I'm working night shift doing electrical work for a company called True Positions.  I asked somebody there what they do there, and he told me it was a computer center for keeping track of people's locations, using GPS aware cell phones.  Apparently, all new cellphones made after a certain date have GPS locator beacons built into them.

A quick search on google led me to www.ulocate.com/]THIS] website.  It's a service for families who want to keep track of each others' locations at any given time.  

I am not a criminal, I never do anything illegal.  I usually drive EXACTLY 60mph on the highway.  This still gives me the creeps.  I don't like the idea of being tracked by some super computer that archives where I've been and when.

Does anybody here know how to disable that GPS thing in a cell phone?  I want the damn thing out.  Yes I'm wearing a tinfoil hat and I can't get it any tighter.  While we're at it, does anybody know if it's possible to disable the "black box" in a 2000 Ford F150?

Quoted: Does anybody here know how to disable that GPS thing in a cell phone?

Turn it OFF.   Or get an older phone.  It'll probably be a legal requirement soon, due to 911 problems with cell phones

While we're at it, does anybody know if it's possible to disable the "black box" in a 2000 Ford F150?

Probably integrated into the whole system


I wish I had a black box on my 1993 BMW that got totalled 2 years ago.  Would have proven me right, and hopefully shortened the 2 years of lawsuits  (I won)

I know disabling the location thingy only stops the non police service from your location but if your local PD uses the technology your out of luck.

I had an issue around here and asked the EMS place, we dont have the setup to use the GPS tracking on phones yet.

Fuck the Government

If it bugs you that much use payphones and ditch the cellphone

It's a long read, but defeating GPS is the least of your worries.

You're on your way to work in the morning and place a call on your wireless phone. As your call is relayed by the wireless tower, it is also relayed by another series of towers to a microwave antenna on top of Mount Weather between Leesburg and Winchester, Virginia and then beamed to another antenna on top of an office building in Arlington where it is recorded on a computer hard drive.

The computer also records you phone digital serial number, which is used to identify you through your wireless company phone bill that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency already has on record as part of your permanent file.

A series of sophisticated computer programs listens to your phone conversation and looks for “keywords” that suggest suspicious activity. If it picks up those words, an investigative file is opened and sent to the Department of Homeland Security.

Congratulations. Big Brother has just identified you as a potential threat to the security of the United States because you might have used words like “take out” (as in taking someone out when you were in fact talking about ordering takeout for lunch) or “D-Day” (as in deadline for some nefarious activity when you were talking about going to the new World War II Memorial to recognize the 60th anniversary of D-Day).

If you are lucky, an investigator at DHS will look at the entire conversation in context and delete the file. Or he or she may keep the file open even if they realize the use of words was innocent. Or they may decide you are, indeed, a threat and set up more investigation, including a wiretap on your home and office phones, around-the-clock surveillance and much closer looks at your life.

Welcome to America, 2004, where the actions of more than 150 million citizens are monitored 24/7 by the TIA, the Terrorist Information Awareness (originally called Total Information Awareness) program of DARPA, DHS and the Department of Justice.

Although Congress cut off funding for TIA last year, the Bush Administration ordered the program moved into the Pentagon's “black bag” budget, which is neither authorized nor reviewed by the Hill. DARPA also increased the use of private contractors to get around privacy laws that would restrict activities by federal employees.

Six months of interviews with security consultants, former DARPA employees, privacy experts and contractors who worked on the TIA facility at 3701 Fairfax Drive in Arlington reveal a massive snooping operation that is capable of gathering – in real time – vast amounts of information on the day to day activities of ordinary Americans.

Going on a trip? TIA knows where you are going because your train, plane or hotel reservations are forwarded automatically to the DARPA computers. Driving? Every time you use a credit card to purchase gas, a record of that transaction is sent to TIA which can track your movements across town or across the country.

Use a computerized transmitter to pay tolls? TIA is notified every time that transmitter passes through a toll booth. Likewise, that lunch you paid for with your VISA becomes part of your permanent file, along with your credit report, medical records, driving record and even your TV viewing habits.

Subscribers to the DirecTV satellite TV service should know – but probably don't – that every pay-per-view movie they order is reported to TIA as is any program they record using a TIVO recording system. If they order an adult film from any of DirecTV's three SpiceTV channels, that information goes to TIA and is, as a matter of policy, forwarded to the Department of Justice's special task force on pornography.

“We have a police state far beyond anything George Orwell imagined in his book 1984,” says privacy expert Susan Morrissey. “The everyday lives of virtually every American are under scrutiny 24-hours-a-day by the government.”

Paul Hawken, owner of the data information mining company Groxis, agrees, saying the government is spending more time watching ordinary Americans than chasing terrorists and the bad news is that they aren't very good at it.

“It's the Three Stooges go to data mining school,” says Hawken. “Even worse, DARPA is depending on second-rate companies to provide them with the technology, which only increases the chances for errors.”

One such company is Torch Concepts. DARPA provided the company with flight information on five million passengers who flew Jet Blue Airlines in 2002 and 2003. Torch then matched that information with social security numbers, credit and other personal information in the TIA databases to build a prototype passenger profiling system.

Jet Blue executives were livid when they learned how their passenger information, which they must provide the government under the USA Patriot Act, was used and when it was presented at a technology conference with the title: Homeland Security – Airline Passenger Risk Assessment.

Privacy Expert Bill Scannell didn't buy Jet Blue's anger.

“JetBlue has assaulted the privacy of 5 million of its customers,” said Scannell. “Anyone who flew should be aware and very scared that there is a dossier on them.”

But information from TIA will be used the DHS as a major part of the proposed CAPSII airline passenger monitoring system. That system, when fully in place, will determine whether or not any American is allowed to get on an airplane for a flight.

JetBlue requested the report be destroyed and the passenger data be purged from the TIA computers but TIA refuses to disclose the status of either the report or the data.

Although exact statistics are classified, security experts say the U.S. Government has paid out millions of dollars in out-of-court settlements to Americans who have been wrongly accused, illegally detained or harassed because of mistakes made by TIA. Those who accept settlements also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and won't discuss their cases.

Hawken refused to do business with DARPA, saying TIA was both unethical and illegal.

"We got a lot of e-mails from companies – even conservative ones – saying, ‘Thank you. Finally someone won't do something for money,'" he adds.

Those who refuse to work with TIA include specialists from the super-secret National Security Agency in Fort Meade, MD. TIA uses NSA's technology to listen in on wireless phone calls as well as the agency's list of key words and phrases to identify potential terrorist activity.

“I know NSA employees who have quit rather than cooperate with DARPA,” Hawken says. “NSA's mandate is to track the activities of foreign enemies of this nation, not Americans.”

Most cell phones (excluding th Garmin ones ) use a variation of GPS - it is called LBS and uses the local base stations as the "satellites" and use the same type of technology as GPS.  They are much better because they do not require the pain in the ass antenna arrangements and super sensitive receivers that the global satellite receivers use.  GPS in cell phones is 99% a misused term.

Here's the image THEY don't want you to see.  This was purged from the Internet after people started questioning the program.  

I saved a copy. (I'm serious about this)

That's it I'm getting a beeper in someone else's name and if I need a phone I'll use payphones.  Where's the tinfoil hat smiley???

Quoted: That's it I'm getting a beeper in someone else's name and if I need a phone I'll use payphones.  Where's the tinfoil hat smiley???

They have probably already updated your file with that post!  And mine for posting the DARPA info...ohh sheeet.


Seriously, unless your doing foul stuff there is no reason to attempt to live off the grid these days.  It's just not pratical to do here in the states.  I got nothing to hide, so I don't think there gonna bother pointong a multi million dollar satellite at my crib or review too many of my phone calls.  I would bet myself and many otheres here have triggered a keyword or two with our gun hobbies.  I have a CCW, Private Pilots License, Tripoli Level 2 Rocket cert, Had a pyro cert so I am sure there's a file somewhere
But unless they find something nefarious in the prelim check, they close the file...till you trigger another keyword.  Yeah it is kinda scary and anoyying, but if your legal nothing to get bugged out about.  Imagine being the poor sap who's got to go through the tons of saved calls in the system day in and day out and open and close all the files...

tag

thats why i like using the words bomb, blow up, nuke, assasinate, etc while on the phone.  I about as far from a criminal as one could be, so let them "track" me.  they still gotta find some sort of real evidence that your up to something

Quoted: I'm working night shift doing electrical work for a company called True Positions.  I asked somebody there what they do there, and he told me it was a computer center for keeping track of people's locations, using GPS aware cell phones.  Apparently, all new cellphones made after a certain date have GPS locator beacons built into them. A quick search on google led me to www.ulocate.com/]THIS] website.  It's a service for families who want to keep track of each others' locations at any given time.   I am not a criminal, I never do anything illegal.  I usually drive EXACTLY 60mph on the highway.  This still gives me the creeps.  I don't like the idea of being tracked by some super computer that archives where I've been and when. Does anybody here know how to disable that GPS thing in a cell phone?  I want the damn thing out.  Yes I'm wearing a tinfoil hat and I can't get it any tighter.  While we're at it, does anybody know if it's possible to disable the "black box" in a 2000 Ford F150?

I travel on vacation to several foreign countries and use GPS extensively. First of all GPS is line of sight meaning if you are not oudoors with a clear line of sight to birds you are not getting a signal. All space based navigational devices like the Russian Glosnass, GPS and the new one from the European union all work with line of sight. The minute you are beneath some trees, inside a building, and even around tall buildings, the system will not work. When they do develop a GPS system that uses ground based stations in conjuction with space based they may be able to track someone. Right now they can only track you to within the confines of a cell tower and that's without GPS....like a needle in a haystack....

Quoted: Right now they can only track you to within the confines of a cell tower and that's without GPS....like a needle in a haystack....

Tower to tower is hardly needle in a haystack.

Quoted: Quoted: Right now they can only track you to within the confines of a cell tower and that's without GPS....like a needle in a haystack.... Tower to tower is hardly needle in a haystack.

The more remote the location with fewer towers it may be easier to track you, where there are multiple towers and you are skipping along cell towers or using less busy celltowers in peak calling times in a crowded area you can maybe be located in a radius of 20 square miles, not exactly pinpoint accuracy....technology ain't there yet, GPS is still line of sight.....

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Right now they can only track you to within the confines of a cell tower and that's without GPS....like a needle in a haystack.... Tower to tower is hardly needle in a haystack. The more remote the location with fewer towers it may be easier to track you, where there are multiple towers and you are skipping along cell towers or using less busy celltowers in peak calling times in a crowded area you can maybe be located in a radius of 20 square miles, not exactly pinpoint accuracy....technology ain't there yet, GPS is still line of sight.....

Don't you have it backwards?  The more dense your towers the more "dots" your putting up on the screen.  

My new Moto V710 has a selection to have it on for all calls or only for 911.  It was defaulted to 911 only when I got it.

There is a icon on the home page showing GPS status.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Right now they can only track you to within the confines of a cell tower and that's without GPS....like a needle in a haystack.... Tower to tower is hardly needle in a haystack. The more remote the location with fewer towers it may be easier to track you, where there are multiple towers and you are skipping along cell towers or using less busy celltowers in peak calling times in a crowded area you can maybe be located in a radius of 20 square miles, not exactly pinpoint accuracy....technology ain't there yet, GPS is still line of sight..... Don't you have it backwards?  The more dense your towers the more "dots" your putting up on the screen.

You may not be relaying from the closest tower, more so at peak calling times.....