[HN Gopher] Comparing trips between cellphone towers and Google ...
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Comparing trips between cellphone towers and Google timeline (GPS)
Author : leoferres
Score : 47 points
Date : 2021-05-20 13:44 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (leoferres.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (leoferres.info)
| antman wrote:
| Two disclaimers: Worked telco, I am in Europe and that data is
| erased afterwards due to GDPR.
|
| So in the telco in the old days one could use bayesian and
| accross different days data and pretty accurately know where
| people are. And it wasn't that useful. Identifying through
| combination of phone, phone contract, landline, wifi over
| landline which people were in the same household woukd be useful
| apparently easier but in reality a total mess in terms of edge
| cases.
| alias_neo wrote:
| So your phone provider knows which streets you might have walked
| down, Google knows whose shoulders you might have bumped into.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Correct, until you call 911. The PSAP can either get GPS or
| have the phone pinged to get it.
| brokenkebab wrote:
| >The PSAP can either get GPS or have the phone pinged to get
| it.
|
| Could you elaborate? Get GPS how?
| gene91 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1
|
| Many phones manufactured after 2005 have GPS receivers
| built in. When the cellular phone detects that the user is
| placing an emergency call, it begins to transmit its
| location to a secure server, from which the PSAP can
| retrieve it. Cellphone manufacturers may program the phone
| to automatically enable GPS functionality (if disabled)
| when an emergency call is placed, so that it may transmit
| its location.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Phones go into an emergency mode where they transmit the
| gps location. The accuracy depends on factors including
| length of call iirc.
|
| I believe they can then call the carrier to ping the phone
| to report location. Typically that happens if the
| dispatcher has reason to believe there is a emergency
| situation and the call drops.
|
| I _think_ the phone will notify you of this. At least it
| did many years ago when I called 911 for a car accident on
| the highway.
| leoferres wrote:
| Yes, telcos have an error of a few km. Google tells me, from
| another country, where _exactly_ I came from, where _exactly_ I
| went, and how (walking, driving, ...)
| beauzero wrote:
| One of the hardest problems, a few years back, to solve was
| getting data to determine which traffic lane you were in. It
| was to provide targeted ads on billboards, that through
| reflection, could show different ads to people in different
| lanes based on "external" searches such as browsing patterns.
| To my knowledge the problem was not solvable using wireless
| telco data.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| I've got a bunch of the privacy stuff on my Android phone,
| and even when I use Google Maps while driving I'll ask
| "where's the nearest grocery store" and it will regularly
| think I'm hundreds of miles from where I am. I can't even
| figure out why. It once thought I was in the ocean.
|
| To be clear, when I am asking this, the phone has access to
| my location data and everything else it asks for.
| titzer wrote:
| The accelerometer in most phones is accurate enough to detect
| individual footsteps. Phones also include a barometer that is
| sensitive enough to detect which floor of a building you are
| on. With dead reckoning based on accelerometers, calibrated
| by GPS, compass, WiFi, and barometric data, people can be
| located to within centimeters. Activity detection, mode of
| transport--ha, child's play!
|
| If you run Android, turn off "high location accuracy". It
| uses all of these features.
| leoferres wrote:
| :) I really don't care that Google knows what I'm doing.
| What I do find amazing is that people are usually afraid of
| telcos for tracking, when it's more like you have to be
| afraid of Google and apps like Candy Crush...
| titzer wrote:
| You realize that with a NSL the US government can compel
| Google to disclose information on anyone and that the
| contents of NSLs are completely secret, right? Oh yeah,
| and Google operates globally and no one really knows what
| arrangements they have with the various governments
| around the world.
| rurban wrote:
| Or even worse, arrangements with criminal and terrorist
| organizations, committing warcrimes all over. They now
| love to shoot you down with a drone based on Android High
| Accuracy Location Tracking, without any due process. They
| also love to block free travel without due process. It's
| called freedom (of civil rights, to block and terminate).
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(page generated 2021-05-20 23:02 UTC)