Or fake them out by putting your cell phone in your grandmas car and sending her to the mall while you knock over that bank.

Curves

badges? BADGES? We don't need no steenken Badges!!!!

reefdweller

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

Love your country, Fear your government.

Unknown2U

"Triggerfish deployment is OK because it only provides its users with rough location data by pairing serial numbers, phone numbers and other identifiers to a particular tower, rather than the actual content of conversations"

I guess this is like saying that they need permission to bug your house, but they can do all the work necessary to find out where you live and then sit outside anytime they want, without a warrant. If you are a LEO (or associated type), this seems to be a somewhat defensible position, but it is still creepy, and I would be in favor of legislating a court order requirement.

Nick Bourbaki

Hey big bro, hows it going?

Ibelieveinsandwitches

@reefdweller:

hehe I just watched Treasure of the Sierra Madre this weekend.

Ibelieveinsandwitches

I have always wanted to name my first born child triggerfish. thanks to the DoJ, I finally have a justifiable reason to back that up

=/

discounteggroll

Don't just turn off your phone, the battery may still be powering something. Be safe and put it in a metal box.

The Lab

@Xjep: Your assignment for the day: look up "Faraday cage" and "capacitor". Then issue a retraction for your stupid post.

The Lab

Or how about just not being naive. Let's see, a broadcast device with a built-in mic and GPS, usually a camera these days, that you can get people to carry on their person 24/7 voluntarily; nope, no one would be interested in exploiting something like that. You think the government's the only ones doing this? And bet your bottom dollar that most of the people spying on you don't hand over their records based on a simple FOI request.

junyo

@The Lab: Or take the battery out on phones where you can remove it and a metal wont do s**t most buildings are covered in metal and signals get in there fine and damn box wont do anything besides make the person listening in hear static

Xjep

@The Lab: or totally disassemble it like nicki does in bourne ultimatum, that was kinda badass

oldmanstan

@Nick Bourbaki: I think it's more along the lines of them being able to roughly estimate your location at any time (depending on where the towers are of course). So a little more invasive than being able to sit outside your house.

MilktruckHeist

@discounteggroll: I feel like Sarah should name Bristol's next kid triggerfish.

capitalass

@The Lab:

"Be safe and put it in a metal box."

No pun intended?

nutbastard

@RockLobsterNet: Oh yeah...and I forget to mention you would have to know the bitfields the messaging uses. Basically, you need the spec sheet from the carrier if its proprietary. While GSM may be standardized, I'm sure every carrier has some modifications in their firmwares.

RockLobsterNet

@junyo:
Do you have any idea of the requirements for building such a device? For GSM, you have to implement the TDMA, the frequency hopping (both because he channel changes frequency and to monitor the forward and reverse channels), the channel interleaves, break the encryption, demodulate the signal (meaning you need to know the constellation map and the number of bits the QAM uses), be able to sample in the hundreds of MHz range, etc AND do all this in real time. That's alot of work, really expensive, and I think it would be difficult to reliably implement on you own phone. No, I don't think random people are spying on cellular signals.

RockLobsterNet

@MilktruckHeist: Exactly, isn't this akin to affixing a really crappy GPS tracking device to you?

Toshie

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine:

Toshie

@Unknown2U: Hence the necessity of the second amendment...

closhedbb

@The Lab: You didnt say what type of metal box

Xjep

@junyo:

You... got... MODED! (see the two replies above).

monkichi

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: The police keep out of the way of the Guild for the most part. Who do you think supplied them with new cruisers last year?

Bhp9mm

@The Lab:
...
Step 1: Cut a hole in a box.
Step 2: put your junk in that box.
Step 3: make her open the box.

MavisPuford

@Xjep: He just did dummy!

grawss

@Unknown2U: You should not have to fear your government. Your government should have to fear you. Concept of democracy anyone?

magikal04

@MavisPuford: Step 4)...
Step 5) profit.

Lupison

Who cares? I perform all of my top secret espionage via messengers on camel-back anyways. Listen away...

CruJones

meh nothing knew, the government has been able to turn on the mics of our cell phones and listen for a while now, so next time your talking about bad shit dont have your phone sitting on the table lol

SakhiMelbo

@Lupison: Thank you for that reference. poor Tweak

mfusion

I don't have a cell phone.

Me...FTW!

FiveLiters

@closhedbb: Because a gun is going to keep the government from tracking your cellphone?

Ben Zvan

There have been cellular intercept systems for years able to track cell phones by number and Id directly from the phone or through towers. They are receivers and transmitters, no big deal. You could buy a Radio Shack scanner and clip out a diode to remove the cellular filter and listen to calls. The key, don't break the law and don't use anything that transmits radio waves for information that you don't want others to hear.

RomeoPhaethon

@Ben Zvan: Shoot your cell phone. :)

closhedbb