm connected via wifi.

How is this possible even without network service?

No ciphering and authentication from the network operator.

[Stantheman]

not exactly sure, but:-

even if you do not have a roaming contract in the country you are in, I believe your phone will still be talking to cell sites , if not doing some sort of log in, as you should be able to make emergency calls even without roaming enabled in that country .. I'm not a cellular person, so maybe someone else can clarify that. And maybe the country that you are in likes to track all phones by having them registered in some way or another ..

If you have turned the GPS off on your phone, then that will only be a soft switch (as "you" do not want to use any apps with GPS) .. but you didn't write the firmware for your phone did you, nor do you have a hard wired switch on the GPS module .. so how do you know that it is really off and that the operating system (i.e. whoever controls that) is still not capable of accessing and using the GPS module ?? :o

[the.rf.consultant]

I'm inside a building so definitely there's no GPS signal...

[riyantoyadi]

inside but still having space to get connection to next open room right? except in basement or in the middle of building that not near of window

[the.rf.consultant]

even on basement with wifi connection and IBS installed on the basement parking area

[Stantheman]

GPS can work indoors in some situations, albeit with lower resolution, I am now in the bottom floor of a two story building using an old HTC phone (3+ years old) with GPS , and it places me within 5m inside the building using Google Maps. It is jumping around between 3 to 5 satellites. The newer high sensitivity GPS modules with the latest engines (some are a lot better than others) would probably do a much better job. Depends on the construction of the building, number of floors, where you are in the building, satellite coverage in that part of the world etc ..

Google this for more info :- GPS inside buildings

[the.rf.consultant]

Stantheman just a quick test, try putting your phone on flight mode if it still can tell where you are :D

[Stantheman]

put it in flight mode and Google Maps is still using the GPS module and tracking me!! now that is interesting, as I thought flight mode should have turned off all RF circuits, including receivers but obviously not on this phone

[the.rf.consultant]

also manually turn off your GPS if it is still on :D

[bkj242]

If you are inside a building where there is an IBS it is possible that there is a beacon installed in parallel with the IBS that essentially provide another sector and therefore reference coordinate from the service provider. In that case, the phone will see both sectors one from the dominate serving sector and one from the beacon which is connected to a GPS antenna outside the building for a reference to the PN offset of the adjacent cell which is a neighbor of the serving cell. Both the serving cell and beacon (virtual cell) provide lat/lon data for the receiver(assuming this is a CDMA or WCDMA/UMTS system).

Airplane mode turns off Wifi and the ability for the phone to transmit in almost all cases but does not necessarily turn off the receiver section. Therefore, with the receiver still functioning, location information would seem possible but I can't say that I have attempted what you are describing.

Hope this helps.

[the.rf.consultant]

I'm roaming on other country and my operator unfortunately has no tie up with any existing operator on the country I'm at and my phone state is "No service state" while Google Maps can still predict my location correctly upon connecting on a wifi.

[bkj242]

That is correct since IP addresses have geocoding as part of the id association.


I'm roaming on other country and my operator unfortunately has no tie up with any existing operator on the country I'm at and my phone state is "No service state" while Google Maps can still predict my location correctly upon connecting on a wifi.

[the.rf.consultant]

I think this IP geocoding tag makes a lot of sense and combined with the network database of operators you'll absolutely find anyone on the grid...



That is correct since IP addresses have geocoding as part of the id association.