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Tracking People Via Cell Phone
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Good heavens, through walls? (Score:1)
by Adam Rightmann on Monday October 14, @10:26AM (#4445355)
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The UK has discovered that radio waves can go through walls now? You mean I no longer have to go outside to talk on the cellphone? Will wonders never cease.
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Next big thing (Score:5, Funny)
by Burdell (burdell@iruntheinter.net) on Monday October 14, @10:29AM (#4445375)
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Next they'll realize that they can track nerds via /. posts.
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Dick? (Score:3, Funny)
by Tyler Eaves on Monday October 14, @10:29AM (#4445384)
(User #344284 Info | http://www.coastergames.net/)
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I tend to favor Orwellian paranoia myself...
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Finnish Sonera has a trial in .fi (Score:2, Interesting)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, @10:30AM (#4445389)
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Take a look at here [mspace.fi] .
There you can give a permission to your friends with Sonera cellphone accounts to locate you.
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So to hide... (Score:1, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, @10:31AM (#4445392)
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I need to construct a faraday cage where no radio signals can enter or exit?
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The Ironic Thing Is... (Score:2, Funny)
by Zech Harvey on Monday October 14, @10:32AM (#4445397)
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The tin-foil hat I wear to keep the government out of my head can help them find my phone.
So how does this interfere with UK's wiretapping laws (if any apply)? I am not up to policies for police across the pond.
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status symbol (Score:1)
by avandesande (aaron@post-modern.net) on Monday October 14, @10:33AM (#4445398)
(User #143899 Info | http://post-modern.net/)
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As far as I am concerned, not having a cell phone is a status symbol...
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Just to help those who don't read the article.... (Score:5, Informative)
by pwagland on Monday October 14, @10:33AM (#4445402)
(User #472537 Info | Last Journal: Monday December 17, @06:50PM)
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This is nothing to do with tracking mobile phones. Rather what it does is to transform all of the telephone masts into "radar platforms". So, it cannot identify you, but it can tell you that there is something in a particular location....
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- Re:Just to help those who don't read the article.. by GigsVT (Score:2) Monday October 14, @10:44AM
- Re:Just to help those who don't read the article.. by Reziac (Score:2) Monday October 14, @10:49AM
Re:Just to help those who don't read the article.. (Score:5, Interesting)
by color of static (`smasters' `at' `ieee.org') on Monday October 14, @11:14AM (#4445715)
(User #16129 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday January 04, @08:31AM)
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To be very specific, it makes every mast into a Bistatic radar emitter. The tower emits the pulse thanks to GSM older design, and one or more reciever arrayed around receive the original signal and the bounces. So rather then allocate bandwidth, setup seperate emitters, and field it all over they are killing two bird with an existing stone.
This will see through some things, but not the way you think of it normally. You will get information indicating a "Large signal bounce", not the housewife at home. Although the low cost security, vehicle tracking, suspect finding (guns have a great cross section at these frequencies) applications are enormous.
Now the question is if they can make it work with CDMA. Possible, but probably not practical.
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This is not new. (Score:4, Interesting)
by Noryungi on Monday October 14, @10:33AM (#4445404)
(User #70322 Info | http://www.multimania.com/frenchbsd | Last Journal: Wednesday October 02, @11:02AM)
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GSM allows for some (limited) form of triangulation of a call.
This is not very easy to do, but, if I remember well, a couple of years ago, the French emergency services were able to track down a small group of people, who were blocked in the mountains with nothing but a cell phone to call for help.
Apparently, it took a couple of phone calls (not easy to to as the weather was bad and the phone battery almost dead) to be able to triangulate their exact position, but it worked -- they were rescued after about 4 days and four nights lost out there in the woods. I am sure other European countries have seen the same thing happen.
Bottom line? Don't use a GSM cell phone if you are paranoid... and don't forget your nice and shiny tinfoil hat to protect your brain from all the microwaves... =)
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Re:This is not new. (Score:4, Informative)
by PainKilleR-CE on Monday October 14, @10:42AM (#4445485)
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What is new, however, is what this article is talking about: using the cell masts (the antennas that allow people to have cell service in an area, not the phones themselves) as a radar to track everything in a particular area. You don't have to carry a cell phone to be tracked, thanks to the fact that (almost) everyone wants cell service everywhere all the time.
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| - This *is* new. by StrawberryFrog (Score:1) Monday October 14, @10:43AM
Re:This is not new. (Score:5, Informative)
by richie2000 ((es.ednakcahbew) (ta) (2todhsals)) on Monday October 14, @10:44AM (#4445506)
(User #159732 Info | http://www.gpz1100.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 14, @09:17AM)
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It is very easy to do and it's even a commercial service with many mobile phone operators. I have signed up with Friendfinder and agreed that a few of my friends can have access to my location information - by sending a simple SMS they get charged around 50c and get a reply with my current location. In the same way, I can see where they are - or rather, where their phones are. They do not have to make calls, having the phone switched on is sufficient.
Oh, and this article has nothing to do with that. It's about using the radio waves emitted by the cell phone towers as a form of radar - detecting how the radio energy bounces back from buildings, submarine periscopes, airplanes and people with tinfoil hats. You should read it, it's actually very interesting.
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| - LOL by Scooter (Score:1) Monday October 14, @01:45PM
- Re:This is not new. by aggie_knight (Score:1) Monday October 14, @12:31PM
- Re:This is not new. by Zemran (Score:2) Monday October 14, @12:46PM
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Already in use at Finland (Score:5, Informative)
by huge on Monday October 14, @10:34AM (#4445407)
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They are already doing this at Finland, though police has limited access to such information and they need court order to get it.
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Tin Foil Hat (Score:3, Insightful)
by teamhasnoi (teamhasnoiNO@SPAMyahoo.com) on Monday October 14, @10:34AM (#4445408)
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The only way I'd want to see this is if *I* could use it too.
Far to much power is being consolidated in far to few people.
Give everyone this tech and everyone would spy on each other for a year or two, then it would be common and boring. (except in small towns, where people would like to know the last time the neigbors wiped their ass.)
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What's the big deal? (Score:1, Insightful)
by mustangdavis on Monday October 14, @10:34AM (#4445410)
(User #583344 Info | http://www.coldfirestudios.com/)
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Yes, this is "an invasion of privacy", but what is the big deal? Does eeryone think that they are so important that the government wants to spy on them? Gimme a break!
I don't have anything to hide ... so I don't mind this. If anything, this is a tool that could help protect me and the other millions of innocent people from those people that do have something to hide ...
Some food for thought ... * please don't flame me too harshly *
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- Re:What's the big deal? by the_2nd_coming (Score:2) Monday October 14, @10:44AM
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
by Waffle Iron on Monday October 14, @10:48AM (#4445539)
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Does eeryone think that they are so important that the government wants to spy on them?
Apparently, the Soviet Union in Stalin's time
was populated with excessive numbers of
important people. Fortunately, that anomaly
was fixed.
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
by Reziac on Monday October 14, @10:56AM (#4445596)
(User #43301 Info | http://home.earthlink.net/~rividh/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 07, @12:53AM)
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Simple example: Let's say you're gay and living in an area where being gay is cause for persecution (even if it's not illegal). You may not be doing anything WRONG, but knowing everything you do sure makes it easier to persecute you.
And what if your lifestyle or religion or whatever you now lawfully do is declared illegal? Now all that observation of your formerly-innocent activities can be used as evidence against you.
And THAT is the problem with the philosophy of "I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to hide".
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, @11:01AM (#4445636)
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When was the last time government protected you? As far as I can tell, governments usually look at the big picture, ie. "how do I keep my job?" And the best way to do so is to use terrorism against the people so they live in fear. Once they are afraid, you can promise to protect them. Of course, you cannot, but at least you can watch them, just in case you need a patsy to take a fall for the latest bombing, sniping, or what have you.
YOU can protect yourself, and YOU would WANT to protect yourself. Can you please explain to me in what situation anyone would risk their own safety for yours? I can't even say the police would do it...
"Naturally the common people don't want war . But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."--Hermann Goering (1893-1946), creator of the German secret police, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, designated successor to Adolf Hitler. Said during the 1946 Nuremburg Trials.
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
by scalis on Monday October 14, @11:09AM (#4445689)
(User #594038 Info | http://risc.splitsecond.cc/)
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I don't have anything to hide ... so I don't mind this.
Now thats an interesting attitude. Perhaps you have nothing illegal to hide (that you know of) but maybe you don't want [insert anyone] to know every step you take? You might not want your employer to know that you have been going to interviews at a compediting company? Or your wife to know that you spend more time at your local bar than you should?
A bit extreme perhaps, but i still don't like it.
Oh, did i mention that turning off your phone isn't going to help? Batteries out is the key....
If an invasion of your privacy isn't a big deal to you then I don't even know where to start the argument..
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
by Vesuvius_2 on Monday October 14, @11:29AM (#4445810)
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the point is that innocence has never been an assurance that someone will not abuse power against you. many post sept-11 muslims in the US were perfectly innocent (95% of those arrested as a matter of fact) and yet thousands were rounded up and held for 6-9 months or more on end. the japanese-americans during WWII were innocent, but were rounded up into camps. the jews in germany were innocent. and in our current times (within the last year) the government has interrogated a large number of citizens for 'unamerican activities'. the gov has also recieved thousands of complaints about 'suspicious' (dark-skinned) people who the government went on to detain, arrest, or degrade. So yes, there IS a precedent for those who have 'nothing to hide' needing protection from government power.
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Interesting)
by Moofie (lee@@@ringofsaturn...com) on Monday October 14, @11:35AM (#4445848)
(User #22272 Info | http://moofie.radiopossibility.com/)
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You're right. Law enforcement promises...Scout's honor...that they're not going to abuse this power. Fortunately, although we know they've abused every other technological advance, we're safe this time...because they PROMISE.
Or if we don't think we're safe, we're obviously terrorists, which makes it easier to justify monitoring us.
They're not just monitoring YOU, they're monitoring EVERYBODY. If that doesn't bother you, there are some pieces of literature I might suggest you read.
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| - Re:What's the big deal? by stere0 (Score:3) Monday October 14, @11:47AM
- Re:What's the big deal? by dielectric_goldfish (Score:1) Monday October 14, @12:32PM
- Re:What's the big deal? by f97tosc (Score:2) Monday October 14, @12:49PM
- 4 replies
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Let's do the time warp again! (Score:3, Informative)
by richie2000 ((es.ednakcahbew) (ta) (2todhsals)) on Monday October 14, @10:34AM (#4445411)
(User #159732 Info | http://www.gpz1100.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 14, @09:17AM)
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Screw that! I want them to use cell phone towers to detect Slashdot dupe posts [slashdot.org] - again and again and again... BTW, have we had any triple posts yet or are we still waiting for that treat?
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You've missed the point (Score:5, Informative)
by kingk0ng on Monday October 14, @10:35AM (#4445415)
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This isn't just monitoring which cell a phone user is in, but actually using the base station masts as radar to detect moving objects (e.g. people and cars) anywhere within the field - which means basically making the entire UK transparent, even if you're not carrying a cellphone! It's perfectly serious, here's [roke.co.uk] a link to the company developing it - first mentioned in Jane's Defence Weekly in 2000, but it's only recently got government funding.
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Easy to get around.. (Score:4, Funny)
by onion2k (onion@uberworld.spamspamspam.org) on Monday October 14, @10:36AM (#4445426)
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Its easy to avoid.. just stand very, very still.
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Stealth Aircraft detection (Score:1)
by slattont on Monday October 14, @10:36AM (#4445428)
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Link to article disussing how this application of cell towers can be used. http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/e20010 619stealths.htm
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This is a great idea... (Score:2)
by IronTek on Monday October 14, @10:38AM (#4445447)
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...if you're a government.
I mean, why waste time trying to get skin implants into your population (or some other sci-fi of the week device) when you can simply use something ubiquitous as the cell phone to track the general population!
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- 1 reply
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There is a way to stop them. (Score:1, Offtopic)
by SaturnTim (tellmewhy@Idon'tlikespam) on Monday October 14, @10:39AM (#4445459)
(User #445813 Info | http://www.justsurviving.com/)
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Okay, I might be violating some law... but there is a way to stop them from using this technique. I'm going to the patent office, but I thought I would give you a heads-up... I call my invention the "off button".
On a related story, they can also track you when you are using a regular non-cellular telephone.
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ummm...it is not like they are going to waist (Score:2)
by the_2nd_coming on Monday October 14, @10:39AM (#4445460)
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ther resources to track random people.
they will just use it as a servalence mechanism, hence, they will get a warent. this will also allow them to get the cell phone records on a person in order to coroberate an alibie of a suspect.
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Tracking (Score:1)
by Fx-Balance on Monday October 14, @10:39AM (#4445462)
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Anyone put up a web page yet that allows entry of the network and cell phone number and returns GPS coordinates? That would push the envelope and make headlines.
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Signal Processing (Score:3, Informative)
by e8johan on Monday October 14, @10:39AM (#4445463)
(User #605347 Info | http://www.etek.chalmers.se/~e8johan)
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It seems that half of the comments are from people who has not read the article!
The article talks of a radar system based on the reflected waves from mobile phones. I have a number of problems with this:
* The problem is huge, as each signal emitter is mobile, and thus the signal processing needed to filter out the source of each signal-bounce must be huge.
* As the number of signal emitters are variable in the vicinity of each reciever, this make the signal processing even more complex.
* They claim to being able to put all this in a laptop sized device.
This would not be so controversial if it was a simple cell phone tracing system, as they allready exist. In Sweden, one of the major competators even offer a 'locate' service, allowing other users to locate a phone. This service can be turned on and off from the located phone by sending SMSs. Even when turned off, the phone can still be located, all you block is the ability to get a position on another phone. This can, and has been used by the police to, for example, prove that a certain person has been at a certain location at a certain time.
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- Re:Signal Processing by Cutriss (Score:2) Monday October 14, @10:48AM
- Re:Signal Processing by GigsVT (Score:1) Monday October 14, @10:48AM
- Re:Signal Processing by DumbBlonde (Score:1) Monday October 14, @11:08AM
- Re:Signal Processing by Observer (Score:2) Monday October 14, @11:08AM
Re:Signal Processing (Score:5, Interesting)
by Zocalo (andyb@zocalo.uk.com) on Monday October 14, @11:16AM (#4445729)
(User #252965 Info | http://www.zocalo.uk.com/)
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It seems that half of the comments are from people who has not read the article!
The article talks of a radar system based on the reflected waves from mobile phones.
Like yourself maybe? ;) It is actually talking about using mobile phone *masts* as a basic radar station and has nothing to do with handsets what so ever. The reasoning is that since the base station's transmissions generate echos in the same way as a conventional RADAR installation's transmissions do, then you can listen to and make sense of those echos. By monitoring the returning echos at the base station you can generate a RADAR type map of the surrounding area, and by intelligently looking for changes within that you can detect say, a group of Greenpeace members approaching Sizewell B. nuclear powerstation as a moving state change from the normally static background image.
I used this example on purpose; if the system was live, and given the picture at the BBC [bbc.co.uk] this seems to be an ideal site (ie. flat, limited access) for this kind of thing. If the system were live already then these people would be in jail right now while someone tried to determine whether they are really from Greenpeace, or from Al Qaida. So the tinfoil hat crowd can relax for the time being. But here's a thought: Have you ever considered what an *excellent* RADAR repeater a tinfoil hat makes? Seriously.
Actually, the fact that any kind of intruders managed to get onto a nuclear installation apres 9/11 is considerably worrying to me, but that's another matter.
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| - Re:Signal Processing - no proof of personal locati by ard (Score:1) Monday October 14, @12:20PM
- I'll have to disagree. by Eevee (Score:1) Monday October 14, @11:41AM
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In Ireland... (Score:5, Interesting)
by Kr3m3Puff on Monday October 14, @10:39AM (#4445465)
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I had the privilage of working for a mobile company in Ireland, and one day I was be-bopping around the building and accidently came across a room that I hadn't noticed before. I looked in and saw a giant metal cage and in the cage was a comuputer console and a couple of large servers. I asked the network guy later what it was and he told me it was for the Garda (Police in the Republic of Ireland) to be able to track people. Basically, under court order, they could track down anyone. The understanding of the technology has been around for a long time. Simple triangulation of transmission and there you go, got them. The problem is actually getting access to the information.
I found out later I wasn't supposed to know about that and that there were essentially Garda assigned to that room on a 24 hour basis to impliment any court ordered tracking.
Obviously you aren't made aware of these when signing your monthly agreement, are you?
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panopticon (Score:4, Insightful)
by StrawberryFrog (strawberryfrog (at) webmail.co.za) on Monday October 14, @10:40AM (#4445468)
(User #67065 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday August 24, @05:40PM)
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Read the article. Holy crap!
This is not tracking where your phone is. That’s old hat.
This is using the cellphone signal radiation as an imaging system, like radar or x-rays. Except always on, everywhere. Anyone who walks or drives within range would be imaged.
Sure it would be low res and only show large and/or moving objects like people and cars but It’s quite the panopticon. i.e. everyting everwhere is seen.
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Why limit your paranoia to governments? (Score:1)
by soybean on Monday October 14, @10:40AM (#4445469)
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Maybe Philip K. Dick was right about more then that.
Why do you think you are not a robot?
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Radar evasion (Score:3, Funny)
by wolfywolfy (wolfy_at_8i.com) on Monday October 14, @10:41AM (#4445479)
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The technology 'sees' the shapes made when radio waves emitted by mobile phone masts meet an obstruction. Signals bounced back by immobile objects, such as walls or trees, are filtered out by the receiver .. couldn't you just stand still and 'disappear'? .. or create some kind of personal radar evasion device, like a big blowup doll that moves around.. or get down on all fours (and get filtered out as "dog")
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Radar useless in crowder spaces (Score:1)
by johnjaydk on Monday October 14, @10:41AM (#4445482)
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This radar like gadget is basicly only usefull for detecting the pressence of an object at a location and over time see if it is moving.
This is great to check if somebody is moving into an otherwise empty area on your airbase or powerplant. For tracking individuals in the city this is a non-starter.
Save the paranoia for cell-phone tracking. I know first hand what we can do with that tech.
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As long as it's on ... (Score:3, Insightful)
by burgburgburg (splisken06&email,com) on Monday October 14, @10:42AM (#4445494)
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you can be triangulated on. You don't have to be talking. Since your cell phone has to announce it's availability to local cells so that it can receive incoming calls, you can be found. Not as invasive as the GPS phones or this cell phone radar, but still not comfort inducing. So if you're concerned (and you know who you are), shut off that phone.
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I Think I'm Paranoid (Score:2)
by RAMMS+EIN on Monday October 14, @10:43AM (#4445495)
(User #578166 Info | http://www.inglorion.net/)
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We need to be paranoid about our governments? Why, yes, of course they can do nasty things to us. Way nastier than tracking criminals, I'd say. My guess, though, is that most /. readers live in countries where the people have at least some power over their government. So if you don't like a policy, try to not make them do it.
---
Odzacar cisti odzak
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can't have your cake and eat it too. (Score:1)
by supernova87a on Monday October 14, @10:43AM (#4445496)
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Why is it that when people benefit from a technology, they embrace it and can't love it enough -- then when a government decides to use that technology that they've embraced, but for "evil" purposes (like monitoring traffic, public safety), they're outraged that their actions have measurable consequences?
If you don't like it, turn off your cell phone. Send messages by pigeon, use a cup and string to talk to your friends, be a hermit.
The smart person is the one who manages his/her technology, not the one who gets all bent out of shape and protests whenever a new use if found by someone more clever...
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Philip K. Dick (Score:5, Insightful)
by pete-classic (peter@fpcc.net) on Monday October 14, @10:47AM (#4445532)
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Philip K. Dick was right to be paranoid about governments.
Yeah, or even Thomas Jefferson. Or the ancient Greeks.
-Peter
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People can turn off their mobile phones...! (Score:3, Funny)
by mulhall on Monday October 14, @10:48AM (#4445538)
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So now we need legislation to make sure everyone
a) Has a mobile phone
b) Cannot turn it off
c) Leave it at home
Wow, we'll catch all those crooks now...
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just like charlie's angels (Score:1)
by subgeek on Monday October 14, @10:53AM (#4445578)
(User #263292 Info | http://slashdot.org/~subgeek/journal | Last Journal: Thursday October 03, @01:56PM)
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well they didn't need the voice recognition software after all. charlie is in big trouble now.
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Jeff Goldblum did this in Independence Day (Score:1)
by qurob on Monday October 14, @10:53AM (#4445581)
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"I can triangulate the position from the signal of the cell phone"
Then his wife popped up in the window, and she was like, you nerdy bastard how did you do that?!
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This is even worse than it sounds (Score:4, Insightful)
by oooga (oooga@us[ ]et ['a.n' in gap]) on Monday October 14, @10:56AM (#4445597)
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In the past, all or most of technology-related privacy concerns have differed from this one in a single simple aspect: you basically had to be an active user of whatever technology was exploiting your privacy to be vulnerable to it. Therefore in order for your credit card to be stolen online, it needed to, at some point be transmitted via an online purchase or transaction. More to the point, you actually had to OWN a credit card. A person with all his wealth in gold buried in his back yard had nothing to fear from hackers and the Y2K bug.
Similarly, spam, web tracking, email monitoring, phone tapping, phone-based GPS geo-location; all of these invasions could, by eschewing the technologies involved and choosing to live a simpler, less connected life, be avoided. The sacrifice involved was significant, but not unmanagable.
If technologies like these become acceptable forms of populace control, this axiom of "it only affects you if you use it" will no longer apply. A technophobe with no phone line and no electricity living in a cold-water flat in London will still be vulnerable to electronic espionage. The current range of this technology is anywhere cellular service is available. Considering I was able to make a call this summer from the peak of a 5000 meter isolated mountain top in the remote Italian alps, I find this idea truly terrifying.
The UK has, in recent years, been a bellweather for survaillance practices worldwide. As an American citizen beginning to see the sort of widespread video survaillance now common to those living in England, I make a simple plea to any UK citizens reading: Do anything within your power to stop this. Write letters, mail threatening powders, strip in front of parliment. (Note: don't mail powder. thats a bad idea) Anything to keep this idea from gaining a foothold. I ask this of you so that you aren't subjected to it, but also so that it doesn't eventually bleed into my country.
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that's how they killed pablo escobar (Score:1)
by tigarita.traviesa on Monday October 14, @10:56AM (#4445598)
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the new thing is the radar functionality. cell phone triangulation is nothing new -- governments have been able to do that for a long time. that's how they killed pablo escobar. one minute, he was ordering chinese food, the next....
....EOF
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"Government's secret Celldar project ..." (Score:1)
by Slackus on Monday October 14, @10:58AM (#4445616)
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Good thing the UK still believe's in 007 style "Top Secret"...
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Tracking humans is not possible (Score:1)
by cpt.haddock (dotslash AT brugmans DOT nu) on Monday October 14, @11:01AM (#4445640)
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Radar is not reflected by human tissue (or animal tissue). That is very obvious in a microwave oven; if tissue would reflect radar, it would never heat up.
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PKD? Come on... (Score:2, Interesting)
by SPYvSPY on Monday October 14, @11:03AM (#4445647)
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Maybe Philip K. Dick was right to be paranoid about governments.
First of all, I challenge the notion that Philip K. Dick was 'paranoid'. I know I'm straying a bit off topic here, but I think this characterization is really unsophisticated and does not do Dick's legacy any justice. PKD used all sorts of mechanisms to portray life as a sequences of overlapping and (occassionally) paradoxical realities. In this sense, Dick was quite non-Hegelian in his philisophical outlook -- a trait that separates him from most 'paranoids'.
In any event, I can think of about ten billion better examples of people that *are* actually 'paranoid' about governments.
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Calm Down! Physics says it can't work that well! (Score:3, Informative)
by Fleetie on Monday October 14, @11:06AM (#4445666)
(User #603229 Info | http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk/)
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People seem to be imagining this technology giving you decent-quality moving pics of people moving around. Impossible (IMNSHO) for the following simple but adequate reasons:
1) Phone masts are designed for 1.8GHz tops. At that freq, lambda is about 17cm. Therefore that's about your spatial resolution. Also, this may not apply in all directions. You might, in fact probably will, be worse off in some axes. In fact, I'm not sure you'll get more than a 2-D map out of it, since cellphone masts are laid out in a 2-D pattern, and there is no "grid" in the third dimension (height above ground, altitude).
2) So, it's impossible to identify an individual with that poor resolution
3) And, you can;t even track one moving individual reliably. Someone would (IMNSHO) only have to approach someone, embrace them, spin around a bit, and alk off again, and then I suspect the "viewer" wouldn't be able to tell which individual was which. Do that a few times with a few people, and the number of possible people the "baddie" could be goes up rapidly!
4) All the above assumes the system works really well even at that poor resolution (17cm). What's the temporal resolution, or "frame rate" of the system? Pretty crap, I bet!
5) So quit worrying. There's no way that this technology can be as sexy as it sounds just using existing cellphone masts.
Martin "Fleetie"
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Re:Calm Down! Physics says it can't work that well (Score:4, Interesting)
by Fapestniegd (james <at> jameswhite.org) on Monday October 14, @11:46AM (#4445919)
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Wrong.
I was a Ground Surveillance Systems Operator in the United States Army. Your right the resolution on the radar will not allow you to actually "see" the person, but It turns out you can "hear" the reflected doppler shift and a trained ear can descriminate between A vehicle, pedestrian or even two pedestrians if they have varying amounts of metal on them or have different walking rhythms. So If I had the opportunity to listen to a target walking, for about a minute, then the target embracing someone and walking off would do no good unless they had the same rhythm and the same equipment/belts/zippers and arm swing. I would be able to continue to track them. Of course if the target walked up to someone, embraced them and both targets then started skipping or prancing off in other directions, I would lose them, Or rather I would track both, so really this will only obfuscate you if you can walk up embrace, prance, and repeat. But doing this might draw attention to yourself.
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"Foiling" the radar. (Score:2)
by N Monkey (simon,fenney&powervr,com) on Monday October 14, @11:08AM (#4445682)
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From my understanding of the article, the observer makes use of the signals broadcast from a local cell tower, presumably equipped with their own receiver, to pick up the reflections from moving objects in the vicinity.
In WW2 both sides used strips of aluminium foil (codenamed "Window" by the UK) of the correct length (relative to wavelength) to jam the opposition's radar. If you were so worried, what would stop you from lining the insides of your house etc strips of the appropriate length? Would there be a problem with tuning it to cell frequencies?
I'm just curious to understand the issues involved.
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Why on earth mention Philip K. Dick? (Score:2)
by Theodore Logan on Monday October 14, @11:10AM (#4445697)
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Maybe Philip K. Dick was right to be paranoid about governments.
Was this an attempt to sound clever? If it was, it failed spectacularly, for reasons too numerous to be worthy of explanation.
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But we've had radar since WW2 (Score:2)
by stratjakt on Monday October 14, @11:14AM (#4445717)
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And we've had surveillance satellites that can see the headlines of the newspaper you're reading in the park since the '80s.
So why panic now?
It's not the information that's collected that's scary - it's how it's used.
If they used it to track the movements of organized crime, and it helped build cases, go for it.
If they used it to track every Brit's trip to the "loo", and sold the information to Cottonelle to increase their TP market-share, that's not so good.
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cellphone traffic (Score:3, Interesting)
by Traicovn on Monday October 14, @11:15AM (#4445724)
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This really isn't that new of a technology. I know it has been proposed here in the US on some highways to use information like the number of cellphones in an area, the information could be used to track things like traffic congestion, and then monitoring centers could direct highway patrol to problem areas. It might also help alert highway patrol of accidents, etc. The idea is that they monitor the flow and can see the number of cellphones in an area. The technology of course makes sense because so many people have cellphones and with digital cellphone technology your phone maintains a constant, or almost constant connection to the cellphone tower to my understanding, whether you are making a phone call or not. I know that if you look at this http://money.tbo.com/money/MGAKCWDF15D.html [tbo.com] that you can see where this sort of technology has already been used, but not applying to cellular phones. The idea is essentially the same however. I believe that the cellphone traffic technology stuff I'm talking about was planned for testing somewhere south of D.C. on the beltway or something. It was either Virginia or Maryland where I saw something about it though. Don't know if it ever got implemented.
Some people may also know that reccent government mandates in the US have required cellphone companies and manufacturers to be able to locate a cellphone call to a more precise geographical area. I believe that the goal is something like 25 feet or so. I think the requirement is 300 feet right now. Not sure on this though. The reason stated was of course for 911 calls, however other uses could be conceived.
People can turn their cellphones off, however there are some theories that the phone may still give off some signals (so just remove the battery). Of course new legislation will require you not to remove the battery and the phone will not be able to be opened, etc or else you'll be brought to court under DMCA type laws! heheh Maybe going into areas of 'No Service' will be forbidden too :)
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- This *is* new. by StrawberryFrog (Score:1) Monday October 14, @11:51AM
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Basics already? (Score:1)
by Nick Harkin (nickharkin@@@hotmail...com) on Monday October 14, @11:22AM (#4445753)
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o2 network (UK based) offers something like this, you can have a option where it can locate you, through the signal, to help find local restaurants, and top-up shops.
i don't see this being too different to triangulation, which is around at the momment.
Of course it is different in form, working on a different principle, but the results remain the same.
And 'see through walls'? How hard can this be to implement? Thermal Imaging and anything else that is not dependant on line-of-sight functions can do this already.
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Dear Slashgods (Score:4, Funny)
by Rogerborg on Monday October 14, @11:27AM (#4445805)
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Hear my prayer. Smite down the hordes that posteth about triangulation and about GPRS, for they have not read the linked-to article. Curse them with boils and locusts and bad, bad karma, and banisheth also those that moderate them up, for they do spill their karma upon the stony ground. As in Kuro5hin, so shall it be on Slashdot, for ever and ever, amen.
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I don't see how this is that big of a deal... (Score:2)
by Andy Dodd (atd7.cornell@edu) on Monday October 14, @11:34AM (#4445834)
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It's not like they can identify the objects seen by this system. Unless given prior knowledge or a starting point (Person X was here at time Y), they're just unidentified reflections.
As it is, if they really want to track someone and obtain the same information this system could provide, it's a simple matter of sending up an AWACS plane. (Note: The comments in the article about a fixed system are WRONG. Powerful radars can be and have been put into airplanes) Yes, the new system is more convenient, but doesn't really provide THAT much information that could be used to invade privacy. Hell, carry around a mylar birthday balloon or two and all of a sudden you're an 18-wheeler as far as they're concerned. (I remember a few Slashdot articles ago there were links to the guy who tied 20-30 balloons to an armchair and took off - A few years later another guy repeated the incident and wrapped his tether lines in aluminum foil. He appeared to nearby radar systems to be as large as 4 stacked 747s. He would've looked even bigged if he'd used conductive balloons - One weather balloon can appear as large as a supertanker on radar if it's covered in a conductive material.)
As someone else pointed out, tracking of actual phones (Which can be linked to someone's identity) is "old hat". Already pretty good accuracy is possible (especially on CDMA networks due to properties of CDMA signals that make them very good for range estimation - CDMA signals and GPS "Gold codes" are VERY close relatives of each other.), and the next generation of phones (Some are already out) are E-911 capable, which adds GPS capability to the phone that is used for 911 calls.
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Passive RADAR studies underway everywhere (Score:5, Informative)
by mikewas (mikewas@comcast.net) on Monday October 14, @11:35AM (#4445841)
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There has been a lot of research into passive and/or bistatic RADAR. Bistatic RADAR uses transmitter[s] physically seperate from the reciever[s]. Passive systems are similar, but use RF sources that are primarily intended for other uses, e.g. TV, radio.
Here are some links I found: DARPA research [uiuc.edu], Canadian project [www.nrc.ca] (they're pretty tight -lipped about this), and German work [fhr.fgan.de] is ongoing too.
It seems to have been used in astonomy [geocities.com] for counting meteors & observing auroras.
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Hmmm... (Score:1)
by luuc on Monday October 14, @11:35AM (#4445846)
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I think I need to get some lead walls now. Would that do the trick?
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LockMark tracks airplanes the same way. (Score:2)
by Thagg (thad@hammerhead.com) on Monday October 14, @11:42AM (#4445896)
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Lockheed Martin's "Silent Sentry" system has been trackin airplanes this way for several years, but instead of using relatively weak and short-range cellphone signals, they use the immensely stronger broadcast television and radio signals. A simple demonstration of this technology can be done with any old TV attached to an antenna -- when an airplane flies over, you often get a distortion or echoes in the TV image. As you might imagine, if you explicitly start looking for these distortions, you can detect and track the airplanes remarkably well.
Lockheed's first installation had used regular Radio-Shack TV antennas, but they were replaced pretty quickly by simple T-shaped antennas, along the wall of their building near Baltimore-Washington International airport. They claimed to be able to track targets more than 100 miles away. One spectacular advantage of this kind of 'radar' is that it has no emissions of its own, so the pilots have no inkling that their plane is being tracked. Apparently these systems required substantial computing horsepower, but of course the price of that has plummeted recently. I'm sure that one could build one of these systems now for a shockingly small amount of money.
Given the work that has been done using the long-wavelength TV signals, I'm sure that it will not be long at all before the equivalent cell tower based system can be deployed. It will be interesting to see what it is used for. Theoretically, these systems could have tremendous positive value; for example, things like smart cruise-control that knows where all the cars around you might be. Still, at least in the beginning, you can be sure that it will be exploited by the military and police forces first.
thad
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The New Verizon Commercial goes... (Score:1)
by Boyceterous on Monday October 14, @11:47AM (#4445926)
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Can you see me now?
Good!
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Tracking People Via Cell Phone