TH's cell phone pings

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GrainneDhu said:
I'm not being disrespectful here, but I've known about cell phone pings ever since I got my first cell phone back in the late 80s. When someone calls into your cell phone, the system has to have a way to know which tower to route that call through. Otherwise, they'd have to broadcast every single call through every single tower in the US. Not feasible.

Frankly, I am surprised that anyone is surprised about cell phone pings. What do you think runs the battery down even if you make no calls at all? If you turn your cell phone all the way off or yank the battery, then call your cell phone number, the system either instantly or almost instantly routes your call either to voicemail or to an automated message saying something like "that phone is not reachable right now."

I'm honestly not trying to be disrespectful, I'm just surprised that there is any adult who doesn't know how cell phones work. I'm one of the least tech savvy people there is and I know! I tend to assume that if I know something tech-ish, everyone knows it.
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I see no disrespect here...truthfully, I am fairly tech savvy, I've also sold cell phones in the past. I had no idea how that part of the technology worked. Never occurred to me to ask, and it's never come up in conversations with friends. I just double checked with my cell and took the battery out....something else I didn't know.
 
What about if you are in an area that gets no cell signal? Would it still be possible to get pings from it?
 
Q. Can investigators go back in time and pinpoint where cell-phone calls are made and received?​

A. Not with precision. Cell-provider records reflect which transmission towers nearest each phone were used for the call. Depending on the area, this can narrow the locations down to a few city blocks, but not a particular street corner.​

Q. Does carrying a live cell phone give away your location?​

A. Yes, though in most cases only roughly: Your cell phone sends out a signal—some call it a “ping;” think of it as a “here I am if you need me!” flare—to the nearest transmission tower. Using more sophisticated methods that measure the phone’s distance from an assortment of nearby towers or from global positioning satellites, companies can locate subscribers’ phones with far greater precision.
​
Q. Why would they want to do this?​

A. The technology was developed for emergency purposes—to help police find people who call 911 but don’t know their location and find people who are missing.​

But it also has a law-enforcement application. Investigators with the proper court authorization can track the movements of a cell phone belonging to a suspect, a fugitive or other person of interest. And given how compulsive most of us are about having our phones with us at all times, this method of surveillance is almost as effective as clamping a homing beacon to someone’s leg.
​
Q. Do police need a warrant before they can track people in this way?​

A. Not necessarily. Some judges have insisted on a showing of probable cause, others have used a far looser standard of suspicion because, hey, no one’s forcing you to carry your tracking device—er, cell phone.

Those who are concerned about creeping electronic encroachments on our privacy are understandably alarmed about this and have called for Congressional oversight and updated legislation to restrict the practice.
​
Q. Can cell-phone providers go back into a person’s “ping history” and find where his cell phone was throughout a specific day, oh, say, about six weeks in the past?
​
A. No, according to Joe Farren, spokesman for CTIA-The Wireless Association, a cell-phone industry group in Washington. “These pings occur all the time, and there are 250 million wireless subscribers in America. There’s no reason to log such an incredible amount of data, so each ping over-writes the last one.”
​
But CNET News’ chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh, who has covered this issue extensively, is skeptical: “We know that telecommunications providers keep logs of who you call and who calls you,” he said in an e-mail. “Why would they treat cell-phone tower logs any differently?”

And as McCullagh and electronic-privacy advocates point out, data storage is dirt cheap these days and getting cheaper: If providers aren’t now able to re-create a cell phone’s path through the world, they probably will be able to do so in the near future.

Too late for some, perhaps. But way too soon for most of us.​

 
I asked this in another thread, but is more suitable here:

Was it confirmed that there:
A) were cell pings on Sauvie Island; and
B) that cell phone belonged to Terri?
 
It wasn't confirmed by official on-the-record sources, no. But the fact that they have been focusing their water searched on S.I. is not a random thing--you can extrapolate with some precision that they are there because they believe one of their POIs was there that day.
 
Oh, and if you think you're going to commit a crime...you know...if the spirit should overtake you or something, then do yourself a favor and LEAVE YOUR CELL PHONE AT HOME or at least put it somewhere stationary and retrieve it later...not in your car, not on your person and not anywhere near where YOU are. You know...just in case. Because the number of perps who get nailed because their cell phone (even when turned off) shows where they were is pretty high.

In fact, it's one of the pieces of information that shortened the Lacy Peterson "kidnapping" timeline down to about 20 min MAX *and* showed her husband was right by his house at the time of her 'disappearance' (thank goodness).
 
Yabba said:
New here so forgive me if this has been posted already

Cell phone towers in Portland

http://www.cellreception.com/towers/towers.php?city=portland&state_abr=or
Click to expand...

I don't see towers on that map for ones in the Skyline or Sauvie's Island area... Maybe I'm reading it wrong? Just curious, there are a bundle in the city/more condensed suburbs (where I live), but Portland gets rural very fast. Seeing Kyron's school is a great example of this. I believe there are only 2 towers in the areas in question. Anyone know how that works, as in how accurate? I am doing beginner research on it, and it seems like with the lack of towers, a ping on Sauvie's may not necessarily mean that cell phone is on Sauvie's Island...
 
Depends on who owns the towers and their signal transmission and strength. Different cell companies use different towers. You can't know from just looking at a map because you have to know who owns it and what territory it covers.
 
I am sure most towers have multiple carriers on them.
 
Angel4u2Whisper2 said:
Plus, GPS might already have been an option if her husbands truck had onstar in his car. I am not sure if they can track it even if it isn't paid for via activation.
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My fiance was a mechanic for years, and worked for a local Dodge dealership for part of that time. OnStar is exclusive to GM vehicles, thus no Ford. (not trying to come across as a know-it-all. :crazy: )
 
I wonder if there was a call with an SI prefix to one of their phones?
 
Charlie09 said:
I wonder if there was a call with an SI prefix to one of their phones?
Click to expand...

The prefix is the same for all Portland/local areas: either 503 or 971....it's actually more local than it looks, and a great place to buy produce, birdwatch, bikeride, etc.
 
DidionFan said:
I don't see towers on that map for ones in the Skyline or Sauvie's Island area... Maybe I'm reading it wrong? Just curious, there are a bundle in the city/more condensed suburbs (where I live), but Portland gets rural very fast. Seeing Kyron's school is a great example of this. I believe there are only 2 towers in the areas in question. Anyone know how that works, as in how accurate? I am doing beginner research on it, and it seems like with the lack of towers, a ping on Sauvie's may not necessarily mean that cell phone is on Sauvie's Island...
Click to expand...

I had to move around the map myself...zooming in and out...but when I found the area between the school(NW Skyline) and Sauvie Island...I only saw 2 towers that her cell phone could have pinged off of. From what I've read elsewhere(not confirmed as I am no expert) her phone could have pinged of either tower from the school. Again...not an expert, just repeating what I read elsewhere
 
Yabba said:
I had to move around the map myself...zooming in and out...but when I found the area between the school(NW Skyline) and Sauvie Island...I only saw 2 towers that her cell phone could have pinged off of. From what I've read elsewhere(not confirmed as I am no expert) her phone could have pinged of either tower from the school. Again...not an expert, just repeating what I read elsewhere
Click to expand...

Thank you - and, Help - I've tried zooming - can you capture what you see when you zoom and post that?

I am not saying I have an opinion on this just yet, but it seems likely that, in that area, either cell phone tower could pick up pings due to lack of towers, not necessarily meaning one was on Sauvie's Island...
 
I just wanted to add that perhaps she has an iPhone, like me. You cannot remove the battery and it has GPS. I also have a program that I can use if my phone is lost that shows me the vicinity that it is in by using GPS. The GPS on my phone is activated anytime I use Google Maps or another program that requires the "Location" feature. It asks you first (if you want to use the "Location" feature), but there is a setting where you can leave it on. I am sure AT&T is able to pull all of that information.

Information on the GPS, etc. is located here: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/42722
 
DidionFan said:
The prefix is the same for all Portland/local areas: either 503 or 971....it's actually more local than it looks, and a great place to buy produce, birdwatch, bikeride, etc.
Click to expand...

I've lived in Portland and about half my life in Salem. I didn't mean area code, I mean the first three digits of the phone number....it used to be numbers were assigned geographically.
 
Okay, and I'm still waiting for some official word that it is Terri's phone that pinged at Sauvie Island.
 
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