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Privacy Wireless Networking Hardware Technology

Track People Using Their Mobile Phones 257

Posted by timothy from the double-edged dept.
Richard W.M. Jones writes "A couple of new services have been rolled out in the UK recently which allow you to track people when they have their mobile phones turned on. Mapminder states 'It's important to know where your loved ones are for your own peace of mind'. 192.com asks 'Do you want to know where your children are?'. Of course the police have been able to do this for a long time, and evidence from mobile phone positions has been used in high-profile court cases in the UK. Silicon.com has an article."
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Track People Using Their Mobile Phones More

Track People Using Their Mobile Phones

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  • the moral is (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:18PM (#7589371)
    if you're going to whack someone, first hide your phone in a restaurant a couple miles away....then you can "prove" you weren't at the crime scene.

    • Re:the moral is (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zeinfeld ( 263942 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:34PM (#7589466) Homepage
      if you're going to whack someone, first hide your phone in a restaurant a couple miles away....then you can "prove" you weren't at the crime scene.

      A while ago, before 9/11 I was sitting in a bizare meeting with a bunch of wireless execs who were breathlessly telling us how great their new location finder service was going to be. They could send you adverts targetted at people in a particular location.

      I was rather unpopular when I asked if the customers would buy a product if the chief benefit was going to be to enable a new kind of spam. "Perhaps they don't get the choice"

      I was even more unpopular when I pointed out that the regulators in Europe would blast this type of thing on privacy grounds. "Oh the regulators tend to be more sensible than the general public".

      I pointed out that my cousin, one of those regulators has survived two assasination attempts and may have an opinion about a technology that gives away his position. In Europe privacy is not something that you muck arround with.

      Today the risk of this type of scheme would be obvious even to a US legislator. Now right to life will be able to stalk doctors who provide abortions by telephone, Saddam loyalists will be able to stalk senior Republicans and Al Qaeda will be able to stalk everyone.

      So they are finally working out socially acceptable ways to package up the same technology. Was it really necessary to have the dotCOM bust before some folk got a clue?

      • Today the risk of this type of scheme would be obvious even to a US legislator. Now right to life will be able to stalk doctors who provide abortions by telephone, Saddam loyalists will be able to stalk senior Republicans and Al Qaeda will be able to stalk everyone.

        ...which is why reporters on Air Force One [cnn.com] were required to remove the batteries from their cell phones on the President's Thanksgiving Day trip to Iraq.

        They know how to control it for themselves -- why should they care about the privacy of i

    • Re:the moral is (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SlashdotLemming ( 640272 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @06:04PM (#7589595)
      then you can "prove" you weren't at the crime scene.

      No, you can just "prove" that your phone wasn't at the crime scene.
    • or just find out what their phone number is, thereby you can find them wherever they go and whack them.

  • Track anyone... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 )
    unless they lend the phone to someone else. So much for knowing where your children are.
    • Or toss the phone on a truck or in a bus after stealing a kid. You'd be looking in the wrong direction. This isn't reliable unless the phone was hidden.

  • Amazing how the truth comes out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rebeka thomas ( 673264 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:19PM (#7589375)
    Back around 1999 & 2000 there were rumours/news stories about the possibility of being tracked by mobile phones, and much discussion about how it wasn't really technically possible. Phone companies denied it could be done, many law enforcement agencies denied they used it (although some were forthcoming enough to say more). The general consensus was that it was something out of the XFiles.

    Now it's commercial a scant 3 years later. Who'd have guessed.
    • Rubbish
      Location Based Services (LBS) have been touted for years now as the next big thing in the Geospatial arena.
  • Obviously, this is good if you have a cell phone and are being tried for a crime that you did not commit, it's just a simple matter of proving where you were at XX:XX:XX on XXX the XX of XXXXXXXX. However, if someone steals your phone, then plants it on a perpetrator, then sneakily gives it back, you've got some explaining to do.
    • How does the fact that I left my phone at home while I was out committing prove that I didn't do it? This can be used to exonerate; it can only be used as part of circumstancial evidence leading to conviction if the criminal is stupid enough to carry his bugged phone with him. And anyway, how embarrassing is it when you're in the middle of breaking into a locked apartment, and you get a call from your mom? Oooh, I hate it when that happens!
    • Remember to leave your phone at home before you do your dastardly deeds. It will save the embarrassment of having to tense your hand in court so the glove won't fit.

      BTW, this post is assuming that the phone company is keeping accurate records of every place your phone visits. Having the ability to track phones does not mean that telcos are tracking every phone at the moment.
    • (Tim throws Gareth's stapler - inscribed with Gareth's name - out of a window.)

      Gareth: "What if that killed someone?" Tim: "Well then... they'll think you're the murderer, it's got your name on it" Gareth: "Why would a murderer put his name on a murder weapon?" Tim: "To stop people borrowing it"

  • Great for me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:20PM (#7589386) Homepage
    This way my mother can find out I'm at a strib club, and won't ask me any inconvenient and embarrising questions when I get home because she will be too embarrised.

  • Easy service in the UK (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:21PM (#7589393)
    A couple of new services have been rolled out in the UK recently which allow you to track people when they have their mobile phones turned on.

    Such a service has existed for a long time. It's :

    Mom: [dialing little James] Jimmy, where are you?
    Little James: [Stepping out of the arcade] I'm at the school library
    Of course, the accuracy of the information wasn't always guaranteed ...

  • Cell Phone tracking covered before on /. (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheRedHorse ( 559375 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:21PM (#7589396)
    Here [slashdot.org] and passive radar tracking via cell phone towers here [slashdot.org].

  • Doubled edged? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:22PM (#7589403)
    The danger isn't so much in you knowing where your loved ones and/or children are at all times. The danger is me knowing where they are.

    No, I'm not a deviant, I'm just making a point.

  • Virgin Mobile have kept records... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:22PM (#7589405) Homepage
    Of users location since they started in 1998. It would be fantastic to be able to get access to this and find out where you had been and when - bet it would make a pretty map.
    • Traffic analysis is big money. Imagine being able to track auto traffic real time based on the cel phone usage on the highways.

      Other Good things: Resturant reservations and accurate wait times. The est. number of people in a club to avoid breaking fire code. The popularity of attractions and events in a city. And, a positive way for street cops to tell who is in the area, or who saw a crime.
    • It would be fantastic to be able to get access to this and find out where you had been and when

      Even better, combine information from all Virgin point of sales in the UK to obtain much more details :

      8:21 - Virgin Mobile phone turned on in Kensington
      9:55 - Virgin Mobile customer applies for a Virgin credit card
      10:34 - Virgin Mobile customer orders a Virgin Cola near the Virgin V2 music store in Kensington
      11:03 - Virgin Mobile customer goes for Virgin Vodka instead. Cola sucks.
      12:45 - Virgin Mobile custome

      • Re:Virgin Mobile have kept records... (Score:5, Funny)

        by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @06:35PM (#7589737)
        8:21 - Virgin Mobile phone turned on in Kensington
        9:55 - Virgin Mobile customer applies for a Virgin credit card
        10:34 - Virgin Mobile customer orders a Virgin Cola near the Virgin V2 music store in Kensington
        11:03 - Virgin Mobile customer goes for Virgin Vodka instead. Cola sucks.
        12:45 - Virgin Mobile customer boards Virgin train, westbound

        Which would then more likely go:

        13:45 - Virgin Mobile customer still on Virgin train, stationary
        14:45 - Virgin Mobile customer getting slightly fed up with Virgin train, stationary
        15:45 - Virgin Mobile customer homicidal on Virgin train, eastbound (slowly)
        16:45 - Virgin Mobile customer still on Virgin train, texting death threat to Richard Branson

        Best wishes,
        Mike.

    • In theory Virgin customers should be able to request the infomation that refers to themselves by making a request under the Data Protection Act [hmso.gov.uk].
  • It will be interesting to see what happends when location information obtained from cell phones and other common devices can be used to advertize.
  • This [nextel.com] has been out for awhile. Also, there will be (or already are) features in newer phones that provide location information to 911 call centers automatically.
  • During a family vacation in New England, we were driving on some windy mountain road somewhere near the border of NH and VT. We came across an accident (motorcycler ran into a tree). Well, there were lots of tourists there, and all had cell phones. But nobody knew where we were (not even which state, since we were near the border). Spent about 15 minutes arguing with operators who wouldn't send an ambulance without a specific location, while the guy lay bleeding on the pavement.

    That was about 10 years ago, but certainly shows how cell-phone signal triangulation can save lives.

    • If you're so concerned about saving lives, then why don't you carry a GPS with you and read off the numbers to the 911 operator. There's no reason for them to know where you are unless you want them to.

      • Re:This can save lives too, you know.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by sonamchauhan ( 587356 ) <sonamc@NOsPam.gmail.com> on Saturday November 29, 2003 @06:13PM (#7589639) Journal
        If you're so concerned about saving lives, then why don't you carry a GPS with you and read off the numbers to the 911 operator.
        That should be his choice. All he is saying (and he is correct, of course) is that cell phone triangulation can save lives.

        There's no reason for them to know where you are unless you want them to.
        He wants them to.

        Cell phone companies already know roughly which zone your cell-phone is in (if it is turned on). And there are laws to protect privacy, etc.

        If you don't want the cell company to know where you are, turn your phone off.

        • That Verizon could make my phone work at the sites of accidents (or near my work for that matter...). Seems all the popular accident sites are in "dead=spots" around NY City.

          I have also stopped at numerous accidents (I'm a doc) in rural vermont and norther NY on trips, and had no clue where I am, talking to a state trooper who was 100mi away at the time (who also didn't know any of the landmarks I was near) and having the phone Co be able to locate me would have made it much easier...

          As for carrying a G

        • Also, you could implement reverse 911 services. After a serious crime, a warning could be sent to anyone in a given area.
      • Nope GPS could work if every one had it. Most states use a system that is based on a linear reference system that is out of date or by road log. GPS is only being used in a handful of states that are making a map based on it.

        How do I know? I am paid to make a GIS of the GPS.
    • Spent about 15 minutes arguing with operators who wouldn't send an ambulance without a specific location, while the guy lay bleeding on the pavement.

      Speaking both as someone who's waited for ambulances to show up while I was bleeding and as a former first aid volunteer, I must say that if they don't really know where the ambulance has to get to, its better not to send it.

      Imagine if they had sent it to say, the other side of the mountain (or whatever) and it then had to backtrack for 45 minutes once the

    • tired of such arguments (Score:5, Insightful)

      by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @06:17PM (#7589653)
      I'm tired of theses "this can save lives" arguments. Fascism "can save lives", too, but most people seem to agree that it just isn't worth it. Well, actually, they agree in the abstract, at least, but each individual step towards it gets justified with your kind of argument.

      I think being able to track one's own location via GPS or cell phones is really swell. But when the police or employers can do it as a matter of course, then it fundamentally changes the kind of society we have.

      • The best of both worlds (Score:3, Insightful)

        by phorm ( 591458 )
        Include the feature, allow it to be disabled... by default.

        If you want to be tracked, it's a feature. If you don't, you're not having your privacy violated.

        Of course... the main issue is with whether or not you can tell if it's actually disabled. And of course police monitoring warrants apply regardless (same as they do with a home phone wiretap, I would assume?).
        • Trouble is: you have no control over cell tower based tracking. If it's offered as a service that you can easily enable/disable, it means that the infrastructure is in place for anybody to take advantage of it with little more than a click or a phone call.

          In any case, I'm not saying that this should or shouldn't be done. I'm just saying that the argument "it saves lives" is, by itself, a bad one. Lots of policies "save lives" but that doesn't make them good ideas.
          • Indeed, but realistically though the ability is there for the cell companies to monitor, it shouldn't be available to private citizens. Even parents monitoring their teens is a violation of privacy.

            I'd would say however, that if it's not disabled in cellphones, then it should be unavailable to the general public anyways, and for that matter the authorities without proper warrants, etc.

            I would also say, however, if somebody has an emergency and authorizes over-phone the use of cellular tracking, then it
      • But when the police or employers can do it as a matter of course, then it fundamentally changes the kind of society we have.

        And what reasons do you have for not wanting the police to have the ability to locate you, hmmmm?

  • Will it ever be possible to block this sort of information. Imagine if someone that the U.S. was at war with was to obtain the location of someone in the gov't?

    Even better, what if I could find and track Justin Timberlake?

    Scary stuff here.

  • if you're worried about it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SolemnDragon ( 593956 ) <solemndragon AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:27PM (#7589430) Homepage Journal
    Oke. Most of the services are opt-in. And there are good reasons, including kidnapping, theft, and accident, why you'd want your cell phone to broadcast its location.

    If you don't, including for police and other emergency services, you've still got an opt-out: Take out the battery. This is not as permanent as leaving it at home, and gives you privacy. But be sure to be someplace you don't mind having listed as your last known location first.

    Me, i'm pretty comfortable having my location known, and feel oke about this being part of the cellphone i'm shopping for lately. i've seen too many people go missing in Boston to really like the idea of being vanished from the map. I always swore that the child-leashes in malls were a bad idea, too, until a friend's kid got snatched. They closed the mall and found the guy- in less than five minutes he'd changed the kid's clothes and dyed his hair (which was still wet with the dye.) Now i'm not so sure i don't like the leashes, you know?

    sol

    • Insert joke about DMCA making it illegal to "reverse engineer" your phone and remove the battery here.

    • I always swore that the child-leashes in malls were a bad idea, too, until a friend's kid got snatched. They closed the mall and found the guy- in less than five minutes he'd changed the kid's clothes and dyed his hair (which was still wet with the dye.)

      Which mall? When? Which police department handled the case?

      Just curious, because this has the ring of one of the older urban legends, so if you have a hard cite for when and where it happened, I'd be truly grateful (and might be able to win some money pl

      • It was around 1996-97, lived in Massachusetts, i think attleboro area, don't remember which mall, but there was a child molester arrested there in a separate case a couple of years later. Want to say Emerald Square, but i'm not 100% sure. If you're serious about looking, that's what i've got offer until the next time i talk to my former sensei, who will definitely remember because he had a small child at the same time all this happened, so we all were talking about it after class.

        There have actually been

    • Re:if you're worried about it (Score:4, Informative)

      by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @06:20PM (#7589666)
      ...a friend's kid got snatched. They closed the mall and found the guy- in less than five minutes he'd changed the kid's clothes and dyed his hair

      Really? I'm sure snopes would like names and dates for this event [snopes.com].
    • I always swore that the child-leashes in malls were a bad idea, too, until a friend's kid got snatched. They closed the mall and found the guy- in less than five minutes he'd changed the kid's clothes and dyed his hair (which was still wet with the dye.) Now i'm not so sure i don't like the leashes, you know?

      Now that's just being silly. If you really want to keep your kids safe, you shouldn't take them to the mall in the first place. Instead, you should lock them in their rooms until they're 18 -- and sin

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah (Score:5, Informative)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowar ... m ['oo.' in gap]> on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:27PM (#7589432) Journal
    "Location based services" is the technical term. Basically the GSM provider can localize a phone depending on its last known cell contact. Phones in passive mode re-register themselves automatically only every half-hour or so, so the position is not up to date unless the person is using the phone to call or send messages. There is a kind of 'ping' SMS which just causes the phone to re-register and thus return a valid position. It only works if the phone is turned on (doh!). The whole concept is seen as a great money spinner by the GSM providers, but like MMS and other new gadgets, that is more optimistic than realistic. LBS is probably going to be most useful in chat and dating, allowing over-horny people (I suspect mainly gays) to find each other simply by tapping on their phone. The "find your loved ones" is a joke, no-one actually expects to use this to find their errant husband or kids - it's for dating, boozing, and possibly the return of stolen phones (the service I would most appreciate, having had 5+ phones stolen in the last two years).

    My company develops LBS SMS products. It's a fun market.

    • ...allowing over-horny people (I suspect mainly gays) to find each other simply by tapping on their phone.

      SMS and MMS are old school. We use the new gaydar profile for Bluetooth.

      Along the other line of your comment, I don't see gay people putting burdens on child welfare and education systems like the equally-frequent, over-horny straight people. How can conservatives simultaneously whine about gay people being more promiscuous than straights and the prevalence of teenage pregnencies and welfare moms?

      Pe

      • Uhm, "gay people" aren't specifically horny, it's men that are, and gay men just don't have the restraint that the female side of the relationship normally provides. Hey, I'm quoting from a gay friend of mine who explained why he had a different partner at least once, and often more than once, every week, for years.

        A straight guy would do the same (speaking for myself) if he could convince attractive women to go along for the ride, so to speak.

        The Bluetooth thing is cool, but won't help you find company

  • Carriers have been using Triangulation for a while (Score:5, Informative)

    by PureFiction ( 10256 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:28PM (#7589436)
    This is all pretty well known to those watching the E911 drama unfold.

    The easiest and simplest method for most carriers to comply with E911 is using triangulation. Indeed, bellsouth even posted a nice article about the various ways location can be obtained for cell phone users [bellsouth.com].

    Obviously, with a GPS stuck in the phone itself this becomes really trivial, but even with normal phones you can use a variety of techniques, like Time Difference Of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle Of Arrival (AOA) and even Enhanced Observed Time Difference (EOTD) to triangulate the location of a wireless caller.

    The carriers are already using this technology across the US, and many phones are now available with GPS integrated.

    Welcome to the future.

    • With the narrow channel bandwidths, TDOA is not going to work very well. But if you can get the phone to simultaneously transmit on 2 widely separated frequencies (maybe 1 on each end of the allocated spectrum), you could probably get it narrowed down to 10 meters if they are wide enough apart. AOA will do much better, despite being fuzzy at long distances, for routine tracking, but not to 10 meters.

      I think I need to get a tin foil hat for my cell phone.

  • Of course... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eese ( 647951 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:29PM (#7589439)
    This does not track people.
    It tracks their cell phones. Those things are not necessarily in the same place.

  • Phone off but you can still be tracked (Score:5, Informative)

    by bored_SuSE_user ( 701483 ) * on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:33PM (#7589463) Homepage Journal
    I found out this when I was working over the summer. Your mobile can still be tracked even though it's switched off. The only way to ensure it is not tracked is to physically take the battery out of it. This can be proved by listening to the interference caused by the phone when it's off and near a radio/stereo for example.

  • I'll just bet 192.com wants to know (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ezraekman ( 650090 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:33PM (#7589464) Homepage
    As if we'd want to trust them with our data. Last time I gave them mine, it "mysteriously" got into the hands of spammers. "Mysterious", because I gave them an e-mail address specific to them, in case they should attempt something like this. Easily tracked, easily disposed of. Oh well...

  • Kevin Mitnick (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bran6don ( 693931 )
    This is how the feds finally caught kevin mitnick. He was hacking into the phone system using a cellular modem. They triangulated his frequency and caught him in his van.

  • complete government Know-You tools (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ciaran_o_riordan ( 662132 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:42PM (#7589505) Homepage
    With a mobile phone, if your government ever suspects that you are a dissident, not only can they pull up a complete travel log for your life since you got the phone, but they can also check who you have been talking to, and the movements of those people too.

    We must value our rights, such as privacy, before we accept technology. Electronic voting was the latest disaster. E-books will be the next.

  • Who do you trust? (Score:3, Funny)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:48PM (#7589526)
    This is great news for all those people out there being stalked by their ex's who happen to be in law enforcement! Now the bastard can always know where you are! Too bad about them tracing that cell phone to your safe house...
  • This is nothing new. TruePosition [trueposition.com] is the market leader in the US for this.

  • Mapminder's software (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SashaM ( 520334 ) <msasha&gmail,com> on Saturday November 29, 2003 @05:59PM (#7589569) Homepage
    Just to brag, I (and one other guy) wrote the client side software of the maps at MapMinder. The company who wrote the whole thing is Telmap [telmap.com], which was founded by me and a highschool friend of mine :-) Took me about 2 months to get the maps to look as great as they do.

  • Blue tooth in Denmark to track your kid. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Saggi ( 462624 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @06:12PM (#7589629) Homepage
    Track your children.

    Some of these services come in Denmark as well. Today we already use some tracking systems to track children, preventing them from becoming lost. The below article describe a blue tooth system installed in Aalborg Zoo here in Denmark.

    http://in.tech.yahoo.com/030620/137/25bu3.html

    The system is in principle (but not technically) the same as triangulation of a cell phone to track your child between school and home. The main issue arises if tracking is allowed without the cell phone owners consent.

    By the way; if I was a kid who didn't want mom and dad to know where I was, I would borrow my phone to someone else, or just turn it of. Kids are not stupid...

  • Cell Phones (Score:4, Funny)

    by cybercuzco ( 100904 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @06:54PM (#7589834) Homepage Journal
    What about police officer cell phones? If im trying to rob a bank, can I use this to tell when the cops are coming?
    • If French Fries= Freedom Fries and French Toast = Freedom Toast I want to leave the US and go live in Freedom

      I like this comment. Next, I want French Tickler = Freedom Tickler

  • ...if it's not passed already. In this story [bbc.co.uk], it's reported that "Finland, the home of the mobile phone, is considering legislation that would allow parents to track the moves of their children on an internet page at home, using a system which locates their child's phone.
    If the bill is passed, Finland would become one of the first European countries to allow individuals to track others without their consent and could serve as an EU benchmark."

    There is even a diagram [bbc.co.uk] showing how the system works.

    Welcum 2

  • What a load (Score:4, Insightful)

    by symbolic ( 11752 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @07:20PM (#7589950)
    It's important to know where your loved ones are for your own peace of mind

    Pity the poor humans who didn't have this technology available. The more I think about it, the more I wonder how we ever survived, not knowing where a "loved one" was at any moment. I'm of the opinion that people who would use such a service are obsessive, and probably need help.
  • From cnn.com's timeline of Bush's Thanksgiving jaunt to Baghdad:

    "During the flight from Texas to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where they will change planes, White House deputy chief of staff Joseph Hagin asks the journalists to remove the batteries from their cell phones so their movement cannot be tracked, and asks them not to turn on their cell phones when they arrive at Andrews. He tells them they will receive new cell phones when they reach Baghdad. Other journalists join the group at Andrews
  • I work for a major Mobile Telecoms company. As part of the e112 project we can now pass location based information to the emergency services when you dial 112 (999/911 etc). On plain old GSM/GPRS we can get accuracy to within 50 metres - best case. If you're outside an urban area your location can be any where from 1 - 50km.

    We curretly use this for LBS (Location Based services) such as finding your nearest pub / taxi / cinema etc.

    You do have the option to turn off the ability to be located by typing in

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