(05-31-2021, 10:16 AM)Skraaj Wrote:(05-30-2021, 09:21 AM)MirceaKitsune Wrote: Another big example closer to home is an alert system that was discussed a few years ago if I'm not mistaken; Something that allowed authorities to track where your phone is located, and if you're in an area where a calamity is happening they'd have the ability to force a message on your device and you couldn't disable the thing. As an optional service I'm definitely not against it, quite the contrary... but forced and hardcoded into my device, no way I don't want any of that stuff.AFAIK this is done by pushing a text to all devices connected to a tower from which someone wants to send the alert. And triangulation of an individual is possible by checking nearest tower connections. It's not super accurate but enough. If someone knows your IMEI - you can be tracked.
I encourage those with these concerns to view this thread.
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11264
The idea, going back to the failed(medical issues of main engineer who also brought you the OpenMoko) Neo900 project includes hardware switches on the modem and radios as well as a hacker-interface allowing a future receive-only POCSAG pager receiver module which allows you to be passively 'online' especially if you can redirect incoming calls to your regional commercial(or amateur radio, or low power local) paging service where you receive a 'text message' via POCSAG service that you can call back immediately or whenever you feel safe to power up your telephony modem or VOIP modem.
Back to the thread above, we need a good low power receiver IC to build a reference dev kit so the software devs can integrate stealthy operation into the OS.