Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Jun 26, 2004, at 23:56, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Do any models let YOU decide to send your location to ANOTHER phone? Mine, an Samsung I330 PDA/Phone (actually a rebranded Handspring) allows you to selectively *disable* non-lea queries. Based upon this, I do not believe that the system is broadcast-based, but rather operates solely upon a query-response model. Do any models even let YOU know your OWN approx location (to within that 100m Fedfascist standard)? Mine does not, but I understand that there are models now coming into the market which do. I'm a little late to this thread, sorry... ATT m-mode models have had this kind of functionality for quite awhile. http://www.mobileinfo.com/news_2002/Issue25/ATT_Finder.htm With a few keystrokes on a wireless phone, a m-mode subscriber is given the approximate geographic location of his friend, such as a street intersection. The two friends can then exchange messages, call the other, or choose a place to meet from a directory of nearby restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and bookstores. I'm pretty sure they don't use GPS for this... I think they do some form of triangulation from the cell towers. --bgt
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 12:28 PM 6/27/2004, Jack Lloyd wrote: More recent phones from Sprint must support real GPS, since Qualcomm offers chipsets with GPS support, which they wouldn't do unless their only customers (Sprint phone manufacturers) wanted it. I was looking at getting a Sprint phone last week - every model I looked at had a GPS chip. Do any of them let _you_ see the GPS results (which would be useful), or are they only available to Big Brother and maybe advertisers?
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 01:13 PM 6/27/2004, Jack Lloyd wrote: On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 01:01:53PM -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: Do any of them let _you_ see the GPS results (which would be useful), or are they only available to Big Brother and maybe advertisers? Not as far as I know. The cheaper ones certainly don't, it's possible the more expensive ($300+) models do allow this but I have seen nothing advertising such a feature. Sigh. It probably doesn't even cost them anything - it's just another user interface menu item. (I suppose that's not strictly true - if I were trying to build a GPS Big Brother feature into cellphones for minimum cost, I guess I'd probably look at having the phone just take satellite readings and forward them to a central site for calculations, to avoid having to put any extra computing support into the machine. Don't know if that's a win or loss cost-wise.) I think the best bet for something like that is to get a Treo (which don't have GPS built in), then get a GPS card for it. I've already got a GPS, but I seldom carry it around unless I'm camping - it's old, so it's too clunky.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
Jack Lloyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was looking at getting a Sprint phone last week - every model I looked at had a GPS chip. Try the Sanyo SCP-8100. It does network-assisted location only. It also has a much more sensitive frontend than anything from Samsung, has a reasonably nice-looking screen, and isn't too big. It's old enough that it should be cheap, too. -- Riad S. Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no such thing as a GPS frequency. Well, clearly there's the frequency on which the satellites broadcast (~1500MHz). I think his point was that to jam the GPS you've got to put out RF energy on the appropriate frequency, which would then be traceable to you. Of course, you can do a bit better by using the external antenna jack and feeding the signal straight into the phone. Make sure in this case that you're using low enough power that you don't blow up the front end. -- Riad S. Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
One phone I'd like to recommend against is the SideKick. I've no idea if it's got a GPS receiver or not - likely it doesn't need one since it's GPRS and can use tower timing as discussed before. I'm recommending against it, because while I love the phone and its features, it's too big brotherish. Example: if you write an email while it's out of range of a cell tower, and hit send, it will store the email into the Send folder. If you then try to delete that email from the Send folder it will give you an error saying I can't do this right now because I need to first synchronize with the server. Which means even emails you want to erase will be first sent to the server! It does have an ssh client, a web browser, and an AIM client, but I use these with caution, especially the SSH client. It's also got a USB 2.0 plug and an IR transceiver, but I've not been able to make any use of either, nor seen any options to enable/disable them. For all I know the IRDA could always on and will talk to anyone, etc. You don't own anything on this phone despite the appearance to the contrary. I was also considering Palm phones, but Palm OS is piss poor at memory protection so any application can clobber/read/spy on any other, so if there's spyware in the code that talks to cell towers, you're at its mercy, and it can read anything you've got in it.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 06:27 PM 6/26/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism? I hate to break the news to you Major, but GPS enabled phones cannot be instructed to turn off the GPS feature for law enforcement queries (e.g., 911). Turn it on or turn it off, makes no matter. Sir, I do not own a cellphone. Do any models let YOU decide to send your location to ANOTHER phone? Do any models even let YOU know your OWN approx location (to within that 100m Fedfascist standard)? I'm fully aware the pigs track you unless the battery is removed or you have a TEMPEST case. I'm suggesting that regular citizens will have access to that, if (in my cluelessness) they don't already.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Of course disabling your GPS unit will not prevent the fascists from doing triangulation with signal strength, ie the alternative (and cheaper and less precise alternative). That's merely physics and geometry. To counter that, you need to hack the antennae and and can only displace yourself a few miles. Interestingly, some [early] models had external antenna jacks built in to them. New life for old cell phones! Go for the head shot, they're wearing body armor If at close range, it is far easier to simply throw water at them prior to firing. For one, the water acts as apowerful lubricant, effectively removing the armor, and for two, it distracts the hell out of them ;-) -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism? snip Do any models let YOU decide to send your location to ANOTHER phone? Mine, an Samsung I330 PDA/Phone (actually a rebranded Handspring) allows you to selectively *disable* non-lea queries. Based upon this, I do not believe that the system is broadcast-based, but rather operates solely upon a query-response model. Do any models even let YOU know your OWN approx location (to within that 100m Fedfascist standard)? Mine does not, but I understand that there are models now coming into the market which do. I'm fully aware the pigs track you unless the battery is removed or you have a TEMPEST case. Hrmmm... Cell Phone. TEMPEST Case. What's wrong with this picture??? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: At 07:21 AM 6/26/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/technology/26ALIB.html?th=pagewanted=printposition= The New York Times June 26, 2004 For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi By MATT RICHTEL Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism? I hate to break the news to you Major, but GPS enabled phones cannot be instructed to turn off the GPS feature for law enforcement queries (e.g., 911). Turn it on or turn it off, makes no matter. I wouldn't be surprised if DoCoMo wasn't working on it now.. Already complete. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 06:38 AM 6/27/04 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: If the phone is shielded, it can't transmit/receive, which makes it rather useless. :( When you don't want to use it, why should it not be useless? There is one potential landmine as well; the inherent ability of any device containing resonators to behave like a crude RFID tag. I heard somewhere, and my memory may be failing, that it is possible to irradiate the phone with the frequency of the cellular band, and it faintly resonates and returns back its own echo, which has minute variations given by type, manufacturing tolerances, and possibly age of the phone, giving it a kind of unique signature. (This could potentially apply also to radios and transceivers. Does anybody have any idea if it is possible to do such kind of active fingerprinting of rf devices? This way it should be possible to detect even powered-off devices like hidden transceivers or body wires; take a transmitter, sweep the spectrum, and watch echoes on the receiver - there could be peaks on the frequencies of the tuned circuits inside the examined device.) Your second order effect physics is on target. Nonlinear devices generate harmonics when tickled. All devices vary and have characteristic RF signatures. I read something about that recently somewhere, but memory fails. Question to RF heads here: could it work? I'm not an Elmer but I pretend to be one on the internet.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 02:02 AM 6/27/04 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: Can it be disabled by hardware hack of the phone, a mikropower jammer, or using an unofficial firmware? I wrote: It would be hard to verify/test that you had in fact cut the correct trace, and it would depend on the phone, and you would void your warrantee. Firmware hacks are of course the free man's last refuge. Of course disabling your GPS unit will not prevent the fascists from doing triangulation with signal strength, ie the alternative (and cheaper and less precise alternative). That's merely physics and geometry. To counter that, you need to hack the antennae and and can only displace yourself a few miles. Go for the head shot, they're wearing body armor
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: a mikropower jammer, Only if you are willing to forego the phone as well, in which case, just remove the battery pack :-) I am assuming here that the phone has a dual receiver, one of the GPS signal and one of the cellular service itself. As both operate on different frequencies, it should be possible to jam one while keep the other's service intact. As we can feed the jamming signal right into the antenna of the receiver which we can physically access, we can use very very small powers, which lowers the chance of the jammer to interfere with other devices we perhaps would like to keep in operation, and makes us less susceptible to be annoyed by the FCC goons.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 02:02 AM 6/27/04 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: Can it be disabled by hardware hack of the phone, a mikropower jammer, or using an unofficial firmware? It would be hard to verify/test that you had in fact cut the correct trace, and it would depend on the phone, and you would void your warrantee. Firmware hacks are of course the free man's last refuge.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 11:53 PM 6/26/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: Yes, I suppose that the more technical amongst us could selctively jam only the one signal, however, cellular phones are mighty low power devices, They can put half (?) a watt out, some of it absorbed by your brain and hand BTW. and I would not hazard a guess as to whether it would be possible not to overpower the wanted signals on something like this. Even if this is doable, it is out of reach of Jane Citizen. Any signal you put out is trackable to you geographically, whether its a cell or GPS frequency. I think the onion-routing phone scheme is best, albeit if they're watching your cellphone that UAV will be Hellfiring in your direction soon enough. Best to be in crowds of innocents in that case, my PSYOP consultants suggest. -- How many Zionist Hellfires does it take to fry a quadroplegic priest in a wheelchair BTW?
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Go for the head shot, they're wearing body armor If at close range, it is far easier to simply throw water at them prior to firing. For one, the water acts as apowerful lubricant, effectively removing the armor, huh? Wet kevlar is still strong, no? Strong, yes, but it does not react the same way. I have had an opportunity to acquire body armor and receive formal instruction in proper use, yada yada, and it was repeated over and over again that in order to provide a reliable barrier to high speed projectiles, it had to be kept *dry*. The instructor went as far as making the half joking recommendation that approaches to persons with obvious liquids (coffe cups, soda cans, etc.) should be considered potentially lethal. We were repeatedly warned that searches and questionings of persons armed with fluids should be delayed until such time as the potential lubricants were properly neutralized. The lubricant effect is what makes teflon tipped hydrashocks so effective in spite of big heavy kevlar armor - water may not be as good as teflon, but I am not willing to bet my life on it. As to raw strength, what makes Kevlar so good is that it will stretch. It is relatively useless against sharp objects such as knives which do not present a wide surface. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interestingly, some [early] models had external antenna jacks built in to them. Many still have test jacks on them. Both my old Samsung A500 and my current Sanyo SCP-8100 have a connector (either MC or SMA, IIRC) on the back hidden under a rubber plug. My guess is that with an appropriate connector you could use, e.g., a pringles can to make your antenna much more directional. Triangluating on a non-isotropic antenna should be quite a bit harder... -- Riad S. Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 07:21 AM 6/26/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/technology/26ALIB.html?th=pagewanted=printposition= The New York Times June 26, 2004 For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi By MATT RICHTEL Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism? So the 'victim' would ask the 'liar' to press a button authorizing disclosure of the approx location. The marketing reason would be to help people find others geographically. But it can also be used to evidence (or not) your location. Look mom, I'm *not* at the mall or Cheech's house, I'm at the library. Of course all these locations will be in a database which performs a kind of latitude/longitude Name Service so Mom won't have to fire up a browser and go to a mapping page. GPS/911 services + wireless + inet bridging. I wouldn't be surprised if DoCoMo wasn't working on it now..
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: At 11:56 PM 6/26/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: Hrmmm... Cell Phone. TEMPEST Case. What's wrong with this picture??? 1. You can't receive calls. Only make outgoing, from a location which is known to fascists. Let's try again. TEMPEST sheilding and outgoing calls are not compatible. 2. Use it for your toll-road-transponder too. And you own one, why? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 12:41 AM 6/27/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: At 11:56 PM 6/26/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: Hrmmm... Cell Phone. TEMPEST Case. What's wrong with this picture??? 1. You can't receive calls. Only make outgoing, from a location which is known to fascists. Let's try again. TEMPEST sheilding and outgoing calls are not compatible. Of course outgoing is impossible inside the TEMPEST box. But you don't reveal the intermediate locations you drove through to get to where you broadcast. I drove to Cheech's with my phone unpowered and my toll-road-transponder boxed. Then I drove to the library and unboxed my gizmos. Simple. The gap must have been a glitch to the semiclued Big Bro. 2. Use it for your toll-road-transponder too. And you own one, why? I don't, because I'm a cheapo and professional paranoid. But in my 'hood, there are many tollroad which use them. Otherwise you have to stop and toss coins. Of course your license and face are video'd anyway. If I had one, I would box it unless I was driving on a toll road.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 11:56 PM 6/26/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: Hrmmm... Cell Phone. TEMPEST Case. What's wrong with this picture??? 1. You can't receive calls. Only make outgoing, from a location which is known to fascists. 2. Use it for your toll-road-transponder too.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. [...] The marketing reason would be to help people find others geographically. At least with GSM, the base station always knows the approximate distance to the phone (this is needed by the GSM protocol, for reasons related to time slot management in the presence of finite speed of light, but it might be possible to hack the phone's firmware to fool it, or to register with fewer base stations than usual). The GSM network's database knows the exact locations of all the base stations. Add a little software to do triangulation from multiple base stations, and the GSM network knows the location of the phone, to an accuracy that depends chiefly on the base station density. Add a layer of user interface software, and you're done. No cooperation from the phone is necessary, except what the phone would normally do in order to register itself with base stations so that it can receive calls. No GPS or other non-GSM protocols are necessary. This is already offered as an extra cost service (branded Look for me) by Vodacom in South Africa. It's targeted at parents who want to know where their children are, and the phrase with their permission is included in current advertising. As the seeker, you send an SMS (text message) to a special number to register your phone as a user of the locator service, and to ask for the location of another phone. The network sends a message to the target phone, and the user must reply to give permission to be located. Then the network sends a text message to the seeker, telling them the location of the target. I don't know whether the target's permission is asked every time, or just once per seeker; I do know that it's not just once globally. In any case, the permission is just a flag in a database, and is not really needed by anybody with back-door access to the GSM provider. --apb (Alan Barrett)
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You assume that Jane's only problem is equipment procurement. Alas, Jane's biggest problem has not changed much in the last 100 years: knowledge. Jane doesn't know this is an issue that she might need help with. People who don't know they need such help don't. If you're ignorant you're not paranoid. -- Riad S. Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Body Armor (was Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi)
Just for the record, after writing that last missive, which reflects an experience almost 25 years old, I did some quick googling on current body armor. My experience *probably* does not hold with the latest (post 1999) fiber systems. But I still wouldn't bet my life on it. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 12:01 AM 6/27/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: Interestingly, some [early] models had external antenna jacks built in to them. Again I am a few Moore's generations behind. (Does that make me a semi-Amish atheist? Or a reformed Luddite?) Where I vacation sometimes, I would need a metallized umbrella (or better) and tripod to find a cell basestation. And that rules out valleys leaving ridges, although a few hundred feet of RF cable isn't so expensive. I am aware of the need for non-fixed antennae for 802.11blah fun; I did not realize that modern cells don't have RF connectors. I have also heard of folks war-flying with a simple (tilted) dipole thus pointing part of the donut-shaped receptive region (orthogonal to the dipole) at the ground. Go for the head shot, they're wearing body armor If at close range, it is far easier to simply throw water at them prior to firing. For one, the water acts as apowerful lubricant, effectively removing the armor, huh? Wet kevlar is still strong, no? and for two, it distracts the hell out of them ;-) The fundamental problem is the head is more agile than the C.G. However if you don't hit a seam, or aren't using something better than a handgun, only a rapid bit of ballistic neurosurgery will disable the target. Best to have enabled the claymores when your cameras notice a change. And as Mr. Burns says, to let the hounds loose. A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government. --George Washington
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jamming GPS is no problem, but then they'll just triangulate you within the cell. The only way to prevent that would be to switch off, andn to pull the battery (unless the firmware is open source, and peer-reviewed). A little poking around on google reveals that all but the most recent Sprint phones don't support GPS at all. They rely for location on AFLT, advanced forward link trilateration. That is, they look for multiple towers, then report their delay readings to the network, allowing triangulation. More recent phones from Sprint must support real GPS, since Qualcomm offers chipsets with GPS support, which they wouldn't do unless their only customers (Sprint phone manufacturers) wanted it. -- Riad S. Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism? I hate to break the news to you Major, but GPS enabled phones cannot be instructed to turn off the GPS feature for law enforcement queries (e.g., 911). Turn it on or turn it off, makes no matter. Can it be disabled by hardware hack of the phone, a mikropower jammer, or using an unofficial firmware?
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 12:25 AM 6/27/04 -0500, Riad S. Wahby wrote: Triangluating on a non-isotropic antenna should be quite a bit harder... Bingo. Watch your sidelobes, baby.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, Jun 26, 2004 at 10:46:53PM -0700, Major Variola (ret) wrote: At 12:25 AM 6/27/04 -0500, Riad S. Wahby wrote: Triangluating on a non-isotropic antenna should be quite a bit harder... Bingo. Watch your sidelobes, baby. Triangulation by signal strength is one thing, triangulation by relativistic ToF (time of flight) -- while still not present in consumer gadgets -- is far more difficult to fool. Especially if it's tied into the protocol, that you're getting position fixes along with your sent packets. UWB has such large power and spectrum usage advantages is that I expect most mobile wireless, especialy short-range, would be UWB within a decade, or less. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net pgpRw1xhfWI21.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote: I'm fully aware the pigs track you unless the battery is removed or you have a TEMPEST case. I'm suggesting that regular citizens will have access to that, if (in my cluelessness) they don't already. If the phone is shielded, it can't transmit/receive, which makes it rather useless. :( There is one potential landmine as well; the inherent ability of any device containing resonators to behave like a crude RFID tag. I heard somewhere, and my memory may be failing, that it is possible to irradiate the phone with the frequency of the cellular band, and it faintly resonates and returns back its own echo, which has minute variations given by type, manufacturing tolerances, and possibly age of the phone, giving it a kind of unique signature. (This could potentially apply also to radios and transceivers. Does anybody have any idea if it is possible to do such kind of active fingerprinting of rf devices? This way it should be possible to detect even powered-off devices like hidden transceivers or body wires; take a transmitter, sweep the spectrum, and watch echoes on the receiver - there could be peaks on the frequencies of the tuned circuits inside the examined device.) Question to RF heads here: could it work?
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Thomas Shaddack wrote: On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: Eventually the cellphones will be able to tell another phone approx where they are. Remember the 911-locator fascism? I hate to break the news to you Major, but GPS enabled phones cannot be instructed to turn off the GPS feature for law enforcement queries (e.g., 911). Turn it on or turn it off, makes no matter. Can it be disabled by hardware hack of the phone, Likely a mikropower jammer, Only if you are willing to forego the phone as well, in which case, just remove the battery pack :-) or using an unofficial firmware? Almost certainly, although I do not have expertise in cellular firmware, so I am just making an educated assessment. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Thomas Shaddack wrote: On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: a mikropower jammer, Only if you are willing to forego the phone as well, in which case, just remove the battery pack :-) I am assuming here that the phone has a dual receiver, one of the GPS signal and one of the cellular service itself. As both operate on different frequencies, it should be possible to jam one while keep the other's service intact. Ahhh... My bad: I had not considered my audience when I replied :-) Yes, I suppose that the more technical amongst us could selctively jam only the one signal, however, cellular phones are mighty low power devices, and I would not hazard a guess as to whether it would be possible not to overpower the wanted signals on something like this. Even if this is doable, it is out of reach of Jane Citizen. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Eugen Leitl wrote: Triangulation by signal strength is one thing, triangulation by relativistic ToF (time of flight) -- while still not present in consumer gadgets -- is far more difficult to fool. Especially if it's tied into the protocol, that you're getting position fixes along with your sent packets. You may cheat and use the geography, if suitable, to your advantage. Use a high-gain antenna and bounce the signal off a suitable cliff or building. Multipaths don't have to be enemies; pick a suitable one and use it as a cover. The added advantage is fooling both the direction and the distance.
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 02:02:24AM +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: Can it be disabled by hardware hack of the phone, a mikropower jammer, or using an unofficial firmware? Jamming GPS is no problem, but then they'll just triangulate you within the cell. The only way to prevent that would be to switch off, andn to pull the battery (unless the firmware is open source, and peer-reviewed). -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net pgpOxNKeThKdp.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Riad S. Wahby wrote: J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interestingly, some [early] models had external antenna jacks built in to them. Many still have test jacks on them. Both my old Samsung A500 and my current Sanyo SCP-8100 have a connector (either MC or SMA, IIRC) on the back hidden under a rubber plug. My guess is that with an appropriate connector you could use, e.g., a pringles can to make your antenna much more directional. Many phones have such connectors used by car handsfree holders, in order to use an antenna mounted externally on the vehicle instead of transmitting from the handset into the partially open Faraday cage of the car. RF-skilled people should have no problems adding such connectors to their phones even if they aren't there from the factory.
