mobile phone tracking

[Twigman]

I know at least in the UK there are services that market this under "Check on your children to make sure they are safe without making them recieve an embarassing phone call from their parents" kind of banner.
I believe the one I checked charged £9.99/month, with 10 free searches then 49p per extra search or something. And over layed the information onto a map.

A few links google came up with after searching for "mobile phone location" (mostly UK sites)
http://www.followus.co.uk/index.html
http://www.mobilelocate.co.uk/
http://www.wayhey.com/
http://www.verilocation.com/
http://www.mapamobile.com/
http://where-ru.com/

Anyway you get the idea. I would have thought there are similar services in the US. I dont actually know anyone who has used these services personally, so I am not sure how good they are.

Anyway might be worth contacted them to see if they are going to extend to cover US, or if they have any partner companies etc.

Google is your friend :)

[HCentral]

BUZZ, wrong answer. If you can get a cell scanner that sniffs out the ESN and phone number, you can walk right up to them.

You are right but for the wrong reason. You don't need a snarfer/ESN scanner to do this. And even if you had one, you'd have to (1) already be pretty close to the target- at least within the same cell and (2) do additional work to find their exact position (determine their channel in use and then triangulate or doppler or however you want to get a bearing).

[stringslayer]

Take a look at this.

I saw a tv show called "Reba" where this technology was used. I think it would be great for parents.

[skroo]

I saw a tv show called "Reba" where this technology was used. I think it would be great for parents.

Okay, before I start in on this I have to admit that iDen is not one of the cellular protocols I'm really up on. Having said that...

As relates to most other cellular protocols, the phones themselves do not incorporate a GPS device. However, the GPS coordinates of each cellular tower on the network can be requested, and the handsets (depending on model) generally receive or can request the same information, usually for the two or three nearest towers.

Where this fucks up triangulation is that relative reception power from the handset as measured at the tower(s) is a poor indicator of location. While it's great for figuring out which tower to hand off to, everyone knows that geography and topology really screw with cellular reception, particularly in urban environments. Given this, it's entirely possible to be physically closer to a cell that's receiving your signal more weakly than one that's further away. The best you'd be able to do would be to figure out that the device is likely ('likely' being the operative word here) within the area formed by the towers receiving the signal - but that still doesn't give you a physical location. A better solution is how military and LEOs do it: find out what channel (or centre frequency) the phone is on, then physically foxhunt the device with that IMEI/ESN/whatever.

What I do undertand of the current iDen system is that they are incorporating actual GPS receivers into the handsets which can give the actual position of the phone itself. Obviously, this is a lot different to using the fixed-point system the other carriers have implemented and would give greater accuracy than going on signal strength differentiation alone.

Getting off the iDen kick again, while it is possible to write software to query the GPS location of the tower the phone is associated with, this requires either a) firmware or an application to be installed on the phone that allows remote querying; b) a physical connection to the phone (see this link for more information on this - I seem to remember that years ago when I was still on Sprint and had that particular phone that tower GPS data was one of the things you could query for via AT commands); or c) the ability to query or extract this information (as E911, customer service, and contracted third-parties do) directly from the network - which is where it's normally provided from, not the handset.

Personally, I'm not a fan of GPS in cellphones - the potential for quietly enabling it remotely (much like OnStar can, and has, done, with the inclusion of the ability to silently monitor the audio in the vehicle's cabin) is way too big-brotherish for my tastes.

[dYn4mic]

Personally, I'm not a fan of GPS in cellphones - the potential for quietly enabling it remotely (much like OnStar can, and has, done, with the inclusion of the ability to silently monitor the audio in the vehicle's cabin) is way too big-brotherish for my tastes.

I heard that the FBI was using OnStar to remotely and passively wiretap people in their car. People under investigation with OnStar would be tapped when they pushed the mic to talk to someone, it would stay on, even though report and seem as if it was off... Anyone know if they got in trouble for this? Or if this really happened?

[TheCotMan]

I heard that the FBI was using OnStar to remotely and passively wiretap people in their car. People under investigation with OnStar would be tapped when they pushed the mic to talk to someone, it would stay on, even though report and seem as if it was off... Anyone know if they got in trouble for this? Or if this really happened?

Google: [onstar fbi record]:
* Court to FBI: No spying on in-car computers (2003)
* Court limits in-car FBI spying (2003)
* FBI EAVESDROPPING: Court overrules Las Vegas judg (2003)

Heh heh :-)
Added:
An article that reads like there is a conspiracy in hiphop (2005)

[skroo]

Added:
An article that reads like there is a conspiracy in hiphop (2005)

It must be true - after all, they are the world's most dangerous site! ;)

[dYn4mic]

Google: [onstar fbi record]:
* Court to FBI: No spying on in-car computers (2003)
* Court limits in-car FBI spying (2003)
* FBI EAVESDROPPING: Court overrules Las Vegas judg (2003)

Heh heh :-)
Added:
An article that reads like there is a conspiracy in hiphop (2005)

Yeah, i go to google so much, i decided to ask a question, plus someone here might have info that hasn't been stated elsewhere.
Thanks for the info though.