This is a bit off-topic.
But does anyone remember Mitnick and the S.A.S. ?
Heh...
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This is a bit off-topic.
But does anyone remember Mitnick and the S.A.S. ?
Heh...
That reminds me:
Does anyone remember how easy it is to listen in on calls made on cell phones and cordless phones? I mean **** I remember back like a year ago turning the TV on a certain channel and then turning on a phone I moded, and playing with the channel switching features of the phone, I could hear my neighboors phone calls.
Cell phones are even easier. Well, usually. A police scanner at the store can pick up not only those but also cordless phone calls. Great for playing pranks on your friends.
Heh, Great for the bastard that wont pay money he owes you:
"Tom remember when I said I worked for the CIA? Well We had tapped your phone and they know you were talking to your dealer last night. Now since we are close buddies Ill let you bribe me ok?"
Heh.
the S.A.S ohhhhhh yea there brave set of men, dont forget the S.B.S either
My Favorite Subject…
Nice post Und3ertak3r, RF direction finding is a science on it’s own.
Cell phone tracking is just getting to the point where it almost works. At least it can find you in a specific neighborhood, only because your SIM is identified to which cell site you are connected too. A triangulation algorithm is actually used all the time, millions of times a day. For simplicity, your phone's cell site signal strength is known for all adjacent cell sites within a surrounding area, when a signal threshold is met, control of your particular phone is handed over to the strongest site. This isn't really that simple because the system is vastly complex and many sites are operating at CPU maximum so the strongest site is not always the controller. In fact you could be connected and the system could not know your are there. How many times have you called a phone to get.... "please hold while the subscriber is located.” And after a few seconds the phone rings. The cell system will have a record of what site you were last confirmed and authenticated on and then through an algorithm it will transmit a "hello" signal on all adjacent sites trying to provoke a response to a single cell phone. Then if no response is received it will go up to the city level and transmit, etc. All in a matter of seconds. You want to see some computing power? Imagine tracking 5 million individual wireless computers across 200 cell sites in only 1 area, now multiply that by 500 cities. And that is just to keep the phones connected, now throw in real-time direction finding. AMAZING.
For this entire thing to work all the time, 100 percent- you have to be targeted. In fact there is so much information that most of it is dropped in almost real time in large markets like N.Y or L.A.
To answer some questions:
There is no GPS receiver in 99.9999 percent of cell phones and there isn’t going to be for a long time. In fact GPS doesn’t even play a role in the system, that’s sales talk BS. You can buy specialized models that do have a GPS receiver and antenna and you can plug a GPS into the phone. You may be thinking, well they have GPS receivers in the cell sites so that is what they use, the truth is, that is a licensed emitter with the latitude and longitude as well as antenna height already recorded and encoded into the system. Like Und3ertak3r pointed out, it’s all based on signal timing. It is already known what propagation delays should be over short distances.
It’s extremely difficult to change any number in a cell phone, outside swapping a prefabricated SIM card from an expert. And even so, there are methods to scrub bogus equipment identifiers that run each night (not once in a while, each night). For example, the current billing list is downloaded into a market area control switch and all numbers not matching last months billing cycle are eliminated. Now each time you turn on your phone or come in from an “out of coverage” area the phone is re-authenticated and that list is looked at, if your number was scrubbed you don’t get on. In the GSM model this device that holds current subscribers is called a DAP and the control switch is called an MSO. In addition, newer technologies are encrypted such as T-mobile and M-Mode and Nextel. So you have to break the algorithm, fabricate a bogus SIM and then beat the scrub. In gore’s favor, all applied applications I have seen are all UNIX.
WAP has nothing to do with satellites. Not even close in technology or frequency spectrum.
It’s not as easy as it used to be to listen to calls, especially on the encrypted systems. It’s now more fun to listen to the drive-up at Wendy’s and Taco bell.
/EDIT oh in the early 90's the USA made it illegal to sell scanners that could scan the cell phone spectrum at the time. It's changed a bit since then but newer scanners will not scan older cell phone sites without modification. So buy and old scanner or get out the soldering iron and take out some diodes.
hi
one of the biggest cellphonecompanies in sweden has a option this kind and if you are member of this you can wahtch you freinds where they are... so i recond it is possible... ist gps you know;) (the companys website.. www.telia.se)
As far as listening in to phones, all you have to have is a scanner and listen between the frequencies of 880-930mhz I think. I can pick up lots of cell phone calls.
Kinda makes me think twice before I start talking about something important on the phone.
http://www.snapshield.com/www_proble...er/All_you.htm
Nice little page that has some monitoring info.
Gore...correct me if i'm wrong but cant you only eavesdrop if the cell phone call is made in analog mode and not digital??? Digital transmits the data in bits...Analog transmits in wavelengths and frequencies therefore its able to pick it up via a scanner or radio.
true.. about the analogue phone conversations these are made using PM(Phase Modulation) or FM Frequency Modulation) and no encryption, and any FM reciever can recieve the chatter.. But with GSM/Digital well You are still transmitting using radio waves.. and the data has to be encoded on to a Carrier.. this is done using one of many FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) Modulation methods and in some cases it is FM modulated with QAM audio signal.. this should be familure to us computer types especially those who use ANY modem..Quote:
Gore...correct me if i'm wrong but cant you only eavesdrop if the cell phone call is made in analog mode and not digital??? Digital transmits the data in bits...Analog transmits in wavelengths and frequencies therefore its able to pick it up via a scanner or radio.
So any one with a suitably modified receiver will be able to recieve the data stream.. then all you need is the right software and plenty of time....
but as for wavelengths? WTF are you talking about wavelength the distance traveled by a radiowave from one cycle peak to the next.. ie Broadcast FM 88 to 108Mhz .. 100Mhz has a wave length of 3metre's .. what this has to do with the difference between analogue and digital transmission..i don't know..
check this url http://www.geocities.com/socalgal2k/fmodx.html
BTW: Have a good read of Roadclosed's post.. that is bloody good info.. excuse the pun.. but RC is tuned in..
Cheers
iiiiif I'm not mistaken, the GSM system works on Repeaters, IE, having a few antenas around that burst signals out to the world, tho only any one SIM card is able to interpret it's own call.
so it works the same was as normal triangulation, just have to syncronice the repeaters so they broadcast at exactly the same time, then you can check the cellphones responce time and work out a distance based on the lap time.