[guardian-dev] detecting mobile phone location

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On 02/13/2014 01:04 AM, Matej Kovacic wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>> that wifi still radiates a unique ID (the MAC address).  But if you use a MAC
>> changer, then you can change the MAC address every time the device uses a
>> different wifi, and that will make it very difficult to track.
> 
> I think there is another problem. I assume that "ordinary" people in
> Darfur usually do not have mobile phones. So if there is a mobile device
> there, you can assume there is some important person there.
> 
> So you do not need to perform IMEI/IMSI identification. So it is quite
> possible that Sudan government sends airplanes for each mobile phone
> they detect...
> 
> Regards,
> M.

Are you sure that's the case?  I know that mobile phones are quite common in
other parts of East Africa, like Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda,
etc.  I have a friend who works on solar, off-grid electrification, and he was
seeing people with mobile phones who lived 15km from the nearest source of
electricity.  There were even enough people around there with mobile phones
that someone ran a charging business based on a car battery and motorcycle.
He'd drive around and charge people's phones, then drive back to recharge his
battery.

.hc

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