Cell phone tracking

Different GPS on flip and smartphones. GPS on smartphones is used by maps and such. Not the same thing.

RinconVTR wrote:
Any cell phone can call 911 and towers to triangulate location. This is HIGHLY INACCURATE, and thus police don't trust it.....

X2

I just watched a documentary on this and none of the 911 calls from a cell phone will give your exact location. It pings off the nearest tower. If you are in area of few towers it should the location would be miles from where you are at. Police say they are working on how to correct that.

Same goes for the false security of having OnStar in your vehicle.

My friends 80 year old mother ran off the road and hit OnStar and nothing. There were no towers where she was at so OnStar did NOT work.

Many people do not know that they work off cell phone towers. Your life and safety is only as good as if there is a cell tower near you.:(

After what happened to my friend IMHO I think OnStar should make that VERY clear in their advertising.

msgtord wrote:
Every cell phone is capable of being tracked.

Absolutely untrue. Use a basic without bells and whistles and you can only be "tracked" to your last call. In our case that might be a month and a few thousand miles ago.

In the opinion of media and advertisers, If anywhere does not have cell or Onstar coverage, it really isn't there so coverage is not necessary.

Hi Noel. Aside from cell phones, if your really concerned about getting lost/incapacitated,the DeLorme Inreach is a possibility. A bit pricey at $299, but should give you the peace of mind when traveling. I don't have one myself, but have often considered it.

Ron

We have one smart phone and one dumb dumb phone. The smart phone (mine) is always with us. I have started using an app "Where Am I". It will find your current location with lat/long coordinates and a street address. It has the ability to send this information via text, email or Facebook. I have started using it to let family member know where we are. Also handy if you just need your current address.

noplace2 wrote:

msgtord wrote:
Every cell phone is capable of being tracked.

Absolutely untrue. Use a basic without bells and whistles and you can only be "tracked" to your last call. In our case that might be a month and a few thousand miles ago.

WRONG. A cell transmits it's DNS number every few minutes. It allows the switching system to know where to route the call. Big shopping centers track customers using the DNS numbers.

So, you arrive at the mall. Onstar transmits it's number, the cell phones are co-located in the parking lot. They know 2 people were in the car. The car is parked outside the garden center. One went to the market and spent a long time in produce, the other visited 3 shoe stores and spent 20 minutes longer in the last one.

All of this is fed into the mall information system.

@noplace2

Sorry but you are dead wrong bud. If your phone is turned on, you can be tracked.

noplace2 wrote:

msgtord wrote:
Every cell phone is capable of being tracked.

Absolutely untrue. Use a basic without bells and whistles and you can only be "tracked" to your last call. In our case that might be a month and a few thousand miles ago.

Wrong. As long as someone has your phone's unique EIN, and your phone is on, you CAN be tracked to the nearest cell phone tower the phone "pings" for a connection.

I have read all of the inputs to your question on phone location apps. We have find my friend on our phones, as do some of you. What do you do when you have no signal at all. We just finished a trip 97 days on the road from Virginia to the Arctic Circle and back home. One of our safety items we carry at all times is “SPOT” Satellite GPS Messenger. We send out a Spot message each night to family & friends (Limited to 10 email accounts) giving them our exact location latitude & longitude and a short message letting them know we are all right. If they do not here from us in 2 or 3 days they know we are in trouble or something has happened. The device can also send out a help signal, need assistance, or an SOS. For life-threatening or other critical situations, it alerts the GEOS International Emergency Rescue Coordination Center (IERCC). GEOS notifies the appropriate emergency responder based on your location and personal information which may include police, highway patrol, the Coast Guard and others. Locations show up on Google Maps, pin pointing your exact location. No cell towers needed, the satellite is always there & reliable. We send out the spot message every night even if we are in the same location for more than one night. It gives us peace of mind and keeps our loved ones apprized of our location. I highly recommend this device for safety reasons… Dave & Holly Fox “The Tardis Time Travelers”