Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Location Data

Re:Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Loca... by mirimir on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @02:23AM (#17353031)

I doubt that there's any way to fake location based on cell towers. That's all done in the baseband radio, which is not readily user accessible. And even if you could mess with it, it's probably very illegal. It's certainly illegal to spoof mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) because that allows theft of service.

It's much easier to disable GPS location capability. But even that's not very reliable, because there are multiple software levels, most of which aren't user controllable.

The best option that I know is turning devices off, and keeping them in Faraday bags, except when in use. So you get to pick which locations get reported. You're less reachable, but that's a necessary tradeoff. For long-term storage in Faraday bags, it's important to remove the battery, because otherwise the device may drain it, trying to ping towers, even though "turned off".

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Re:Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Loca... by TeMPOraL on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @04:16AM (#17353483)

> I doubt that there's any way to fake location based on cell towers. That's all done in the baseband radio, which is not readily user accessible. And even if you could mess with it, it's probably very illegal.

Also, it would probably cause your phone to simply stop working as a phone - cell towers need this location data for their fundamental operations as a cellular system.

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Re:Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Loca... by mirimir on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @06:12AM (#17353956)

Yes, good point. So if you care about cell towers, you can just nuke the radio, and use only VoIP via WiFi. But even that's iffy, I think, given difficulty controlling apps. And finally, even if all that works, you don't really have a "phone" anymore.

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Re:Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Loca... by throwaway66666 on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @05:54AM (#17353879)

Is having your phone on airplane mode the same as it being turned off? (still trying to ping towers regardless?)

Also, if a phone has no antenna/no data connectivity/no GPS, but has wifi functionality. What is tracking situation there? I assume one could forward calls to the phone through wifi or is that a terrible idea?

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Re:Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Loca... by mirimir on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @06:07AM (#17353933)

About airplane mode, I'm not sure.

About the wifi-only phone, I recall an old guide from Mike Perry about configuring Android devices to use only wifi.[0] But Copperhead is gone, so ???

0) https://blog.torproject.org/mission-improbable-hardening-and...

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Re:Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Loca... by TheSpiceIsLife on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @06:47AM (#17354102)

Wifi only won't help because other peoples phones have precisely geotagged the location of wifi hotspots, and your phone is likely reporting wifi signal strength to the mothership.

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Re:Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Loca... by mirimir on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @02:41PM (#17358357)

Ah, yes. So basically, you can't use your main phone anywhere and for anything that you don't want linked to you. You need one or more secondary phones, purchased as anonymously as possible. Each of those must only be used in specific locations for specific purposes, and otherwise stored in a Faraday bag or box. Perhaps only once, as a "burner phone". In other words, phone use must be compartmentalized. If it matters to you, anyway.

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