What are you guys' opinions on how smartphones are supposed to be used?

I mean, I know I might get a bunch of crap for this, but as far my own opinions about iPhone use, or smart phone use in general: Phones are tools, not play things and not friends. You should not go out with friends and look at social media on your phone all the whole time, nor should you waste the battery playing games and then have no battery later for possible utilitarian purposes.

Now if you've seen some videos online of those "phoneless" social experiments that see if taking away a phone while being with friends is good for social activity, you might think someone like me would have no problem with doing that sort of thing, But that's actually not true at all.

In fact, a while back I tried to go to a social thing I had wanted to go to for a long while and when at the door they said "No phones. Hand it over." I literally just said, "Fuck that shit, I'm out." and I went back home. Just because other people are addicted to phone usage in public doesn't mean I should have to give up my phone in response to that sort of overwhelming culture. And just because I don't use my phone for entertainment or social interaction that doesn't mean I'd be willing to give up my phone for the sake of increased social interaction in public or really any sake at all.

My phone is sacred to me in that way. There's a huge sense of security I get from just having it on my person, and having it just to use as a tool in case of certain things. Even if I don't use it at all during my day, (and often times I don't and I just keep it off in my pocket) I still can't bear to leave the house without it.

Also, no offense to anyone, but if you have a smart phone, yet are much older in age or you just don't really understand how to use it that well regardless of your age, and often have to ask others to do something for you on your phone, here's a word of advice from me: GET A SIMPLER PHONE! Like I said, I do feel that a smart phone is just a tool, and a damn good one to have if you know how to use it properly. But if you are trying to make a call and you can't even unlock your phone, then my only question is "Why the fuck did you buy a tool that you have insufficient knowledge to use?". Or like, if your only use your phone for calling and texting people and nothing else, why did you waste your money on a smart device that is meant to do so much more than that primarily?

*sigh*

That's just how I see it, but what do you guys think? Am I being way too harsh about my ideas of phone use or do you agree with I think and feel that my points are valid?

I'm all ears...

My phone was bought as a tool that includes gaming, so obviously I will game on it. Alas, that is also why I have a ridiculously sized battery and am very much willing to stop playing long before I run the possibility of exhausting my battery.
Like, planning ahead or even bringing a spare battery are all worthwhile solutions to prevent standing there without juice.

There are also people who only seem to text and phone on a smartphone, but like to have it as a device to make pictures in a pinch. Be it for documenting a car crash or a robbery or something, they are still highly useful.

Past that, it's a tool but a highly private one. I would never give my phone away for any reason to any person because there is a shit ton of sensitive data on that thing. Including but not limited to 2-factor-authentication apps, contacts, pictures, messages, emails, browser history, chat apps.

Important: If you go to a social event that wants you to hand over your phone assume they try this to obtain sensitive data from your phone, including passwords and other stuff. Don't ever hand your phone to strangers for any amount of time. Malware, trojans, viruses, or just copying the entire contents of your device are a very real possibility. If you have to hand over your phone to the police, turn it off. Use a password, use the full device encryption, don't hand it over to strangers, don't connect it to unknown computers in public. If you need to charge, charge through your own, personal charger at a standard outlet, or through your personal computer.

I use mine to check forums and social media I frequent when nothing else is happening around me. I'll do it with friends and during downtime at work. As long as nothing else is happening at the time, fuck it.

My iPhone is: primarily videos and websites; secondary social media / chat ( I only have Facebook, messenger, Skype, and mumble, the first three see the most usage); tertiary games (hence why I made that suggested games thread), and fourth-iary assistance (notepad, dictionary, and mobile accounts)

I do use my iPhone ALOT, but only because I can lay in bed and have other ease of access with it. So, in my opinion, a phone should be a jack of all trades: social interaction, entertainment, stress relief, and assistance. By all means, use it for how you see fit. I'd have no problem handing it over, since I have a very bad "idle hand" syndrome that lets me entertain myself with fantasies and stories on whim, but having someone take it away, as Notme said, is a security risk.

Or, in shorthand: I feel like an mobile device is an all-in-one tool, since it can keep you occupied by giving you pretty much everything. I believe that you can live without an mobile device, but you should definitely not give it up on someone's whim, without a logical reason.

Smartphones are presently the singlemost essential gadget any human being should own and use. I recall a documentary listing the top 100 gadgets of all time, and the smartphone was #1. The reason for that is because it is multiple gadgets in one. A camera, camcorder, computer, flashlight, mp3 player, gaming system, telephone, web browser, recorder, etc.

I use mine for web browsing, reading fanfiction, Nintendo/Sony video game emulation (with a proper Bluetooth controller, taking pictures, music, notes, email, etc. I'm not really a call/text person, as I do so within my family for the most part.

GameManiac said:
Smartphones are presently the singlemost essential gadget any human being should own and use. I recall a documentary listing the top 100 gadgets of all time, and the smartphone was #1. The reason for that is because it is multiple gadgets in one. A camera, camcorder, computer, flashlight, mp3 player, gaming system, telephone, web browser, recorder, etc.

I use mine for web browsing, reading fanfiction, Nintendo/Sony video game emulation (with a proper Bluetooth controller, taking pictures, music, notes, email, etc. I'm not really a call/text person, as I do so within my family for the most part.

Mind if I ask where Omnitools (or Swiss army knifes, if they still call them that) are, on that list?

NotMeNotYou said:

Important: If you go to a social event that wants you to hand over your phone assume they try this to obtain sensitive data from your phone, including passwords and other stuff. Don't ever hand your phone to strangers for any amount of time. Malware, trojans, viruses, or just copying the entire contents of your device are a very real possibility. If you have to hand over your phone to the police, turn it off. Use a password, use the full device encryption, don't hand it over to strangers, don't connect it to unknown computers in public. If you need to charge, charge through your own, personal charger at a standard outlet, or through your personal computer.

Yes, this should be noted definitely!

In my case that I described above it was legit. It was a church event and I knew that they had somewhat enforced it before I went, but only younger people had it more strictly enforced upon them. As such I was only seeked out while entering because I was "a teenager". (or at least looked to be anyway.) Plus everyone there knew me as the guy who is super tech savvy anyway, (some people still ask me to fix their electronics and stuff because I always did it for free.) so it was inevitable. To be clear, I still said "Fuck that." though because of their refusal to let me have my phone while inside.

Speaking of the protective public charging thing: I have a charger cable that I tweaked myself so that the charging still happens, but the connectors that trasmit data to a machine are useless, so I don't get potentially "juice-jacked" at a mobile charging terminal. I've never actually had to use it, but I still have it just in case I ever have to go to the airport or something.

Also, using airplane mode when not in use not only greatly extends battery life, but also keeps others from stealing your information too. Airplane mode means no wireless data in or out of your device, so it's good to keep that in mind when traveling too.

A modified cable like that actually wouldn't benefit me, since my phone requires quick charging if I want to be done before 8h pass. And that is likely the case for most other people with new smart phones as well, you can only get quick charging through a working data cable since the charger needs to talk with the phone.

Airplane mode also defeats the purpose of the phone, at least for me. Staying connected at all times is the number one priority, cutting the data connection prevents that. It's also usually enough to just turn of wifi, Bluetooth, and NFC, as those are actual local data connections and easily offered and abused by handheld devices around you. Imitating a data tower is a lot harder than autoconnecting to Bluetooth device, for example. Those 3 things also cost a lot of juice when active, so it's good practice to keep of until needed to save battery.

NotMeNotYou said:
A modified cable like that actually wouldn't benefit me, since my phone requires quick charging if I want to be done before 8h pass. And that is likely the case for most other people with new smart phones as well, you can only get quick charging through a working data cable since the charger needs to talk with the phone.

Airplane mode also defeats the purpose of the phone, at least for me. Staying connected at all times is the number one priority, cutting the data connection prevents that. It's also usually enough to just turn of wifi, Bluetooth, and NFC, as those are actual local data connections and easily offered and abused by handheld devices around you. Imitating a data tower is a lot harder than autoconnecting to Bluetooth device, for example. Those 3 things also cost a lot of juice when active, so it's good practice to keep of until needed to save battery.

Ah, I see. Sorry my advice doesn't help you.

And you're right. Though, my phone is actually pretty old (I got it new in 2012), so the NFC drain is not really a problem for me and neither is the drain from the motion processor since I don't have those. And as for the gyroscope, proximity sensor, and the GPS, I permanently disabled those a long time ago. (I like to tinker a lot.)

And like I said, I don't use mine in public much at all, so if I ever do need a charge, Quick Charge isn't really a thing I need. But to each their own.

Qmannn said:
...My job tried to get the lower ranking employees to leave their phones in the front office because people were using them when they were supposed to be working. I completely disregarded the rule because I wasn't about to leave myself without some form of communication in the event that something went wrong. Strangely, one of my bosses constantly forgot about this rule and kept calling me, but I could use the rule as an excuse to ignore his calls.

Dang, good on you. ;)

I have actually thought about carrying an old bricked phone around with me so that if I have to give up my phone like that, (mean someone is there to force me to do it) I can just hand over the bricked one instead of the real one.

But, I don't get out much anyway, so there's no point in me looking for a phone in my storage of old tech parts and purposely bricking it for something like that if I will never likely run into that sort of situation again anyway.

My phone is almost exclusively for Internet. I don't call or text much with it.
Used to use it as a music player, but the storage space isn't large enough, so I have a dedicated player now.

As for how it should be used, I think people should use it however they like. It doesn't really matter as long as it does what they want to do and they don't inconvenience others with their usage.

I use mine mainly for:

• music
• videos
• photos (13MP!)
• documents (saved offline)
• WhatsApp (for college only)
• browsing e621 and light contribution (user checks, forums, discussions, etc.)
• games (no more)
• Steam
• YouTube
• Google Translate
• Gmail

Huawei P8 Lite, amazing device.

I pretty much just use mine to read stuff when I'm not doing anything but a computer or book is unavailable. For some reason I've never even considered using it for music.

Also, I can tell you what's inappropriate usage: texting while driving. There is no justification for taking your focus off the road for the amount of time required to send even a simple text, no matter how bored you are. If it's an emergency, call the person.

GameManiac said:
Smartphones are presently the singlemost essential gadget any human being should own and use.

Depends, you'd be surprised how handy a simple knife can be (for non-illicit purposes, I mean). Very underrated.

Moblie porn viewer for jacking it on the go

NotMeNotYou said:
Important: If you go to a social event that wants you to hand over your phone assume they try this to obtain sensitive data from your phone

wtf kind of sketchy social event does that?

NotMeNotYou said:
Important: If you go to a social event that wants you to hand over your phone assume they try this to obtain sensitive data from your phone, including passwords and other stuff. Don't ever hand your phone to strangers for any amount of time. Malware, trojans, viruses, or just copying the entire contents of your device are a very real possibility. If you have to hand over your phone to the police, turn it off. Use a password, use the full device encryption, don't hand it over to strangers, don't connect it to unknown computers in public. If you need to charge, charge through your own, personal charger at a standard outlet, or through your personal computer.

My car broke down the other day and I didn't have my cell phone with me to call AAA. I am glad that the person I talked to was more trusting than you are suggesting people be.

Anyway. Personally I dislike smartphones as a general rule. I miss when phones just had buttons and didn't do anything outside of calling. Some features, like GPS, are reasonable, but I find that people never take their faces away from their phones now.

When I'm out and about I don't want to be connected to the Internet. I only use my phone for calls. I don't even text.

Clawdragons said:
My car broke down the other day and I didn't have my cell phone with me to call AAA. I am glad that the person I talked to was more trusting than you are suggesting people be.

Anyway. Personally I dislike smartphones as a general rule. I miss when phones just had buttons and didn't do anything outside of calling. Some features, like GPS, are reasonable, but I find that people never take their faces away from their phones now.

When I'm out and about I don't want to be connected to the Internet. I only use my phone for calls. I don't even text.

They still sell feature phones.

Clawdragons said:
...I miss when phones just had buttons and didn't do anything outside of calling. Some features, like GPS, are reasonable, but I find that people never take their faces away from their phones now.

When I'm out and about I don't want to be connected to the Internet...

*looks toward fourth wall*

This guy, I like this guy.

That's the main reason I don't have any friends my own age. If people hang out with someone and all they want to do is have their face in their phone or take pictures and selfies all the time instead of enjoying their friends, it makes me want to take their phone and just hide it to see what they do.

Speaking of, Even though I really like being on camera and acting, and singing doing stupid comedy or whatever else entertainment on camera, I hate it when I am walking around or am just out and about and someone decides they are going to take my picture, especially if I politely say not to.

In fact, I can get really aggressive about that sort of thing too.

So if any of you ever meet me IRL, please ask before taking a picture of me, and if I say "no" it means "NO!"

My phone is mainly for calling and texting. It's nice that it also has a camera and that I can use it to check the weather. I don't do much outside of that with it, partially because my site passwords are absurd and impossible to memorize, so I don't use anything requiring accounts from my phone.

Ratte said:
...my site passwords are absurd and impossible to memorize, so I don't use anything requiring accounts from my phone.

Same

I have Keepass2Android, a tiny USB OTG adapter, and a USB key if I ever need my ridiculous passwords. Also, a knife. I may seem like a phone addict but I can easily go days without checking my phone, and if I have to check it it takes me less than 3 seconds to figure out if something requires my attention or can be ignored until later. That is also my main motivation behind being connected all the time, to be aware about when I am needed, if I am needed.

That, or when I am too lazy to leave my bed.

Clawdragons said:
My car broke down the other day and I didn't have my cell phone with me to call AAA. I am glad that the person I talked to was more trusting than you are suggesting people be.

Anyway. Personally I dislike smartphones as a general rule. I miss when phones just had buttons and didn't do anything outside of calling. Some features, like GPS, are reasonable, but I find that people never take their faces away from their phones now.

When I'm out and about I don't want to be connected to the Internet. I only use my phone for calls. I don't even text.

If forgetting your phone is a frequent issue consider getting a cheap one for like 50, a prepaid card for 5, and put both into your gloves box. That makes a perfect emergency phone for cheap.

Rustyy said:
wtf kind of sketchy social event does that?

You'd be surprised how trusting people on alcohol or party drugs are, and in large cities you will always have cunts like that.

I also use Keepass2Android. It's convenient being able to login anywhere.
Also use my phone (very) occasionally to control my homeserver, for when I can't be bothered to turn on my computer.

As for sketchy social events, can't say I've ever seen anything like that. Though I guess leaving my phone locked is enough.

Kristal_Candeo said:
What are you guys' opinions on how smartphones are supposed to be used?

Ugh, to sell you apps & ads and maybe to track you?
Now how you are supposed to use a smartphone, that's a different question.

The one smart-phone feature I use the most is GPS, and a screen suitable for maps.

A distant second, it's a generic PDA. A crappy text editor with a crappy disk, a crappy browser, a crappy camera. A crappy phone, as well. Think of EDC. I don't use any of that often, but when I need it occasionally it's right there in my pocket.

In fact, a while back I tried to go to a social thing I had wanted to go to for a long while and when at the door they said "No phones. Hand it over."

My first thought would be, just ask the people to switch it off and leave it that way until the event is over. Then again, people who need to be asked that in the first place may have troubles resisting the temptation.

My phone is sacred to me in that way. There's a huge sense of security I get from just having it on my person, and having it just to use as a tool in case of certain things. Even if I don't use it at all during my day, (and often times I don't and I just keep it off in my pocket) I still can't bear to leave the house without it.

That's one thing I would rather work on resolving, the over-reliance on a single device. But that's me; I'm pretty sure that if stuff happens I'm on my own and I've learned to live that way.

Well I don't have a smartphone

I just see no point in it

Clawdragons said:
Anyway. Personally I dislike smartphones as a general rule. I miss when phones just had buttons and didn't do anything outside of calling. Some features, like GPS, are reasonable, but I find that people never take their faces away from their phones now.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having those features if you can resist the temptation to use the phone at inopportune times, though.

Ryuzaki_Izawa said:
Well I don't have a smartphone

I just see no point in it

Good for you. Seriously.

It takes a smart person to realize what they need in life, and to settle for it with no temptation or greed to obtain more.

most of the time im using my smartphone to cope with my mental issues.

i have adhd and focusing on one thing for long time is really difficult (even with proper medication its hard) but doing something else for a bit allows me to maintain focus on the important thing. with a smart phone i can do this where ever i need to.

also i have anxiety and a bit of ocd symptoms. my biggest fears is forgetting important information (like how much money i have on my bank account before going to store or the time when i was supposed to meet teacher to talk about important stuff etc). i have this obsessive urge to check the information over and over again just to makes sure that i remember it and i got it right. with a smart phone i have all this information nicely accessoble in one place and i can double check all this stuff as many times as i want where ever i want.

also i often get sensory overloads while im in crowded places and that shit is horrible. with smartphone i can listen music or play something to ease or even prevent sensory overloads completely without having to leave the place.

tl;dr im barely functional mentally ill garbage and with smartphone i can be a bit more functional mentally ill garbage

Oh c'mon,
everybody knows yer smartphones are a means for Homeland Security / CIA to track you.

I have an few old slider phones with an unlimited texting plan for $28/month, taxes in;
no data plan, no internets, no GPS.

Then again, I am really fucking old ...

(I also like to pay attention to the world around me,
particularly when I am driving, or say, crossing a street where there are other people driving who are likely fucking around with their smartphones)

Mutisija said:
most of the time im using my smartphone to cope with my mental issues...

...tl;dr im barely functional mentally ill garbage and with smartphone i can be a bit more functional mentally ill garbage

PM me if you ever need to get a load off of your mind or need someone to listen to you and give you friendly advice.

TBH, I have experienced some of those same things and over the years I have come up with ways to not only cope with these things as you seem to have done using your phone, but also be able to use them as an advantage in my life rather than a disadvantage or a handicap.

Sharp_Coyote said:
Oh c'mon,
everybody knows yer smartphones are a means for Homeland Security / CIA to track you.

I have an few old slider phones with an unlimited texting plan for $28/month, taxes in;
no data plan, no internets, no GPS.

yes, we all know. You may as well embrace it unless you are paranoid like me and are willing to fry your hardware in such away that those tracking things don't work, but even then, what's the point? Other people's phones track you all the same.

They post something on face book in the same room as you and instantly the government knows your info, even if you don't have a phone at all.

Exercising my freedom of speech:FUCK YOU GOVERNMENT!

Then again, I am really fucking old ...

(I also like to pay attention to the world around me,
particularly when I am driving, or say, crossing a street where there are other people driving who are likely fucking around with their smartphones)

same, and i'm only 22.

Sharp_Coyote said:
Oh c'mon,
everybody knows yer smartphones are a means for Homeland Security / CIA to track you.

I have an few old slider phones with an unlimited texting plan for $28/month, taxes in;
no data plan, no internets, no GPS.

Then again, I am really fucking old ...

(I also like to pay attention to the world around me,
particularly when I am driving, or say, crossing a street where there are other people driving who are likely fucking around with their smartphones)

Not to burst your bubble but cell tower triangulation of cellphones has worked with an accuracy below 1 meter for about 40 years now. And it has just gotten better, if you have a phone and you are anywhere near a city the company (and thus the government if needed) knows where you are no matter what your phone is.

Kristal_Candeo said:
yes, we all know. You may as well embrace it unless you are paranoid like me and are willing to fry your hardware in such away that those tracking things don't work,

As long as your phone is able to log into a cell tower, and thus is able to text or call someone, they still know where you are if you are within reach of two cell towers or more, and I can guarantee you you will be near at least two towers in 99% of all places in the western world.

I don't have a phone or anybody to talk to anyway, but I have always been curious what people do on their phones all the time so this has been interesting.

hslugs said:
Think of EDC.

What's that?

NotMeNotYou said:
Not to burst your bubble but cell tower triangulation of cellphones has worked with an accuracy below 1 meter for about 40 years now. And it has just gotten better, if you have a phone and you are anywhere near a city the company (and thus the government if needed) knows where you are no matter what your phone is.

As long as your phone is able to log into a cell tower, and thus is able to text or call someone, they still know where you are if you are within reach of two cell towers or more, and I can guarantee you you will be near at least two towers in 99% of all places in the western world.

Is it possible to interfere with this from the phone?
Like connecting to different cell towers manually or physically alter reception level?
And even with such accuracy I image it would still be hard with very high density areas, but that's irrelevant.

banhday said:
Is it possible to interfere with this from the phone?
Like connecting to different cell towers manually or physically alter reception level?
And even with such accuracy I image it would still be hard with very high density areas, but that's irrelevant.

Even if you managed to boost the strength of your cellphone's signal, they'd still be able to triangulate your position. All towers recieve via the same means, so there's no way to cut off one without cutting off them all, which would be to turn your phone off in the first place.

NotMeNotYou said:
Not to burst your bubble but cell tower triangulation of cellphones has worked with an accuracy below 1 meter for about 40 years now...

Yeah, I know that NMNY; I just like putting on my tinfoil hat from time-to-time so I can rant about The Man while appropriately attired.

The carriers in my area are right awful bastards, and have rules where if you have a smartphone on their network, they force you to have a data plan. They also flat-out refuse to turn off said data on any of their plans.

I have no social media, and I don't care to follow tweets or WHY, so I have little need for a smartphone in the first place; there are a few forums I frequent from home, and that is about it for an online presence for me.

I would probably only use a smartphone for fast food coupon apps, and the less takeout I eat, the better I feel.

banhday said:
Is it possible to interfere with this from the phone?
Like connecting to different cell towers manually or physically alter reception level?
And even with such accuracy I image it would still be hard with very high density areas, but that's irrelevant.

It's not possible to turn that off because it's fundamental way how electric signals work. Every signal your phone sends has a time attached to it, and is received at a specific time at the tower(s).
If you have one tower the difference in the time signals after the handshake has occurred tells the tower how far away the phone is. You can map this information as a perfect sphere around the tower.
If you have a second tower you get two of those spheres, at the intersections of those spheres is where you'd now be able to map the phone, this is in all but some fringe cases a usually vertical ring. If you know the layout of the land this alone would be enough to figure out where the signal comes from. With two towers you also no longer need the time of the phone, since you can calculate that time yourself from the different times in the two towers.
The issue being: Towers have multiple antennas, those antennas already are enough to discern the rough direction of the signal, making it possible that you can directly tell where on that ring (or in the case of one tower in what section of the sphere) the phone is.
Any additional tower simply offers better tools to decrease the inherent error in the triangulation process, thus makes it even more accurate.

And in very high density ares you usually have more towers, so you still get a good signal quality.

Also, this is a huge simplification, it's a wee bit more complicated than that what with those damn attributes traveling signals and electric waves have.

Furrin_Gok said:
What's that?

Every-day-carry, I would assume.

Sharp_Coyote said:
Yeah, I know that NMNY; I just like putting on my tinfoil hat from time-to-time so I can rant about The Man while appropriately attired.

The carriers in my area are right awful bastards, and have rules where if you have a smartphone on their network, they force you to have a data plan. They also flat-out refuse to turn off said data on any of their plans.

I have no social media, and I don't care to follow tweets or WHY, so I have little need for a smartphone in the first place; there are a few forums I frequent from home, and that is about it for an online presence for me.

I would probably only use a smartphone for fast food coupon apps, and the less takeout I eat, the better I feel.

Android supports that you can turn off data while not connected via Wifi, you could buy a normal phone plan, then just use the SIM inside a separately bought smartphone. It's what I do because I hate Vodafone's branding on phones.

iPhones can be told to stop using Wifi, and if I recall correctly, you can tell it to stop using data to keep it online while out of Wifi. Mind you, I am no certain on that last part completely, I had mine configured to stop using data for FB and games, which I promptly turned back on...

NotMeNotYou said:
It's not possible to turn that off because it's fundamental way how electric signals work. Every signal your phone sends has a time attached to it, and is received at a specific time at the tower(s).
If you have one tower the difference in the time signals after the handshake has occurred tells the tower how far away the phone is. You can map this information as a perfect sphere around the tower.

Is the handshake required for this to work? I understand that as connecting to the tower, which afaik requires two-way communication.
If that is true then maybe it could be limited to one tower. I guess causing false reports will require more than just a phone.

banhday said:
Is the handshake required for this to work? I understand that as connecting to the tower, which afaik requires two-way communication.
If that is true then maybe it could be limited to one tower. I guess causing false reports will require more than just a phone.

The handshake is required to log into the tower. If you aren't logged in you have no signal since the tower doesn't know your phone exists and ignores it. It's like having your phone in airplane mode.

Theoretically, the response to all towers can be given a randomized delay, which would obfuscate triangulation to a degree if NotMeNotYou described the entirety of the process, but of course there'd be more. That would only be effective if you don't use services that are sensitive to such delays and unordered data. Advancements in networking protocols attempt to minimize the causes and effects of those issues, but some services will demand closer to realtime connectivity in order to function well. Needless to say you'd be adding an artificial delay to most services on your smartphone and would therefore experience lower service quality across the board.

Even if that were possible, I'm sure countermeasures could be or already have been developed to thwart such an approach, and the implementation of that obfuscating technique would need to be very comprehensive because there are many ways to skin that cat in a phone. For instance, some phone components could have hard-coded networking logic, meaning the components can only be operated but not totally controlled by the phone's software, and such components might still send an "I'm off" response to a cell tower or remote device, therein bypassing the theoretical software triangulation obfuscation.

Thus following the logic that far, it now occurs to me that a phone could connect to a proxy service provider (i.e., a short-range, "personal" cell tower), a device which could be engineered to intercept everything going from your telecom's cell towers to your phone and introduce the obfuscation at the lowest networking levels. Or just make your own phone already.

There's probably some basic principle that nullifies all that spitballing, but I do think the underlying premise of a proxy cell tower has merit. For example, I know for a fact that an area can be scanned for wireless devices and their operating frequencies determined, probably without any interaction from such wireless devices other than simply being on (i.e., they would transmit an "I exist" beacon). Why wouldn't several such devices be able to triangulate a rogue wireless device in their scanning range? The phone-to-proxy cell tower connection would need to be attenuated to a very low gain to limit detection for starters, in addition to other countermeasures once the attack surface has been ascertained. And so it goes.

Maybe I'll respond to the original topic later.

Your entire premise hinges on the fact that you can send a different signal to different towers, but it doesn't work like that. Any signal your phone sends leaves your phone in a perfect sphere which expands with the speed of light into all directions. Your theory hinges on the assumption that the signal is send to a specific point, which simply can't and doesn't happens unless you have a directed antenna with a satellite dish, and even then cheap tracking works since you're likely unable to focus the beam enough to only hit one antenna on a single tower. Nevermind that the entire device would never be able to work for a cell phone since you'd no longer be able to use it unless you have direct view to a tower.

abadbird said:

Even if that were possible, I'm sure countermeasures could be or already have been developed to thwart such an approach, and the implementation of that obfuscating technique would need to be very comprehensive because there are many ways to skin that cat in a phone. For instance, some phone components could have hard-coded networking logic, meaning the components can only be operated but not totally controlled by the phone's software, and such components might still send an "I'm off" response to a cell tower or remote device, therein bypassing the theoretical software triangulation obfuscation.

Most smartphones have a dedicated baseband processor running an RTOS for communications. All phones I've seen load the RTOS binary at startup and doesn't seem to verify it.
So you can control it if you write your own RTOS to drive it. Or just hack the existing binary.

Personally I think all this is just unjustified paranoia.