7 ms·

Okay so there is something I actually do desperately want. I want a way to spoof GPS signals within my own home such that devices e.g. my phones cannot geoloca

by dheera 6y ago

Okay so there is something I actually do desperately want. I want a way to spoof GPS signals within my own home such that devices e.g. my phones cannot geolocate themselves using GPS, or get a reading with a pre-defined wrong location. At the same time, I don't want to affect devices outside my home. It doesn't need to fill my home either, I'd be happy with a PCB that be stuck to the back of my phone or in a backpack that does this for a 30cm radius.

XorNot 6y ago
Kind of pointless though - you'll still get datamined the moment you step outside.
boring_twenties 6y ago
For Android at least there's XPrivacyLua which can spoof things like GPS to apps that request them.
- dheera 6y ago
  Yes, but there are idiot apps like WeChat that now ban you arbitrarily if they think you're interfering. I got banned once for running Xposed plugins on WeChat. It would be nicer if no software on the phone had any way of telling that it is being spoofed, and instead spoof the actual radio waves. Or maybe I should just desolder the GPS chip, if I can figure out which one it is.
  - tomjen3 6y ago
    Or stay the fuck away from WeChat and anything else made by the Chinese state.
    - dheera 6y ago
      Uh this has nothing to do with China. Tencent does some horrible things with software beyond the laws of China. Apple does too -- that's why I don't use an iPhone as my normal phone. But I have to use an iPhone for certain test apps and I'd like to be able to spoof GPS for Apple and Tencent at the same time. I'm much more concerned about these companies invading my privacy than the US or China government.
  - elzbardico 6y ago
    If you are concerned about privacy, it may not be in your best interests to install WeChat or any other app developed by companies under the jurisdiction of a State without a strong legal and enforcement framework dedicated to the protection of your rights.
    - dheera 6y ago
      I don't want to bring the State into this. Yes there are censorship issues. But Tencent does a LOT of horrible things with WeChat that are not even required by the state. I'm talking Apple-level horrible. Also, I don't actually have an option if I want to maintain my social life.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    WeChat? Really, brah?
rachelbythebay 6y ago
You could probably record the band with a SDR from another location and just replay it on a loop. Both time and space measurements would be affected. But you really don’t want to do this in any way that could possibly leak out. You will make a bunch of connections you never wanted to make.
cozzyd 6y ago
Do you even really get GPS inside your home? Maybe next to a window, but GPS signals don't usually make it indoors. If you're tracked indoors it may be because your WiFi router was scanned by Google or something. As for jamming it, I think most GPS receivers probably saturate at around -60 dBm in band, so you can probably just strap a noise diode with a suitable filter on the back of your phone or something...
- dheera 6y ago
  Okay, so the dark side of this is that I don't want Google and Mozilla to associate my Wi-Fi access point with a GPS location, and by corrupting GPS data within my home they can think my Wi-Fi router is in the middle of the ocean.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    The problem is that a neighbor that sees your WiFi access point will be feeding Google/whoever with the correct SSID/geo correlation. Your data will eventually be excluded out as noise and you won’t have prevented anything. Basically your neighbors become unwilling informants.
    - dheera 6y ago
      Okay, so flip-flip side of this is that I would like to be excluded out as noise so that they stop tracking me, and I can keep changing my access point's mac address and SSID periodically to solve the neighbor problem. Alternatively, I could just move my fake location a few blocks down the road and it would be enough to satisfy my privacy wishes while not being too much of an outlier. Still though, I would like to at least /try/ it rather than just sitting here and doing nothing about it.
      - myself248 6y ago
        Something in https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim/network https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim/network is worth a try.

by dheera 6y ago

XorNot 6y ago

Kind of pointless though - you'll still get datamined the moment you step outside.

boring_twenties 6y ago

For Android at least there's XPrivacyLua which can spoof things like GPS to apps that request them.

dheera 6y ago
Yes, but there are idiot apps like WeChat that now ban you arbitrarily if they think you're interfering. I got banned once for running Xposed plugins on WeChat. It would be nicer if no software on the phone had any way of telling that it is being spoofed, and instead spoof the actual radio waves. Or maybe I should just desolder the GPS chip, if I can figure out which one it is.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  Or stay the fuck away from WeChat and anything else made by the Chinese state.
  - dheera 6y ago
    Uh this has nothing to do with China. Tencent does some horrible things with software beyond the laws of China. Apple does too -- that's why I don't use an iPhone as my normal phone. But I have to use an iPhone for certain test apps and I'd like to be able to spoof GPS for Apple and Tencent at the same time. I'm much more concerned about these companies invading my privacy than the US or China government.
- elzbardico 6y ago
  If you are concerned about privacy, it may not be in your best interests to install WeChat or any other app developed by companies under the jurisdiction of a State without a strong legal and enforcement framework dedicated to the protection of your rights.
  - dheera 6y ago
    I don't want to bring the State into this. Yes there are censorship issues. But Tencent does a LOT of horrible things with WeChat that are not even required by the state. I'm talking Apple-level horrible. Also, I don't actually have an option if I want to maintain my social life.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  WeChat? Really, brah?

rachelbythebay 6y ago

You could probably record the band with a SDR from another location and just replay it on a loop. Both time and space measurements would be affected. But you really don’t want to do this in any way that could possibly leak out. You will make a bunch of connections you never wanted to make.

cozzyd 6y ago

Do you even really get GPS inside your home? Maybe next to a window, but GPS signals don't usually make it indoors. If you're tracked indoors it may be because your WiFi router was scanned by Google or something. As for jamming it, I think most GPS receivers probably saturate at around -60 dBm in band, so you can probably just strap a noise diode with a suitable filter on the back of your phone or something...

dheera 6y ago
Okay, so the dark side of this is that I don't want Google and Mozilla to associate my Wi-Fi access point with a GPS location, and by corrupting GPS data within my home they can think my Wi-Fi router is in the middle of the ocean.
- kortilla 6y ago
  The problem is that a neighbor that sees your WiFi access point will be feeding Google/whoever with the correct SSID/geo correlation. Your data will eventually be excluded out as noise and you won’t have prevented anything. Basically your neighbors become unwilling informants.
  - dheera 6y ago
    Okay, so flip-flip side of this is that I would like to be excluded out as noise so that they stop tracking me, and I can keep changing my access point's mac address and SSID periodically to solve the neighbor problem. Alternatively, I could just move my fake location a few blocks down the road and it would be enough to satisfy my privacy wishes while not being too much of an outlier. Still though, I would like to at least /try/ it rather than just sitting here and doing nothing about it.
    - myself248 6y ago
      Something in https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim/network https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim/network is worth a try.