Tracking Via Anonymous SIM Cards 426
Noryungi writes "The New York Times reports that Al Qaeda operatives were tracked using the ID of the GSM phone chips sold by a Swiss company named Swisscom. Very interesting."
UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker
I don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:5, Informative)
Someone please mod this guys as insightful. Law enforcement and various governments have the ability to track cell phone calls and draw conclusions based upon the interactions of various callers and call'ees. If you're doing something nefarious, you run this the risk of being monitored and apprehended.
In other news, when I woke up this morning, the run had risen, I had to go to work, and traffic sucked.
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:3, Funny)
There go your rights.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The terrorism investigation code-named Mont Blanc began almost by accident in April 2002, when authorities intercepted a cellphone call that lasted less than a minute and involved not a single word of conversation. Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists [...]
Read that again: investigators became suspicious after listening to the call. They basically admit to what people have suspected for years: that intelligence agencies cast a broad net to monitor all sorts of communica
Re:There go your rights.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There go your rights.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It does say that the investigators became suspicious after listening to the call. It doesn't say why they were listening in the first place. They might have been investigating the guy for drug deals, heard the suspicious call, looked a little closer, and uncovered links to terrorism. The only evidence against that is the phrase "Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists", which implies that the suspicion caused the investigation. That could easily be written off as creativity on the part of the journalist.
Incredible claims require unquestionable proof, I think. Yes, there is clearly reason to be suspicious of how the government conducts these taps, but I disagree that you've found a clear admission of indiscriminate eavesdropping.
Re:There go your rights.. (Score:2)
What's really interesting is that the terrorist didn't realize that the sim card is what identifies you and not the phone. They kept buying new phones and using the same card.
Re:There go your rights.. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, if you RTFA properly then you would realise that they were NOT routinely monitoring calls.
What they WERE doing was monitoring calls to / from numbers which were on a list of numbers they found when they arrested another terrorist.
PLEASE try to keep your conspiracy paranoia uner control.
Re:There go your rights.. (Score:3, Informative)
The US and just about any intelligence agency with enough funding have been monitoring wireless communications. I do not believe any law exists that protects the intercept of openly transmitted signals, if you broadcast it folks can listen. Regardless it is permitted by law, for say the CIA, to monitor non-citizen communications especially outside of the country (obviously in a covert way).
Additionally you think the government has folks listening to EVERY communi
Re:There go your rights.. (Score:2)
Al Queda's Dumbest Criminals (Score:5, Informative)
Follow the money... (somewhat OT) (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the big problems after the war was that a lot of SS/Gestapo officers destroyed their records in an effort to claim that they'd served with other units, had had lower ranks, or hadn't even served (a similar thing that is being seen with senior Baathists in Iraq today). In the end, the prosecutors wound up proving the service histories of their suspects by finding that all of them had filled out their government pension paperwork when they'd joined their units or received promotions.
Again, it was simple greed (or stinginess) that led to their downfall.
Re:Follow the money... (somewhat OT) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Follow the money... (somewhat OT) (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, it's real easy for us to criticize the Nazis or Al Queda as inept because they left paper trails. The fact is that they were not entirely stupid (just look at the horrible things they did manage to accomplish). They probably did a lot to cover their tracks, leaving a lot of investigators bashing their heads on their desks during the search. In the end, though, the good guys simply did a better job (and spent a lot more hours) uncovering the tracks than the perps did in hiding them.
Re:Al Queda's Dumbest Criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the phone call that did them in was a minute of silence. That seems about as secure a conversation as you could have.
Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:2, Insightful)
I think what I find particularily frightening about that sentence from the article is the implication that this was initiated by what appears to be routine cellphone monitoring.
Is this kind of thing routine?
Re:Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:2)
Re:Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:2)
Echelon monitoring? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the first +5 Informative FUD troll on this thread it's clear we're in full conspiracy theory mode, so let's trot out Echelon again.
It's theorized that there exists a gigantic electronic SIGINT monitoring network, known as Echelon, which is operated across the Sort Of Free World by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other allies. The system is supposed to be powerful enough to monitor every phonecall, every email, every satellite communication, and handle *all of it simultaneously*. Pattern matching and keyword analysis are done by computers in realtime. Echelon can also make toast, predict stock market trends, and runs it's own psychic hotline.
On a more serious note, how routine that kind of thing might be requires a more careful analysis of the laws of the United Kingdom, which are not the same as the laws of the United States. I don't know what the rules are over there governing the implicit privacy of information.
Re:Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:2)
It's their own fault (Score:5, Funny)
Eh? What does that spell? (Score:3, Funny)
257 2332
No need for tin foil hats here! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No need for tin foil hats here! (Score:3, Interesting)
HA! (Score:5, Funny)
TDMA for life!
Re:HA! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:HA! (Score:2)
Re:HA! (Score:2)
Phase 1: Collect Underpants...
oh forget it [gid0ze.net]...
cell phones aren't secure. who cares? (Score:4, Funny)
Weirdness.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing was stopping me from putting down the wrong info (looking back now, maybe I should have). It just struck me as odd how easy it would have been to fake it all..
Re:Weirdness.. (Score:2)
For prepaid phones, since they already have your money they don't care about your credit... if you run out of prepaid minutes they just cut you
Re:Weirdness.. (Score:4, Interesting)
These self immolating morons dont know anything about security. If they knew even a little, they would switch SIMS for each call, and then discard the SIM. But even that would be no good, because if they were always calling from one of ten cells to another set of ten always used cells, you can build a pattern up and start moniroting all the relevant calls. This as all Slashdotters know is Traffic Analysis.
They should be sending messages via a human courrier who memorizes messages. Its slow, but what do they care? They waited years to kill themselvs the first time - anything that reveals their locations is a huge risk...thankfully. What we now have to ask is how many people are they actively monitoring, and if its even one person, why have they not (if they have not) picked these people up?
GWB has hinted that they are bumping these people off - maybe they are all (ex) GSM users?
Mu favourite GSM/Combat related story is the one where MOSSAD blew off the head of a top Hammas man, by switching his cellphone for one that had an explosive charge put into it. Aparently, he was able to use his phone normally. It was detonated only when a call came from a specific number and he answered it, presumably with a suitable delay for him to lift up the phone to his ear and say "Hello". Cellphones are being used for this sort of thig more and more [66.102.11.104]. Fascinating.
Life Imitates Fiction (Score:2)
What is that saying exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats all well and good, but calling it "one of the most successful investigations since Sept. 11, 2001" really cheapens what they have accomplished here, since the investigative bar was lowered so far pre-9/11.
So they are greatly sucessfull in relation to one of the most incredibly flawed and costly intelligence failures in recent times? Thats not saying too much IMHO
Swisscom (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Swisscom (Score:3, Informative)
Swisscom is the privatized (since 1998) communications technology branch of former Swiss state monopolist "PTT". They cooperate with Vodafone on a "mobile multimedia portal" [swisscom-mobile.ch] since 2001 [swisscom.com], but they do not belong to Vodafone in any way.
Greetings from Switzerland,
Raymond
Oh great... (Score:3, Funny)
Way to go, NYT; now they're gonna abandon email, Internet phone calls, and hand-delivered messages!
Don't tell anybody they sometimes talk to each other in person, they might be reading this.
Re:Oh great... (Score:2)
Re:Oh great... (Score:2, Informative)
Social Mapping of "Anonymous" people (Score:5, Interesting)
The authorities can probably even deduce leadership structures from the sequence of calls. If A calls B and then B immediately calls C, D, and E, we might suspect that B is a leader of a cell with D, E, and F as members. Add data on physical location (phone towers) and the authorities have even more data to map out a network and assess likely roles of unnamed people.
You are who you call (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You are who you call (Score:3, Funny)
That explains why I keep getting busy signals...
Qaeda's painful addiction to 'da SIMs... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of my favorite quotes:
From both the mental image and funny-long-names-of-stuff-in-Germany file:
- "If you beat terrorists over the head enough, they learn," said Col. Nick Pratt, a counterterrorism expert and professor at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
And the enjoying-that-feeling-of-absolute-superiority-oveAnother official agreed: "They'd switch phones but use the same cards. The people were stupid enough to use the same cards all of the time. It was a very good thing for us."
And I'm sure this one has already been posted, but...
From both the kill-joy and tinfoil-hat/nuking-new-$20s files:
- "They thought these phones protected their anonymity, but they didn't," said a senior intelligence official based in Europe. Even without personal information, the authorities were able to conduct routine monitoring of phone conversations."
Sigh...Some precisions (Score:5, Interesting)
For about $50 you get a SIM card that you can put in you GSM mobile. You now have a phone number and some initial credit. You can buy credit (a card with a hidden number to dial) from any news stand anytime. Never in the process does your name appear anywhere. You can even buy the cards in supermarkets.
The question of such anonymity was raised several times, but ultimately the decision was that it wasn't possible to require personal information for such items. Since there's no contract and no bills in the system, there's no reason to ask for your name, address, etc. And there's millions of them in use already.
Note that all operators offer such cards. It's a bit more expensive than regular price plans but damn useful if you're a traveler, want to control expenses or can't get a regular plan because of bad credit. To my knowledge, many other european countries offer such prepaid cards now... We just happened to be the first.
Re:Some precisions (Score:5, Informative)
This db is used to keep track of stolen and faulty cellphones (well, terminals, really), refusing service to those classes of equipment. However, nothing stops the operator from using this information instead of the IMSI on the SIM card for tracking purposes.
Also, in modern GSM O&M software, it's a builtin feature: you tell the system that you wish tp keep track of all movements and calls of this IMSI number, or EIN. It's then logged to file.
It gets even better: you can of course record when the EIN is changed; moving the SIM card then just means another EIN will be tracked (as well as the old one...), and of course the SIM-card that is next put into the phone you just monitored might get monitored too...
It's all just a few clicks in the GUI away. Disk space is cheap. Welcome, Brave New World.
get ready (Score:5, Insightful)
So now that technology has been shown succesfull in stopping "terrorists", and those "terrorists" have moved to email/VoIP, get ready for another push in legislature to regulate those mediums more tightly. It doesn't matter that the corporation put those chips in their products by their own will. Traditional phone companies will see a spot to shove their foot in the door and lobby their representatives to regulate the up and comming internet telephony industry in order to stiffle the competition. So there is "antiterrorism" working and corporate money working in the minds of the government. What else is new...
Anyone can do this in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
This 'top secret tracking" is available to consumers and companies in the UK see:.
http://followus.co.uk [followus.co.uk]
http://www.fleetonline.net [fleetonline.net]
Of course you need the phone owners permission.
Unlocked SIM cards and you... (Score:4, Interesting)
The modded firmware of some phones can Jam and hop Ids randomly to leech airtime. This is a real problem in some countries with mature cell nets.
Node logs are not perfect.
As every drug dealer busted can tell you that buying your phones in bulk and dropping them (Or purposely losing them in a public place) every 24h removes the chance of getting a tap put on in time.
To live in Fear and Ignorance, only teaches one paranoia.
privacy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Al Qaedia and its operatives have been identified as enemy combatants. Effectively, there's already an international 'warrant for their arrest'.
This technology, if had to be used in the US, would require a judge to approve a warrant for this type of information gathering. There'd have to be specific evidence that the individual was commiting a crime or likely to. Al Qaedia already falls under this category, IMHO.
Even further, this was a COMBAT action. In other conflicts, (see: wars) this is the same as using radar to identify enemy positions based on the metal used in their vehicles, etc.
And EVEN FURTHER, knowing where you are is essential in a cellular phone network. To forward the voice packets, the phones have to know the signal strength from your phone to the nearest towers. it figures your motion and signal degradation to determine the most likely cells to send your data to. knowing your approximate location is just a function of cellular technology.
Re:privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
And EVEN FURTHER FURTHER, you are not doing any good for a free society by parroting the right-wing "guilty until proven innocent" mentality.
You start from the presumption that the person they are tracking is an Al Qaedia member.
If this presumption turns out to be false, you just approved a warrent for arrest, tracked, classified as an enemy combatant, and (traveling further down your line of thought) imprisoned without trial, someone who is totally innocent.
Congratulations!!! America is now safe from another "middle-eastern guy".
Re:privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Enemy combatant? Sorry, Interpol has never heard of that term. Nor it is anywhere in the Geneva Convention. I don't think it carries much weigh outside of a government that wants to deny rights to a broad group of individuals because doing so is far more expedient than actually honoring the Constitutional right to due process.
Sorry, I'm not impressed by your phony rhetoric and fractured analogies.
By the way, have you ever heard of Joseph Padilla? He's a U.S. Citizen, like you and me, and he's also an "enemy combatant." Our government feels its perfectly fine to keep him in jail forever without even charging him with a crime. How do you feel about that?
I thought we were defending freedom, not totalitarianism.
not treason (Score:4, Informative)
Treason is tightly defined by the constitution. It can't exist except in time of DECLARED war (which we DON'T have at the moment.)
This is why Jane Fonda got to marry a billionaire rather than twist slowly at the end of a noose.
law & border (Score:5, Insightful)
i'd like to think i'm a decent pro-privacy civil libertarian, but i also admit getting a kick out of the law and order episodes when they so often trace someone's movements thanks to bridge tolls or telephone calls or ATM cameras or whatever. cool, hey presto and the bad guy is tagged. here, it's those bin laden cretins, no tears shed; and so it happens in real life). (the israelis once assassinated a man by detonating an explosive in his cellphone -- they waited to hear his voice and
now we have trackable cellphones (which are becoming ubiquitous), rfid chips, red-light cameras with OCR, etc. pretty easy and non-paranoid to imagine the automated abiity to track anyone anywhere.
there are so far as i know few constitutional problems if the data collected is publicly observable information, i.e., no expectation of privacy even if the sophistication of the technology to collect, process, and digest that information would astonish most of us (this does at least rule out Big Brother in your home). the old model was that evidence could be collected only with periodic intrusive methods like breaking down doors or inserting wiretaps, moderated by warrant and the exclusionary rule and so on. what no one expected, though, is the situation now where *unintrusive* methods continuously collect everything one might need. the fourth becomes an anachronism, and the patriot act seems quaint.
the only answer i see, or rather the inevitable path ahead, is to intelligently moderate access to and use of the data. the constitution is only the floor, congress went much farther with the anti-wiretap law. draw the "border" between leigt investigation and fishing expeditions. frankly i don't think we can do a good job of it, but it's the only route i see ahead. all these "public eyes" can not be shut, because we *like* too many of them and even a few innocuous steps may prove to open the door wide.
Re:law & border (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:law & border (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but thankfully, in many cases, the agencies who have control of the technology are very reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement.
A week ago, my Transportation Planning class went on a field trip, where (among other locations) we visited the Route 91 Express Lanes and the ATSAC [la.ca.us] (made famous by "The Italian Job") Control Center. Route 91 has license plate cameras and OCR equipment which identifies toll evaders when they enter the Express Lanes as well as 35 incident cameras along the 10-mile route, and ATSAC has cameras all over Los Angeles which can watch intersections and streets for incidents. *Both* agencies mentioned that law enforcement has repeatedly approached them for cooperation and information, and that they *never* allow it without a court order.
I think the reasoning was best expressed by the engineer at ATSAC, who said that if they used their cameras for enforcement, it wouldn't be long before the cameras were routinely vandalized and smashed to bits.
It's not about what the technology can do; it's about who controls it and what they perceive as their responsibility.
News.com (Score:4, Informative)
Some comment. (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is this story published? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm reminded of a satelite photo from the mid '80s the showed a radar picture of the Nile Delta. Why would you publicly show a picture that told everyone that you could see 30 metres underground durring the Cold War?
Just what can 'they' really monitor if 'they' know that you know that your moble phone is monitored?
Is it just me but .... (Score:3, Insightful)
closed systems and privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
The loss of privacy in closed systems is very real. Most printers can be uniquely identified by certain features (invisible to the naked eye) that are created on the printouts. And I am not talking about the currency counterfeiting options. We can be sure that if email was implemented using appliances, every mail message would have a unique ID. Microsoft Office embedded a unique ID in every document it produced and that feature was only disabled due to a huge outcry by their customers. Has everyone forgotten the original P4 ID, and how it was to be used for tracking (called "authentication")? The only way to guarantee privacy is to have open systems which will ensure that a universal tracking system cannot be successfully implemented.
Props to the Cops (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure that the investigators who uncovered this mistake by Al Queda spent a lot of time bashing their heads on their desks as they ran into dead ends. Like most police work, this "lucky break" probably only came to light after a lot of fruitless efforts. These investigators made their luck out of a lot of legwork and late nights.
We like to pretend that Al Queda is inept because it helps us sleep better at night. That fact is that in this case the good guys were simply better (and more persistent) at uncovering tracks than Al Queda was at concealing them.
In holland you can buy a SIM for 5 euro (Score:4, Informative)
The mobile carriers also have the abillity to track you with the unique IMEI number of your GSM. With Software it is possible to change the IMEI of your GSM. A new SIM and an IMEI change means you are anonymous again.
Dutch police routinely asks the Mobile Carriers for subscriber data from customers who where in the same area where a crime has been committed.
what's the lesson here? (Score:4, Insightful)
gsm monitoring (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice troll, but as everyone knows, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:5, Insightful)
ignorant (Score:4, Informative)
It is indeed ridiculous to even think the Navy could ever shoot down a civilian airliner. [wikipedia.org]
Re:ignorant (Score:4, Insightful)
I knew what that link was going to be before I even clicked on it. That's a valid point but also a completely ignorant one.
There's a huge difference between a warship off the American coast and one in the Persian Gulf in the middle of a warzone with an unidentified aircraft approaching it and refusing communications. The crew of the USS Vincennes attempted several times to communicate with the "bogie" ("bogie" means unidentified air contact -- "bandit" is a confirmed hostile contact) but received no response on any of the standard guard frequencies. At that point the Captain had a decision to make -- wait for the contact to get close enough to identify visually (hint: if it's hostile by now it's already fired it's weapons and your fucked) or engage it. Considering that he was in the middle of a war zone (the Iranians had attacked US shipping and warships several times in the preceding weeks) he decided to engage it. I would have done the same in his shoes.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that a warship off the American coast would hardly be in the same situation. I can hear the conversation now in CIC:
Radar Guy: Captain, we have an unidentified contact that just appeared over JFK international airport. It is on a direct course for us sir.
Captain: Shit! It must be hostile. Go to battlestations and bring the weapons and radar online.
First Officer: Should we attempt to communicate with them sir? They are still 40 miles away.
Captain: No! There's no time for that! Weapons free! Engage the target at will!
Pa-leease.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:4, Informative)
The NTSB Flight 800 Page [ntsb.gov] seems to have the evidence contrary to your own beliefs, and if you are really nice, and try not to sound like you are a conspiracy theorist, they may let you see the evidence for yourself, under a press pass - or "I'm a collage student writing a paper on", etc. Of course, there have been plenty of (non-government employed) people whom have already seen it, and it's probably been warehoused, but no harm in trying. What I'm saying here, is if you show me proof, I'm on your side, until then - I'm letting you know what I'm basing my beliefs on.
Kindest regards.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:2, Informative)
That the President of the United States felt compelled to deny this very specific group of individuals protection under these statutes, the very day after evidence is produced implicating the Navy in this tragedy can be seen as nothing
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:4, Insightful)
Unique to this crash was the intense participation of the Navy, which immediately dispatched its best deep salvage vessels to the area, and kicked out the New York Police Department divers, who had legal jurisdiction in the area.
Who's better equiped to pull up large debris from the ocean floor? The NYPD, or the Navy?
Most unusually, the Navy searched out 20 miles to either side of the known debris field, even though the 747 could not have glided that distance from its altitude of 13,700 MSL even if left intact.
This is probably the most ignorant thing of what I've read so far. Read this again and see if this is some how conspiratorial. A 747 could easily glide 20 miles if it's engines went out at 13,700 feet. Whoever wrote this must be under the impression that if a plane's engines go out the plane just drops like a rock.
The Navy justified this extensive search by claiming that they could not locate the aircraft flight recorders, the "black boxes", even though numerous private boat owners reported hearing the locator pings on their sonar and fish finders
Great! Because we all know how easy it is to find something on the ocean floor. It's one thing to pick up a "ping" it's another thing to actually find something the size of a toolbox.
And really... linking to a conspiracy website to support your views adds tons of credibility.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Interesting)
Please explain to me what the point would be to putting anti-aircraft weapons onboard submarines that couldn't use them without surfacing. Kind of defeats the point of a submarine.
Please also explain to me how even if this was the case (a US Navy ship shot down the airliner) it would remain a secret? Do you really think the crew of the ship would remain silent?
Anywau I al
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:4, Informative)
The executive order referenced exempts a specific group in the Navy from federal labor law, adding them to a huge list of intelligence agencies that was instituted by Exexcutive Order in 1979 by President Ford, as provided for in Section 7103(b) of Title 5 of the United States Code. What the hell does that have to do with a coverup? Are you asserting that Clinton exempted that Group and then threatened to fire them all from the Navy if they tried to form a labor union, which somehow got them to be quiet about shooting down a plane?
No one's asking you to remove your tin foil hat, but please, if you're going to provide "evidence" of a coverup, at least make some sense. If the executive order had suspended some part of the uniform laws that prohibits shooting down civilian planes, you might have something.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Informative)
You stupid. The radar report was leaked, this is why every periodical, even French, could have got it if quick enough.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Interesting)
And that's why the big brother guys, like the CIA, NSA and FBI really pushed for that type of infrastructure to be developed, right? But... oh wait, it was actually some of the northern states who thought it might be nice to be able to help find people lost in snow storms.
Oh... just noticed this, you're a kook. TWA 800 shot down? Sure sure... ding! time to take your medicine
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I was aware, that infrastructure was in place from the very beginning.
In order for a cellphone company to properly give you service, they have to arrange for a series of cell towers over a wide range of space. These towers provide your signal. For uninterrupted service, the service-areas of each tower must overlap to a degree.
In order to bill you properly when you are roaming, the towers must be able to check your location against your home calling areas (for people with plans where this still exists). Which tower you're using at any given time is a matter of record.
If the argument is that they don't have your location down to a 10-meter square block, you might wanna guess again; by watching the way that your phone moves through the spheres of influence each tower generates it becomes mathematically trivial to triangulate your position with a precision that GPS would find envious.
If you're drudging out the `Navy shot down TWA 800` theory I'm tempted to classify you as a troll. Please don't bother frightening Slashdot with your Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt lines about the lack of privacy we now have post 9/11 -- you never had it to begin with.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:5, Informative)
Big Brother(x) = 1984 + 20 = 2004.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Funny)
Next on slashdot: Geeks learn how to not make multiple posts..
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:5, Informative)
That statment is vastly exaggerated. In fact triangulating the position based on signal strength gives vastly inaccurate results. Simply passing behind a wall would make you appear 20-100m further from the cell station, making triangulation hopeless at accuracy.
The most accurate method availible is called time advance. Basically the towers keep a very accurate record of your latency, and transmit their signal slightly in advance when you are far away to make sure it reaches you at the time your cellphone expects it. IIRC this value is measured in 1/10ths of a bit, and yeilds an accuracy of 500m. No methods of tracking cellphones are as good as the = 10m GPS provides.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:4, Funny)
Special Delivery for Al-Qeada...
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:2)
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:2)
The service providers had no need to track users locations beyond that necessary to establish service. It was government fiat that compelled them to install the systems necessary to harness this information, collate it, and make it available to government agents on demand.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
First, GPS only works with a clear view of the sky. Radiolocation works better in urban areas. Second, emergency services and QOS data are reasons enough to justify the system, and they're hardly nefarious in nature. The fact that tracking can be used against us now is an unfortunate additional effect. This is the way it is nowadays. You can't just move out west and change your name to re-acquire anonymity like you could
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:2, Insightful)
the only choice we have is whether the elite is right wing or left wing.
It is the inevitable consequence of power (power acretes power).
I could go on. But I won't.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:5, Interesting)
I have had the 911 tracking save a frieds leg before. We were on a motorcycle trip and the bike burst into flames. It was abou t11pm and I had no idea where I was. I call 911 from my cell. I told them I didn't know where I was but my friend was burned really bad. They said not to worry an ambulance and fire truck was on the way and they could get a good idea of my location from my cell phone. I told them that when they got close we would be the two guys standing about 50 yards from the burnign motorcycle. We laughed, my friend go taway without skin grafts, and insurance paid for my motorcycle. Now, lets get rid of that because you think you are important enough for our goverment to track.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:2)
There's no reason for it to be built in to *all* cell phones.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
If EMTs and police can't find you for a half an hour, that's taxing the system. If doctors spend an extr
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
So if I don't pay several hundred dollars for a GPS receiver on the odd chance that I might be injured and not know where I am I'm not taking care of myself? What if I'm too injured to tell them where I am and all I can do before passing out is dial 911 on my cell? Ever think about that?
Using your logic we can conclude that the whole 911 system (landline
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
You are being labelled as a flamer for implying that the Navy is the responsible for that crash. However, as one might [twa800.com] notice [whatreallyhappened.com], there are some really serious reasons to believe it really happened.
What is really amazing is that those exactly same people that ask you to take your medicine are also flaming the Patriot Act, which is the very follow-up for such behavior...
But everyone is f
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
Many people have implied that a US Navy cruiser fired the missle. Having spent many years in the Navy I can say that this is extremely unlikley. Why? Because someone would have said something by now.
A most of the crew on any ship is a bunch of young kids. A lot of them felt cheated by their recruiter and are not happy about their life of painting the ship and cleaning toilets. They'd sell out the story in a second. A missile launch from a ship is not
Oh for the love of god. (Score:3, Insightful)
Geezuz. It's not like the Swiss sat down in a room and said, hey, in 2002 it will be reaaly useful to the Americans if we do this. Now, in 2004, they're not going to sit down and say, "right, mission accomplished, shut it down."
Location information (Score:3, Interesting)
Location information is generated automatically by the GSM network. Depending on the layout of the GSM net you can determine in which GSM cell the user is and even (roughly) determine his location within the cell. The location info is required for the network to operate properly. All this article has really accomplished is that Al Quaeda is, as this is written, instructing its operatives to ditch their anonymous
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Interesting)
You also have the "who watches the watchers" problem as a fundermental problem. With the position of "watcher" being highly attractive to criminal types.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot the Unibomber and restrictions at the Post Office. The Unibomber has been behind bars for years, but you still cannot drop off a package at the Post Office -- you have to take it inside during normal business hours and wait in line for a human to take it from you -- as if that will stop the next Unibomber!
But you're wrong about TWA 800. It wasn't a Navy missle, it was a meteor. But they can't sue God for sending a meteor into the path of an airplane, so th
Article Text for the lazy, no eyebleed (Score:2, Informative)
How Tiny Swiss Cellphone Chips Helped Track Global Terror Web
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DESMOND BUTLER
ONDON, March 2 -- The terrorism investigation code-named Mont Blanc began almost by accident in April 2002, when authorities intercepted a cellphone call that lasted less than a minute and involved not a single word of conversation.
Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists, followed the trail first to one terror suspect, then to others, and eventually to terror cel
Re:Just the reason. (Score:2)
As a student at a university that also does this (ie, our student ID doubles as a key card)...how do you manage to avoid it?
Re:Just the reason. (Score:5, Funny)
Thats why I always carry a false ID. I use public internet cafes often with my fake fingerprints and I always leave some skin deposits from my "alternate" on the keyboard. The daily exfoliation in the shower was difficult to adjust to, my skin stays very red for at least 2 hours but I have found some nice cream that seems to be working for the redness and also blocks my natural body oders (not the perfume for your armpits but the kind that will keep bloodhounds from tracking you!)
Re:So then the smart thing to do would be to ... (Score:2, Insightful)