Can be phones tracked when they are turned off or on airplane mode? Or even if battery is out?
I heard stories that policy can track phone even if sim card is out and criminals stopped steal smart phones because they always got tracked.
What are limits of phone tracking?
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Depends whether you're worried about local police, state / federal police, or the NSA.
Phones are tracking devices. They have to be, how else would you be able to connect to a cell tower and make calls?
Airplane Mode is more user ended than anything. Phones can still call home and usually do. By home, I mean Google, because all Android OS' iterations will call home unless you don't have GApps (disabling does nothing). Calling home is just the OS attempting to connect to Google's server for whatever reason. Google will backpedal and say it's to allow integration for GApps, which is true, but it's pretty fucking suspect that even disabled GApps you don't use will ping Play Services.
If a phone is off, no. But I've read that the NSA knows how to remotely access phone features when it's offline like microphones and cameras. However, that's usually dependent on them privately bugging the phone or remotely accessing it through rootkit. Before Michael Hastings "got killed in a car crash", he used to tell his friends that his phone would turn on by itself. ON top of all the other crazy shit happening to him, it really makes you think
Uhh I'm European so we don't have NSA or federal police since we don't live in federation. Let's say "normal" police
>because all Android OS' iterations will call home unless you don't have GApps
>Not using CopperheadOS
That doesn't really stop the NSA. If anything they just have less restrictions on what they need to do to spy on you.
Forgot to mention: not having GApps DOES NOT prevent Google from pinging your phone. It just won't ping back, and that's one of the reasons there are GCM functionality issues like getting messages late, etc.
What we know:
>all cell phones are always tracked as long as they are connected to the cell network. This does not require a SIM and is just part of network operation.
>all cell phone tracking data is stored
>the NSA can remotely backdoor a variety of phones
>a backdoored phone can be made to log GPS continuously and exfiltrate it via wifi or cell network without the user enabling wifi or cell data
What we don't know:
>how widely backdooring is used and by whom for what
you got some hot pixels on your cam
What are you talking about? Where's that implemented?
>that's one of the reasons there are GCM functionality issues like getting messages late, etc.
GCM doesn't work without GAPPS. Ever App has it's own socket and if it supports streaming, it will get the messages just as quick. Think of GCM as a way to tunnel all your apps individual connections into one.
en.wikipedia.org
GCM is not part of AOSP.
If the battery is out, then I can't imagine that it could be tracked with anything other than RFID (or similar passive system). And RFID is only short-range, so you'd have to be physically near a RFID tracking device to get tracked.
I wouldn't be surprised if every deployment of RFID theft-deterrent systems in stores is required by law to keep a log of every ID it scans, and to make those logs available to the police. So be careful about taking your phone into a big-box store, or any other place where RFID tracking is deployed -- even if the battery is out. A passive RFID chips costs only like 10 cents, and I wouldn't be surprised if all phones are required to have them by law.
If the battery is in and the power button is "off", then it's still possible that they might tap a little current for some kind of stealth communication chip that, for example, periodically "checks in" with the nearest cell tower. If they did that infrequently enough (like, say, once every hour for 5 seconds at a time), then you'd probably never notice the battery drain.
It's also possible that if the battery is out, there might be another "secret" battery that's permanently soldered to the board that provides power for the periodic "check in". So then, when you put your replaceable battery back in, it ends up recharging that "secret" battery.
Turned off depends on phone
Airplane mode depends on phone too
Battery out no
Sim card out yes
Yeah they'll work, botnet apps or any other message apps like whatsapp will fry your battery though cause they need to check constantly for new messages with default energy save option disabled to get messages just as fast as GCM.
AFAIU, phones store some energy after the battery has been removed... but not a lot.
there must be some papers out there that talk about the topic
No, they don't. Signal does not work, specifically for that reason. Whatsapp has native websocket support, it does not rely on GCM when GAPPS aren't available. Please stop spreading misinformation.
Calm down you aspie, i'm not spreading misinfo. Signal doesn't have websockets cause it's a piece of shit made by a jew, even Telegram has support.
What I'm saying is you conclude wrong in that apps with a hard gcm dependency work without it. Also a phone with no GCM can't be 'pinged' by google any more or less than any other device connected to the internet. A ROM such as replicant or copperhead does not transmit any data to or from google, except for when the user willingly chooses to do it.
I'm not that guy that was talking about the pinging though.
>I heard stories that policy can track phone even if sim card is out
Yep it's easy, even without a SIM your phone will try contacting towers "for emergencies", which also conveniently lets them track your phones IMEI in the process.
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