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Mobile Phone Tracking

Inverurie Jones said:
Every day I'm more and more relieved that I don't own one.
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You should get yourself one, IJ, then you can phone up Saddam or text message an Iraqi general . . .:p

Carole
 
Or phone the commander of the US forces and ask him what the hell he's playing at...
 
I once read a news article about this bloke who ran away, and was found at a later date. One of the first things he did was chuck his mobile away, as "he could be tracked" via it
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1699080,00.html

How I stalked my girlfriend

Ben Goldacre
Wednesday February 1, 2006
The Guardian

For the past week I've been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I'm going to tell you how I did it.

First, though, I ought to point out, that my girlfriend is a journalist, that I had her permission ("in principle ...") and that this was all in the name of science, bagging a Pulitzer and paying the school fees. You have nothing to worry about, or at least not from me.

But back to business. First I had to get hold of her phone. It wasn't difficult. We live together and she has no reason not to trust me, so she often leaves it lying around. And, after all, I only needed it for five minutes.

I unplugged her phone and took it upstairs to register it on a website I had been told about. It looks as if the service is mainly for tracking stock and staff movements: the Guardian, rather sensibly, doesn't want me to tell you any more than that. I ticked the website's terms and conditions without reading them, put in my debit card details, and bought 25 GSM Credits for £5 plus vat.

Almost immediately, my girlfriend's phone vibrated with a new text message. "Ben Goldacre has requested to add you to their Buddy List! To accept, simply reply to this message with 'LOCATE'". I sent the requested reply. The phone vibrated again. A second text arrived: "WARNING: [this service] allows other people to know where you are. For your own safety make sure that you know who is locating you." I deleted both these text messages.

On the website, I see the familiar number in my list of "GSM devices" and I click "locate". A map appears of the area in which we live, with a person-shaped blob in the middle, roughly 100 yards from our home. The phone doesn't go off at all. There is no trace of what I'm doing on her phone. I can't quite believe my eyes: I knew that the police could do this, and telecommunications companies, but not any old random person with five minutes access to someone else's phone. I can't find anything in her mobile that could possibly let her know that I'm checking her location. As devious systems go, it's foolproof. I set up the website to track her at regular intervals, take a snapshot of her whereabouts automatically, every half hour, and plot her path on the map, so that I can view it at my leisure. It felt, I have to say, exceedingly wrong.

By the time my better half got home, I was so childishly over-excited that I managed to keep all of this secret for precisely 30 seconds. And to my disappointment, she wasn't even slightly freaked out. I don't know if that says good or bad things about our relationship and I wouldn't want you to come away thinking it's all a bit "Mr & Mrs Smith" around here. Having said that, we came up with at least five new uses for this technology between us in a few minutes, all far more sinister than anything I had managed to concoct on my own.

And that, for me, was the clincher. Your mobile phone company could make money from selling information about your location to the companies that offer this service. If you have any reason to suspect that your phone might have been out of your sight, even for five minutes, and there is anyone who might want to track you: call your phone company and ask it to find out if there is a trace on your phone. Anybody could be watching you. It could be me.
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Blimey! After one quick search i managed to find countless companies offering this and similar services. I didn't realise it IS that easy. Now where's the girlfriends phone, i know shes up to something! :D
 
Save your money Rubyait, she's at my house with me.

See, what are friends for?
 
Lol, you dont know what your letting yourself in for! Hide your wallet and check recent credit card purchases. :lol:
 
diamonddogs said:
Someone told me today that you can turn some Nokia phones into radar detectors. It doesn't work on my Samsung, but let me know if you have any joy with YOUR Nokia:

Menu
Settings
Security Settings
Closed User Group
00000 and select ON
Return normal mode.

If it's accepted, it'll show a radar symbol and the 00000 code, and it should flash it you go near a radar trap.

(Sorry if someone's already posted something like this - the search didn't show anything up, but then does it ever??)
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Just tried this on my Nokia 1100 and it seemed to work in that I got the radar symbol & 00000. Only you select On first and then 00000. Seeing as I don't drive it might be awhile before I can check it out. Will try Hubby's phone when he gets home his is a 3100
 
Not relevant I know - but entertaining:

How to boil an egg:

How To Do It:

1. Take an egg from the fridge and place it in the egg cup in the centre of the table.

2. Switch on the radio or hifi and turn it up to a comfortable volume.

3. Switch on phone A and place it on the table such that the antenna (the pokey thing at the top) is about half an inch from the egg (you may need to experiment to get the relative heights correct - paperbacks are good if you have any - if not you may be able to get some wood off cuts from your local hardware shop).

4. Switch on phone B and ring phone A then place phone B on the table in a similar but complementary position to Phone A.

5. Answer phone A - you should be able to do this without removing it from the table. If not, don't panic, just return the phone to where you originally placed on the table.

6. Phone A will now be talking to Phone B whilst Phone B will be talking to Phone A.

7. Cooking time: This very much depends on the power output of your mobile phone. For instance, a pair of mobiles each with 2 Watts of transmitter output will take three minutes to boil a large free range egg. Check your user manual and remember that cooking time will be proportional to the inverse square of the output power for a given distance from egg to phone.

8. Cut out these instructions for future reference.
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http://www.wymsey.co.uk/wymchron/cooking.htm
 
I havent got a phone.

Ill have to eat my eggs raw, thats all
 
And these things don't fry your brain? :shock:
 
Might be worth trying out. If it does boil the egg then I'll consider reverting to carrier pigeon :)
 
rynner said:
And these things don't fry your brain? :shock:
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Fortunately most peoples skulls are substantially thicker then an egg shell.

I believe that after 20minutes of using a mobile phone, the skin and flesh immediatley adjacent to the phone will increase in temperature by around one third of a degree (celcius). In the same period the part of the brain immediately adjacent to the phone will increase in temperature by about one sixth of a degree.

Could possibly be a worry but then again I increase the temperature of my head and brain everytime I put on a hat but I've not heard anything about hat induced brain tumours. There was also a study published a few weeks ago which concluded that there was no evidence of mobile phones being linked to brain tumours. I believe it was a 10year study so it did include the usual caveat of mobile phones are a new technology and we don't know what might happen in the future...blah, blah, cover their backs etc.
 
JurekB said:
Could possibly be a worry but then again I increase the temperature of my head and brain everytime I put on a hat but I've not heard anything about hat induced brain tumours.
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My grandad used to attribute his baldness to hat-wearing (which was much more common in his day).
 
Didn't they try to cook an egg with 100 mobile phones on Brainiac or something similar once?

IIRC it didn't work.
 
I don't know about that but Brainiac did try to spark an explosion with a mobile phone. They wanted to test the mobile phone blowing up petrol station theory so what they did was to douse the inside of a caravan with petrol, leave a phone inside and dial it up. I believe they had some mechanism to answer the phone.

Anyway the caravan didn't explode so instead they dressed someone up in a shellsuit, got them to generate lots of static electricity and then let them touch a wire which led into the caravan.

Certainly proved you shouldn't fill your car up whilst wearing nylon.
 
I think as society increases the social control corrlationally does so. SImply for the fact that for capitalism to flourish and satiate its drive for profits, human liberties and freedom must be compromised. Every aspect of our lives will soon be tracked, a controlled population means more social stability which aids capitalism. This is also to do with the state controlling its population. Technology is a double edged sword in that knowledge and power is no longer limited by borders and controllable like in the cold war era. Technology conversely can be use to monitor us to restict any threat to the state and security, though I am sure most technology developed will be from consumer companies for profit first.

Of course the sinister idea of a big brother society is truly near I think, the aspect of the mobile phone is simply one facet of consumer technology that restricts our privacy.

BEWAREEE ooohohowooo
 
ouijaouija555 said:
Of course the sinister idea of a big brother society is truly near I think, the aspect of the mobile phone is simply one facet of consumer technology that restricts our privacy.

BEWAREEE ooohohowooo
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Er no. If there was for example a chip in the phone that allowed precise tracking of your location then the idea of mobile phone as social control would hold water, however this is using triangulation of your signal strength to approximate your location, something which is as old as radio, and rather imprecise (the original article mentions 100 yards).
 
Er no. If there was for example a chip in the phone that allowed precise tracking of your location then the idea of mobile phone as social control would hold water, however this is using triangulation of your signal strength to approximate your location, something which is as old as radio, and rather imprecise (the original article mentions 100 yards).
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yep 100 yeards now

6 feet in a few years Heckler
 
Well, they are rolling out new phones with better tracking devices to give mapping services and the like. Of course you don't have to buy them.

Regarding tracking mobiles, what exactly identifies the phone? If somebody is tracing my phone, and I then turn it off and change the sim card before turning it back on, will they still see it as the same phone?
 
Xanatico said:
Well, they are rolling out new phones with better tracking devices to give mapping services and the like. Of course you don't have to buy them.

Regarding tracking mobiles, what exactly identifies the phone? If somebody is tracing my phone, and I then turn it off and change the sim card before turning it back on, will they still see it as the same phone?
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Not sure how they are identified whether it's by IMEI or by sim and by extension phone number.

The International Mobile Equipment Identity - a unique 15-digit code used to identify an individual GSM mobile telephone to a mobile network. It can be displayed on most phones by dialling *#06#. It is also usually printed on the compliance plate under the battery.
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Source

I would assume sim because the triangulation is based upon the customer connecting to a base station (you connect to the nearest strongest signal when you switch your phone on).

The triangulation is then done by working out your distance from two other base stations by dint of your signal strength from these stations and between the three (approximately) is you. Thus the newness of the phone or the features (like having GPS on your phone or whatever) is immaterial it's the connection that tracks you, not the phone.

Switch your phone off and you disappear.

I would assume that Stolen phones are locked by sending out a signal to a specific IMEI from all company's basestations to refuse connection whatever the SIM. How this works I don't know unless part of the connection packet is the IMEI.
 
Re: phantom mobile phone calls.

tony stepton~ said:
On the topic of mobile phones,has anyone had a phantom call from thier mobile ?Some time ago friends of mine said that they were woken up by knocking on their front door by friends of theirs saying that friends daughter phoned them up in a state of panic and very frightened.Needless to say friends daugter was asleep in bed.After much debate all went home/back to bed.Later on in the night friends son was woken up by his mobile phone and the call came from the family's land line phone,which scared him!!!.Now my view is that the first call could of happened if the daughter had a nightmare and whilst still asleep called out in the dream,the other one with the son,that does spook me.Would like to hear of anyone who this or similar thing has happened.Many thanks.
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I remember my sister got a text from my phone saying "hello" at 8 in the morning when I was a sleep, my phone downstairs with the battery flat and no credit on the phone.
 
Re: phantom mobile phone calls.

disgruntledgoth said:
I remember my sister got a text from my phone saying "hello" at 8 in the morning when I was asleep, my phone downstairs with the battery flat and no credit on the phone.
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See, that's what bums me out about EVP or MTP (mobile text phenonema), they never have any great truths to impart 'from beyond'.
 
actually, as technology progresses I think you will find maybe this tracking will increase in specifity. For social control I believe, the companies and governments will say that this is to reduce crime and help track stolen illegal phones, as this is a very profitable market that criminals exploit. This technology can also be used for many other things.

3g phones send out a signal every few minutes or something like that, as I have one. 3G phones, let alone the 4th generation of mobile phones that uses wi fi has big implications for our freedom. These phones boast real capabilties to exploit our rights.

Everytime you buy a phone, you are told to register it for a) gain free credit b) offer guarantees c)gain access to extra options on your phone.

Those you cannot see the increasing drive for increased control through technology is not seeing the bigger picture.

credit cards
cctv in every shop
businesses able to see your health certificate
your pay monitored
speed cameras
centralised databases
phone tracking

those who read fortean times magazine with the raven on the cover might've seen that new little chip thing that is already placed in animals.
 
ouijaouija555 said:
those who read fortean times magazine with the raven on the cover might've seen that new little chip thing that is already placed in animals.
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There is a very very long thread on RFID here. It veers off to discuss the very issues of social control via technology that you raise here.

Make yourself a cup of tea and go to the loo before you start reading, it's a very long thread. ;)
 
So since I dont have a phone, does that make me a dangerous subversive?
 
Kondoru said:
So since I dont have a phone, does that make me a dangerous subversive?
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Nothing to do with not having a phone mate :p
 
gyrtrash said:
Well, they can track the whereabouts of your phone ;)

If you have a pre-pay phone and don't register it they don't know who has the mobile number or phone. I think the number of people with unregistered phones may be in the minority though.

I read recently that the tracking equipment currently in use can pinpoint your mobile's location to within 5 metres - or is this an UL?
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Sorry but with the demise of cards you can buy credit with most people pay via some kind of payment card so take a wild guess how safe your unregistered mobile is..
 
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