EvilZone
Hacking and Security => Mobile Hacking => : WYSIATI April 28, 2015, 02:24:37 PM
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I saw some shows and films talk about pinging a phone to locate its geological location. Is it possible? How can I do it? For example, tracking down my lost phone.
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Nope. Not possible for you and me.
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Since you want to locate the phone, the easiest would be to call the service provider to give you the relevant information as to which tower the device last signalled from...
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Completely impossible, Ping has nothing to do with geographical location. Nothing.
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I think that if the phone is connected to a wifi AP and you have the public ip address, that you could discover the general location.
Review:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking
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Completely impossible, Ping has nothing to do with geographical location. Nothing.
I believe he doesn't get that it will merely tell him the area in which his phone is, that is, if he gets the carrier to do so for him. And that's a pretty large area.
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Completely impossible, Ping has nothing to do with geographical location. Nothing.
You really couldnt be more wrong :). Ping, the term, comes from sonar an analog technology. It is used in a number of different ways, one of which is a computer term. In terms of "pinging" a cellphone this can be done a few ways. one of which uses GPS, one that uses cell towers, and again as stated by others could also be done if connected to a wireless network. However unless you get the data directly from a network provider the only other real way to track your phone is with certain services/apps. While OP may not know much about how this is done, his terminology was not incorrect.
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You really couldnt be more wrong :) . Ping, the term, comes from sonar an analog technology. It is used in a number of different ways, one of which is a computer term. In terms of "pinging" a cellphone this can be done a few ways. one of which uses GPS, one that uses cell towers, and again as stated by others could also be done if connected to a wireless network. However unless you get the data directly from a network provider the only other real way to track your phone is with certain services/apps. While OP may not know much about how this is done, his terminology was not incorrect.
I like it, It's refreshing. I've been too cooped up with tunnel vision.
I was referring more to switched networks, such as pinging it's 3G/4G IP rather than going into the nitty-gritties of everything.
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I like it, It's refreshing. I've been too cooped up with tunnel vision.
I was referring more to switched networks, such as pinging it's 3G/4G IP rather than going into the nitty-gritties of everything.
that wasnt the nitty gritty of it :P, but im going to get into some of it just because i feel its pertinent. So to start with some reference in case you want it:
https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/park/cs422-datalink_wireless-2-11f.pdf
basically pre GPS in every phone, changing your carrier signal to a new tower was mostly done off of doppler effect(the fading/strengthening of a signal) relative to the towers, the cell towers are using your carrier signal(if in a call) or your own carrier pings to towers(i honestly forget how often these happen while not in use, but its googlable) that it sends to figure out which tower to have you on, because of the coverage and how these towers communicate they know within a relatively small distance where you are based upon triangulation from multiple towers, the concept is almost in its entirety based upon huff duff/ HF/DF detection developed in WW2. Now however though with the introduction of GPS in even a "burner" phone this changes some, though i should note that GPS in a phone is quite often different from say maritime GPS, as the phone itself is not communicating with a satellite for location data, but that the phone is sending its data to a cell tower, that is using its own triangulation+our geo satellites to give your exact position. So even now the cell towers triangulation plays a role in determining your location. In an area with low coverage(that the towers cant triangulate) it will try to base your location off of the speed you were moving at that it could last calculate.
Anyway by OP's post "i saw it in a movie" most movies are referring to pinging a phone off of triangulation/gps not from say its wireless connectivity to a network. Though they still often get much wrong, the terminology is still spot on in this case. Well at least it will be once they get past all those firewalls.
@OP - few last thoughts on getting the info from your network. Depending on where you live their may be local laws that say your provider has to give you location data if you ask, or the provider may have its own internal rules to do so or not, so google would be your best bet on that. See if any local laws exist or if your provider will give that info out to customers. If no to both you could still try some social engineering to see if that gets you what you need.
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If the phone is in your possession you can install apps such as lookout which will allow you to ping the location of your phone. If the phone is already lost or stolen a police report and a new phone is in your future.
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that wasnt the nitty gritty of it :P , something about this link being nitty gritty:
https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/park/cs422-datalink_wireless-2-11f.pdf (https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/park/cs422-datalink_wireless-2-11f.pdf)
Seems like a long read, I read the first page before scowling down impatiently. I'll properly look at it sometime tonight!
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You can just not very easily for us. The cell phone company could send a ping request to the phone, it would be like pinging a public IP on a computer.
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all you need to do is contact your carrier because they always know the phones location to the nearest cell tower. or its last location. but if it has its sim removed than no hope.
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There is unique identifying numbers ESN in phone that can be used by carriers to track phone. But I think you would need to report it as stolen and give them ESN if you have it saved.
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Yall know cops don't give a shit, whether you have the ESN or not. They will not even attempt to find your phone