patrick.net

richwicks says

Wifi identifies where wifi is available based on GPS, not the other way around

That does not make any sense. There is no GPS database of all home and business WiFi locations, and every Android or IPhone I used would list any WiFi that they sensed was in range. If a close enough neighbor just now switches a new router with WiFi, I will see it appear on my phones WiFi list. Nothing to do with GPS.

HeadSet says

richwicks says

Wifi identifies where wifi is available based on GPS, not the other way around

That does not make any sense. There is no GPS database of all home and business WiFi locations, and every Android or IPhone I used would list any WiFi that they sensed was in range. If a close enough neighbor just now switches a new router with WiFi, I will see it appear on my phones WiFi list. Nothing to do with GPS.

And the guy is supposedly an engineer in the field. :facepalm:

Cell phones can determine your location using Wi-Fi through a process known as Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS). Here’s a simplified explanation of how it works:
Scanning Wi-Fi Access Points: Your device scans for nearby Wi-Fi access points and records their signal strength.
Creating a List: It creates a list of these Wi-Fi access points along with their signal strength at your current location.
Contacting Location Servers: Your device then contacts online servers that have a database of Wi-Fi access points and their geographical locations.
Determining Your Location: By comparing the list of Wi-Fi access points your device has detected with the database, the system can pinpoint your precise physical location.
This method is particularly useful when GPS is unavailable or unreliable, such as indoors where GPS signals may be weak or blocked. The Wi-Fi positioning system leverages the extensive Wi-Fi infrastructure in urban areas to provide accurate location information12.
It’s important to note that while this system can be very accurate, it also raises privacy concerns, as it means your location could potentially be tracked by businesses or other third parties if you’ve given them permission to do so2

RWSGFY says

Your device then contacts online servers that have a database of Wi-Fi access points and their geographical locations.

So there is a database of WiFi locations? Is this just for some predetermined and registered commercial spots? I do not see how home and business WiFi devices would automatically be added.

Do you know how much data collection your ISP is doing? Your cellular provider? Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc, etc...

You should be surprised if this doesn't exist.

HeadSet says

RWSGFY says

Your device then contacts online servers that have a database of Wi-Fi access points and their geographical locations.

So there is a database of WiFi locations? Is this just for some predetermined and registered commercial spots? I do not see how home and business WiFi devices would automatically be added.

Provider knows.

HeadSet says

That does not make any sense. There is no GPS database of all home and business

Of course there is. Google maps is the most obvious example.

Traditional addresses are basically obsolete. They are used for mail, and that's it.

richwicks says

HeadSet says

That does not make any sense. There is no GPS database of all home and business

Of course there is. Google maps is the most obvious example.

Traditional addresses are basically obsolete. They are used for mail, and that's it.

My complete sentence was "There is no GPS database of all home and business WiFi locations"

Do not truncate the sentence to imply I was talking about home and business locations alone, so you could make that inane reply. You goofed bigly with that statement "Wifi identifies where wifi is available based on GPS, not the other way around."

Own you error and move on.

RWSGFY says

Provider knows.

How? All I get from the cable company is a modem. My WiFi sits on the other side of a NAT. All Cox knows is that I have a modem with one IP address, they do not know if I have a wired or wireless network on the other side, or even just a single computer plugged into the modem. I guess Cox could know if they supplied the modem/router combo.

HeadSet says

My complete sentence was "There is no GPS database of all home and business WiFi locations"

When you are moving around with your phone with GPS and Wi-Fi on, your phone is collecting which location and wifi signals it can connect to.

Now is this information sent to Google? I don't know.

Google since its inception has collected every search that has ever been entered into it.

I can't see the use of collecting GPS location for wifi, but it can be done. If routers had a feature that allowed them to read and write digital phone signals, you could do away with cell towers.

richwicks says

If routers had a feature that allowed them to read and write digital phone signals, you could do away with cell towers.

Are you really an engineer? That would require home/business WiFi routers to have huge antennas and an effective radiated power of around 100 watts.

richwicks says

When you are moving around with your phone with GPS and Wi-Fi on, your phone is collecting which location and wifi signals it can connect to.

Do you actually know this, or are you just guessing?

HeadSet says

richwicks says

If routers had a feature that allowed them to read and write digital phone signals, you could do away with cell towers.

Are you really an engineer? That would require home/business WiFi routers to have huge antennas and an effective radiated power of around 100 watts.

Good fucking lord. If you are a an engineer of ANY SORT, you have just demonstrated extreme incompetence with that statement.

100 watts? Really? Really, you think it takes that much energy?

Instead of arguing with me here, why don't you go for a walk around your neighborhood and see if you can EVER find a time where you phone can't see a wifi signal? If you live in the sticks, it might be frequent but not if you live in suburbia.

HeadSet says

richwicks says

When you are moving around with your phone with GPS and Wi-Fi on, your phone is collecting which location and wifi signals it can connect to.

Do you actually know this, or are you just guessing?

Listen to me.

Google is an information collection agency. That's what they do. That's their MAIN PURPOSE and always has been. It has the side effect of allowing you to find information, and but their main job is surveillance.

How can we be in 2024 and you still not know this, when I've been posting to this board, for what, 5 years?

Read this article:

https://medium.com/worthix/google-nests-hidden-microphone-1d3e4a8337b6

They put a fucking microphone in a thermostat. Now if you have ANY engineering experience you fucking goddamned well know that they don't add extra parts into a fucking design if if has no use. They make boards sometimes with spaces for future parts, but they leave unpopulated.

It's a spy device. 25 years ago this would have been an incredible scandal, but in 25 years, everybody around me has become dumb, fucking, sheep. Stupid.

Any information they can collect they do. We gave up on blowing the whistle over a decade ago, because you don't mind being slaves apparently.

I have been struggling over the last few years, should I just go evil and fuck you all? Maybe. YouTube is censored "oh gee, gubermint please change google", they are the ones doing it. There's already alternatives, you just won't search them out. You know how easy it is to make certain your camera is off on your phone? Just put an LED in series with the powerline to the camera, make it a law - when the camera is being fed power, the led will light up. Put a cover on it.

They were spying on school students once:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/1553878/pennsylvania-schools-spying-on-students-using-laptop-webcams-claims-lawsuit.html

There should have been a revolt, not a lawsuit. There should have been some people strung up. Nobody knew the camera was in use, think children were getting undressed and dressed in front of those cameras ever? What the fuck was that about?

I just get so disgusted with the public. The amount of bullshit you fuckers will put up with is the same amount of bullshit I'm FORCED to put up with. Maybe I should just go to the other side. Fuck it.

richwicks says

A 100 watts? Really? Really, you think it takes that much energy?

Yes, I do. The fact that my phone can see lots of WiFi spots in a housing development is irrelevant. Why do cell tower antennas have 100 watt amps feeding them? Do you think it is because of the distance between towers requires that power to reach the mobile phones in its area? If so, how do the mobiles phones with well under a watt (some may be up to 2 watts) transmit back to the tower? Stick to the point, and do not come back with an answer to a tangential question - Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt? Do not come back with a dodge like "if the towers were as common as Wifi routers they would not need that much power." Also do not say that the towers need that 100 watts to talk to other towers. Hey, maybe your answer will make me look like a fool, as I have been wrong before.

richwicks says

Do you actually know this, or are you just guessing?

Listen to me.

Google is an information collection agency. That's what they do. That's their MAIN PURPOSE and always has been. It has the side effect of allowing you to find information, and but their main job is surveillance.

So you are guessing.

HeadSet says

Yes, I do. The fact that my phone can see lots of WiFi spots in a housing development is irrelevant. Why do cell tower antennas have 100 watt amps feeding them?

Because they go over a wider area. The original "cell" phones were radio transmitters, and it covered an entire city. You'd have to request a central operator to be able to connect, and time on it was super expensive. Now in the 1980's somebody came up with a good idea, instead having one frequency and one giant tower, lets have many towers and different overlapping frequencies, this was a "cell". When you move into on area to the next of coverage, you switch frequencies and towers, and it's so seamless, you don't notice it. Remember dropped phone calls? That's part of the reason it happened.

Cell towers are talking to hundreds, if not thousands of phones. They are passively receiving data all the time.

HeadSet says

Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt?

Well, it's been a while since I've worked on anything remotely connected to cell phone communication, like 20 years, but it was because it wasn't a shaped waveform at all. You broadcast completely non directional. That's changed.

When you talk on a cell phone, what your phone is really doing is recording a small segment of your voice, digitizing that, putting it into temporary storage, and then when your phone is given permission to talk to the tower, it transmits that packet. Only one cell at a time is talking to the tower at least at that particular frequency, this is time division multiplex addressing - TDMA.

There might be 1000 people talking on cell phones at the same time, and the tower during that time gives each phone 1/1000th of the network time to communication, while it also deals with SMS and now Internet communication. A 1000 is way too low today.

HeadSet says

So you are guessing.

Dude, believe whatever you fucking like. Fuck all of you, you want to be slaves, be fucking slaves then. I'm DONE trying to explain to you motherfuckers what can and WILL be done to you.

Google was spying on you with NEST with an audio microphone. A school district was using webcams to spy on students.

How hard is it to collect wifi access points and GPS? Google is a data collection company.

https://www.theregister.com/2010/10/20/google_has_no_plans_to_resume_street_view_wifi_collection/

They were doing it with their mapping cars, you think they do it with your phone? NAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. "It's just a wild guess on your part, Rich, DUUUUUUUUH. I have all the intelligence a cow".

You're so fucking naive. I have been moral and diligent to try to warn you shiftless fuckers what is coming down the pike. They will enslave you, and maybe you'll escape, because you'll die before they succeed, but your kids won't, and their kids certainly won't. You won't do a fucking thing to stop it. You won't even acknowledge it.

I have spent 30 years trying to help. Fuck all of you, you deserve to be living in 1984. Doesn't matter how much you're warned. We need help to stop this, I'm one of the people that knows it's happening, you won't help, fuck you. I'm not working to stop it anymore. I'm going to work to implement it. Congratulations, you've made me a traitor to what I once thought was humanity, but isn't. You cattle and sheep deserve what you get. It's no wonder they hate you.

WookieMan says

Even turning all the crap off doesn't stop police and first responders from tracking you. Unless your phone has legit dead battery, even off, you're trackable.

I don't think people understand this. If you want privacy you shouldn't have a phone. That's really all there is to it.

The only thing that will stop a smartphone from spying on you is a full metal (100% coverage) Faraday cage. You can pick up small metal boxes at the thrift stores. We tested several types of EM shielding - mylar, metal mesh, etc. but only 100% solid steel or other ferrous metal will stop the signals.

One of these days, I'll compare battery drawdown between unshielded and shielded phones. I expect the shielded phone to discharge 10X faster than the unshielded one.

stereotomy says

One of these days, I'll compare battery drawdown between unshielded and shielded phones. I expect the shielded phone to discharge 10X faster than the unshielded one.

If your phone is on and cannot reach a cell tower, it will expend a lot of power trying to find one. I've had this happen to me once, so I'm in the habit now when I'm in an area without good cell coverage, I just turn the phone off. Seems like a bad design, but I don't know the specifics of how modern phones work.

richwicks says

stereotomy says

One of these days, I'll compare battery drawdown between unshielded and shielded phones. I expect the shielded phone to discharge 10X faster than the unshielded one.

If your phone is on and cannot reach a cell tower, it will expend a lot of power trying to find one. I've had this happen to me once, so I'm in the habit now when I'm in an area without good cell coverage, I just turn the phone off. Seems like a bad design, but I don't know the specifics of how modern phones work.

I should clarify: I would turn the phone off, then measure charge after about a week. I suspect that even off, the phone is probably spying, or could be periodically woken up by the NSA to eavesdrop, who knows?

richwicks says

HeadSet says

So you are guessing.

Dude, believe whatever you fucking like. Fuck all of you, you want to be slaves, be fucking slaves then. I'm DONE trying to explain to you motherfuckers what can and WILL be done to you.

Whoa, calm down. We were talking about a specific - that you said When you are moving around with your phone with GPS and Wi-Fi on, your phone is collecting which location and wifi signals it can connect to.

Just admit that you do not know if this is true instead of launching into your Special Theory of GoogleEvilty.

stereotomy says

I suspect that even off, the phone is probably spying, or could be periodically woken up by the NSA to eavesdrop, who knows?

100% does. It's not even a debate. One of the many reasons I won't buy a Tesla. My 2012 Armada has a remote air bag sensor. I get a postcard every week to get the airbag fixed. Takata bull shit. We're on the front end of EV's. I'm talking a 12 year old car. The lawsuits on EV's really haven't even started.

Back to phones. They for sure can track you when off. I can hold down one button on almost any phone I know of and contact 911 How is that? If you don't want to be tracked, I just wouldn't own a phone. Or at minimum fuck with them so the data is trash.

richwicks says

HeadSet says

Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt?

Well, it's been a while since I've worked on anything remotely connected to cell phone communication, like 20 years, but it was because it wasn't a shaped waveform at all. You broadcast completely non directional. That's changed.

Well, beam formed a little since there was no point in a tower broadcasting upward. But the mobile phones are not beamed formed at all, so the question remains - Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt?

stereotomy says

I should clarify: I would turn the phone off, then measure charge after about a week. I suspect that even off, the phone is probably spying, or could be periodically woken up by the NSA to eavesdrop, who knows?

Well, I've had a phone off for months immediately return to life. I don't think you'll notice a difference.

I'm certain phones can fake being "off", I know cameras and microphones can't be guaranteed to be disabled, but turning it off, that's easy to notice.

HeadSet says

Whoa, calm down. We were talking about a specific - that you said When you are moving around with your phone with GPS and Wi-Fi on, your phone is collecting which location and wifi signals it can connect to.

The data is there, Google has collected information through their vehicles that map streets, Google is right now getting sued over the fact that "Icognito mode" on Chrome does NOTHING, they have placed microphones into thermostats - they're scum.

I'm just telling you how TRIVIAL it is to do, and I know what companies do when it's trivial to do. They don't have to add hardware. I don't think there is much reason to do it now. Everybody has a cell phone, you probably have a router, there done. They know your location when you turn your phone on, they know your router that you connect to with your phone - finished. Why would they collect this information? I don't know, but I do know all they do as a company is collect information.

HeadSet says

Just admit that you do not know if this is true instead of launching into your Special Theory of GoogleEvilty.

Let me re-iterate, they were collecting information from the Google cars on WiFi Hotspots, and they quit when they started producing phones and all Google does is collect information.

The very first Android phone was in 2008, they stopped collecting information in 2010 from their cars.

If the information is there, they will collect it, why not? I admit I cannot see it as being too useful. They can identify metadata with it, but it's a crude way of doing it. The fact they can do it, given Google's history, means they do. They have a 100% track record of this. They are a data collection company, a private intelligence firm, although not really that private.

richwicks says

If your phone is on and cannot reach a cell tower, it will expend a lot of power trying to find one. I've had this happen to me once, so I'm in the habit now when I'm in an area without good cell coverage, I just turn the phone off. Seems like a bad design, but I don't know the specifics of how modern phones work.

If you're in an area with poor signal. Enjoy it. Turn it off. With kids I need it. If I was a bachelor I wouldn't have the thing turned on outside of work hours. I don't answer the phone anyway. Lawyer in me, I'd just never answer the phone. Never say/acknowledge your name. Be a dick. I love phone arguments.

HeadSet says

Well, beam formed a little since there was no point in a tower broadcasting upward. But the mobile phones are not beamed formed at all, so the question remains - Why does the tower need 100 watts power when the phone answering back only needs well under a watt?

Look, I'm not an expert in cell technology but a tower is a lot more active than a phone. Your phone is MOSTLY doing nothing, even during a conversation.

I'm just giving you a HYPOTHESIS of why they may have been collecting data on GPS and WiFi. It could have just been research. I have thought of this myself, why not replace the vast majority of cell towers with modems? Voice data isn't large in comparison to most of what we do on the Internet now, which is video. Why not just use another frequency to handle telephone calls and let any owner of a wifi network (which is everybody now), do it?

Maybe the data is useless, but I know Google collects ALL DATA THEY CAN, because you don't know what might be useful later.

I know, for a FACT, every search and ip address associated with that search, has been stored by Google. How is this useful? Well, perhaps to build up a psychological profile of the user over time, or the IP address, or a family? Who knows? I bet Google doesn't know, but 30 years of data, maybe they can make a product out of all this information?

richwicks says

Voice data isn't large in comparison to most of what we do on the Internet now, which is video.

Ah, but remember that cable company modems now have competition from Verizon et al 5g "internet" that can deliver 100meg bandwidth. Lots of 4k video will be passed over that, it will hardly be restricted to voice. The future of the internet in many areas will be from cell towers.

HeadSet says

The future of the internet in many areas will be from cell towers.

Possibly. We use QAM for data transmission, and we're beyond where I thought we could go, and there's shaped wave forms, it's impossible to tell.

I can tell you this, if we do move to a society that only accesses the internet through cell technology, you'll be behind a NAT and you will be dependent on a 3rd party to connect to anybody. You will have to go through some sort of authority for EVERYTHING, every communication. If we go there, freedom of speech is dead.

I have my own website on my own computer, sitting away from me 2 feet away. I can't lose it because of a 3rd party says they won't host it. I have 100% control over this. That will go away if I'm placed behind a NAT router I cannot control.

Just ran across this. I have no affiliation with them and get no money for posting it. But I approve of it.

Patrick says

Are they still doing this out there in CA? I haven't seen it since roughly the end of 2022 and that was only at airports. I actually don't mind it. Having to print updated menus as items change is kind of a bitch, especially for non-chain restaurants. Passes costs down to the customer.

But I do get it's one more layer of tracking. I'm clearly indifferent on it. If I know a place has slow service, sometimes being able to put in the order directly to the kitchen is better. Especially flying as they're notoriously slow and black service wise.

richwicks says

The_Deplorable says

This seriously happens. If you have an Alexa or a Google Home, or possibly even Siri - fake a discussion about a pet you'd never own with your family, and see what ads you start getting.

They are 24/7 listening devices. This is a simple test. I've gotten a FEW people to try it, but not with Siri. It's the 1984's telescreen. I'm giving you a test so you can verify it's true, if you don't do the test, whatever. We've been trying to warn you for years.

I have had this happen. Not talking about a pet I'd never own, but about something obscure; a few days later... Ad for said I secure thing. And I don't have an Alexa or Siri or any of that crap. Just my android phone and a couple of laptops.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13579885/Americans-ditching-smartphones-dumbphones.html

A growing number of people are ditching their smartphones for 'dumbphones' that only call and text to avoid being in 'zombie mode.'

The simple devices have skyrocketed in popularity, as 2.8 million were sold in the US last year with people proclaiming they feel calmer and more present in their ordinary lives.

A California woman told DailyMail.com that she made the switch after realizing she spent the entire summer on her smartphone, saying she barely remembered the time - she even forgot where she walked her dog.

Caroline Cadwell explained that switching to a dumbphone was impractical at first, but then became freeing.

'Space and time, is how I'd describe it. It's amazing how much your relationships can gain from giving it up,' she said.

And dumbphones can't spy on you as effectively.

Sheeee-it!

The phone we are looking for has been found!

Some 20yr old wackjob who tried to kill Trump had it all along!

Is anyone here using any of the phones discussed here? I have to use my company phone can't do anything about that but considering switching to dumb phone for my personal, or some other privacy centric phone.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/alice-in-spyland-wednesday-september

It is perfectly impossible to exaggerate the off-the-charts freakishness of this next fantastic, over-the-top, literally explosive 2024 story. Yesterday, Israel’s spy agencies apparently killed, maimed, or wounded up to five thousand Hezbollah enemies without firing a shot, using exploding pagers. The Wall Street Journal covered the story under its headline, “Hezbollah Pagers Explode in Apparent Attack Across Lebanon.”

Iranian-connected, Lebanon-based Hezbollah is a well-equipped Muslim militia and U.S.-designated terror group that has been skirmishing with Israel since last year’s October 7th Hamas atrocity. Recently, following Israel’s assassination of a high-profile Hezbollah leader, the group switched from using high-tech smartphones to lower-tech pagers for communication.

They switched for safety.

Yesterday, up to 5,000 Hezbollah militants all simultaneously received a highly unwelcome message on their pagers. Seconds later, the tiny devices spontaneously detonated, seriously injuring the users, blowing off their hands, violently severing even more delicate body parts, and overwhelming Lebanese hospitals with the wounded. So far, a dozen Hezbollah fighters have died from the trauma and that number will probably increase.

Nobody knows how the mass-assasination was done. Israel hasn’t even confirmed it was involved (but hasn’t denied it, either). Speculation is running rampant, with corporate media doing its best to cover and reassure everyone that all our devices are perfectly safe, this is not an undocumented feature of lithium battery technology, and don’t worry, it cannot be deployed against any inconvenient personage, like you.

Theories abound. Maybe Israeli operatives somehow intercepted all the pager shipments, and cunningly injected explosives that were then somehow triggered by a single pager message. Or maybe the Taiwanese pager manufacturer cooperated or was infiltrated by Israeli spies. Or maybe the Israelis figured out how to blow up lithium batteries in certain devices on command.

We don’t know. And it’s likely we will never know.

One thing is certain though. Now, every intelligence agency in the world has learned a nifty new trick. Not just for one-off assassinations, like the CIA’s infamous exploding cigar, but for mass-marketed, high-precision weapons of mass destruction. We have indeed raced down the rabbit hole.

Ready to retire your smartphone yet?

Patrick says

Ready to retire your smartphone yet?

This remote detonation trend may put a serious hurt on new phone sales. After all, why but a new phone that may have this modification installed? People are complaining that the iPhone 16 lacks any real new features, so why is Apple releasing a new version? Just need one viral rumor of some bomb sniffing dog alerting on an iPhone 16.

The Jews are wily - I remember the Bible story about how the Israelites were overmatched on the eve of battle. They heard the revelry of the opposing troops anticipating victory, so they sent their wives and daughters to the enemy camp to have sex with the drunken enemy troops. While the troops were asleep after an all-night fuck session with these women, these whores of necessity proceeded to cut off the balls of the soldiers so that "they were weak" on the day of battle.

It's in the Old Testament - Look it up.