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Or the could: 1. sample the HSS (HLR in old-money) every night to find which phones are camping in which location areas (LAC)s; 2. this given them a phone → a
by pinkfoot 7y ago
Or the could:
1. sample the HSS (HLR in old-money) every night to find which phones are camping in which location areas (LAC)s;
2. this given them a phone → area location for every phone in the country, where area is about 200 cells (a few km²);
3. then they could draw out the call detail_record (CDR) of very outgoing call, SMS, and even data session to get the cell identity;
4. this gets the phone → area mapping down to a few hundred m²;
5. then if they are motivated, they will use the location services in the Mobile Application Part (MAP) to silently move every unknown phone into dedicated mode and repeatedly determine its location to within 10m - 50m;
6. if the phone has control plane, GPS, they just ask it that. Many, many phones do;
7. this information is collected all the time and passed to in-house and 'external' GIS teams to cross-reference against all sorts of wonderful data;
8. they know who you are.
The good news is they don't care. They just want you to spend more. ARPU is everything.
Source: I built this stuff for a living.
- rsync 7y agoAll points well taken - and that I have a firm grasp on. My threat model is "telco or ISP employee decides to see if John is a customer and, if so, just what John does with his phone". They will not find me in their customer database and they'd have to dig fairly deeply, and possibly involve banks and/or LEAs which are not my threat model. Also, just as a coincidence, and not by design, my place of residence has zero bars of mobile service ... I lose it about two miles from where I live ...
- pdoege 7y agoWhen I was playing the game we cross licensed with banks, credit agencies, and etc. I couldn't evade my own nets because I have a drivers license, property, and bank accounts. I'm sure that you've done better.