Are cell phones trackable?
 

To make a long story short, I was in my friend's car lastnight when we were carjacked at gunpoint. I was able to dial 911 on my cell phone and dropped it under a seat before getting out of the car. I'm not sure why I did it but I did. I brought it up to an officer that helped us through the reports later on and he said that cell phone companies can't locate phones unless they're "transmitting..."

Now I know hundreds of cars are stolen everyday, but if it were, say, a huge national emergency, couldn't a cell phone company locate a phone to a certain area?

Thanks for any info.
-T

It depends on the phone. A lot of new phones are having GPS installed for reasons similar to what you describe. Any older phones though, while they do periodically transmit (as long as they're on) would only be located to the nearest microwave tower most likely.

Yes, all cell phones can be tracked. When your phone attempts to reregister on the network it pings the nearest 3 towers, (well they recieve the signal best)... each time you make a call it also locates your phone. Its possible to then triangulate your position... heard that its easily within 10meters... mind you one of my friends had to sign a waiver to allow himself to be tracked this way -- working for a pizza delivery company.

Man....I am glad your ok :thumbsup:

Since the early 90's it has been possible to hack the BIOS on a phone and track other phones as they move in and out of cells. With a hacked phone and a frequency counter, you could triangulate the position of the phone being tracked. I don't know if this can still be done, but the phone companies can triangulate the position based on signal strength and TTR from each tower. As long as the phone is powered on, it can be done.

get a disposable phone so it's virtually untrackable

Don't you just love it when people don't even bother to read the thread?

Whoops sorry didn't read the first post.

The problems with tracing I've run into weren't technical, but motivational. Technically, yes they can track a phone, but other than law enforcement requests they don't have to do it. They don't have a system in place to bill for the service and once they provide it to the public they enter the legal loop of liability. Are you really the telephone's owner and not someone else abusing the system, was the location they provided correct, was the service provided quickly enough, etc. This results in policies that make it very difficult for anyone outside to make use of the capability.

The police work on squeaky wheels. If you had a child in the car that was carjacked then they would likely request location assistance from the cell provider. For what became just a car loss they aren't motivated unless you run into an officer who goes above and beyond. Theft of public property is not one of their high-reward responsibilities.

Not to excuse the fact you couldn't get help. It's incredibly unfortunate and frustrating how we possess these utopian capabilities but are paralyzed by bureaucracy and legal obstacles.

BTW, good to hear you got out okay. That sucks.

It's my understanding that my phone (I'm with Verizon) has GPS for 911 related calls.

I've read of people "hacking" the phone and getting the GPS location any time they want, but I didn't pursue the issue, as I wasn't really interested..

A lot of the new cell phones allow you to turn the GPS tracking Off/On so you might want to check your menu settings as well.

GSM phones can be "tracked". That is, the cell in which the phone is current "registered" can be ascertained quite easily. Indeed, there are several companies that already provide this service. I'm not sure about those crazy-ass 80's style analogues systems you have in the US though. :)

Now, having said that, there are not many countries where law enforcement have systems and procedures in place to do this. I do believe the US Federal authorities have mandated that all phones be trackable for 911 purposes.

It should also be noted that GSM tracking is only as accurate as the cell size. This can be accurate up to 100m or as low as 10km (depending again upon the cell size). It's more accurate in urban areas. Furthermore, GSM phones can be tracked whenever they are turned on. You do NOT have to be "transmitting".

There is a whole raft of so-called Location Based Services (LBS) being developed and offered by cellphone companies. These sometimes rely upon GPS, sometimes GSM and sometimes even RFID. It's an interesting topic and an area where much progress is being made. Soon you won't be as anonymous as you may think. :)

Mr Mephisto

Big brother can do many things we don't even know about. Basically, if you can think it up it probably can and is being done. For sure when the phoneis connected. n But then, what do I know??

I have GPS in my phone.. but I think that my parents got Nextel specifically to track me lol..

but my GPS can be tracked wheather I have signal or not :)

yep it's rather easy nowadays because of the gps
but you can also still triangulate I believe....

If you're really interested in this topic, there's a very informative article below.

http://www.mlogmag.com/magazine/09/superannuate.shtml

It concentrates on services and capabilities available in the UK, but the discussion on the technologies is relevant for the globe.


Mr Mephisto

I really appreciate the info guys, you've given even more information than I knew TFP was good for! Like Cyrnel said, I would definitely look into this a ton more had someone been injured or the likes. I'm glad I learned the general extent of what can be done in the future though as the officers I talked to didn't readily know the options (or just kept them disclosed).

Thanks again guys. Take care.
-T

In the state of New York the E911 system is not in place. If you look at the bottom of your phone bill you should see a seperate fee for this.

It's not been activated in any state that I can think of. The monies collected were reapproriated and never spent on the E911 service.

This was known before those young kids died in the bay after calling 911 from their boat a few years ago, and was brought to light at that time. Since then not much has happened with E911.

Glad to hear you are OK...

Glad to hear you are ok!

cyrnel hit the main issue on all points -- it's technically possible, but cell phone companies are rarely motivated to track a phone unless it's a 911 call involving personal danger or national security, things like that. If that's the case, it's a relatively trivial task.

At a very basic level, of course they will have a rough idea where any cell phone is, because it has to record what tower it hit for billing purposes and incoming calls.

At a technical level, TDMA and GSM towers have to know the distance to the phone since it takes RF signals time to propagate, so the timing doesn't get screwed up. If the phone is in range of more than one tower, then the phone can be tracked very accurately. It used to be the case where you basically needed 3 towers and a handoff , but now since timing is in an issue 2 will work, and GPS will pinpoint you. This applies even if a call is not in progress -- the towers have to track you every so often to know where to send an alterting signal (ringing) for an incoming call. Whether or not cell operators have the systems in place to benefit from this capability is a different story, though I'm pretty sure most of them do.

I heard a rumor that only CDMA phones (Verizon in the US) are required to use GPS, and it's probably true. That's because the government requires location transmitting, and CDMA uses code division, not timing, to send the data.

not so much, i had a discussion with a 911 dispatch manager that told me, yes the cell phone can be tracked by the nearest tower(s) but it wont give them an exact position, it gives them anywhere from 100 meters - 2 mile block to search in. not everything you see in movies (triangulating a cellphone) is true....