Stealing a Tacoma... Easy?

Would it be wrong to just shove it up its ass?

 

Is it connected to wifi? Because the one I have sitting here without a sim card, no wifi, and it isn't found.

 

It does have to be on and the battery charged and also make sure it is registered with google.

 

Yes, I know how to use Android Device Manager. But I'm confused about how the signal gets from the phone with no form of communication (wifi or data). The GPS itself doesn't broadcast where it is located, that is the cell data radio, using information from the GPS. I'm just trying to figure out how you are getting the data.

 

Better pray you wire it up correctly. Try explaining that to the insurance company if it goes off when you're driving and you cause an accident.

 

I just put my phone in "Airplane" mode which means no wifi and no cell service and I was able to locate it with Device Manager which I am kinda surprised because the building I'm in has a metal roof and I didnt think gps could get through it but it does... some how.

 

its probably reporting the last position it checked in from.

leave it in airplane mode, go somewhere else, and try again....

 

How your are locating your phone doesnt make sense. You either locate it via wifi triangulation ( whick you arent) or cell tower triangulation ( which requires cell data). Something is off.

 

Tell device manager to play sound while in airplane mode (or just with cell and wifi data disabled.)

 

Is that even an option. I have an S8 and only option is play sound. If I am in airplane mode my phone will not be located.

 

That is what I'm trying to show to bluezzy. When the radios are disable there is no communication happening.

 

I think we are getting played. Next he'll say he buried his phone in a 5 gallon bucket of cement, threw it in the ocean and was still able to locate it.

 

Disconnect battery. People are useless and will never figure it out.

 

with battery disconnected, no alarm, no electric locks, so you need to manually open the driver door, and pop the hood every time you drive off, and every time you park? yeah, I don't think so.

 

Yeah not too feasible. Even with a switch of some sort, not a fan of having the ECU have to re-learn every time either. Fuel pump hidden switch seems best.

 

Put an after market kill switch on it.

 

Would they be interested in knowing the position of a stolen car using an inactive cell phone?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z7h8cw7oAY

Was a good TV show on car theft
Think it got cancelled

 

Yes, you don't need WiFi to know where a cell phone is located.

If there's a cell signal and at least one tower you can find any phone (and it's possible the NSA has figured out how to do it so that the phone doesn't even to be powered on) within a couple of miles. If there's more than one cell you can get a pretty accurate fix on any phone within a couple of hundred meters by triangulation between cells. If the phone itself has GPS (which most built in the last decade do) you can find it with in a few meters, if it's powered on and is within range of a cell tower, but to know this GPS information you have to actually interrogate the phone.

Each phone has a ESN (electronic serial number) that is unique to the phone and a MIN (mobile identity number) that your carrier associated with it (which is what makes a particular phone carrier branded) and these are what your carrier uses to associate your SIM (subscriber identify module) card to a person and a phone. These two numbers are how a cell system follows you around without dropping calls. It's how one carrier knows how to jump your call across to another carrier when you roam, how to prevent you from roaming off your native carrier, etc.

Your SIM is what has your carrier's information and can be moved from phone to phone, but the ESN and MIN can be used by any carrier, law enforcement, etc. to locate the phone even if it does not have a SIM card since that is what is actually used to identify it on the system. As you move around the cell system you are handed off between cells so the system knows to find you when someone calls you and how it prevents your calls from being dropped as you move around between cells.

Further, cell towers have their location very accurately mapped or have GPS receivers so when your phone talks to it that location is given to it and attached to the cell negotiation record. This is done to give your phone an instant update to know approximately (within a couple of miles, the area contained within a cell) where it is. This is used for A-GPS (assisted GPS) so that when you first turn on your phone but before it can fix to satellite GPS it will know it's position on map software. Also, if it can't see GPS satellites it won't get lost.

All of this is due to the FCC's E911 (Enhanced 911) rules, which require that when you dial 911 from a cell phone the system will report location to the dispatcher. These rules came into being back in the 1990s before the handsets all had GPS, so the cell towers themselves tack on location information. The E911 rules stated that any 911 call coming from a mobile device such as a cell phone had to be locatable within 50 to 300 meters and it had to be independent of carrier subscription.

So any phone regardless if active or not will dial and complete a 911 call and the infrastructure to track phones is in place. Location data is easily associated with an ESN/MIN/SIM as a result