Smartphone ... spying  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 09:02:24 am
content: so i know this story been going for a while now ... and i was mocking everyone who said his phone is spying on him, until yesterday ...i was talking over the phone about having headache and pain behind the eyes (i was that specific) , not in messenger or facebook or anyother thing, i didn't google anything about this ever.Few minutes later, log in to facebook and this ad popup ...i freaked out ...now am not paranoid in anyway, i laugh about ppl when they cover their camera suspecting they can spy on them with that, personally i don't care much about anyone doing so, he must have a really miserable life to do that ... and we all get used to googling something and get ads for the next month about the same thing.but phone calls this is too much intrusion

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 09:10:32 am
content: In this case its likely not spying, which means something against your approval, by installing facebook and messenger to your phone, you would have already given it permission to record your microphone and retrieve who you are calling.Its part of the reason why every month i check my android permissions and cull permissions that I feel an app never needs, e.g. why does chrome need access to my microphone or camera, or why does a math calculator need contact list access.

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 09:24:24 am
content: Quote from: Rerouter on October 22, 2017, 09:10:32 amam careful about those permission too and i don't install any random crap on my phone, but you will give Facebook and messenger mic access if you gonna use it for calls for sure. My understanding for approval is " when using (it) for those calls " not for just any calls or just sitting in the room doing nothing.Am not a lawyer to read all that stuff and un-trust a smart-tv or phone or computer and live under a rock with a pen and paper. But those tech company have to know their limits ...Problem is all those story, including mine, are just anecdotes, without any kind of evidence ... but this shit is real.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 09:40:33 am
content: You have to take it as face value, facebook, and a lot of other applications out there, unless you have paid them for there service, in general they are making money off you via advertising, meaning if you give it access to do anything, it will use it to make as much advertsing revenue out of you as possible, a large part is knowing you to a creepy level so they can throw very targeted ads at you like you just saw.So if it has mic access, expect it to record you while its sitting in the background, if it has contact list access, expect it to sell them, and use them to correlate who you hang out with, if it has GPS access, expect it to log and sell this informationFacebook is expecially creepy with these, sex workers get recommended to there clientel with there real accounts, because it figured out they where meeting, obscure family members that only met at a funeral get recommended, people that you only met years ago, but have common freinds from before facebook formed get linked. and things you say can be used against you,Just taking the GPS side of things, you will have at minimum about 25 companies your realtime location is being sold to, anonamised or not, it doesnt change much, when correlated with other information it gets stripped away very quickly.

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 09:50:42 am
content: Quote from: Rerouter on October 22, 2017, 09:40:33 amas you said ... this is really creepy.am thinking about designing my own encrypted headset nowor just getting one before anyone say "they already exist"

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 06:35:30 pm
content: Happens to me all the time, they use some kind of voice recognition for targeted ads. Just talking with your phone nearby it will get picked up and you'll get ads on your computer or any other device/network that you are on. I hate this crap too, everything is designed to spy on what we do.There is an open source phone in the works called Purism, I hope it works out.https://puri.sm/posts/tag/phones/

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 08:42:08 pm
content: Problem is, because of shadowy investment agreements, increasingly when something is allowed, even unintentionally, as happened with theUS-Gambling*case, increasingly that mistake cannot be reversed, all laws or policies that are changed to deregulate get "captured" in the deregulatory direction and cannot be reversed without huge payments for "lost expected profits". Searching on"indirect expropriation"one finds a bit on this but not enough.The case below is informative.WTO case DS285:United States — Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2017, 08:48:19 pm
content: "Their"Quote from: Rerouter on October 22, 2017, 09:40:33 amSee what I said about it potentially getting locked in forever without people realizing it.

author: MrW0lf
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2017, 11:28:31 am
content: Talking about locks... Smartphone wide open to any interested party - old news. Now time for front doorhttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-25/amazon-wants-keys-your-house

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2017, 02:23:43 am
content: Almost two decades ago my downstairs neighbors in San Francisco had a locked refrigerated locker installed in our building's basement which a short lived company called Webvan delivered their food to. that company was aquired by Amazon right when they started out. Mostly for their automated warehouse infrastructure which was cutting edge for that time. I thought it was a great idea for people who worked at home because time is money and even an hour and a half or so spent shopping meant losses of hundreds of dollars for people in wages.

author: MrW0lf
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2017, 10:09:19 am
content: Quote from: cdev on October 27, 2017, 02:23:43 amBut if work at home can open door yourself:Also connoisseurs may risk that courier catches some scene like this:Ok, Amazon will film it anyway but thats not so obvious as couriers surprised lookNow if consider hackers or some (fake) emergency it gets even funnier. Just open all the doors at once and wide range of possibilities follows...

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2017, 12:32:17 pm
content: I would have said the real problem is Facebook. It has far to much personally identifiable information on you.Does underline the pointlessness of encrypting data in transit though, if that data is automatically decrypted at the carrier's endpoint and the carrier cannot be trusted.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2017, 06:57:48 pm
content: Which is why I would never have a smartphone.

author: basinstreetdesign
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2017, 07:36:22 pm
content: When beepers were common I swore that I would never have one. So far so good, I never did.Now that smart phones are ubiquitous I have pledged never to have one. My flip phone does everything I need. So far so good.When I told my brother this (he's 9 years older and is practically wedded to his iPhone) he said that I won't be able to do it. We'll see...

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2017, 08:16:02 pm
content: Back in the day (2006-ish) withHyvesI got on it, noticed how shit the concept was, and got off.Few years later Facebook wasitand how I should get on it. Didn't get on it.Today, still not having it.I did fall for the iPhone though...*The guy who made hyves sold it to a news paper company when the user base started to age. He made a fortune. It died a few years later.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 03:54:29 am
content: the best plan of attack is turning off mobile data, connecting to wifi, and setting up something like wireshark, generally within 15 minutes you can start to get a handle on just how much is going in and out, and start dealing with the non OEM ones.Default samsung weather app was requesting updates every 15 seconds while the screen was off, once i booted him the battery life came back to an agreeable 2 days, vs 6 hours.

author: WastelandTek
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 05:26:52 am
content: Quote from: German_EE on October 27, 2017, 06:57:48 pmExactlyI like radios, I like computers, I know more about both of them than most people, and I choose not to carry a computerized radio with me every waking hour.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 05:44:45 am
content: With speech recognition agents running in the background all your conversations are being transcribed and sold off to marketers!Conversing is no longer secure...

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 06:30:26 am
content: Just think of the billions of dollars they're raking in from wireless data plans. There are a few unlimited plans but most are little more than a scam.

author: DG41WV
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 07:06:29 am
content: I wonder what will happen if people start spamming these services with false data.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 07:54:00 am
content: Quote from: DG41WV on October 28, 2017, 07:06:29 amThat is really one of the best ways to beat the plethora of surveillance and spy systems which are hard to avoid.Feed lots of noise data along with everyday data and let them work it out.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 12:15:59 pm
content: There used to be a browser plugin that does this, clicks on all the ads... AdNauseam.It's thrown from Chrome web store, since Google's main source of income is ads.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2017, 04:12:05 pm
content: Quote from: basinstreetdesign on October 27, 2017, 07:36:22 pmJust having a mobile phone means being continually tracked to within a handful of meters. I haven't been able to convince myself that's enough reason to dump it, but I've noticed I'm getting closer to that point. People expecting being able to reach you every moment of the day play a large role in that. If I don't answer my phone for most of the day, it probably means I have a tool in my hands. Leave me alone.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 12:48:21 am
content: Consider what a huge income stream the surveillance data is for vendors and advertising companies.They couldn't exist without that money.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 01:01:49 am
content: You're deceiving yourself if you think that would fool them in any way. There is no way you could "beat" their technology with any false data, if you use internet connected devices.Soon they will even be able to see your heart beating. those tiny movements your body makes.Also, you could create huge problems for yourself. For example, imagine if their software mistakenly got the impression you had cancer. Or something similar. Trying to feed these databases false information could basically be a huge mistake.Quote from: DrGeoff on October 28, 2017, 07:54:00 am

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 02:12:12 am
content: Quote from: DG41WV on October 28, 2017, 07:06:29 amIt's incredibly hard to create data that's relevant enough to not be filtered out trivially, yet not relevant enough to be a problem to the user.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 02:18:40 am
content: Seeing someone's heartbeat is already possible. Apparently, the way your body disturbs the wifi signals can be measured and translated into location and movement data. The people working on this predict it will become good enough to detect single fingers move, i.e. passwords being typed.I realize that sounds like a tin foil hatter's bad dream, but it seems to be real science.https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/28/9625636/rf-capture-mit-wifi-tracking-surveillance-technology

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 02:39:31 am
content: This will let them get a good idea of how much exercise people are getting so they can price health insurance cheaper for people as long as they run a few miles every day.They don't want to lose their most profitable customers to a competitor because of pricing.Cellphones can be a virtual money machine for the valuable information they make available.

author: DG41WV
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 05:11:25 am
content: Quote from: cdev on October 29, 2017, 01:01:49 amI don't think they are that smart yet. because in some sites I have the ad-blocker disabled I often see advertisements for rock crushers. probably because I play modded minecraft a lot and often use google to find help, but they don't seem to be smart enough to distinguish between a game and real life.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 12:28:15 pm
content: Its much much more complicated than that.Huge sums of money are riding on bits of information, potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits or losses per person. Think ahead, peoples genetic information will rule people's work lives. It will rule if a baby is born or is aborted. Because a baby with bad genetics wont be able to get health insurance or employment and their status will also effect the employment of their parents.Insurance is based on game theory and twenty years ago the patients almost always came out on top, even when they had lied. insurers felt they were way behind in the information game. Patients knew their own health status well but lied about things like their ages on applications to get benefits like health insurance for lower prices they were not entitled to. Although when the insurance companies caught them, their policies would be retroactively cancelled (rescission) but often insurance companies were not able to fully recover the funds they had spent on their behalf from hospitals and doctors.I wrote a long post here but it turned into a rant so I deleted it. Just trust me.Cell phone data mining is a key part of so many profitable things. The future isn't going to be like the past.Money will be going to some people much more and many more other peoplemuchless. That's a potentially politically unstable condition.People have known this was coming for a very very long long time and they have laid very detailed plans for it. Globally.Eliminating key parts of that might mean a return in some countries, to unpredictable modes of government that many called mob rule.People then could and likely would vote for non- vetted candidates, who would likely expose these entire schemes.And guess what? Confronted with otherwise 'unfixable' problems, (which had been engineered at great expense over decades), they would likely just vote themselves out of them.All that work would go to naught.Long awaited profit-making opportunities for some would become what they saw as solvable problems. Solvable by "regulation",not deregulation.Do you know what that means? That means abandonment of the dream of a world where no men are created equal.Instead they would solve them. The balance of power would shift back to the way it was in the last century and investments would again become unpredictable.And what would highly mobile capital do?Potentially huge profits would be lost.Things would return to the way they were in the past and the middle class would - as it did until the early 90s - grow, globally!Despite automation.There would likely be a return to "public" higher education and other so called "public services", (instead of their abolition).All the low wage countries would become high wage, instead of the high wage countries becoming low wage. Laws would harmonize upward instead of downward. Eliminating huge profits.That's what losing control over information would do. Is that what you want?

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2017, 09:47:43 pm
content: Quote from: DG41WV on October 28, 2017, 07:06:29 amthat really a good idea ... am not sure how can be done though ...and when you count on people for this... how much of those people spamming those services could be compared to the general public and normal user ... i guess not much ... so this kind of spamming will be filtered out not cause they can, just cause the amount of real genuine information collected anywhere else much higher.

author: Mark
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 11:53:21 am
content: Facebook iPhone Listening into our Conversations for Advertising TESThttps://youtu.be/U0SOxb_Lfps

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 01:19:05 pm
content: Quote from: Mark on October 31, 2017, 11:53:21 amReal or not, it shows why you shouldn't use the app. The website works just fine and shouldn't be capable of this. It's much less of a resource hog too.The attitude people have it probably the real problem. If you constantly run apps in the background and have every kind of wireless communication constantly active, it's much easier for companies to do these kinds of things. Due to the legal and social grey areas that surround these subjects, it's inevitable that companies experiment with these things.It's a well established fact that shops, malls and other places track visitors by their WIFI and Bluetooth emissions. Turn these things off and you'll have much less of a problem.https://lifehacker.com/how-retail-stores-track-you-using-your-smartphone-and-827512308

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 07:42:47 pm
content: In my opinion, op-out vs, op-in is a serious problem. In many cases it doesn't seem as if op-out being the default should even be legal.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 11:47:26 pm
content: I think the phone OS itself also spies on you and sells the info to FB etc. I don't have the FB app, and normally don't even have the browser open, but I often see very targeted ads on FB that are based on my conversations. It also seems very sophisticated, it's not just looking for keywords in your conversation but it can understand context.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2017, 11:53:50 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on October 31, 2017, 11:47:26 pmUnless there is more evidence of this actually happening, it's much more likely the algorithm is better at predicting your interests than you think. Large datasets allow for the discovery of trends and behaviour the user isn't even aware of, and predictions based on things you wouldn't consider relevant.You have to be careful not to fall down the tin foil hat rabbit hole.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 12:32:32 am
content: Selling information collected from peoples online habits, movement, health, etc is a major global industry. One which outside of the EU is little regulated.Quote from: Mr. Scram on October 31, 2017, 11:53:50 pmCell phones, Facebook and other social networking sites, and date collected from RFID, Bluetooth, BTLE, GPS, GSM, LTE, Wifi, WWW etc. are all huge privacy nightmares if you live in the US.Europe is still orders of magnitude better but likely not for long.Simply turning off your cell phone or logging off your computer may help but it is unlikely to ensure privacy. Face recognition, license plate recognition, RFID are passive technologies that require no intervention on your part. If you are in a public place.The average person is carrying a number of credit cards, licenses etc, which typically contain RFID tags. Also people also have wifi devices, prox cards, bluetooth devices and so on. Individually identifiable, they all combined make up an even more unique "signature" that can identify people and increasingly they are used to track peoples movements through public spaces.If by "tin foil hat" you mean putting your credit cards, etc. in a metal case, indeed, that will in most cases preventthemfrom being read by an RFID reader.But lots of other identifiers cannot be turned off. You cant drive your car without a license plate. And only on one day a year, today, is it acceptable for people (mostly children) to wear masks covering their faces.Usually its for the purpose of selling you stuff but people also pay for that information for other reasons.

author: WastelandTek
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 01:26:23 am
content: Quote from: rdl on October 31, 2017, 07:42:47 pmif you think "opt-out" actually changes anything I got a bridge you might be interested in

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 03:49:26 pm
content: Whether it is location tracking, listening on the microphone or just large scale data mining the results are as often amusing as frightening. For example:I had a root canal recently. Being a geek, I spent some time during the visit discussing the fascinating flexible rotary files used to perform this operation. Some aspect of all of this resulted in my Facebook being flooded for the next couple of months with advertisements for dental files. Clearly something that I am not in the market for.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 05:04:17 pm
content: Future projected uses similar to past use of health related information is one likely explanation for activity.http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/17/business/fi-rescind17http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthinsure-sg-storygallery.htmlhttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-insurance17-story.htmlhttp://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/02/business/la-fi-insure-opinion2-2010jan02http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/17/business/fi-insure17http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/29/local/la-me-blue-shield-20111229http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-insure23feb23-story.html

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2017, 05:12:02 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 01, 2017, 03:49:26 pmI suspect it's your phone being associated with the dentists network. There was an uproar a while back that patients visiting the same psychiatrist were suggested as each other's friends on Facebook.https://splinternews.com/facebook-recommended-that-this-psychiatrists-patients-f-1793861472

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 03:52:22 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on November 01, 2017, 05:12:02 pmCertainly a possible explanation, though it would mean that the cell phone was scanning available networks and reporting them, rather than just connections. I set my phone to NOT automatically connect to networks and didn't use his in the waiting room or elsewhere. If the phone is merely reporting networks accessible it is a terribly flimsy house of cards on which to base a marketing strategy. I drive past multiple marijuana dispensaries during my shopping travels, but someone trying to sell me weed based on the fact that I had been within range of a dispensary network would get terrible returns.All of this may be why the worry is something of a tempest in a teapot. In many cases big data is being oversold and the market may well collapse under its own weight. There are real costs to gathering and analyzing these vast data streams, and the returns may well not pay the bills.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 04:19:59 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 03, 2017, 03:52:22 pmObviously, driving past something and being there for a while is going to provide a different profile. Better yet, by establishing the network strenght of surrounding networks, you'll likely have a good idea of where someone is in relation to these networks. Combine it with data of other people, and you suddenly get a good idea of what's going on. Obviously, you know what's going on when a few hundred people moving at speed along train tracks. When people tend to hover individually around a certain point for 5 to 15 minutes each, with a strong network signal in the vicinity that's associated with dental searches, you can make a fairly educated guess. It's actually really easy to do that. Some people I know use the network strenght of nearby phone towers to determine whether they're home, which automatically enables wifi and unlocks their phone. It's something your phone, by nature, is continually scanning for anyway. No need for energy thirsty GPS.However, the trick is they don't have to make guesses. Large enough datasets allow for seemingly trivial data to be translated into meaningful insights. Facebook figured out what the pattern of messages is before people get in a relationship, so they can predict what's coming, sometimes even before these people can themselves.https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/when-you-fall-in-love-this-is-what-facebook-sees/283865/

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 04:28:21 pm
content: The association it makes is likely by proximity/distance, not by network..Also, electricity and silicon are cheap so the cost to analyze every possible connection is negligible compared to the profits the purchasers of advertising see as possible from anything healthcare related.If there is a market for a product, vendors are going to spring up collecting the data and then selling that product.They probably thought you were a dentist if you spent such a long time there.Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 03, 2017, 03:52:22 pm

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 04:36:15 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on November 03, 2017, 04:28:21 pmProximity and distance are detected by network. Even though some apps try to get GPS location data, not that many people allow it or turn on their GPS. Even actual GPS applications make use of the networks around them to speed up finding a position. That's what A-GPS is.I doubt they think he was a dentist. Even though the algorithms don't get it right every time, thinking they're that coarse is underestimating what's possible and done on a daily basis.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 05:27:53 pm
content: The companies that collect the location and ad/app data (which includes locations) aren't the same companies that sell the phone service.The chips used in the GPS's are meant to be used all around the world so assume that they all have the features desired by their most totalitarian countries, as well as their least. They have to treat every country equally as far as back doors. So if one country gets the keys to the back door, they all must get them.Also, a contract is a contract. If the advertisers, the ones who pay to have their ads viewed, couldnt get the location and unique IP, etc, of the person who viewed their ads when they viewed that location targeted ad, there might be fraud.I suspect that when vendors sell ads targeted to some particular geographical area they get the GPS location regardless. The customer pays only to have the GPS data available to THEM.It has to be on all the time and available instantly because of the emergency location rule. the ephemeris and GPS even updates when the phone is turned off for that reason. It almost certainly updates its location even when the phone is turned off.Paying for the GPS or the data plan has no effect on the other uses of the data, unless of course somebody isnt viewing ads. But the ephemeris still is fetched from the network and likely also a ping is sent with their current location at regular intervals.The geofencing, etc, features could only be used by the people entitled to that data.If the customer doesn't pay, not them.Quote from: Mr. Scram on November 03, 2017, 04:36:15 pmThis is a huge money stream for all these companies.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 05:46:49 pm
content: The companies who collect the location and app data aren't the same that sell phone services, but that doesn't mean the phone services aren't used. Again, the location and identity of phone towers is no secret. It's used in A-GPS to enhance GPS positioning, but it can also be used on its own to locate a phone. Why do you think the Google Streetview car indexes networks along the way? Exactly for this purpose. It's a well known and accepted technology. GPS is a huge power draw, so there is a large incentive to use technologies that are much more frugal. Tower based positioning is easy and cheap. You're pinging towers anyway, so you just need a database of towers.The story about GPS updating its position, even when the phone is off, sounds terribly tin foil hatty and therefore needs a lot of substatiation. I've heard the accusation many times before, but it's pretty much always conjecture of people who believe in all sorts of conspiracies.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 08:39:13 pm
content: I can't say whether GPS is fully disabled when I turn it off or not, but I can say definitively that the phone uses less power and has substantially longer battery life. At the very least the sample interval is going up when I disable it. I suspect it really is off, because the lock in/start up time for GPS is significant. To get the strong impact on battery life I see the sample interval would have to go to minutes and would be of little use for most marketing.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 09:17:36 pm
content: Mr. Scram,The power draw of a modern GPS chipset only turning itself on to get a fix, and then turning itself off is not much higher than the batteries rate of self discharge. Newer chips can acquire pseudo-ranges and transmit that data (calculating the location during post-processing) eliminating the need for long intervals for the power constrained tracker to download ephemeris data.A side benefit is that the position can be accurate to just a few centimeters or even less with raw data capable GPS. (although locating a receiver inside of buildings or down inside urban canyons is still problematic for many reasons) New multi-band capable receivers are making precise location of of a cell phone transceiver more accurate.Please spend some time on the websites of GPS chipset manufacturers, you'll see that new ultra low power modes and pseudorange-and-raw-data-capable hardware is a key selling point of newer hardware.For example, Ublox claims a ultra low power mode, which can allow a battery life of 10 years for some of their products.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 09:29:48 pm
content: Cell phones checking in from time to time or turning the GPS on every few hours even if off might just be done to keep the clock set.Its likely not abnormal in any way.Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 03, 2017, 08:39:13 pm

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 09:34:28 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on November 03, 2017, 09:17:36 pmAnyone with a modern mobile phone can tell you that turning GPS on has a significant detrimental effect on battery life. Claims that the GPS is updating even when the phone is turned off need substantiation. Idealised numbers in data sheets are a bit shaky, you'd really need some in depth analysis of real life samples, measuring power draw and monitoring the transmissions coming from the phone. Many people on these forums will have appropriate equipment and the signals are transmitted on a conveniently attainable frequency. It shouldn't be very hard to prove.Of course, you could go full on tin foil hat and claim that battery life is artificially increased when the GPS isactivated by the owner or that there are secret GPS frequencies, but I think we've got enough on our plate as it is.And again, it really doesn't make sense to do this kind of stuff. A phone is a device which, by virtue of the reason it exists in the first place, is constantly and actively pinging cellphone towers. The location of these towers is known and triangulation is trivial. Both the tower and the phone have everything required to figure out what's going on. Better yet, mobile phones actually already openly use this technology to quickly establish where they are without GPS. Because cell phone technology uses cell phone towers, giving away your position is built into every phone. It cannot operate without doing that, because that's how the technology works. Why bother coming up with some kind of contrived solution that will only get you caught?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 09:37:02 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on November 03, 2017, 09:29:48 pmDate and time are provided by the network as a part of GSM technology.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NITZ

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 09:53:07 pm
content: Turning a raw data capable GPS on for a tenth of a second or perhaps even less to capture the pseudoranges is going to take practically no power. "Rapid fix" GPS postprocessing offloads the calculation of the location to another computer.if the person is not using the GPS, indeed,they do not need to know their location, and without slightly more power, indeed, the phones tiny computer cannot calculate their own position. instead the data from their receiver is uploaded and their location can be calculated on another server, as needed.The computers elsewhere aren't resource-constrained and they can perform the location calculation.SeeGlobal positioning system and associated technologies in animal behaviour and ecological researchby Tomkiewicz et al. (2010). here is a link:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894966/

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 10:20:14 pm
content: Before we attempt going into the nitty gritty details of the how and when, can you tell me the why anyone would want to do this? Why would you come up with some contrived solution, when the device you're targeting has a native solution built in? Why add complexity and a chance of discovery when you can ex-filtrate data as part of the system? No one will or can ever know what a cell tower does with its ping data, yet a system using GPS will have to actively transmit location data. If you run a blood bank, you're not going to steal someone's DNA by breaking into his house at night.I mean, it's not really adding up.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 10:25:23 pm
content: Why anyone would want to collect pseudorange data?Ask multinational companies like Google that want to.https://gpsworld.com/google-opens-up-gnss-pseudoranges/Its substantially more accurate, it takes much less power. They want to sell value added services, right?The more data they have to sell, the more potential customers and earnings.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 10:47:08 pm
content: The nitty gritty detail is money.When you're rich, the solution to every problem is "throw money at it".Companies like Google see fear in high places as a huge business opportunityQuote from: Mr. Scram on November 03, 2017, 10:20:14 pm

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 11:43:39 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on November 03, 2017, 10:25:23 pmMore accurate and less power? That doesn't make sense. I've explained that cell tower data is basically free. You don't need any additional systems, you don't need to rely on external signals, it's pretty much dead reliable, you don't use any extra power and depending on the implementation, it works with the most basic feature phones and it's basically undetectable. Why fiddle with GPS?I've scanned quickly through the document you linked, but "quick" [10 seconds or more] GPS acquisition types are either very inaccurate [75 meter or worse] or consumes a lot of power. That's fine if you want to know the nesting area of a bird or the spot where a whale surfaces, but it's woefully inadequate for commercial tracking. You can't even tell which street someone's in. Either way, you're better off just using the regular and wifi network, of which Google coincidentally has a huge and highly detailed map thanks to the Google maps cars.It's just not adding up. Occam's razor is in full force.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2017, 11:59:12 pm
content: We're talking about completely different things.I am talking about processing the data on a different machine than the one thats connected to the antenna.Think giant tape measure. Say five times a second a measurement is taken, thats all. Those measurements all get processed somewhere else. Also diffed against a similar signal recorded nearby at the exact same time at a station whose position is known to many many decimal points. So many you can see the continental drift and the post glacial rebound. And except for that, its stationary.Do you know how differential GPS works? For example, the national CORS system? This is a differential GPS system. Every cell phone base station will also have a DGPS base station.So the baseline will be very short. That means very high accuracy. After all, its meant to help out in emergencies.http://rtklib.com/rtklib_tutorial.htmhttp://gpspp.sakura.ne.jp/indexe.htmlhttps://github.com/tomojitakasu/RTKLIBhttps://github.com/tomojitakasu/RTKLIB_binhttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gpsplus.rtkgps&hl=ja

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2017, 12:27:52 am
content: You can't just pick and use from different bits of articles and concoct a story. The offloading of data is used in animal tracking, but it is very inaccurate. People apparently have developed a fairly accurate system, as shown in your previous links, but that's not shown to be frugal and it relies on reference base stations being present. You can't just mix them together and pretend some super stealthy near zero power consumption hyper accurate GPS system exists.Not that it matters, because we're still stuck at the starting line. Without any reasonable demonstration of this actually being present and used in regular mobile phones, and without a remotely reasonable explanation why a such a contrived method not known to be common in mobile phones is used, instead of an easy and readily available method, the story is dead in the water.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2017, 12:58:19 am
content: They take a "snapshot" - Maybe once every five or ten minutes, or once an hour or even just once a day.They are not on continuously.Here is another paper:https://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-131/131E.pdf----------All of my newer GPS's run well on very very low power, just a few ma.