[liberationtech] If we want to be anonymous in #azerbaijan we take batteries out of our cellphones

[Eleanor Saitta]

On 2012.06.18 13.29, Parker Higgins wrote:
> On 6/18/12 8:36 AM, Yosem Companys wrote:
>> Hi Liberationtech folks, is this always the case? I've heard cases
>> where people can still be tracked whether they have batteries in
>> their cell phones or not...
> 
> I've spoken with mobile security researchers who have given me the
> impression that this theory hasn't been tested very much. It's
> theoretically possible that some phones could be recording or
> transmitting without the main battery, but the equipment that would be
> required to test is prohibitively expensive and you'd have a hard time
> demonstrating anything but an evidence of absence.

Unless there's a specific secondary battery powering a transmitter, it
is improbable in the extreme that an unpowered passive device can have
its location tracked at a distance of more than, say, a hundred meters,
and any tracking at all is extremely unlikely.  Cellphones don't work
that way, and physics says no, basically.

Now, *people* are very easy to tail, when you have a human doing the
work.  That's a different story.  There are almost certainly many more
pressing issues to worry about when it comes to locational privacy than
a battery-less phone.

E.

-- 
Ideas are my favorite toys.

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