OJ`S CELL PHONE

To: cypherpunks@toad.com

From the L.A. Times Sunday 6/19

Fugitive Relied On And Was Undone By Cellular Phone
...
Law enforcement officials subpoenaed the company ( AirTouch Cellular )
for assistance in tracking down O J Simpson.  Technicians began
monitoring calls made to and from the white Bronco.
...
Even if an eyewitness had not spotted the vehicle, such monitoring would
have made Simpson's capture inevitable.
...
Technicians in the tracking station can, if necessary, track a
particular call back to the cell site from which it originates.  But the
monitoring can not be done unless the phone is in use. [ Is that true? ]

 * RM 1.4 B0037 *

It may be that the phone can be "pinged" unbeknownst to the owner, but
I'm fairly confident that if the phone is shut off, you're safe.  The
truly paranoid might consider stowing the phone inside some sort of RF
cage, I guess, or maybe just throw it out the window :-)

--
| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |

Mike McNally says:
> It may be that the phone can be "pinged" unbeknownst to the owner, but
> I'm fairly confident that if the phone is shut off, you're safe.  The
> truly paranoid might consider stowing the phone inside some sort of RF
> cage, I guess, or maybe just throw it out the window :-)

Wouldn't it be much simpler to hit the "power" button?

.pm

On Sun, 19 Jun 1994, Mike McNally wrote:

> 
> It may be that the phone can be "pinged" unbeknownst to the owner, but
> I'm fairly confident that if the phone is shut off, you're safe.  The
> truly paranoid might consider stowing the phone inside some sort of RF
> cage, I guess, or maybe just throw it out the window :-)

Maybe something as simple as unplugging/removing bateries?

-ck

>It may be that the phone can be "pinged" unbeknownst to the owner, but
>I'm fairly confident that if the phone is shut off, you're safe.  The
>truly paranoid might consider stowing the phone inside some sort of RF
>cage, I guess, or maybe just throw it out the window :-)

I should have added in my remarks about registration that one very
easy way to "ping" a cellular phone is to call it. If the phone is
powered on and hears the page, it will automatically acknowledge it on
the access channel (the mobile-to-base link that is also used to
request a mobile-originated call). This will certainly reveal the
mobile's location to the closest cell.

Phil

Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 01:57:04 -0700
    From: Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>

    I should have added in my remarks about registration that one very
    easy way to "ping" a cellular phone is to call it.

My wife said that some news show last night, maybe it was the Baba
Wawa thing, was saying that the current police story on OJ is that
someone called the police saying that they thought they saw OJ in the
Bronco.  Then the police called OJ on the cellular to start
pinpointing his location.  Presumeably, they'd already figured out
who's Bronco it was . . . .

			Rick

"Bob MorrisG" wrote:
> Technicians in the tracking station can, if necessary, track a
> particular call back to the cell site from which it originates.  But the
> monitoring can not be done unless the phone is in use. [ Is that true? ]

I wonder about this.

A friend had a Motorola handset he was using with our (Telecom) AMPS
service. When in stand-by mode, it polls the closest cell to determine
link quality and whether any slots are available for use.

When we were on holiday a few months ago, we stayed in a little seaside
town (ie. a small cell) and I can remember eating and noticing the
phone switch to `no service' for a few minutes, presumably as the cell
was fully loaded. While travelling through a National Park the
following day, in the middle of nowhere effectively, the same thing
happened as we went out of network range for a couple of hours.

The question is whether this polling includes the handset identifying
itself to the cell.

Matthew.

-- 
Matthew Gream <M.Gream@uts.edu.au> -- Consent Technologies, (02) 821-2043
Disclaimer: I'm only a student at UTS

> The question is whether this polling includes the handset identifying
> itself to the cell.

It has to.  Consider the case of an incoming call.  The system needs
to know which cell to begin transmitting to.

	--Paul

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  From the keyboard of:  mgream@acacia.itd.uts.edu.au (Matthew Gream)

> "Bob MorrisG" wrote:
> > Technicians in the tracking station can, if necessary, track a
> > particular call back to the cell site from which it originates.  But the
> > monitoring can not be done unless the phone is in use. [ Is that true? ]
>
> I wonder about this.

> [Description of polling handset deleted]
>
> The question is whether this polling includes the handset identifying
> itself to the cell.

Yes, it must.  If the handset is on standby, it won't receive calls
unless the cell can tell which number the handset is using.

The only sure way to keep yourself out of the "Position Escrow System"
is by keeping the phone turned off, and possibly disconnecting the
battery or car power lead.  "On Standby" == "In use."


Richard

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>Technicians in the tracking station can, if necessary, track a
>particular call back to the cell site from which it originates.  But the
>monitoring can not be done unless the phone is in use. [ Is that true? ]

There is an optional mechanism called "registration" by which the
system can keep track of your approximate location even though you're
not actually making calls. The intent is not really to track your
location, although it could certainly be used for that purpose. It's
intended to minimize the amount of "flood paging" that goes on.

When somebody calls you on a cell phone and the system doesn't know
where you are, it has to broadcast the page (the message announcing
the call) on every cell in the system. In large busy systems, this can
cause quite a bit of congestion on the paging channels. So the system
has the option of asking the users to transmit occasionally so the
system can keep track of their location and direct incoming pages to
the last known cell, at least as a first try.

Think of the system as a large bridged Ethernet and you won't be far
off, at least on the concept. On the other hand, the fact that most
cell phones see very little use, and the use that they do see is
predominantly mobile originated, means that registration actually
doesn't buy that much in practice. It can even be counterproductive
because of all that non-revenue generating registration traffic that
takes up capacity on the access and paging channels. This probably
explains why registration isn't often used in practice, as far as I
know.

The best way to make sure it isn't occurring, of course, is to turn
off your phone.

Phil