Your cell phone is tracking you, you know. By law, your phone has to tell where you are within 125 meters when you call 911, which isn’t so bad on the face of it. However, the telecom systems can use your phone to track you at any time. In some cases, this can be done even when your phone is off. We’re not sure how you feel about it, but we don’t like being fitted with a radio collar at all times. This nonconsensual tracking is growing common in the US now, but has been around in Europe for quite a number of years. So what’s a paranoid to do?
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“…use your phone to track you at any time, even when it’s off.”
By “off”, you mean Not Talking, right? That’s what the link appears to state.
A cell phone that’s Off isn’t transmitting anything at all. Or receiving, for that matter.
There was a security bulletin a few years ago, warning that your phone could be programmed by Others to only “pretend” to shut-off when you tried to power it down, and automatically answer and listen (without ringing)when the Others called it.
I suppose the phone carriers could introduce this into their firmware without the vast majority of users noticing (it’s a “feature” not a “bug”).
If your phone is trying to maintain a carrier signal when it’s off, the battery will go down at a similar rate as when it’s on.
and (I think) it will go down even faster inside the foil box, as it boosts its power to maximum to try to maintain the carrier signal.
Oh, you’re right! I forgot a supporting link there, and reworded it a bit. I used to have links to solidly support the tracking-while-off claim, but they’ve gone dead. That’s OK, us paranoids don’t need rock-solid proof.
There are a number of different tracking issues here, most of which require the phone to be on. However, it is possible to track of phone as long as it has power, whether it’s on or not. This has been done in a number of high-profile cases. In some phones, this requires installing a special program (which can be done surreptitiously, but the phone has to be on to do it) which enables tracking in the “power off” state. A full-on carrier connect isn’t actually required to accomplish the tracking.
It does mean that someone (government or not) has to be specifically interested enough in you to put the software on your phone.
There was legislation discussed a while back to require all phones to be able do this automatically, but I don’t know what ever became of that. In any case, there is quite a bit of speculation among the non-tinfoil-hat communications folks that newer cell phones do include this functionality, and any such phone can be turned into a location transmitter at any time.
I think I’ll try making an Invisifier V1.0 ‘n take it through security at the airport, just for kicks.
Goddess knows, I love a good cavity search as much as the next meat droid.