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> thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead. This su
by wolverine876 3y ago
> thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead.
This suggests there is separate hardware with its own power and network capabilities, designed for location tracking, designed to be always on. Is there a way to disable it?
- encom 3y agoI was considering a Pixel 8a when it's released, now I'm not so sure. Not really keen on a mobile botnet.
- nolist_policy 3y agoIMHO if you cary around anything that contains a cellular modem you're fair game anyways.
- TheSkyHasEyes 3y agoThe if here is some phones can be turned off and not transmit anything, at all.
- nolist_policy 3y agoModems are usually directly connected to the battery rail, because (so the saying goes) they have high peak power consumption.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Aerbil313 3y agoI once built a cell phone from scratch. They do have high peak power consumption, and I did connect it to the battery rail directly, along with some capacitors to handle the surges.
- bigiain 3y agoI have a Pinephone, which has hardware switches to turn off potential privacy destroying features. But it's even more secure than that - them made it so it's such a poor phone that I never managed to get it into use as a daily driver phone for more than a day or two at a time! The most private device is one you never bother carrying!
- fsflover 3y agoOn my phone, the modem can be killed with a hardware kill switch.
- nolist_policy 3y agoWhich one? I have a Pinephone and it is a great device. It's just not a good phone.
- fsflover 3y agoLibrem 5.
- alwayslikethis 3y agoIf you need to worry about cellular tracking, you should either carry your phone in a faraday bag or carry a dumb phone whose battery can be taken out.
- flotzam 3y agoFWIW, "It won't be supported by GrapheneOS. (...) Bluetooth still has to be configured and enabled by the OS to make it work that way." https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11520-android-find-my-device-when-powered-off/2 https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11520-android-find-my-devic...
- tivert 3y agoThe article linked there has a few more details about the implementation: https://www.androidpolice.com/android-15-powered-off-finding-pixel-8/ https://www.androidpolice.com/android-15-powered-off-finding...: > To solve this problem, Google is working on a “Powered Off Finding” feature that allows a device to store precomputed Bluetooth beacons in the memory of the Bluetooth controller. This means that even when a device is powered off, it can continue broadcasting Bluetooth beacons to nearby devices. > Unfortunately, Powered Off Finding isn’t the kind of feature that can just be enabled on any device. This is because the device needs to have hardware support for powering the Bluetooth controller when the rest of the components are shut down. Plus, device makers need to put in some extra engineering work to support this feature. For example, they need to support the Bluetooth Finder hardware abstraction layer (HAL) so that the Android OS can enable Powered Off Finding mode and send those precomputed Bluetooth beacons that I mentioned. I don't know how that could work if the battery is dead, unless they're letting the Bluetooth controller draw on some reserve battery capacity after the phone has powered itself down.
- nradov 3y agoThere is mostly dead and then there is all dead. A battery which is unable to supply enough power to keep the entire phone operating can likely supply enough for just the Bluetooth chip. Of course, the resulting deep discharge may damage the battery chemistry.
- nolist_policy 3y agoI'm pretty sure phones shut down long before they reach 0%, keeping plenty of charge for the Bluetooth beacon. The battery protection circuit will for sure prevent deep discharging by cutting the power.
- alephxyz 3y agoPutting my tinfoil hat on, this explains why Google was okay adding a toggle to location access for apps on Android. They don't need your device to send them their location anymore, they'd only need you to be in range of an UWB or BLE device.
- jiberius 3y agoiOS-style runtime permissions (for things like location access) were introduced in Android 6.0, which was released back in 2015. That's quite the long play.
- kelnos 3y agoI'm all for assuming bad intent when it comes to Google and, but this doesn't really make sense. Google owns the OS; if they want your location, they don't need to care about per-app location permissions.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- explore 3y agoDoes anyone know if the baseband chip communication with the tower is disabled in airplane mode?
- non415556 3y agoI've measured with an external, unconnected RF monitor. The cell phone shows clear activity when not in airplane mode, and then zero activity when in airplane mode. There's my anecdata...
- mazsa 3y agoI was told: "I suspect that in airplane mode it would only communicate at the specific request of the system (and perhaps in spread spectrum mode), so [before baseband is activated from outside] it would not be worth measuring." What do you think?
- gruez 3y agoIsn't that... totally expected? After all, it's the system that told the modem/baseband to enter airplane mode in the first place. Of course it can also tell it to exit airplane mode.
- mazsa 3y agoYou are right, bad translation. She was trying to explain that the problem is that, independently of you and against your will, the remote telecommunications system is able to activate the broadband chip of your mobile phone while it is in airplane mode, where you expect the baseband system to be deactivated.
- arcastroe 3y agoDoes this have any implications for "Airplane mode". Or the requirement to turn off your cell phone during takeoff.
- smeej 3y agoYou already don't have to turn your phone's Bluetooth off during takeoff, so, no, it shouldn't.