Yes, there are commercial groups (in the UK) that do it.

Most cell phones are detected by multiple towers, plotting these and using signal strength will give an accuracy of ~100m.

I'm sure there are various government agencies that do it as well, (for our own protection, of course).

The US gov is getting GPS units added to phone for use by accident/fire/ambulance agencies (for our own good, of course) ffeJ

..."for our own protection"... "for our own good" ... of course!... Little does the general public know how pervasive the government has become thanks to apathy and ignorance!

If I could vary the strength of the transmitted cell signal, would I in effect"scramble" my position? James

In a triangulation scheme, the power would vary for all towers, nulling the power variation noise you are creating.

Best would be to lower the power enough to picked-up by one tower only, but the vicinity of your location would be known.

Just my impression, not an expert on this.

Easy. Just turn the damn thing off.

It is truely amazing how these "pervasive governments" allow websites like this isn't it? It is also amazing that the respondents, up to this point, have not hesitated in condemning the government but have not wasted one keystroke on asking why this person wants to track someone through their cell phone. Have you ever heard the term "stalking"?

I have no idea why this person wants to know, but the first thing that popped into my head was something akin to your thoughts. Then, I thought of teenagers...

There is a system out there that lets you track where your children are driving. I saw it on TV on the Hulk Hogan show to track one of his kids on a date. That's parenting!

Should be able to find it in one of those spy stores that are showing up in some malls. Ah paranoia. Don't ya just love it?

<There is a system out there that lets you track where your children are driving. I saw it on TV on the Hulk Hogan show to track one of his kids on a date.>

No it doesn't. It only tracks where the transceiver is.

<There is a system out there that lets you track where your children are driving. I saw it on TV on the Hulk Hogan show to track one of his kids on a date.>

No, it doesn't. It only tracks where the transceiver is. Anything over that is an assumption.

"Assume makes an ass out of U and me."

YES you, or rather the phone company, can track cell phones easily.

I started investigating this when my phone got stolen. Though the operator says it can not (he tries to sell you a new phone at high price after you lost yours)

The most accurate way of positioning is with TDOA which stands for time difference of arrival of the signal.

In town you can locate a phone up to 10 meters.

Locating is also available in France through the portal of SFR directly from your phone so that you can see where exactly you are. A similar function as GPS but with different technology.

You will find interesting stuff on http://www.toomonline.com/gsmlinks.htm

I hope you will enjoy it.

A puzzle here.

I and others replied to this Topic, but the Posts seem to have vanished.

This was the second Topic of similar nature, where the Posts vanished

Try this site:

http://www.sat-gps-locate.com/english/index.html

Thanks! I tried your suggestion and found out it is a JOKE, but that JOKE now has a cellphone number......DO NOT fall for this URL......

Federal prosecutors are being granted the right to reach out and find someone by 'pinging' cellphones "upon request", according to a front page article in Friday's Washington Post.

"Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers," Ellen Nakashima reports for the paper. "In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime."

The article continues, "Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives."

Excerpts from article:

#

Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.

The issue is taking on greater relevance as wireless carriers are racing to offer sleek services that allow cellphone users to know with the touch of a button where their friends or families are. The companies are hoping to recoup investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking. Sprint Nextel, for instance, boasts that its "loopt" service even sends an alert when a friend is near, "putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town."

....

"Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."

This is long, I know. But it does address the issue. This article is from the Raw Story website.

Note that with some of the later technology cellphones, even if the cellphone is turned "off", the tracking can continue.

In that case, the only way the cellphone position is non-trackable, is when the battery is removed.

Now for my tinfoil hat, once again

LOL! That is hilarious. I've heard they can listen in to conversations, even if the battery is removed. Don't know if it is true, (I doubt it). Anyway, looks as if the cell cos. are moving toward the direction of the account holders to be able to track others. Hmmm. I still would like to know why the original poster wants to know.

There were several sensible replies, to this and a similar topic re "tracking".

Sometime during the last 24 hours, most Posts in the 2 Topic Threads just vanished.

I did put a Post today, in each Topic, to say the Posts had "gone missing"....

As far as I can see, the posts on this thread are all here, just not in numerical order. Haven't visited the other site you mentioned. ??

The earlier Posts "vanished" and the later Posts just re-started the numerical sequence, as though the earlier Posts never existed .

I have sent an email to admin here, about the "lost Posts" for the 2 similar topic Threads - awaiting a reply to that email....

There is currently a system that one can subscribe to, primarily to keep track of children. One mode is that if a child (with a cell phone) ventures outside a set area, the parents (or originator) receive a cell message. It's likely that there are systems to track any cell phone signal. Call one of the major cell companies (Verizon, etc) and ask for info on this.

Cardio-2's post is the best one on this.

All of the cell phones manufactured in the last few years have had GPS capability, but not all of them have had the API enabled. Now, they pretty much all do. The question is, what application on the phone is going to use the information to make it valuable to the user. Tracking applications for employers and parents and navigation programs are the main uses. Emergency/911 applications are the next.

All cell phones report information using one of three methods: GPS, triangulation, or cell reference. GPS can be autonomous or network assisted, where the network uses some information about the general location to alert the handset as to which satellites to look for and assists with the location calculation. In the case of triangulation, at least three towers are required. A general azimuth (from the cell sector) and the time it takes for the signal to reach the handset are measured and compared to get a fairly accurate location. It is generally not as accurate as GPS. If all else fails, most networks know the cell tower that the device is primarily talking to, or on some networks, the particular sector of the cell tower, so it can report a tower location or a cell sector center location. These are the least accurate, generally within a mile or so of the phone's actual location.

Since the cell companies in the US are required to comply with 911 requirements, you may not be able to completely hide, but you generally can prevent your device from reporting it's location to other applications as you will have to install it on the device or opt-in to the service. If that's too much, stick to land-lines.

I do not personally believe that manufacturers put GPS modules in phones without the owner knowing about it and paying for it.......sorry.....triangulation is the only method for most phones.....

I recall at least a couple of years ago, news reports that phone manufacturers were designing in GPS circuitry to most if not all cell phones in response to the need of rescue organizations to locate victims, probably stemming from 9/11. At that time, rescuers held silent when ringing phones were heard from under the pile of rubble. After all of that, it was considered that if the technology to pinpoint the location of a phone was readily and cheaply available, it should be utilized. You may not know it, you may not want it and you may not know that its cost is a part of the package but it is there.

Its simply not true, sorry, you listened to Bullshit.....don't listen to such comments....

No phone company will build in anything for nothing, also a GPS receiver with software makes a phone MUCH easier to sell at a much higher price!! So he would hardly be likely to NOT tell the customer.....surely you can understand real logic?

I can also confirm that it is done with triangulation, both based on field strength and based of TDOA. TDOA is more accurate of course.

TDOA is being applied by commercial products as you can find out on

http://www.cell-loc.com/how_tech.html

http://www.nobbi.com/download/nmmanual.pdf is also interesting for learning how to netmonitor

check also : http://mobil.crazy.cz/monitore.php

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Nokia%20E90%20Communicator:1994655357

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Nokia%20N95:1994929020

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Nokia%20N95%208GB:1995141777

http://cellphonegps.blogspot.com/

http://shopping.yahoo.com/s:Cell%20Phones:137618-Cell%20Phone%20Type=GPS;_ylc=X3oDMTEwMzRwMnAxBF9TAzk2NjMyOTA3BHNlYwNmZWVkBHNsawNzc2VhcmNo

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,115273-page,1/article.html

Need I say more?

Unless, of course, most cell phone users don't want to be anymore trackable than they already are. I, personally, don't appreciate it, so I sure as hades wouldn't ask to pay for it. Surely, you can see that logic, huh?

This sounds like another of those "the government is trying to kill me" worries....

Firstly, big business will not pay for such things, secondly, there are other methods which are being used to track where you are with your phone just as well as with GPS or even better.

These systems even work where GPS does not!!!! GPS requires that nothing gets between it and the Satellite, whereas the other methods only need to have phone contact! Some of the modern methods use only need to track you to the point at which the contact breaks.....so they still know where you are within a short distance!

The newer methods do not cost a cent extra in the telephone.....whereas a GPS receiver and associated hardware and software would add probably up to $30 to the price of the phone.....

Go and get yourself fully informed about such things.....it pays in the end!!!

I would only point you to post # 30, especially fourth one down. Being very close to someone who has been highly involved in the cell industry for 20+ years, I can tell you that the technology has been built into the phones for years. Yes, GPS. It does require (for YOU to use it), that you pay for it as a feature. However, just because you decide not to use that part of the phones capabilities does not mean that it cannot be used passively. It most certainly can. Show me otherwise, I will concede. Absent that, well....

If you want to fantasize further, thats your personal problem in this world that you must live with, I have done my best for you, I also know when to give up when trying to re-educate somebody that has a fixed unalterable concept in their brain....

Read my sign off, it is as true today as it was when Winston said it!!!

Also you have obviously never been directly involved in large international business decisions the way that I was, setting policy that would be followed for many years with only minor and necessary changes....flexible but also inflexible.

The inflexible part is that the cost of the hardware must come down each year, 50% was the aim, sometimes we didn't make it, but adding a substantial cost without the hike of the end price was NEVER a question at all......no company does it for free, ever.

Most years we reduced hardware production costs AND hiked the price, we had very good products.....

With regards to phones, some models are available with and without GPS, the ones without usually (not always, it depends upon production quality at the time) are made of ones where the GPS did not function or did not function correctly under test. These are disabled, usually in a manner that precludes trying to get it functioning again. The actual antenna is not even attached or supplied...sometimes (less often today) the GPS is a seperate chip, then it is not even supplied......

This is all variable to a degree from manufacturer to manufacturer on how they achieve this. Do not forget that the external appearance has little to do with the inside and how it works....

If you want to continue to believe otherwise, that is your pleasure in this world i am sure.......

I think we are all saying about the same thing here.

The fact is that Qualcomm has built gpsOne modules into its chipsets for years. These modules have not always been enabled -- or have been disabled. They have been enabled by carriers and handset manufacturers in the US for compliance with Phase II of the FCC E911 requirements. I can't speak for Europe and what is required or happening over there. (Background: Phase I of the FCC requirement required carriers to be able to pass cell tower or cell sector information to the PSAP. Phase II requires the ability to pass a more precise location. GPS and/or triangulation is used to get this more precise location.)

So, the fact is that the chips were manufactured with GPS capability for years, but this capability has not always been used. It has been used in a passive mode for 911 purposes, and requires opt-in or some sort of active selection to use for other purposes today.

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.

Exactly.

Google now launched a navigation system for your cellphone using the localisation facility of the GSM network

See http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html for the details.

I certainly understand not wanting to pay for the infrastructure that contains an option that you choose not to access, but it is just like the road leading out to the mayors house. You will never use it and don't even care if it is there, but you will pay for repaving it. It's cost is built into your taxes. You can't opt out in this tax year. You can only move in the next to a town that also has a mayor.