Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 06:27 PM 6/26/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism?
I hate to break the news to you Major, but GPS enabled phones cannot be
instructed to turn off the GPS feature for law enforcement queries (e.g., 911). Turn it on or turn it off, makes no matter.
Sir, I do not own a cellphone. Do any models let YOU decide to send your location to ANOTHER phone? Do any models even let YOU know your OWN approx location (to within that 100m Fedfascist standard)? I'm fully aware the pigs track you unless the battery is removed or you have a TEMPEST case. I'm suggesting that regular citizens will have access to that, if (in my cluelessness) they don't already.
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism?
<snip>
Do any models let YOU decide to send your location to ANOTHER phone?
Mine, an Samsung I330 PDA/Phone (actually a rebranded Handspring) allows you to selectively *disable* non-lea queries. Based upon this, I do not believe that the system is broadcast-based, but rather operates solely upon a query-response model.
Do any models even let YOU know your OWN approx location (to within that 100m Fedfascist standard)?
Mine does not, but I understand that there are models now coming into the market which do.
I'm fully aware the pigs track you unless the battery is removed or you have a TEMPEST case.
Hrmmm... Cell Phone. TEMPEST Case. What's wrong with this picture??? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org "...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them." Osama Bin Laden
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
I'm fully aware the pigs track you unless the battery is removed or you have a TEMPEST case. I'm suggesting that regular citizens will have access to that, if (in my cluelessness) they don't already.
If the phone is shielded, it can't transmit/receive, which makes it rather useless. :( There is one potential landmine as well; the inherent ability of any device containing resonators to behave like a crude RFID tag. I heard somewhere, and my memory may be failing, that it is possible to irradiate the phone with the frequency of the cellular band, and it faintly resonates and returns back its own echo, which has minute variations given by type, manufacturing tolerances, and possibly age of the phone, giving it a kind of unique signature. (This could potentially apply also to radios and transceivers. Does anybody have any idea if it is possible to do such kind of "active fingerprinting" of rf devices? This way it should be possible to detect even powered-off devices like hidden transceivers or body wires; take a transmitter, sweep the spectrum, and watch echoes on the receiver - there could be peaks on the frequencies of the tuned circuits inside the examined device.) Question to RF heads here: could it work?
On Jun 26, 2004, at 23:56, J.A. Terranson wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Do any models let YOU decide to send your location to ANOTHER phone?
Mine, an Samsung I330 PDA/Phone (actually a rebranded Handspring) allows you to selectively *disable* non-lea queries. Based upon this, I do not believe that the system is broadcast-based, but rather operates solely upon a query-response model.
Do any models even let YOU know your OWN approx location (to within that 100m Fedfascist standard)?
Mine does not, but I understand that there are models now coming into the market which do.
I'm a little late to this thread, sorry... AT&T m-mode models have had this kind of functionality for quite awhile. http://www.mobileinfo.com/news_2002/Issue25/ATT_Finder.htm "With a few keystrokes on a wireless phone, a m-mode subscriber is given the approximate geographic location of his friend, such as a street intersection. The two friends can then exchange messages, call the other, or choose a place to meet from a directory of nearby restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and bookstores." I'm pretty sure they don't use GPS for this... I think they do some form of triangulation from the cell towers. --bgt
participants (4)
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bgt -
J.A. Terranson -
Major Variola (ret) -
Thomas Shaddack