cell phone anonymity

[Sampo A Syreeni]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Phillip H. Zakas wrote:

>I don't believe cell phones can be queried while they're off.  The phone has
>to xmit a pulse

Quite right. In addition to this, the data used to triangulate a phone
usually originates in the phone itself - GSM phones periodically transmit
field strength measurements to the base station of all the cells they hear.
This is the basis of normal triangulation, as most GSM networks do not have
a triangulation capability built in.

Sampo Syreeni <decoy at iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university