Posted on 08/29/2011 1:56:47 PM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
I am reading a very interesting book on surveillance (Surveillance or Security? - The risks posed by new wiretapping technologies by Susan Landau). In it the author makes a passing comment that cell phone locations (proximity to a tower) can be tracked even with the phone turned off. The implication is that turning the phone off only turns off the user interface, not the periodic pings. Removing the battery will turn this off.
I have seen some statements that this is correct and others that say it's not but nothing (in a quick search) that's definitive.
Does anyone have an authoritative source with an answer?
lol...you bad!
Ha! There’s so many raisin’s in there it made its own prison pruno (don’t ask me how I know).
If you want to finesse it, put a screwdriver on one edge and then smash the screwdriver with a hammer.
Let them track you...it keeps them busy not tracking the rest of us.
Well, when in doubt -— I sent an email to the book’s author.
You need more than that - you need a cage made of mu-metal because the EM signal has a magnetic component which also needs to be blocked, in addition to the electrical component.
If you really have it fully wrapped in conductive foil so that you have a true Faraday cage (i.e., an electrostatic shield), the currents induced on the inner surface of that shield by the magnetic field cancel it out.
Hold My Beer, while I give it a try.
So, lets say you secretly went to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings on Thursdays, and you pulled the battery out almost every Thursday when you did. If three weeks out of four there is no data for 2 hours, and one week out of four there is data showing you at a given point for those 2 hours, well, the phone company can put 2 and 2 together and figure out where you probably are.
Tracking isn't just immediate. It's logged. So, wherever your phone has been while it's on leaves a record.
I did get a reply from the book’s author. “Manipulated” means that software has to be installed to make the phone beacon when switched off. This is intrusive and requires a wiretap warrant to be legal.
Yes, but karma is a...well...you know.
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