Hi L,
A distance circle around the tower most likely crosses only one house, and this is most likely yours.
C
Cellular towers broadcast their signal all around them, in all possible directions.
If I drive you to the cell tower and tell you that the target is 2 km away from this cell tower, then I take out the map, draw 2 km long lines in four directions, and then make a circle.
Now we have a circle with a radius of 2 km, and I tell you that your target is at the edge of that circle. How useful would that be? Useless.
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Hi L,
Ok, have it your way, but this is not as you describe.
C.
I guess that is one way to put it. (but also Google brought every non-Apple manufacturer to form Open Handset Alliance forward Android harder - There was a good chance that Symbian could have taken off had it not been for Android’s rapid development and Nokia’s ignorance of Smartphones)
The only Google products I use at this point are Maps and Photos, which I plan to phase out once I upgrade to an iPhone next year.
Upgrade from what?
They’re fine in terms of security, not overall.
They actually use multiple directional antennas and the specific antennas that get used are known to both the tower and the device.
This is used to refine location data.
See https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/dl_common_library/dl_brochures_and_datasheets/pdf_1/LTE_LBS_White_Paper.pdf
OTDOA is the positioning solution of choice when GNSS signals cannot be used due to a lack of a clear line of sight. OTDOA uses neighbor cells (eNB’s) to derive an observed time difference of arrival relative to the serving cell.
OTDOA is the method of choice for urban and indoor areas, where (A-)GNSS will not provide its best or no performance at all. Another method for position estimation in LTE is Enhanced Cell ID (E-CID), based on Cell of Origin (COO). With COO the position of the device is estimated using the knowledge of the geographical coordinates of its serving base station, in terms of LTE the eNB. The knowledge of the serving cell can be obtained executing a tracking area update or by paging. The position accuracy is in that case linked to the cell size, as the location server is only aware that the device is served by this base station.
You can actually get a fairly accurate location with just one tower:
E-CID with estimating the distance from 1 base station.
In addition, the antenna array configuration has a key impact to the AoA measurements. Basically the larger the array, the higher the accuracy
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Any estimates on how accurate it can be? When only using one tower.
I have a Pixel 7 right now. i want to get iPhone 15
I’m sorry to hear about your app. I think it’s fun to tinker with devices but I feel like I just want something that works and I could reasonably expect some privacy from. I don’t feel comfortable using specifically Google products knowing that they donate to anti-lgbt lawmakers, promote hateful misinformation on Youtube and search, and run ads produced by influential hate organizations. Apple of course is not perfect either and has their own problems, but they are the next best option.
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Both Google and Apple are equally horrible.
This is only two days ago: Apple shows how little they give a fuck about its users and removes leading VPNs from the Russian App Store
How Tim Cook Surrendered Apple to the Chinese Government
Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims
How Apple uses anti-competitive practices to extort developers and support authoritarian regimes
I’m barely scratching the surface here.
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The risk might be low, but people who get caught in a geofence warrant can get into some real trouble. Having an anonymous SIM/device (IMSI and IMEI) might help, but an anonymous SIM/device caught in a geofence warrant would get further investigation. An anonymous SIM/device is still trackable, and it would take changing IMSI and IMEI frequently (impractical) or staying in offline mode all the time (defeating the purpose of having a SIM) to prevent this. Further, it is impossible or extremely difficult to acquire an anonymous SIM in many jurisdictions these days.
Don’t forget Wi-Fi signals can be tracked too.
A 2 km circle wouldn’t be an impossible area to investigate (depending on how motivated and resourced the adversary is), so not completely useless, but, not very useful. Even a zero-thickness distance circle would unlikely cover just one house, and the radius estimated from signal power and round-trip time would have large error. Location estimated using multiple cell towers (multilateration) would have much smaller error. The more cell towers involved, the better the estimate.
Cell towers send and receive from all directions, but they are not purely omnidirectional. They have directional antennas fitted. Sets of three 120-degree antennas are common, in which case the location estimate approximates a 120-degree arc instead of a circle.
In urban environments, if you’re in range of one cell tower then you’re probably in range of another. If a phone in range of any cell tower, it would be foolish to think that it cannot be located.
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