How Location Finder Services Work using Cellphones

Long before Smart announced it's Location Finder service and Globe's myGlobe Tracker, I have been aware of the GSM systems capability to pinpoint the general location of a cellphone number by just knowing its telephone number.

I once had a real need for the "service" one time when, through friends working inside the two telcos, I was able to trace the location of a fraudster hiding somewhere in Legazpi City, Albay in the Bicol region when I got hold of the miscreant's mobile phone number used in his scams. (Using other tools, I was able to actually trace his location, flew to Legazpi City and nailed the bad guy)

Do you know how to trace location? It's actually just querying the GSM system for the current cellsite a certain phone number being traced is connected. It will not give you the exact location, a capability reserved to GPS (global positioning system) particularly the military band with pinpoint accuracy, but the general area (town, barangay, city) and sometimes the building, if a micro-cellsite is inside the building the tracked mobile phone is located.

This is similar to the Internet's use of IP addresses to track a location but the IP address location (technically called IP Geo-location) is publicly available on the Internet particularly the three registries, this time, the location of the cell sites are known by the telco/mobile phone providers.

More on GSM "secrets" next time...

Notes:

The system can't track a cellphone turned off or one that's located in an out of coverage area.

This capability can be abused by insider's with the privilege to query the system for locating any phone number in their own network, but only in their own network only since the systems of Globe, Smart and Sun Cellular are not interconnected for this capability.

To activate the myGlobe tracker service, just text TRACK to 2877 and follow the instructions. For Gizmo subscribers, text GIZMO to 2877 to activate.

Please visit official Globe and Smart websites for charges and fees associated with the service.

JAP: Anonymity and Privacy on the Internet

Here's one of the new (relatively, that is) way to stay anonymous in the Internet by hiding your true IP address and instead show a single IP address shared by many users. JAP works more securely in anonimizing when there are more users of the system.


A simple installation is required where you configure the port number to be used by JAP to accept connections (default is 4001) then you point your browsers to use localhost and port as proxy.

There is an option to use a proxy for JAP (when you're forced or want another layer of proxy to hide) that is absent from another anonymizing technology TOR that I already blogged of here.

More information can be found at the JAP website plus links to the downloadable installer here.

Remember always: Anonymity is not a crime!