Schneier on Security

Dom De Vitto • June 11, 2006 12:38 PM

What are you lot on about?
GPS? Who cares? They have been utilising signal strength to track dodgy folk for ages. Kevin Mitnick is one of that methods most notorious victims.
Cell phone masts detect the phone serial and signal strength, this is held centrally and the strongest mast is the one from which the signal is used, and to which the phone 'talks'. These backend databases are live snapshots, but it's still warrentable evidence.
The phone companies now sell this data to third parties (under strict privacy rules), and sites like www.followus.co.uk allow you to track you own mobile phone. Excellent for keeping tabs on your own children. The privacy issues surrounding such sites arewell known, but generally the phone owner gets a initial and periodic SMS to verify that they are ok with the phone being tracked. Kids responding with "no" could be expected to get stern word later on from parents.
Some mobile networks record the last closest mast before the phone was powered off.

Dom De Vitto • June 11, 2006 12:45 PM

A murdered guy's body in italy was found this way, his phone was in his pocket but the battery died a while after he was buried. It acted like a strange e-gravestone for the authorities.

I guess the authorities had a circumference of places a particular distance from the mast to search, but given enough legwork, you'll find somewhere where a body could reside (broken ground, old buildings, "dumpsters" etc.)

Of course this is all way beyond 1984 - they could only monitor your thoughts, not your location....