5 ms·

Can't Feds ask mobile phone servers providers(there are only couple of them in US) for phones registered at specific base station? I think police have been doin

• javagram 7y ago
  They can but that could pick up way more people and not be accurate enough for location tracking. Cell sites can have a range of multiple miles. Phones have a much more accurate location history since they can localize using AGPS. And with google location history turned on it stores that location to googles cloud.
  • novok 7y ago
    I thought the cell sites triangulate the location of customers for better analytics. It's not AGPS level, but it isn't single cell site range either.
    • bilbo0s 7y ago
      If you were a cop, would you want the AGPS range data? or some triangulated range of phones? Cops are only doing what makes sense. You can't really blame them. There needs to be a law that prevents them from doing it. Absent that, people need to stop being so liberal with their information. This was a bank robbery, but the principle certainly applies to other activities as well. I mean really, do you really need your phone on you if you're going to see your mistress? I don't think you do.
      • Iolaum 7y ago
        Not receiving/responding to messages from family and/or friends can be a signal in itself.
    • superkuh 7y ago
      Multilateration. And yeah, it gets down to ~100 meters with good clocks. And this data is stored by all US telcos for 2-5 years.