The “Location Off” switch on your phone is a lie.

submitted by [deleted] from (gabrielsieben.tech)

all 2 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]LarrySwinger2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Airplane mode defeats the point of a Faraday cage. Just put it in airplane mode before leaving your house. Also, is this really something privacy-focused people are ignorant about? I thought it was common knowledge by now.

What I'm wondering about, however, is whether or not wifi has the same effect. Will I get tracked if I keep it on? Snowden says you will, but he doesn't explain how it works. Why would my MAC address leave the routers that have me in range? I did notice that the public hotspots all use the same network, but it requires that the ISP has access to all those routers. Furthermore, isn't the MAC address spoofed on newer versions of Android? So this is something I'm not worried about, I keep wifi on even when I leave the house.

[–]zyxzevn 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There may be a market in a phone network that operates outside the SIM provider network.
Like in Hong Kong protests they used WIFI to connect to the internet.

Note: Even when your phone is switched off, the SIM provider can transmit a search request for your location.
The SIM card has its own small computer system that can do such operations even with the phone off.
It only does not work when your battery is off.

I think the Apple tag system uses RFID that does not need any batteries.
But it needs any I-phone nearby, which are programmed to always scans for such tags.