Personal mobiles 'gps' tracked by RM?

[meercat]

In a story about the new proposed legislation on monitoring electronic communications James Ball in the Guardian said-

'Under Ripa, state employees as junior as Royal Mail officers are allowed to "ping" mobile phones for location information on the basis of a simple, unrecorded, verbal request.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH


What does he mean by that?
Are RM managers able to contact mobile operators and ask for location reports on our personal mobile phones if they have your number?

[Blue29]

...there is a less well-known part of RIPA - Part I, Chapter II which came into force in early 2004, and allows any police force, local council, and a whole host of other public sector organisations to effectively self-certify authorisation to compel telephone companies and ISPs to hand-over access to Communications Data - not the content of phone calls and emails, but traffic data such as the identity of parties, the IP addresses/telephone numbers, and the locations of the parties at the time of a communication.

In the case of mobile phones, the providers are able to triangulate the position of any mobile phone by ‘pinging’ it and seeing to which telephone masts it responds and the strength of signal at each. The particular signature communicated as a phone is being turned off was a key piece of evidence...

taken from the click through off your guardian link here http://gregcallus.tumblr.com/post/20290 ... ent-policy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[meercat]

Was aware of triangulation because most non gps equiped mobiles will do that for you these days and show your location to within sometimes a few hundread meters on a map.

Is anyone aware of Rm doing this with our private phones or is James Ball mistaken. He clearly states they are doing it.

[meercat]

and seeing to which telephone masts it responds and the strength of signal at each.

I don't think you wrote that Blue but just a technical point on that, I wouldn't think signal strength would be used atall becuase that is effected by objects in line of sight to an antenna eg walls, trees, trouser pockets etc. Triangulation of a phone just needs the direction of the signal arriving at 3 antennas and is done with simple trigonometry.

[POSTMAN]

Simple,don't give the c***s your mob num.

[Talell]

and seeing to which telephone masts it responds and the strength of signal at each.

I don't think you wrote that Blue but just a technical point on that, I wouldn't think signal strength would be used atall becuase that is effected by objects in line of sight to an antenna eg walls, trees, trouser pockets etc. Triangulation of a phone just needs the direction of the signal arriving at 3 antennas and is done with simple trigonometry.

on an even more technical point, a base station can't tell the direction a wave is hitting the antenna at. What it probably uses is latency to the 3 stations, which gives it a range where you could be relative to any single station. it then uses a sort of venn diagram, with the center of each circle being the base station. The point where all 3 circles intersect would be your approximate location when overlaid onto a map.

I didn't look up wikipedia, I used deduction, honest.

[meercat]

I didn't look up wikipedia, I used deduction, honest.

I simply don't believe you;)

Nice work and that must be correct. I did wonder briefly about them fitting direction sensors to each mast but not much point with venn diagrams to call on. We are talking billionths of seconds of difference here though aren't we? The nearest 3 antennas could be within 5km of each other maybe so is there enough dicernable latency there at light speed? Would they maybe use antenna many miles away to increase latency detection? And would that lead to more accuracy anyway considering distance is going to increase many fold? Check wikipedia and let us know:)

[wandle]

Simple,don't give the c***s your mob num.

Exactly. I would have thought one advantage of being on deliveries, as opposed to working indoors e.g. in a mail centre, is that once you're on the walk, you don't have a manager breathing down your neck. If you give them your mobile number, you open the possibility that they'll call you. So don't give it to 'em.

[flaminmoses]

Use a payg whilst at work and divert incoming calls to it

Simples

[Talell]

I didn't look up wikipedia, I used deduction, honest.

I simply don't believe you;)

Nice work and that must be correct. I did wonder briefly about them fitting direction sensors to each mast but not much point with venn diagrams to call on. We are talking billionths of seconds of difference here though aren't we? The nearest 3 antennas could be within 5km of each other maybe so is there enough dicernable latency there at light speed? Would they maybe use antenna many miles away to increase latency detection? And would that lead to more accuracy anyway considering distance is going to increase many fold? Check wikipedia and let us know:)

There is latency when using optical fibre, let alone when using OTA broadcasts.

As a general rule of thumb, it doesn't matter how 'fast' something moves in classical terms, it matter more how much data can be carried in one burst.

For example, HSPA, 3g technology used by all the major carriers in the UK, has around 1000ms latency when you ping a server. LTE, 4g tech that carriers are planning to move to, cuts it in half, using the same spectrum, therefore bandwidth.

Plus your idea for using masts from another cell wouldn't work, due to the fact you are introducing more and more errors, both in the math and in real world complications (e.g. loss of data packets, requiring more power to do it)

Larger differences are good when you are providing a proof of concept. For real world application, smaller the better.

Use a payg whilst at work and divert incoming calls to it

That wouldn't work with regard this problem, since it's the carriers software tracking your phone through a connection to a cell tower, and unless you turn your phone off, the carrier is going to know where that phone is, and when you turn the phone off, they will know where you turned it off, depending on whether the carriers keeps/tracks that info. Remember there was a huge outcry in the US late last over tracking software being installed on phones at the carriers request, that was promptly removed when it hit the major news sites.


Still haven't looked at wikipedia

[Blue29]

Didn't write it nor read it, just pasted as it seemed to inform the discussion.

For what it's worth I agree with you.

[noggin1969]

TBH it works both ways , had the usual argument with the LM about wether my duty could be done on time or if i'd need O/T he said it could be done so i used an app called endomondo to prove him wrong. He didn't like it one bit but as it shows a full GPS route map , top speed and average speed he had no way of turning down the O/T or moaning about me cutting off

[arnold cheshire]

RUBBISH it will just say you are near the nearest transmitter if anything

[k979aaa]

In a word BOLLOCKS you need to authorise your own phone to be tracked by someone other than the emergency services and GCHQ just be more concerned more about your PDA and your VAN the manager is BS you!.

[Talell]

RUBBISH it will just say you are near the nearest transmitter if anything

I never said anything that contradicts that.

I was merely talking about AGPS, which would be trivial for carriers to implement tracking of.