alt Hacker NewsMobile carriers can get your GPS location
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More abuse done to us. We never agreed for our GPS coordinates to tag along with calls for some assholes to see exactly where we are.
It is tiring. I am doing something about it by making technical contributions. If you are able to do the same, please do.
This community should be talking about meshcore more imho.
It's a peer to peer network based on Lora. It really only allows text messaging but with up to 20km hops between peers coverage is surprisingly huge. Incredibly useful if you go hiking with friends (if you get split up you can still stay in touch).
See https://eastmesh.au/ and scroll down to the map for the Victoria and now more widely Australia network that's sprung up.
I believe phreeli's Double Blind Armadillo could make this less useful
euhm, well. 112 programmer here. There are multiple levels. Cell tower triangulation come in automatically from providers. But they are only in tower numbers. They might be wrongly entered by engineers, hence the confirming question about where you are. Second is subscription information, as in registered address. Chances are if called from nearby your address, you are at your address. Next is a text to your phone number, which is intercepted by firmware and sends gps coords back. This can be turned off, since implementation.
What you need iPhone Air, iPhone 16e, or iPad Pro (M5) Wi-Fi + Cellular iOS 26.3 or later
A supported carrier: Germany: Telekom United Kingdom: EE, BT United States: Boost Mobile Thailand: AIS, True
Turn limit precise location on or off
Open Settings, then tap Cellular.
Tap Cellular Data Options.
If you have more than one phone number under SIMs, tap one of your lines.
Scroll down to Limit Precise Location.
Turn the setting on or off. You might be prompted to restart your device.
From the comments, it appears many are not aware that even the US government buys location data of users from data brokers - How the Federal Government Buys Our Cell Phone Location Data - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government... ... Apparently, US cell phone companies are one of the providers of this data - US cell carriers are selling access to your real-time phone location data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684 ...
I'll ask people, because I'm in the right circles. I want to know where it works. I've been VERY clear in my messaging to HN (on the RCS issue and having ear blown out by iPhone last week) that I am not going to glaze Apple even if the new modems they built interest me. They are usually sort of a neutral to me that has me more pissed off in the recent months than usual. Maybe send me one of your new devices if you don't want me pissed off anymore.
As for this location stuff, I'm curious though into how this works and how Apple (and BOOST/DISH) somehow prevent it happening when the big 3 in the US don't. We all know Apple would have complete control over the modem they designed, that's not a surprise. T-Mobile at least it's possible to stay NR-SA connected, it's apparently not a feature limited to SA like resistance to IMSI catchers are. Is this an OpenRAN feature, which Boost uses?
At least in the past, towers had a piece of equipment called a LMU that is sometimes installed separately from the radio equipment and it's used for measuring the timing advance to triangulate where a device may be for 911. Here's a reddit thread I started years ago for a KML of all the T-Mobile LMU installs in the NYC market: https://www.reddit.com/r/cellmapper/comments/hq2h7u/kml_of_a... (I just found it leaked, it's not online anymore probably). An FCC doc on LMU's: https://transition.fcc.gov/pshs/services/911-services/enhanc... (this is all old tech now, we're doing LTE/NR now in 99.9% of circumstances in the US)
I read on XHS that some Chinese carriers are known to selectively provide better LTE signal for one brand over another (IMS SIP REGISTER)
Emergency services (with the proper software) have been able to get your precise location from your phone for a while now.
This isn’t a new capability and shouldn’t be surprising.
What if I told you that carriers can also activate your phone's microphone without your knowledge and listen in on your surroundings?
Nothing can stop the tower equipment manufacturer like Ericsson from knowing the location of your phone and cooperating with advertising or mobile tracking compainies to aggregate that data in useful ways. If you have a phone, people that want your location have it and there is nothing you can do.
911 Product guy here...
TL;DR, this is nothing new.
Carriers have offered location of your device for 911 calls for years now, through a set of metadata called Automatic Location Identification (ALI).
This is only provided to 911 (police & fire) by carriers alongside your 911 call.
Mobile Device Manufacturers can also provide "precise location" to 911 for the same calls, but that's a separate form of data and closely secured.
Bottom line - Carrier data has always been less precise, but more readily available. Device data (i.e. Apple and Google) is more precise, but harder to access.
GPS on my old Android takes a minute or two to get a fix every time I turn it on, and I very rarely have GPS on at the same time as the cell radio, so I doubt they're getting more than triangulation from me.
I've noticed that when I travel, I get spam calls from the area code I am visiting. I have asked my cell provider if they monetize my location data, and they swear they aren't. But I don't trust them, given that no one else (other than Apple) would know where I am in real time. Recently switched providers and haven't experienced it since then. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a class action lawsuit someday.
Of course, this doesn't require having GPS location, just cell tower info is enough.
Enemy of the State was accurate in 1998
What are the alternative steps that we can take in Android? How to check if it is happening?
So what irked that since my brand-new iPhone uses a Qualcomm “modem chip” (god, the slide of terminology makes my skin crawl) I won’t have access to this feature.
I wonder if graphene on pixel is immune to these remote requests??
Anyone know why apple specifies this feature requires a supported carrier? Why would the carrier matter?
The Google Pixel 10 can give you notifications when your location is tracked in this manner as well. I turned it on and have been notified a few times.
It is interesting that we let this happen. Modern phones are very useful devices, but they're not really mandatory for the vast majority of people to actually carry around everywhere they go, in many cases they merely add some convenience or entertainment, and act to consolidate various other kinds of personal devices into just one. If you wanted, you could more often than not avoid needing one. Yet, we pretty much all carry one around anyways, intentionally, and this fact is somewhat abused because it's convenient.
Having watched a fair bit of police interrogations videos recently (don't knock it, it can be addicting) I realized that police have come to rely on cell phone signals pretty heavily to place people near the scene of a crime. This is doubly interesting. For one, because criminals should really know better: phones have been doing this for a long time, and privacy issues with mobile phones are pretty well trodden by this point. But for another, it's just interesting because it works. It's very effective at screwing up the alibi of a criminal.
I've realized that serious privacy violations which actually do work to prevent crime are probably the most dangerous of all, because it's easy to say that because these features can help put criminals behind bars, we should disregard the insane surveillance state we've already built. It's easy to justify the risks this poses to a free society. It's easy to downplay the importance of personal freedoms and privacy.
Once these things become sufficiently normal, it will become very hard to go back, even after the system starts to be abused, and that's what I think about any time I see measures like chat control. We're building our own future hell to help catch a few more scumbags. Whoever thinks it's still worth it... I'd love to check back in in another decade.
I'd be curious about alternatives like lte/5g hotspots, maybe even a DIY versions using hats or modules.
Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
This has been the case since the e911 project in the 1990's and is mandatory. Prior to this I would reset the message waiting indicator on their phone continuously to see what cells and cell sectors they were moving through but that would basically just show what road or roads they may be on and what direction they are going very roughly. Assisting the FBI with tracking kidnappers or at least that is what they told me.
There are loads of other tags that can be set on someones phone. My favorites were priority override and caller-id blocking override. This was before SS7 spoofing was so prevalent.
There actually should be a push for an EU-wide legislation banning this kind of silent, precise location data collection. If anything, Germany is obsessed with Datenschutz but in many cases it's just laughable security theater.
I don’t think this is news to any one, even none technical people are aware of this. And it goes beyond that, gov also buy location data used by other apps like dating apps or religion apps, among others.
They don't need to get your GPS location. With 4G and 5G the timing and clock precision at the basestations is enough to multi-laterate you down to about 50m (prior 3G/2G stuff was more like 100-200 meters). They are required by US law to store this multi-laterated position data track (updated every time your phone announces itself to basestations) for 2 years. But most telcos store it for more like 5+ years because it's valueable and they sell it.
This is all automatic and completely pervasive. Worrying about GPS and userspace computers in the smartphone is important but even if you protect that you've already lost. The baseband computer is announcing your position by the minute. Cell phones couldn't really work without the basestations deciding where you are and which will handle you.
Removing this ability also prevents emergency services from determining device location in case its owner goes missing.
I did not read the article. Reason: My response is "No shit, Sherlock."
Mobile carriers have so much information about you. They know exactly where you are, what you are doing (location combined with mapping tools) combined with who you are talking to.
They know when you are at home depot, when you are the grocery store, when you are at home, when you are awake, when you are asleep, etc.
In the U.S. there are very few laws stopping them from using all your data. In the E.U. you should definitely read up, as you aren't as protected as you think you are.
Forget Nation/State nonsense. You have an active relationship with a company who, by it's very existence and your business relationship, knows what you do all day long.
Don't even get me started about the rabbit hole surrounding 'incognito'/anonymous browsing.
EDIT: You've probably heard of Man-in-the-Middle attacks, right? They are the man in the middle. They will exploit this as best they legally can (and in certain cases, without regard to legality)
The best way to protect yourself is not to play the game at all. The same goes for your ISP, FWIW.
None of this matters. Your rights were taken away buy the corrupt ghouls supposedly "representing" you.
2017 Broadband Consumer Privacy Proposal
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint-re...
Do they really need it? They can likely triangulate you without GPS regardless.
Classic "government is evil" (but only western ones) (mentions Israel ofc) Good one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_resource_location_servic...
>Since cell towers are sparse (especially before 5G), the accuracy is in the range of tens to hundreds of metres
It was 5 meters back in 2006 in urban areas.
Even if you have an Apple in-house modem, seems it can only be disabled with select carriers:
> Germany: Telekom > United Kingdom: EE, BT > United States: Boost Mobile > Thailand: AIS, True
So turning this "off" on other carriers results in GPS data still shipped off?
All over southern California and Nevada, facial recognition cameras have been put up aiming all four directions at most surface street intersections.
It’s also illegal to sell new cars without a cell modem in them.
The phones are the least of our worries.
I honestly thought this has always been the case.
Phones haven't always had GPS information and they could still be tracked, if you connect to enough towers they can triangulate your location. Cell towers have been able to do this based on your signal strength for a very long time and you cant turn it off. You don't even have to have a SIM card, if the cell radio is on it pings towers period, this is why a phone even without service can dial 911 and it will work. The IMEI of your phone is unique and cell towers can track it, the government has used this and there is no way to disable it. Its not as accurate as GPS but it can be good enough to figure out a route you take and general location
https://www.rfwireless-world.com/terminology/cellular-tower-...
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In other news, the sky is up
How is this news?
Why wouldn't carriers be able to ask your phone about what it thinks its location is?
"and notify the user when such attempts are made to their device."
We aren't going to remove the security state. We should make all attempts to, but it won't happen. What needs to happen is accountability. I should be able to turn off sharing personal information and if someone tries I should be notified and have recourse. This should also be retroactive. If I have turned off sharing and someone finds a technical loophole and uses it, there should be consequences. The only way to stop the rampant abuse is to treat data like fire. If you have it and it gets out of control you get burned, badly.