rsnider@nexus.yorku.ca (04/01/89)
Yesterday I sat in my office and had a nice chat with a friend of mine
who called my from his truck while driving through Toronto. We talked
for about 10 minutes and I noticed that handoff happened about 4 times.
In this 10 minutes he could not have driven more than 10 km. This seems
to imply to me that the cell areas are about 4 km apart.
Afterward I thought about this and relized that the cellular service
providers here have a VERY good idea of where you are with your phone.
There seems to be a potential here for the police department to locate
stolen vehicles with cellular phones in them by simply having the
service providers tell them where they are. As well, the phones will
respond if polled so there does not have to be a conversation in progress
in order to do this.
With some fiddling about with the computers, I am sure that the
cellular network could easily report location within .5 km since each
transmitter maintains a record (or samples) of signal strength relative
to other nearby transmitters to decide when to handoff. Unfortunately
I believe that if the general public was made aware of how well their
location was known if they owned a cellular phone there would be rage and
panic, not to mention there is not a thing that can be done about it.
I seem to remember that somewhere in the states a company offered a
service to find your stolen car. You get this transmitter installed
in your car and some police car has a directional receiver that they
use to follow your car around if it has been stolen. It never caught
on because everyone thought this made people too easy to find even if
the car is not stolen.
So how many people out there just decided to turn off their cellular
phone when they are not using it or expecting calls ?
After all, you ARE being watched......
Richard Snider
Where: ..uunet!mnetor!yunexus!xrtll!rsnider Also: rsnider@xrtll.UUCP
"Hey ! Whats with all the blue lines on the RGB Monitor ???"
"Ummm.....Looks like.....well....Ethernet!"john@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (John Higdon) (04/04/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0121m01@vector.UUCP>, xrtll!rsnider@nexus.yorku.ca writes: > So how many people out there just decided to turn off their cellular > phone when they are not using it or expecting calls ? > After all, you ARE being watched...... Frankly, I do turn off my handheld when I am not using it or expecting calls, but that's only to preserve the battery. I really don't care if the cellular system "knows" where I am; I'm not hiding. Now if my boss could tell that I wasn't calling from downtown San Francisco but instead calling from the Napa wine country, that would be a different matter. I suspect, however, that this information will not be available on a casual basis. If you stop to think about it, *they* certainly know where you are when you use your home or office phone, don't they. And I understand that the cellular phone is still the communications medium of choice among LA's finest drug dealers:-) -- John Higdon john@zygot ..sun!{apple|cohesive|pacbell}!zygot!john
dave@rutgers.edu (Dave Levenson) (04/05/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0121m01@vector.UUCP>, xrtll!rsnider@nexus.yorku.ca writes: > Yesterday I sat in my office and had a nice chat with a friend of mine > who called my from his truck while driving through Toronto... > Afterward I thought about this and relized that the cellular service > providers here have a VERY good idea of where you are with your phone. > There seems to be a potential here for the police department to locate > stolen vehicles with cellular phones in them by simply having the > service providers tell them where they are. As well, the phones will > respond if polled so there does not have to be a conversation in progress > in order to do this. A few years ago, a friend had a cellular mobile phone stolen from her car. She called the local service provider to ask them to try to locate the vehicle. (She worked at Bell Laboratories, and was involved in the development of the software that makes Cellular Telephony work.) They refused to do any kind of tracing, and suggested that their equipment did not make the information available. They did offer to turn off the service (by causing their switch to reject calls to/from the mobile number). The stolen equipment turned up on my friend's door step one morning a few weeks later! -- Dave Levenson /-----------------------------\ Westmark, Inc. | If you can't give me your | Warren, NJ USA | Phone number, don't call! | {rutgers | att}!westmark!dave \-----------------------------/
jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) (04/05/89)
It's not all clear that the ECPA prohibits listening to the cellular control channel. There might be some potential for a business that monitors all traffic on the cellular control channel in an area and reduces the data. Not only could you locate stolen phones, but you could develop targeted marketing information concerning heavy cellular phone users. John Nagle
brent@gatech.edu (Brent) (04/07/89)
Indeed Big Brother is watching. I discussed cellular fraud
with a tech person who works with a cellular provider. When they
detect a fradulent user (he claimed they could detect such a person
the first time they used the phone), they put their number on a
"fraudlent" list and included the geographic area (cell) where
they were. Then I guess they look for patterns.
brent laminack (gatech!itm!brent)