5 ms·

You could also turn your cell off/on as needed. Sure you can be "seen" when it's on, but when off, it's my understanding you can't.

alt227 8mo ago
You cant turn modern smartphones off. You may think you can, but you cant. What you could do is put them in a faraday cage if you wanted.
- Alive-in-2025 8mo ago
  Please explain what this means, I can turn my cell phone off. How are they able to ping my phone if it has no power? Or are you saying even when you turn it off there's still some part of it that's energized or something?
  - Spooky23 8mo ago
    The baseband isn’t controlled by you and can wake up without your knowledge. It’s less clear what is the “art of the possible” vs. practical for people who aren’t actively under surveillance.
    - Alive-in-2025 8mo ago
      ok, that makes more sense. If the battery is dead then the phone can't track me (or if you had a phone with a removable battery - i have an old one I kept that is like that).
    - direwolf20 8mo ago
      No part of the phone is controlled by me. Can we stop getting spooked by the word "baseband" yet? It means the modem chip. The modem chip isn't controlled by me and can wake up without my knowledge. But neither is the wifi chip. Or the bluetooth chip. Or the RAM chip. Or the main CPU (application processor). Or the screen. Any one of these could hold malware.
  - balamatom 8mo ago
    Yeah, the battery.
  - alt227 8mo ago
    You are correct and as others have said, the phone can run functions while it looks like its off. This was one of the main reasons manufacturers killed removable batteries. You can put your phone onto standby, but you cannot power it off completely. There are also conspiracy theories that claim the last 10% of battery is reserved for tracking, so that when your phone says its out of battery and wont turn on, it still has plenty of power left to ping tracking data say once per hour or something. I dont push those theories, but judging by what Snowden released all those years ago I wouldnt be surprised.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- lrvick 8mo ago
  If you put them in airplane mode they are no longer permitted to contact cell phone towers by law and it is easy to form confidence the baseband modem is actually off because your battery life is so much better. Or pull out an SDR and prove it if you are extra paranoid. This turns them into wifi tablets. I started out doing this for a couple years before abandoning mine.
  - jmward01 8mo ago
    I've been doing this the last year (ish) and my battery lasts so much longer. I suspect my data usage has been slashed as well. I recommend everyone starts using airplane mode. I just wish I could put individual apps in airplane mode so that they wouldn't be able to communicate, even when I was on wifi, unless I specifically allowed it.
    - zecg 8mo ago
      You can on Android, using this: https://f-droid.org/it/packages/com.celzero.bravedns/ https://f-droid.org/it/packages/com.celzero.bravedns/ (it's also on Google's store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.celzero.bravedns&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.celzero.br... ) Set it as a local proxy to channel all network access through it and you can selectively block any app from accessing any network, or isolate it.
  - alt227 8mo ago
    I am not trying to push conspiracy theories here. But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too? If you are using it on wifi its game over anyway, hard internet connections are easy to track by law enforcement via ip and ISP. Even if you use a VPN your device is still connected to the wifi and can be pinged. Not sure why people here are thinking they are more clever than than the smartphone makers.
    - lrvick 8mo ago
      > But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too? We do not need to wonder, because this is a physics problem and we have science. Radio waves are easy to measure. There have been plenty of experiments with putting phones in faraday chambers with SDRs proving a phone in airplane mode does not emit any cellular frequencies. You could prove this yourself with cheap home equipment if you wished. But also, implementing airplane mode that did not actually disable the baseband modem would be an outright violation of FCC law that would be noticed by curious members of the public if this was widespread. That said a specific targeted device with backdoored software can just make the airplane mode button do nothing, to your point, so physical switches for the baseband are always best, though few devices support them.

alt227 8mo ago

You cant turn modern smartphones off. You may think you can, but you cant. What you could do is put them in a faraday cage if you wanted.

Alive-in-2025 8mo ago
Please explain what this means, I can turn my cell phone off. How are they able to ping my phone if it has no power? Or are you saying even when you turn it off there's still some part of it that's energized or something?
- Spooky23 8mo ago
  The baseband isn’t controlled by you and can wake up without your knowledge. It’s less clear what is the “art of the possible” vs. practical for people who aren’t actively under surveillance.
  - Alive-in-2025 8mo ago
    ok, that makes more sense. If the battery is dead then the phone can't track me (or if you had a phone with a removable battery - i have an old one I kept that is like that).
  - direwolf20 8mo ago
    No part of the phone is controlled by me. Can we stop getting spooked by the word "baseband" yet? It means the modem chip. The modem chip isn't controlled by me and can wake up without my knowledge. But neither is the wifi chip. Or the bluetooth chip. Or the RAM chip. Or the main CPU (application processor). Or the screen. Any one of these could hold malware.
- balamatom 8mo ago
  Yeah, the battery.
- alt227 8mo ago
  You are correct and as others have said, the phone can run functions while it looks like its off. This was one of the main reasons manufacturers killed removable batteries. You can put your phone onto standby, but you cannot power it off completely. There are also conspiracy theories that claim the last 10% of battery is reserved for tracking, so that when your phone says its out of battery and wont turn on, it still has plenty of power left to ping tracking data say once per hour or something. I dont push those theories, but judging by what Snowden released all those years ago I wouldnt be surprised.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
lrvick 8mo ago
If you put them in airplane mode they are no longer permitted to contact cell phone towers by law and it is easy to form confidence the baseband modem is actually off because your battery life is so much better. Or pull out an SDR and prove it if you are extra paranoid. This turns them into wifi tablets. I started out doing this for a couple years before abandoning mine.
- jmward01 8mo ago
  I've been doing this the last year (ish) and my battery lasts so much longer. I suspect my data usage has been slashed as well. I recommend everyone starts using airplane mode. I just wish I could put individual apps in airplane mode so that they wouldn't be able to communicate, even when I was on wifi, unless I specifically allowed it.
  - zecg 8mo ago
    You can on Android, using this: https://f-droid.org/it/packages/com.celzero.bravedns/ https://f-droid.org/it/packages/com.celzero.bravedns/ (it's also on Google's store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.celzero.bravedns&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.celzero.br... ) Set it as a local proxy to channel all network access through it and you can selectively block any app from accessing any network, or isolate it.
- alt227 8mo ago
  I am not trying to push conspiracy theories here. But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too? If you are using it on wifi its game over anyway, hard internet connections are easy to track by law enforcement via ip and ISP. Even if you use a VPN your device is still connected to the wifi and can be pinged. Not sure why people here are thinking they are more clever than than the smartphone makers.
  - lrvick 8mo ago
    > But IF its possible for law enforcement to ping your phone when its on standby, dont you think its possible that it can be pinged whilst on airplane mode too? We do not need to wonder, because this is a physics problem and we have science. Radio waves are easy to measure. There have been plenty of experiments with putting phones in faraday chambers with SDRs proving a phone in airplane mode does not emit any cellular frequencies. You could prove this yourself with cheap home equipment if you wished. But also, implementing airplane mode that did not actually disable the baseband modem would be an outright violation of FCC law that would be noticed by curious members of the public if this was widespread. That said a specific targeted device with backdoored software can just make the airplane mode button do nothing, to your point, so physical switches for the baseband are always best, though few devices support them.