EM waves can hit the antenna on a phone much like pushing a child on a swing, higher and higher.
A capacitor and inductor tank circuit acts the same way. With enough energy store (very little needed) it can transmit the phone ID with no battery present.
So the only way to not be tracked is with a Faraday cage. Fully enclose a device in aluminum or other conducting material. There are Faraday phone pouches etc.
We've seen there's no level of power abuse corporations etc. won't stoop to.
A prepaid burner phone can be used so long as it is never used near any other devices, such as cars etc.
Faraday bags work. I’ve used one for years. The on,y thing is, if your phone is left on, it will run its battery down trying to search for a signal. You can get a faraday pouch for a phone for like $8 on amazon.
I'm not an electronics expert but I've learned quite a bit over the years. I'd be extremely surprised if an un-powered speaker, whether in a stereo system or cellphone couldn't be used to spy on you. The speaker has a membrane that vibrates inside an electromagnet (voice coil) when sound hits it, and it has two wires that can act as an antenna that will give off an EM field when powered in either direction. Obviously the coil will give off a lot of EM on it's own. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the primary way they're spying on powered off cell phones, the induction hypothesis is also plausible for digital spying.
With a sufficiently discreet tuner you could pick up the EM from a speaker a LONG way away, and modern computers could separate and triangulate hundreds of signals. The Voyager spacecraft only have a 20watt transmitter and they can pick that shit up from deep space using a super-cooled directional receiver.
You computer monitors/cables also give off a signal that can picked up remotely.
Grounded iron is the best way to block these signals.
[ - ] Cantaloupe [op] 1 point 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 18:10:49 ago (+1/-0)*
It's possible.
With the phone it's basically ICCID tracking, with no battery and only EM fields for power. They might add a super capacitor, but that'll run out eventually. They could have generation via walking motion.
To use more advanced features required a battery.
In a residence when you turn off an electronic device, it doesn't really mean all of it is off. Communication can occur via the power cord. Such as the X10 protocol. Also various devices can work together.
It wouldn't be that hard to check if a cell phone with no battery was sending a signal out. You could put it in a Faraday cage with a low frequency power source and watch for communication on the cell or WIFI bands. A cheap SDR could be used for a detector even if you couldn't read the data.
The only moderately safe way I can think of to use a cellular network is with a cellular hotspot and by building your own handset with opensource hardware/software that communicates through the hotspot with VOIP. It would have to be point to point without a centralized server.
I have some power line to ethernet adapters (PLA). "They" could hide the PLA tech in a power supply, but there'd also have to be a data connection from the power supply to the data bus, which wouldn't be hard to spot.
Have you heard about the malware that was using microphones and speakers on a motherboard to communicate from machine to machine using ultrasonic frequencies? People are very creative when they're trying to steal shit.
You could do a few things privately with a phone purchased like that intermittently if you took out the microphone and speaker and used data only. The problem is that voice prints are a thing and are sufficient to tie anyone to a particular phone.
It's difficult to do this efficiently with an antenna you can fit in a phone. Not impossible but IMO it'd require extra engineering to be able to do this, and none has been spotted by security researchers, so I doubt this is being done.
Especially since most modern phones have fixed batteries and are never truly "off". They could easily apply low power once every few minutes and transmit an ID, which could be used with multiple cell towers to also track location.
In either of the above cases, a Faraday pouch will work to stymie this behavior.
"5G" bandwidths are attenuated by much less matter than other bands. That's why there are a lot more towers and base stations to maintain the same coverage, because damn near anything that isn't air can attenuate the signal.
THAT'S how they track you. Not because it's some whizzbang miracle technology from space that can see you in the middle of nowhere, but because when they have transmitters and receivers on every corner and sometimes on multiple floors of the same building, and every one of them has its location stored in the provider's database, all they need to do is figure out which one you're currently connected to. GPS is no longer needed.
But no, if you're naked in the middle of the forest, they're not going to see you. That's not how RF works.
Not 5g but Bluetooth Low Energy, to communicate with other Bluetooth Low Energy devices in the network. Each device can pass the information forward to other Bluetooth Low Energy devices creating a "mesh" effect. GPS is obviously effective at location tracking. But it's usually not accurate enough to be used within small areas such as inside buildings. BLE provides a useful alternative for indoor tracking. When combined with beacons, it can be used to track a smartphone from room to room.
[ + ] TheOriginal1Icemonkey
[ - ] TheOriginal1Icemonkey 4 points 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 15:41:50 ago (+4/-0)
[ + ] SmokeyMeadow
[ - ] SmokeyMeadow 4 points 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 15:57:27 ago (+4/-0)
[ + ] TheOriginal1Icemonkey
[ - ] TheOriginal1Icemonkey 1 point 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 17:26:24 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Cantaloupe
[ - ] Cantaloupe [op] 1 point 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 17:58:11 ago (+1/-0)*
You can still be tracked in airplane mode
[ + ] bobdole9
[ - ] bobdole9 1 point 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 18:51:49 ago (+1/-0)
Not sure why you wouldn't just turn the phone off before pouching though.
[ + ] Monica
[ - ] Monica 1 point 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 06:33:14 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Trope
[ - ] Trope 0 points 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 23:50:57 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] allAheadFull
[ - ] allAheadFull 1 point 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 17:21:53 ago (+1/-0)
With a sufficiently discreet tuner you could pick up the EM from a speaker a LONG way away, and modern computers could separate and triangulate hundreds of signals. The Voyager spacecraft only have a 20watt transmitter and they can pick that shit up from deep space using a super-cooled directional receiver.
You computer monitors/cables also give off a signal that can picked up remotely.
Grounded iron is the best way to block these signals.
[ + ] Cantaloupe
[ - ] Cantaloupe [op] 1 point 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 18:10:49 ago (+1/-0)*
With the phone it's basically ICCID tracking, with no battery and only EM fields for power. They might add a super capacitor, but that'll run out eventually. They could have generation via walking motion.
To use more advanced features required a battery.
In a residence when you turn off an electronic device, it doesn't really mean all of it is off. Communication can occur via the power cord. Such as the X10 protocol. Also various devices can work together.
With more power there are more possibilities
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/27/ethernet-cable-turned-into-antenna-to-exploit-air-gapped-computers/
[ + ] allAheadFull
[ - ] allAheadFull 1 point 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 18:45:29 ago (+1/-0)
The only moderately safe way I can think of to use a cellular network is with a cellular hotspot and by building your own handset with opensource hardware/software that communicates through the hotspot with VOIP. It would have to be point to point without a centralized server.
I have some power line to ethernet adapters (PLA). "They" could hide the PLA tech in a power supply, but there'd also have to be a data connection from the power supply to the data bus, which wouldn't be hard to spot.
Have you heard about the malware that was using microphones and speakers on a motherboard to communicate from machine to machine using ultrasonic frequencies? People are very creative when they're trying to steal shit.
[ + ] Cantaloupe
[ - ] Cantaloupe [op] 0 points 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 01:39:49 ago (+0/-0)
Generally the phone would send a signal out if energized externally by the tower, unless it has a capacitor source.
They use a variety of techniques such that the signal looks like noise - as this helps with channels that are noisy.
https://youtu.be/bm53RpK-S2k?si=lN5GyXRXLyA5ZZXm
[ + ] allAheadFull
[ - ] allAheadFull 1 point 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 02:23:53 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Cantaloupe
[ - ] Cantaloupe [op] 0 points 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 23:06:28 ago (+0/-0)
And maybe a stylus.
Or use it as a hotspot
[ + ] bossman131
[ - ] bossman131 0 points 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 06:10:27 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] o0shad0o
[ - ] o0shad0o 0 points 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 20:56:25 ago (+0/-0)
Especially since most modern phones have fixed batteries and are never truly "off". They could easily apply low power once every few minutes and transmit an ID, which could be used with multiple cell towers to also track location.
In either of the above cases, a Faraday pouch will work to stymie this behavior.
[ + ] Idiocratic
[ - ] Idiocratic -1 points 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 20:21:46 ago (+0/-1)
[ + ] uvulectomy
[ - ] uvulectomy 2 points 8 monthsSep 10, 2023 23:02:10 ago (+2/-0)
THAT'S how they track you. Not because it's some whizzbang miracle technology from space that can see you in the middle of nowhere, but because when they have transmitters and receivers on every corner and sometimes on multiple floors of the same building, and every one of them has its location stored in the provider's database, all they need to do is figure out which one you're currently connected to. GPS is no longer needed.
But no, if you're naked in the middle of the forest, they're not going to see you. That's not how RF works.
[ + ] bossman131
[ - ] bossman131 0 points 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 06:26:51 ago (+0/-0)
GPS is obviously effective at location tracking. But it's usually not accurate enough to be used within small areas such as inside buildings. BLE provides a useful alternative for indoor tracking. When combined with beacons, it can be used to track a smartphone from room to room.
[ + ] Idiocratic
[ - ] Idiocratic 0 points 8 monthsSep 13, 2023 15:02:37 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] lastlist
[ - ] lastlist -2 points 8 monthsSep 11, 2023 02:48:14 ago (+0/-2)
That's not how it works for you.