I can't wait until they find him.

They'll probably give him a free 30-day trial, then charge him out the ass for shoddy protection

AlHarris31: dittybopper: justanotherfarkinfarker: Probably ham to a cell link. Not that they couldn't find your location, just be a lot harder.

It wouldn't be ham to cell, it would be what we call "autopatch". Basically, the ham radio acts like a cellphone, except there is no triangulation from the repeater sites because they are all on different discrete frequencies, and your radio isn't transmitting location data (unless you are using APRS).

You can still be triangulated the old-fashioned way, via RDF, but that has to happen while you are actually transmitting.

Isn't that how they found Escobar, or some other drug lord? Driving around trying to triangulate him when he made calls?

Apparently.

Escobar didn't really have an appreciation that if you are a high profile target, if you radiate a signal, you can be found.

There's a lot of things he could have done to minimize the risk, given that back then they were probably stuck using fancy but still conventional DF gear: Keep calls short, move after using the phone, use a number of different phones, etc.

Today, those tactics wouldn't help you, because pretty much by default the cell system keeps records of where you are (or more properly, where your phone is) at all times when your phone is powered on. This is true in the US at least, I'm not sure about Belize. You have to rely on being anonymous if you use a phone, hence the popularity of "burners".

This makes more primitive communications means, like simple low power walkie-talkies, arguably more secure. Sure, they are more vulnerable to casual eavesdropping, but in trade you get the following advantages:

1. When you aren't transmitting, there is no possible way for anyone to locate you.
2. When you do transmit, unless they have the specialized radio direction finding gear within range of your signal, they can't locate you electronically.

With cellphones, you are being continuously tracked by the system. That's not sinister, btw: It makes the system more efficient in routing calls, and it also is vital for things like 911 where they need to know where you are when you call in an emergency. Thing is, though, that the cell companies keep those records of where that phone was at any particular time for a while, and the government can access it.

This is why burner phones aren't necessarily a good idea, too, at least from this standpoint: If they can build up a profile of you based on the last phone you had (the one they caught you with), they can search for a similar pattern among other phones in the same areas, and in all likelihood identify all the previous burners you've had, back to the limit of the data they can get. They can also see who you called and who called you, and find out who your associates are.

Can't do all that when the people are using simple radios, not without a serious SIGINT infrastructure.

This is the one thing that bugged me about the new V series: The visitors had all this technology, but the resistance was using their cellphones like they didn't have a care in the World. Wrong. Even with just modern technology, given an incident like the V shuttle being shot down, it would take maybe a day to identify all the conspirators. You ask the cell companies for the numbers of people who made calls near the site at roughly the time of the incident. Bingo, you've got one, now see who he or she has called in the last few months, and get the location data for those phones. Now you know where they all live.

GreenAdder: Bath salts, dude. Not even once.

Yeah, really. Some googling found his original postings asking about MDPV and wow, that dude is off the rails.

Bath salts, dude. Not even once.

dittybopper: 1. When you aren't transmitting, there is no possible way for anyone to locate you.

Mostly true. An exception follows:

I was playing a game of "manhunt" last week. We use radios to coordinate actions between two teams on the same side, and I stupidly left my volume up while I was hiding. One of my teammates called someone else, but there was a person from the other side nearby, and he found me because he heard the radio.

The lesson here is: If you're mega rich and living in a foreign country, PAY YOUR DAMN BRIBES!

This is what happens when millionaires think it would be cool to run off and live in a libertarian paradise.

Stone Meadow: [threadjack]
Is there such a thing as an anonymous cell phone? IOW, one that isn't tied to a credit card or something else that identifies you? This is for a BiL who's semi homeless and doesn't have any credit, but who will carry a phone if my wife (his sister) buys it for him. He doesn't want a regular cheap cell phone tho because "they" will be tracking him and trying to sell him shiat, etc.. TIA
[/threadjack]

Ppfffffffft. Whatever, McAfee.

styckx: scottydoesntknow: I can't wait until they find him.

They'll probably give him a free 30-day trial, then charge him out the ass for shoddy protection

This joke has been told over 9,000 times

an older satellite phone maybe?

Seems that any cell phone would give you away as soon as it connected to a tower.