Cell-Phone Tracking - Big Brother is Watching

[Aggie]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/233916

Scary stuff, this.  And no real way to avoid it, other than pulling the battery out of your phone or shielding it (and therefore not receiving calls). 

Of course there's that old line about not needing to worry if you're innocent.... 

[beagle]

I think the traditional bank robber technique is to use a new PAYG phone for each job and throw it away afterwards, never topping it up again or registering it.
Of course the chance of anywhere selling mobiles these days without having CCTV is probably fairly minimal, so you might have to pinch that too...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

No need to pull the battery out, just turn it off. A new law recently passed makes all new cellphones GPS capable, although in some cases you can turn the GPS off, still you can get a general gist of someone's location just by the cell they're connected to.

The whole point then becomes one of usage, if you plan to do something and don't want anyone to tell where were you, turn off your cellphone, don't use toll roads that use automatic payment with a transceiver  (fastpass, sunpass, etc), avoid intersections with video cameras, highways, malls... erm...

Or do like the guy who was under suspicion of being a member of Al Qaeda that decided to publish every single thing he did in his website and sent a copy to the Feds on a daily basis.

We're screwed anyway.

[Aggie]

I think the traditional bank robber technique is to use a new PAYG phone for each job and throw it away afterwards, never topping it up again or registering it.
Of course the chance of anywhere selling mobiles these days without having CCTV is probably fairly minimal, so you might have to pinch that too...

That's exactly the problem - the smarter lot of criminals will stay ahead in this kind of arms race, while it remains an invasion of privacy for the average person.  Black-market SIM cards can probably get around the CCTV aspects of a normal purchase, too.

Of course, there are plenty of dumb criminals that this will work wonders against - at least until the vile liberal media starts alerting them to the possibilities.


I had heard rumours that a cell in the off position could be tapped into unless the battery was removed completely (for the purpose of listening via the microphone), but I can't back that up.  A metal cell phone case (i.e. tinfoil hat for your handy) might be enough to stop transmissions - when RFIDs become standard fare in IDs or credit cards, I'm getting a metal wallet.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

An antistatic bag is enough although I seem to recall someone selling anti RF wallets, precisely because of the chips in the new credit cards.

Found the place:

http://www.difrwear.com/product-display.php

(passports have RFIDs too now)

[Aggie]

Not our passports - yet.  Gotta get mine renewed immediately (for travel) and should miss out on this for a few years. 

My current CC is not RFID'd AFAIK, although Mastercard (not my brand) is making this a standard.  The only RF card I know about is my work access card; one might need a wallet with dual compartments (protected and open). I wonder how hard it'd be to run minuscule transactions on passers-by with a properly set up RFID reader?  I also wonder if anyone would bother calling their CC company about a transaction charge of $0.00 on their bill (i.e. $0.0049 to avoid detection).  Set up innocuously in a traffic cone on a busy street or a wet floor sign in a transit station, this could 'harmlessly' strip a lot of money in a short time.  For cities with RFID-enabled transit card (Seoul for example) which can also be used for small purchases, stripping fractions of a cent in a subway station would be easy and nearly unnoticeable unless someone in a data centre caught wind of it, and it'd still be damned hard to physically catch someone provided they had a way of laundering the credits in bulk.

Passports are potentially scary, although the rumour is that they are starting to be metal-lined to prevent unauthorized reading when closed.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Visa is placing the darn thing on their cards too, the last credit card I got had the little vibes icon:

))))

[Sibling DavidH]

Our Visa cards haven't got it ... yet.

[Griffin NoName]

Could do with one of those RFID blockers for hotel keycards too

Actually, what I'd really like for hotel keycards is an anti-magnetic-clasp-on-handbag-wiping-the-magnetic-strip-data shield. It's another instance of gender discrimination where things like car seat belts are only designed for men; any woman will tell you, hotel keycards ar dumb, they stop working after a mere couple of days. But you only find out when you are dead tired trying to get into your room which is always the furthest away from reception. I now always program hotels phone numbers into my cell phone, sit on the floor, and phone them up to say I can't get in my room; make them do the trek to reprogram the damn thing.

<rant>

[Aggie]

I can sympathize, especially since I'm generally lugging at least 50 lbs of gear which is too valuable to leave sitting unsecured in front of my room(3-4 bags with shoulder straps + 2-3 instrument cases with handles + a couple of grocery bags; more than this and I'll use a luggage cart which generally can take three or four hundred pounds of sample coolers before the pneumatic tires run flat).

I suspect that some hotels actually set the cards to expire after 3 days, or else my hip pocket is just as toxic as your purse clasp.

BTW, I've been informed by a hotel worker that those card programmers can easily be used to copy credit cards onto the hotel blanks. 

[Griffin NoName]

I suspect that some hotels actually set the cards to expire after 3 days, or else my hip pocket is just as toxic as your purse clasp.

BTW, I've been informed by a hotel worker that those card programmers can easily be used to copy credit cards onto the hotel blanks. 

Do your jeans have studs?

Most hotels swipe my card on arrival. Goodness knows with what, where, how, but I reckon one is a sitting duck.

Incidentally, I adore the little safes they have. I stuff them full. But, then at xmas, I got a pack of nicotine replacement patches stolen from my room, so one can never beat the system entirely.

Re. RFID blocking, here's how to make your own

[Aggie]

Ayuh, but surely the studs aren't generally magnetized enough to cause issues?

I don't generally stay in hotels swank enough to have safes.  Or to be called hotels.


I've seen that wallet DIY before (here?) - neat idea, needs some style assistance.

[Griffin NoName]

walk backwards into a fridge door - that'll show if you have magnetic studs

[Aggie]

Wouldn't help, the fridge is lousy with rare-earth magnets that could magnetize any stud or wipe any card within 18 inches, I figure.

_{If one wanted to take revenge on a despised foe, hiding a rare-earth magnet in their wallet would do the trick nicely.}

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Re. RFID blocking, here's how to make your own

I like that. I'm contemplating how to mod my (very nice green leather) wallet to that end.

Wouldn't help, the fridge is lousy with rare-earth magnets that could magnetize any stud or wipe any card within 18 inches, I figure.

_{If one wanted to take revenge on a despised foe, hiding a rare-earth magnet in their wallet would do the trick nicely.}

Duly noted for ebbil uses in the future.