To calculate the location of the smartphone, the geodatance transmission function should be active on it. And if it is turned off? Can someone track the smartphone in this case?
Nowadays, you can track any person. And this thought scares: each of your step can be visible to law enforcement agencies, employers and government. For these categories of citizens, the significance of your location at least somehow explains - security and all that. But there are also persons who know your location for nothing. These include different sorts of fraudsters and advertisers.
The place of your stay issues an object that is always at hand - a mobile phone. All smartphones manufactured today are equipped with built-in location definition services. But what if you do not want to share with anyone with these purely personal data? Is it possible to just turn off geolocation and no longer worry that someone knows what city or what street do you are on? Now you will learn the answers to these questions.
Is it possible to track the phone with the shut off by gevruzhbami?
In theory, the shutdown of geolocation should make your phone invisible for tracking services that are used geodata. It is so, but only partly. There are other ways to find out the coordinates of the device.
Phone tracking methods without GPS
Disable geodata on your device allows you to hide the location, but only partially. Your coordinates can be obtained without GPS.
1. Cellular tower
They are everywhere. The first one who sees your location is a cellular operator. It can determine on the map the location of your phone on the towers to which you are connected, and the time for which the signal overcomes the path between the tower and the phone. The distance calculated in this way indicates the point in which the phone is located.
This method has high accuracy, since the included phone constantly supports communication with the nearest cellular tits.
2. Public network Wi-Fi
Not every person can afford Mobile Internet in the desired volume. The constant need for the Internet led to the emergence of free networks Wi-Fi in public places. When the notification panel occurs an icon noting about the presence of a public access point, the desire to connect to it is so strong that the main thing is departed from the head: the public network Wi-Fi is a reliable way to determine the location of the smartphone. Is the geolocation included, no longer plays roles.
Most free public Wi-Fi providers collect the MAC addresses of connected devices. These addresses are stored in visit logs, from where you can then retrieve data about your places of stay if necessary.
As soon as you connect to free Wi-Fi in a public place, you immediately give out your location to third parties.
3. StingRay Traps
StingRay devices, known as cell phone simulators, work like mobile towers. The difference is that they do not provide a network connection, but only calculate the device coordinates from the IMSI network identifier.
StingRay traps are used primarily by law enforcement to determine the online activity of individuals they are looking for. The signal from traps is stronger than from cell towers. This forces the phone to change priorities and connect to traps instead of legal towers, thus giving out its coordinates.
As in the case of conventional communication stations, the coordinates of the phone are determined by measuring the time it takes the signal to travel from the trap to the phone and back.
4. Spyware and Malware
Malicious programs can also intercept your device's location when geolocation is disabled. Most often, tracking trackers get on a smartphone with the help of a Trojan through a vulnerability in the system.
One such program, Skygofree, masquerades as a software update that speeds up your Internet connection. Having penetrated the device, Skygofree transfers the coordinates of the phone to third parties, manages Wi-Fi networks, turns on audio recording, and interferes with the operation of Facebook Messenger, Skype and WhatsApp. In total, Skygofree has more than 40 dangerous functions.
How to prevent smartphone tracking?
There are many reasons why people worry about their location not being calculated from mobile phone activity. It's not even about the right to privacy, but about security.
Whatever your reason, you too can take steps to get rid of unnecessary surveillance.
1. Turn off GPS
Even with GPS turned off, there are ways to calculate your location. And yet, the active GPS function is guaranteed to give out your coordinates to both the telecom operator and applications. For your privacy, turn off your GPS first. And then do the rest.
2. Turn off Wi-Fi in public places
Most mobile phones prefer Wi-Fi networks. You may have noticed how the phone itself has changed the connection from mobile data on the available Wi-Fi network. If the Wi-Fi function on the smartphone is active, these transitions occur quite often.
Disconnecting Wi-Fi, you get rid of uninfected connections with public Internet networks.
3. Go to the Internet via VPN
The virtual private network makes an anonymous Internet connection. It encodes data in such a way that your IP address and geodata becomes inaccessible to the trakers. Thus, you get protected from collecting geodata when you go to sites that request information about the location of users.
4. Install only proven applications from legal sources
Taking advantage of official content stores, you reduce the risk of picing some malicious program. Of course, you can infect the phone in other ways, however, the ban on installing applications from third-party sources is the main safety measure.
Do not forget about antivirus. It will warn in a timely manner about threats emanating from sites and links and downloaded files.
5. Read permissions for applications
For correct operation, each application needs a specific set of permissions. Call suspicions need requests for location data. This is a clear sign that the program leads hidden activity.
Refundering the installation of programs that are requested in your opinion permission. If the function is so necessary, you can always find a safe analogue.
How to prohibit the cellular operator to track the phone location?
Attentive readers probably noticed that none of the above recommendations protect the phone from collecting data performed by the telecom operator. This is an explanation.
To use mobile communications, the device must be constantly maintained with the nearest tower. And the only way to ban the operator to see your smartphone is to turn it off and remove the battery.
Only in this case can ensure that your mobile phone will not be tracked. Anyone who tries to determine its location will receive only the coordinates of the place where it was at the time of shutdown. And ideally - for complete confidentiality - it should be not your home address.
