Re: Cellular location...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Fri, 24 Jan 1997 aaron@herringn.com wrote:
Presented in a "this will help 911" context. Still disconcerting.
[...] Companies working on the technology to track cellular phone calls have been given additional incentive with a Federal Communications Commission order that all cell phone service companies have location programs in place by the year 2001. [...]
I wonder how expensive it would be to put a GPS receiver in a cell phone and have the option to transmit the coordinates on a separate channel. There would be little difference between this and forcing cell phone companies to triangulate every call. The primary motivation for this is almost certainly "location escrow" to make it easier for the feds to track drug dealers. Mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMuqrJizIPc7jvyFpAQEmsAf+KysBgt9xRDg/Wp0yJ+jTBEwueVMZu0vB z9KtEOQDLCZkd7bzzIeJwjXochpA5fqlXetP/pRyAT058ewE2OEYz3SgK2zwz3s/ LRTFHRAIdj4f/+7PTKx6LvoN4NPvKOssqZ4KpX/YYNm/pHhe7eKCY8uV2AEXnoxz bfs6FgLDYhEtdBYhQGhSbRUgl0MrdW6crmEredavCkZCuqf6G6YOZ7PB1kGK3ZlH QqIkcDrV2RewY738KuKRb1xsQJHtSC8hgchM6eYY6qpac0BkpQLESo4777wv/5/a oDMP/ubR8cXokEzQgmhRo8eeHCXBJ8tiKOkKzstkTAdSGOONlc9ttQ== =j7WP -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
At 07:54 PM 1/25/97 -0500, Mark M. wrote:
Companies working on the technology to track cellular phone calls [...] I wonder how expensive it would be to put a GPS receiver in a cell phone and have the option to transmit the coordinates on a separate channel.
Pretty expensive - GPS receivers currently cost ~$200, which is more than the average cell phone, and needs a whole separate set of radio-receiver hardware, so you'd about double the size of your phone. On the other hand, the cell sites already know which you're close to, and can easily enough track when you've made transitions between cells. So they can get a good start on location by processing information that the phone companies need to have anyway. Would they save any of this for later? Of course not :-)
"location escrow" to make it easier for the feds to track drug dealers. And everybody else....
# Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)
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Mark M.