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Tracking People Via Cell Phone 392

Posted by Hemos from the not-how-you-think dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to the articleat the Guardian the UK Government have been working on a project to use the widely available mobile phone masts as a form of localised radar to track both people and vehicles without their knowledge. Supposedly there is even work on the way to give this project the ability to see through walls! Maybe Philip K. Dick was right to be paranoid about governments."
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Tracking People Via Cell Phone More

Tracking People Via Cell Phone

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  • The UK has discovered that radio waves can go through walls now? You mean I no longer have to go outside to talk on the cellphone? Will wonders never cease.

    • Re:Good heavens, through walls? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @11:55AM (#4445972)
      "The UK has discovered that radio waves can go through walls now?"

      Actually, there is a fairly old invention that does allow one to see through walls. It's called a 'window'.
      • You can't recommend using Windows on SlashDot you'll just get flamed for it. :)

        As for the cell thing; some localities are doing a primitive version of cell phone tracking already in order to monitor traffic conditions.

        All they have to do is monitor the speed at which cell phones move down a roadway (being handed from tower to tower) and they can determine the approximate speed of traffic on that roadway. They don't need to know specifically which user is where, just that the average speed of all cell phones on that system is X MPH.

        Obviously this can also help them spot potential problems; when the cell phones all slow or stop unexplicably.

        -Coach-

    • Re:Good heavens, through walls? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @12:37PM (#4446268)
      The UK has discovered that radio waves can go through walls now?

      Yep, if you want to stop undesirable signals coming in these days, you need to build your house with one of these new-fangled "fire walls". As a bonus, your heating bills go way down, though you do have to be careful about the roof, since it's only held up by hot air.

  • Next big thing (Score:5, Funny)

    by Burdell ( 228580 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:29AM (#4445375)
    Next they'll realize that they can track nerds via /. posts.

  • Dick? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tyler Eaves ( 344284 )
    I tend to favor Orwellian paranoia myself...

  • Finnish Sonera has a trial in .fi (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:30AM (#4445389)
    Take a look at here [mspace.fi] .
    There you can give a permission to your friends with Sonera cellphone accounts to locate you.

  • The tin-foil hat I wear to keep the government out of my head can help them find my phone.

    So how does this interfere with UK's wiretapping laws (if any apply)? I am not up to policies for police across the pond.

    • So how does this interfere with UK's wiretapping laws (if any apply)?

      It dosn't.
      Nobody is evesdroping on your phone call, just ""pinging"" your phone. I suspect the law is similar in most countries

      Anyway, bacofoil is the tin foil of choice for avoiding government intervention :-)

      • Thank you for the clarification. I was concerned that since this was being implemented via. phone equipment, it would fall under that category. So, correct me if I am wrong again, a wire-tap concerns the information transfered only over the wire, but no metadata concerning the conversation, i.e. where and when it happened, possible videotaping of the conversation, sound amplification and recording on a party in the conversation, etc.? That can all be gathered freely?

        If this is forging new legislative waters as well, I hope they do come up with something soon limiting the use of such systems without court approval. To me, it seems Video surveillance systems are easier to use without order to gather information and use against people, being that possession of the system that is recording you is 9/10ths of the law (Security Cameras, Traffic Cameras, X10 Cameras, etc.).

      • I don't think it is even pinging your phone - it is pinging *you*. As a conductive object, you reflect RF - including the RF generated by mobile phone masts. As you move, you change the pattern of reflections. The pervasive mobile phone masts create a kind of universal radar transmitter receiver, so the only thing that the snooper needs to carry to spy on you is a receiver.

        OTOH, all they will see is that a person is moving hither, thither and yon. They woundt see what you are doing or hear what you are saying.

        So, from the Civil Liberties point of view, this is no worse (but no better than) universal CCTV surveillance. There will be nowhere you can go - above ground, out of doors - that they can't watch you. I am skeptical about the "through walls" bit - through some walls, some of the time, but my mobile often loses signal indoors - and if I don't get enough signal to recieve, I am surely not reflecting much.

        The signal is unlikely to be detailed enough to identify you, so all that they can tell is that a human is moving. This could be useful in two ways. As the article says, monitoring "no humans allowed" areas like security barriers round military and nuclear installations. And tracking someone once they have been identifier - e.g. tracking the kidnappers as they run off with the ransom money. But there would be a *lot* of ways of shaking such a tail an an urban area - if you knew it was happening.

  • status symbol (Score:3, Insightful)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:33AM (#4445398) Journal
    As far as I am concerned, not having a cell phone is a status symbol...

  • Just to help those who don't read the article.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by pwagland ( 472537 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:33AM (#4445402) Journal
    This is nothing to do with tracking mobile phones.

    Rather what it does is to transform all of the telephone masts into "radar platforms". So, it cannot identify you, but it can tell you that there is something in a particular location....

    • Would be a way to sneak in speeding tickets with no extra roadside equipment except a camera to identify the speeder.

      A related use would be to tell cops where "speeding hot spots" are, so they can go hide there.

      Really, this technology doesn't scare me very much. It's nothing they couldn't already do. Even the Libertarian in me has a hard time getting too riled up over this. There are bigger battles to fight than this.
    • Ah, I see. So while it may not pinpoint a person, it could tell authorities that a particular call was relayed thru a particular mast, thus the odds are that the person they want to catch is in a certain radius??

      (I read the article, but somehow didn't extract this til I read your post. :)

      • Re:Just to help those who don't read the article.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by PainKilleR-CE ( 597083 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @12:13PM (#4446082)
        Ah, I see. So while it may not pinpoint a person, it could tell authorities that a particular call was relayed thru a particular mast, thus the odds are that the person they want to catch is in a certain radius??

        No, this has nothing to do with relaying calls through the antenna. If you're using a phone they can track you anyway, especially when you're using it. What this is talking about is using the mast that your calls are relayed through as a radar, which allows them to pick up ANYTHING (over a certain size I'm sure, based on the wavelength and other factors) moving in that particular area, regardless of whether or not people are actually using a phone. If you're in an area that has a phone signal, the masts that provide for that signal can also be used to watch the movement of all people and vehicles in the area, though it can't identify them individually (unless they have phones, then they could probably put the two pieces of information together, or incoordination with other surveillance systems, as mentioned in the article, such as training a video camera on a person or vehicle that was spotted moving in the area of that camera). The example used in the article is that of monitoring sensitive areas, such as nuclear plants, so they can see, thanks to the cell masts, that a person or vehicle has approached or crossed the perimeter around that plant, and they can notify the plant's security or use the plant's existing systems to further identify the breach.
    • To be very specific, it makes every mast into a Bistatic radar emitter. The tower emits the pulse thanks to GSM older design, and one or more reciever arrayed around receive the original signal and the bounces. So rather then allocate bandwidth, setup seperate emitters, and field it all over they are killing two bird with an existing stone.
      This will see through some things, but not the way you think of it normally. You will get information indicating a "Large signal bounce", not the housewife at home. Although the low cost security, vehicle tracking, suspect finding (guns have a great cross section at these frequencies) applications are enormous.
      Now the question is if they can make it work with CDMA. Possible, but probably not practical.

      • Pulse compression (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
        One technique used in radar today is "pulse compression", that of modulating a radar pulse with a sequence that produces a large spike when correlated with itself. The most common such codes for actual pulses are called Barker codes, the longest of which is 13 bits. So, for example, with a 13-bit Barker code, a 13 microsecond "pulse" at 1 megawatt can produce nearly the same resolution and signal/noise performance as a 1 microsecond actual pulse at 13 megawatts.

        There are also cyclic orthogonal codes that allow for even larger code lengths, turning a modulated CW signal into a virtual "pulsed" signal. Radio astronomers at Arecibo used this technique for radar imaging of Venus. The transmitter transmitted a megawatt or so CW, modulated with a sequence that was something on the order of 8000 bits long. The cyclic codes aren't as orthogonal to themselves as the Barker codes, but I believe they got an effective gain of around 5000-6000, giving an effective 5-6 gigawatt pulsed transmitter.

        Note that CDMA happens to rely on orthogonal codes...
        • Pulse compression is a great technology, but it requires some circumstances that we don't have here. First, the spread codes for CDMA have a large number of bits compared to most systems used in radar. Second, the synchronization would be non trivial in this case, partly due to the wide spread. Third, the power is variable to enhance overall system performance.
          If someone could tackle the sync problems with making a CDMA signal into a usable bistatic emitter, then there might be a low update (when you get a strong output signal), or short range application that works well.

  • This is not new. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 )
    GSM allows for some (limited) form of triangulation of a call.

    This is not very easy to do, but, if I remember well, a couple of years ago, the French emergency services were able to track down a small group of people, who were blocked in the mountains with nothing but a cell phone to call for help.

    Apparently, it took a couple of phone calls (not easy to to as the weather was bad and the phone battery almost dead) to be able to triangulate their exact position, but it worked -- they were rescued after about 4 days and four nights lost out there in the woods. I am sure other European countries have seen the same thing happen.

    Bottom line? Don't use a GSM cell phone if you are paranoid... and don't forget your nice and shiny tinfoil hat to protect your brain from all the microwaves... =)

    • Re:This is not new. (Score:4, Informative)

      by PainKilleR-CE ( 597083 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:42AM (#4445485)
      What is new, however, is what this article is talking about: using the cell masts (the antennas that allow people to have cell service in an area, not the phones themselves) as a radar to track everything in a particular area. You don't have to carry a cell phone to be tracked, thanks to the fact that (almost) everyone wants cell service everywhere all the time.

    • Re:This is not new. (Score:5, Informative)

      by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:44AM (#4445506) Homepage Journal
      It is very easy to do and it's even a commercial service with many mobile phone operators. I have signed up with Friendfinder and agreed that a few of my friends can have access to my location information - by sending a simple SMS they get charged around 50c and get a reply with my current location. In the same way, I can see where they are - or rather, where their phones are. They do not have to make calls, having the phone switched on is sufficient.

      Oh, and this article has nothing to do with that. It's about using the radio waves emitted by the cell phone towers as a form of radar - detecting how the radio energy bounces back from buildings, submarine periscopes, airplanes and people with tinfoil hats. You should read it, it's actually very interesting.

  • Already in use at Finland (Score:4, Informative)

    by huge ( 52607 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:34AM (#4445407)
    They are already doing this at Finland, though police has limited access to such information and they need court order to get it.

  • Tin Foil Hat (Score:3, Insightful)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi@CURIE ... minus physicist> on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:34AM (#4445408) Journal
    The only way I'd want to see this is if *I* could use it too.

    Far to much power is being consolidated in far to few people.

    Give everyone this tech and everyone would spy on each other for a year or two, then it would be common and boring. (except in small towns, where people would like to know the last time the neigbors wiped their ass.)

  • You've missed the point (Score:5, Informative)

    by kingk0ng ( 616038 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:35AM (#4445415) Journal
    This isn't just monitoring which cell a phone user is in, but actually using the base station masts as radar to detect moving objects (e.g. people and cars) anywhere within the field - which means basically making the entire UK transparent, even if you're not carrying a cellphone! It's perfectly serious, here's [roke.co.uk] a link to the company developing it - first mentioned in Jane's Defence Weekly in 2000, but it's only recently got government funding.
    • Yes, there has always been some ideas about the use of ambient radiation from cellphone base stations and TV transmitters as a way of detecting stealth objects. The idea is that even if an object reflects nothing, it still creates a hole in the environment where there is no radiation. This can not be jammed and enables anything to be detected (including B1s, etc).

      Roke Manor is the former research centre from Plessey and specialised in radar and communications.

    • Might as well use all that radiation we are constantly bathed in for something useful... I wonder how long before they can turn a cell tower into a sort of directed engergy weapon. Think about it, get 2 or 6 phone towers and electronically steer them towards a point on earth, possibly using this "CellDar" as a targetting system. Time the intersecting beams for the various towers to reach the target exactly in-phase, causing constructive interference at the target's brain, say. The 500,000 watts or so of RF/microwave radiation placed in a few square inches of brain tissue would cause immediate nervous system disruption and perhaps instant death.

      The former Soviets actually did a lot of research into directed energy and such weapons. They also developed a lot of interesting research on other uses for concentrated RF--it seems as though the human nervous system operates on a kind of clock (it isn't just randomly firing), and certain frequencies of directed energy can disrupt and change brain patterns, even influence behavior. Of course, all of their experiments involved very powerful RF at very close range to the emitter under lab conditions.... Only with many emitters, computer-controlled, with some type of targeting system, could make this thing work at a longer range.

      Of course, it isn't published--so it doesn't exist--and I'm going to get flamed off slashdot and told to go put on my tinfoil hat. What would you do if you had a mind control system? Tell the world. I guess so...

  • Easy to get around.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by onion2k ( 203094 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:36AM (#4445426) Homepage
    Its easy to avoid.. just stand very, very still.

  • ...if you're a government.

    I mean, why waste time trying to get skin implants into your population (or some other sci-fi of the week device) when you can simply use something ubiquitous as the cell phone to track the general population!
  • ther resources to track random people.

    they will just use it as a servalence mechanism, hence, they will get a warent. this will also allow them to get the cell phone records on a person in order to coroberate an alibie of a suspect.

  • Signal Processing (Score:2, Informative)

    by e8johan ( 605347 )
    It seems that half of the comments are from people who has not read the article!

    The article talks of a radar system based on the reflected waves from mobile phones. I have a number of problems with this:

    * The problem is huge, as each signal emitter is mobile, and thus the signal processing needed to filter out the source of each signal-bounce must be huge.

    * As the number of signal emitters are variable in the vicinity of each reciever, this make the signal processing even more complex.

    * They claim to being able to put all this in a laptop sized device.

    This would not be so controversial if it was a simple cell phone tracing system, as they allready exist. In Sweden, one of the major competators even offer a 'locate' service, allowing other users to locate a phone. This service can be turned on and off from the located phone by sending SMSs. Even when turned off, the phone can still be located, all you block is the ability to get a position on another phone. This can, and has been used by the police to, for example, prove that a certain person has been at a certain location at a certain time.
    • This can, and has been used by the police to, for example, prove that a certain person has been at a certain location at a certain time.

      Incorrect. This cannot prove that a certain person has been at a certain location at a certain time. It can only prove that a certain cellphone has been at a certain location at a certain time.
      • Technically I agree with you, but it is up to the court to judge if it can be concidered proven that the person has been there. I believe that it is one piece in a large number of circumstances that makes it *very* likely that the person has been at the location at the time.
    • The article talks of a radar system based on the reflected waves from mobile phones.
      Um, it's based on reflections of the transmissions from the fixed base stations, not the mobile devices. That's probably still a lot of processing, admittedly.

      I'll admit to being just a little sceptical about how detailed a picture they'll be able to get, but if all you want is a motion sensor for a sensitive area, or a general idea of how much activity there is that shouldn't be so big a problem.

    • Re:Signal Processing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @11:16AM (#4445729) Homepage
      It seems that half of the comments are from people who has not read the article!

      The article talks of a radar system based on the reflected waves from mobile phones.

      Like yourself maybe? ;) It is actually talking about using mobile phone *masts* as a basic radar station and has nothing to do with handsets what so ever. The reasoning is that since the base station's transmissions generate echos in the same way as a conventional RADAR installation's transmissions do, then you can listen to and make sense of those echos. By monitoring the returning echos at the base station you can generate a RADAR type map of the surrounding area, and by intelligently looking for changes within that you can detect say, a group of Greenpeace members approaching Sizewell B. nuclear powerstation as a moving state change from the normally static background image.

      I used this example on purpose; if the system was live, and given the picture at the BBC [bbc.co.uk] this seems to be an ideal site (ie. flat, limited access) for this kind of thing. If the system were live already then these people would be in jail right now while someone tried to determine whether they are really from Greenpeace, or from Al Qaida. So the tinfoil hat crowd can relax for the time being. But here's a thought: Have you ever considered what an *excellent* RADAR repeater a tinfoil hat makes? Seriously.

      Actually, the fact that any kind of intruders managed to get onto a nuclear installation apres 9/11 is considerably worrying to me, but that's another matter.

  • In Ireland... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kr3m3Puff ( 413047 ) <me AT kitsonkelly DOT com> on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:39AM (#4445465) Homepage Journal
    I had the privilage of working for a mobile company in Ireland, and one day I was be-bopping around the building and accidently came across a room that I hadn't noticed before. I looked in and saw a giant metal cage and in the cage was a comuputer console and a couple of large servers. I asked the network guy later what it was and he told me it was for the Garda (Police in the Republic of Ireland) to be able to track people. Basically, under court order, they could track down anyone. The understanding of the technology has been around for a long time. Simple triangulation of transmission and there you go, got them. The problem is actually getting access to the information.

    I found out later I wasn't supposed to know about that and that there were essentially Garda assigned to that room on a 24 hour basis to impliment any court ordered tracking.

    Obviously you aren't made aware of these when signing your monthly agreement, are you?
    • What do they do about pre-paid mobile phones? Where I'm from (Isle of Man) you can buy a Pronto SIM pack with cash, without giving your name or address - and you can top up the said Pronto Go account by buying the vouchers with cash. If the Police want to track a particular person by their mobile phone and they use prepaid, they are going to have to find out the target's phone number first.

      • Re:In Ireland... (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by rot26 ( 240034 )
        What do they do about pre-paid mobile phones?

        I suspect that you'll see the ability to anonymously buy a mobile phone go away very soon.
        • Then the next step will be using force/intimidation to scare techs at mobile phone cos to activate "unknown" cell phones. The precedence for this being organized crime's use of hijacked or unofficial phone lines, usually by having a polite conversation with phone co employees about how good their children look and how nice it would be if they kept looking good.

  • panopticon (Score:4, Insightful)

    by StrawberryFrog ( 67065 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:40AM (#4445468) Homepage Journal
    Read the article. Holy crap!

    This is not tracking where your phone is. That's old hat.

    This is using the cellphone signal radiation as an imaging system, like radar or x-rays. Except always on, everywhere. Anyone who walks or drives within range would be imaged.

    Sure it would be low res and only show large and/or moving objects like people and cars but It's quite the panopticon. i.e. everyting everwhere is seen.

  • Radar evasion (Score:3, Funny)

    by wolfywolfy ( 107431 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:41AM (#4445479)
    The technology 'sees' the shapes made when radio waves emitted by mobile phone masts meet an obstruction. Signals bounced back by immobile objects, such as walls or trees, are filtered out by the receiver
    .. couldn't you just stand still and 'disappear'? .. or create some kind of personal radar evasion device, like a big blowup doll that moves around.. or get down on all fours (and get filtered out as "dog")
  • you can be triangulated on. You don't have to be talking. Since your cell phone has to announce it's availability to local cells so that it can receive incoming calls, you can be found. Not as invasive as the GPS phones or this cell phone radar, but still not comfort inducing. So if you're concerned (and you know who you are), shut off that phone.

    • Re:As long as it's on ... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pat__ ( 26992 )
      Normally I wouldn't reply to minor mistakes but that's modded up probably cause people don't really know how GSM works.

      > your cell phone has to announce it's availability to local cells
      That's not technically correct.

      You cell phone does not announce it's availability to local cells unless you are being paged (someone is trying to call you / sending you sms ...)

      The cellphone has to announce it's availabily to the new Local Area (UpdateLocation messages) when it enters a new Area but not to the cells when it is travelling between cells.

      LAs cover usually several cities and can conver tens/hundreds of Kms square and you cannot be triangulated using that information.

      However it is still possible for "them" to page you and drop the signal before your phones starts ringing so that your phone announces it's location to the cell and that way you can be traked...

      Just so that things are clear ...
  • We need to be paranoid about our governments? Why, yes, of course they can do nasty things to us. Way nastier than tracking criminals, I'd say. My guess, though, is that most /. readers live in countries where the people have at least some power over their government. So if you don't like a policy, try to not make them do it.

    ---
    Odzacar cisti odzak
    • Why is that? I have other things to do with my life than to fight governments and telemarketers. If I don't want something, why should I be forced to have it anyway? I don't want it, leave me the hell alone.

  • Philip K. Dick (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 ) <hutnick@gmail.com> on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:47AM (#4445532) Homepage Journal
    Philip K. Dick was right to be paranoid about governments.


    Yeah, or even Thomas Jefferson. Or the ancient Greeks.

    -Peter
    • Yeah, or even Thomas Jefferson
      Yeah, but this is slashdot, where more people have heard of Dick than Jefferson. Besides, when've they ever made an Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster out of "Notes on The State Of Virginia"
      • <accent="austrian">
        "'Da tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. Come with me if you want to live."
        </accent=>

        (Yes, I am aware that this quote is not from the cited document.)

        -Peter
    • Yeah, or even Thomas Jefferson. Or the ancient Greeks.

      Agreed. Not only is he a relatively obscure (for the masses, that is) dead sci-fi author, he was also not very interested in politics, his books do mostly deal with metaphysical issues rather than the more "mundane" paranoia considered here, and the greeks predated him by a couple of thousand years.

      The writeups on this place are sometimes so silly as to defy reason.
  • So now we need legislation to make sure everyone

    a) Has a mobile phone
    b) Cannot turn it off
    c) Leave it at home

    Wow, we'll catch all those crooks now...

  • This is even worse than it sounds (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oooga ( 307220 ) <oooga@@@usa...net> on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:56AM (#4445597)
    In the past, all or most of technology-related privacy concerns have differed from this one in a single simple aspect: you basically had to be an active user of whatever technology was exploiting your privacy to be vulnerable to it. Therefore in order for your credit card to be stolen online, it needed to, at some point be transmitted via an online purchase or transaction. More to the point, you actually had to OWN a credit card. A person with all his wealth in gold buried in his back yard had nothing to fear from hackers and the Y2K bug.

    Similarly, spam, web tracking, email monitoring, phone tapping, phone-based GPS geo-location; all of these invasions could, by eschewing the technologies involved and choosing to live a simpler, less connected life, be avoided. The sacrifice involved was significant, but not unmanagable.

    If technologies like these become acceptable forms of populace control, this axiom of "it only affects you if you use it" will no longer apply. A technophobe with no phone line and no electricity living in a cold-water flat in London will still be vulnerable to electronic espionage. The current range of this technology is anywhere cellular service is available. Considering I was able to make a call this summer from the peak of a 5000 meter isolated mountain top in the remote Italian alps, I find this idea truly terrifying.

    The UK has, in recent years, been a bellweather for survaillance practices worldwide. As an American citizen beginning to see the sort of widespread video survaillance now common to those living in England, I make a simple plea to any UK citizens reading: Do anything within your power to stop this. Write letters, mail threatening powders, strip in front of parliment. (Note: don't mail powder. thats a bad idea) Anything to keep this idea from gaining a foothold. I ask this of you so that you aren't subjected to it, but also so that it doesn't eventually bleed into my country.

  • PKD? Come on... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SPYvSPY ( 166790 )
    Maybe Philip K. Dick was right to be paranoid about governments.

    First of all, I challenge the notion that Philip K. Dick was 'paranoid'. I know I'm straying a bit off topic here, but I think this characterization is really unsophisticated and does not do Dick's legacy any justice. PKD used all sorts of mechanisms to portray life as a sequences of overlapping and (occassionally) paradoxical realities. In this sense, Dick was quite non-Hegelian in his philisophical outlook -- a trait that separates him from most 'paranoids'.

    In any event, I can think of about ten billion better examples of people that *are* actually 'paranoid' about governments.

  • Calm Down! Physics says it can't work that well! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Fleetie ( 603229 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @11:06AM (#4445666) Homepage
    People seem to be imagining this technology giving you decent-quality moving pics of people moving around. Impossible (IMNSHO) for the following simple but adequate reasons:
    1) Phone masts are designed for 1.8GHz tops. At that freq, lambda is about 17cm. Therefore that's about your spatial resolution. Also, this may not apply in all directions. You might, in fact probably will, be worse off in some axes. In fact, I'm not sure you'll get more than a 2-D map out of it, since cellphone masts are laid out in a 2-D pattern, and there is no "grid" in the third dimension (height above ground, altitude).
    2) So, it's impossible to identify an individual with that poor resolution
    3) And, you can;t even track one moving individual reliably. Someone would (IMNSHO) only have to approach someone, embrace them, spin around a bit, and alk off again, and then I suspect the "viewer" wouldn't be able to tell which individual was which. Do that a few times with a few people, and the number of possible people the "baddie" could be goes up rapidly!
    4) All the above assumes the system works really well even at that poor resolution (17cm). What's the temporal resolution, or "frame rate" of the system? Pretty crap, I bet!
    5) So quit worrying. There's no way that this technology can be as sexy as it sounds just using existing cellphone masts.

    Martin "Fleetie"
    • Wrong.
      I was a Ground Surveillance Systems Operator in the United States Army. Your right the resolution on the radar will not allow you to actually "see" the person, but It turns out you can "hear" the reflected doppler shift and a trained ear can descriminate between A vehicle, pedestrian or even two pedestrians if they have varying amounts of metal on them or have different walking rhythms. So If I had the opportunity to listen to a target walking, for about a minute, then the target embracing someone and walking off would do no good unless they had the same rhythm and the same equipment/belts/zippers and arm swing. I would be able to continue to track them. Of course if the target walked up to someone, embraced them and both targets then started skipping or prancing off in other directions, I would lose them, Or rather I would track both, so really this will only obfuscate you if you can walk up embrace, prance, and repeat. But doing this might draw attention to yourself.
  • From my understanding of the article, the observer makes use of the signals broadcast from a local cell tower, presumably equipped with their own receiver, to pick up the reflections from moving objects in the vicinity.

    In WW2 both sides used strips of aluminium foil (codenamed "Window" by the UK) of the correct length (relative to wavelength) to jam the opposition's radar. If you were so worried, what would stop you from lining the insides of your house etc strips of the appropriate length? Would there be a problem with tuning it to cell frequencies?

    I'm just curious to understand the issues involved.
  • And we've had surveillance satellites that can see the headlines of the newspaper you're reading in the park since the '80s.

    So why panic now?

    It's not the information that's collected that's scary - it's how it's used.

    If they used it to track the movements of organized crime, and it helped build cases, go for it.

    If they used it to track every Brit's trip to the "loo", and sold the information to Cottonelle to increase their TP market-share, that's not so good.

  • cellphone traffic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Traicovn ( 226034 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @11:15AM (#4445724) Homepage
    This really isn't that new of a technology. I know it has been proposed here in the US on some highways to use information like the number of cellphones in an area, the information could be used to track things like traffic congestion, and then monitoring centers could direct highway patrol to problem areas. It might also help alert highway patrol of accidents, etc. The idea is that they monitor the flow and can see the number of cellphones in an area. The technology of course makes sense because so many people have cellphones and with digital cellphone technology your phone maintains a constant, or almost constant connection to the cellphone tower to my understanding, whether you are making a phone call or not. I know that if you look at this http://money.tbo.com/money/MGAKCWDF15D.html [tbo.com] that you can see where this sort of technology has already been used, but not applying to cellular phones. The idea is essentially the same however. I believe that the cellphone traffic technology stuff I'm talking about was planned for testing somewhere south of D.C. on the beltway or something. It was either Virginia or Maryland where I saw something about it though. Don't know if it ever got implemented.

    Some people may also know that reccent government mandates in the US have required cellphone companies and manufacturers to be able to locate a cellphone call to a more precise geographical area. I believe that the goal is something like 25 feet or so. I think the requirement is 300 feet right now. Not sure on this though. The reason stated was of course for 911 calls, however other uses could be conceived.

    People can turn their cellphones off, however there are some theories that the phone may still give off some signals (so just remove the battery). Of course new legislation will require you not to remove the battery and the phone will not be able to be opened, etc or else you'll be brought to court under DMCA type laws! heheh Maybe going into areas of 'No Service' will be forbidden too :)

  • Dear Slashgods (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @11:27AM (#4445805) Homepage

    Hear my prayer. Smite down the hordes that posteth about triangulation and about GPRS, for they have not read the linked-to article. Curse them with boils and locusts and bad, bad karma, and banisheth also those that moderate them up, for they do spill their karma upon the stony ground. As in Kuro5hin, so shall it be on Slashdot, for ever and ever, amen.

  • It's not like they can identify the objects seen by this system. Unless given prior knowledge or a starting point (Person X was here at time Y), they're just unidentified reflections.

    As it is, if they really want to track someone and obtain the same information this system could provide, it's a simple matter of sending up an AWACS plane. (Note: The comments in the article about a fixed system are WRONG. Powerful radars can be and have been put into airplanes) Yes, the new system is more convenient, but doesn't really provide THAT much information that could be used to invade privacy. Hell, carry around a mylar birthday balloon or two and all of a sudden you're an 18-wheeler as far as they're concerned. (I remember a few Slashdot articles ago there were links to the guy who tied 20-30 balloons to an armchair and took off - A few years later another guy repeated the incident and wrapped his tether lines in aluminum foil. He appeared to nearby radar systems to be as large as 4 stacked 747s. He would've looked even bigged if he'd used conductive balloons - One weather balloon can appear as large as a supertanker on radar if it's covered in a conductive material.)

    As someone else pointed out, tracking of actual phones (Which can be linked to someone's identity) is "old hat". Already pretty good accuracy is possible (especially on CDMA networks due to properties of CDMA signals that make them very good for range estimation - CDMA signals and GPS "Gold codes" are VERY close relatives of each other.), and the next generation of phones (Some are already out) are E-911 capable, which adds GPS capability to the phone that is used for 911 calls.

  • Passive RADAR studies underway everywhere (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikewas ( 119762 ) <(wascher) (at) (gmail.com)> on Monday October 14, 2002 @11:35AM (#4445841) Homepage
    There has been a lot of research into passive and/or bistatic RADAR. Bistatic RADAR uses transmitter[s] physically seperate from the reciever[s]. Passive systems are similar, but use RF sources that are primarily intended for other uses, e.g. TV, radio.

    Here are some links I found: DARPA research [uiuc.edu], Canadian project [www.nrc.ca] (they're pretty tight -lipped about this), and German work [fhr.fgan.de] is ongoing too.

    It seems to have been used in astonomy [geocities.com] for counting meteors & observing auroras.

  • Lockheed Martin's "Silent Sentry" system has been trackin airplanes this way for several years, but instead of using relatively weak and short-range cellphone signals, they use the immensely stronger broadcast television and radio signals. A simple demonstration of this technology can be done with any old TV attached to an antenna -- when an airplane flies over, you often get a distortion or echoes in the TV image. As you might imagine, if you explicitly start looking for these distortions, you can detect and track the airplanes remarkably well.

    Lockheed's first installation had used regular Radio-Shack TV antennas, but they were replaced pretty quickly by simple T-shaped antennas, along the wall of their building near Baltimore-Washington International airport. They claimed to be able to track targets more than 100 miles away. One spectacular advantage of this kind of 'radar' is that it has no emissions of its own, so the pilots have no inkling that their plane is being tracked. Apparently these systems required substantial computing horsepower, but of course the price of that has plummeted recently. I'm sure that one could build one of these systems now for a shockingly small amount of money.

    Given the work that has been done using the long-wavelength TV signals, I'm sure that it will not be long at all before the equivalent cell tower based system can be deployed. It will be interesting to see what it is used for. Theoretically, these systems could have tremendous positive value; for example, things like smart cruise-control that knows where all the cars around you might be. Still, at least in the beginning, you can be sure that it will be exploited by the military and police forces first.

    thad
  • I know for a fact that both Finland where I live, and New Zealand where I was involved (can't disclose more, sorry) very directly with Location Based Services, have 'em since 3 years. So, this is not news at all. Maybe the folks in UK think it is, though ;o)

    The technology is actually really easy to implement, because the Visitor Location Register (part of the mobile switching center) already sends the (somewhat cryptic) location of the cell where you are, but previously people didn't think it would be useful. There's a bit more to it, to determine the position more precisely, but basically, that's it.

  • Multistatic radar (Score:3, Interesting)

    by europrobe ( 167359 ) <daniel@@@perup...net> on Monday October 14, 2002 @12:13PM (#4446081) Homepage
    This has been concieved as a way of defeating stealth aircraft, and some [usatoday.com] observers [theherald.co.uk] believe this was how the Serbs shot down the F117 stealth fighter during the Kosovo campaign.

    Stealth aircraft work mostly by reflecting radar away from the transmitter. But when the transmitter and receiver are not located at the same site, this can be defeated. Mobile phone networks fill the air with electromagnetic radiation, and if any one transmitter is located at a "lucky" spot, the receiver will be able to pick up the reflection from an aircraft. Since the open air usually doesn't reflect any radiation, an aircraft will stand out from the background.

    Of course, to aquire range information, you'd have to trangulate with another receiver. And you can hardly use the doppler effect to get rid of ground clutter, since you'll be listening to a wide range of frequencies from a number of base stations. Also, it puts a new perspective on the question of targeting civilian infrastructure or not.

  • Where, but not Who! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HuskyDog ( 143220 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @12:14PM (#4446090) Homepage
    1) If you are one of the 90% who didn't read the article, THIS WORKS EVEN IF YOU AREN'T CARRYING A CELLPHONE!

    2) I don't believe that this system will be able to tell one person from another. So, for example, if you go somewhere where you can't be tracked (large building, subway, etc) the odds are that when you emerge you will just be an anonymous blob on the sceen (until you pass a security camera anyway).

    3) Here's another idea. When walking about, keep passing very close to other people. It will make it more difficult for the operators to keep track of which blob is you.

    4) Perhaps some sort of jammer could be devised. The total energy reflected by your body would be VERY small, so you would only need to radiate a microscopic amount of power. Probably less than would interfere with surrounding cellphones. Could a track on jam system be devised? Possibly, but I think that it would need changes to the central system.

    • If you are one of the 90% who didn't read the article, THIS WORKS EVEN IF YOU AREN'T CARRYING A CELLPHONE!
      hear hear!

      BTW, As has been pointed out, if you are carrying a cellphone, the watchers will get both where (and I presume a sillouete of you) and who. I find the idea a bit disturbing.

  • Lockheed's 'Silent Sentry' has done this for years (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Monday October 14, 2002 @12:15PM (#4446102) Journal
    Lockheed Martin's "Silent Sentry" [uiuc.edu] system has been trackin airplanes this way for several years, but instead of using relatively weak and short-range cellphone signals, they use the immensely stronger broadcast television and radio signals. A simple demonstration of this technology can be done with any old TV attached to an antenna -- when an airplane flies over, you often get a distortion or echoes in the TV image. As you might imagine, if you explicitly start looking for these distortions, you can detect and track the airplanes remarkably well.

    Lockheed's first installation had used regular Radio-Shack TV antennas, but they were replaced pretty quickly by simple T-shaped antennas, along the wall of their building near Baltimore-Washington International airport. They claimed to be able to track targets more than 100 miles away. One spectacular advantage of this kind of 'radar' is that it has no emissions of its own, so the pilots have no inkling that their plane is being tracked. Apparently these systems required substantial computing horsepower, but of course the price of that has plummeted recently. I'm sure that one could build one of these systems now for a shockingly small amount of money.

    Given the work that has been done using the long-wavelength TV signals, I'm sure that it will not be long at all before the equivalent cell tower based system can be deployed. It will be interesting to see what it is used for. Theoretically, these systems could have tremendous positive value; for example, things like smart cruise-control that knows where all the cars around you might be. Still, at least in the beginning, you can be sure that it will be exploited by the military and police forces first.

    thad

  • Some Good Uses (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gurutc ( 613652 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @12:34PM (#4446237)
    I have already pitched this idea to the South Carolina State Government to allow hurricane evacuation traffic management. During a recent evacuation, the Interstate was gridlocked for 24 hrs while a major highway 2 miles away was empty.

  • Tracking Cell Phone Users (Score:3, Funny)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @01:00PM (#4446429)
    Actually, it's been possible to triangulate cell phone users positions for quite some time. It's pretty simple, all you do is listen.

    "NO! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! SPEAK UP! I'M IN A CINEMA"

    Ah yes. The asshole's over there.

  • Similar technology used with TV transmissions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CrystalFalcon ( 233559 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @01:38PM (#4446741) Homepage
    IIRC (can't find the exact article now), according to MilTech [moench-group.com] magazine, China has implemented, or is implementing, a similar scheme for military use. However, it is based on civilian TV broadcasts!

    All these TV transmissions make up a radio pattern in the air, and by using arrays of passive receivers that analyze the radio waves at their particular spot, you can easily spot any large object moving through the air, interfering with the radio patterns. Thus, "stealth" aircraft will have a tough time as it is no longer necessary to return a radar signature to be spotted on radar -- you just have to be a large, blunt object in the enemy airspace.

    So what enables this is basically lots and lots of processing power to continuously analyze the radio field patterns.

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