11 replies to this topic

[goochy1]

At one point weren't they going to put something in your phone so that you could be tracked by parents and people like that. It would have been ok if they did it like this: The person who wants to know where you are sends a message on their phone to yours and you can either accept or reject. If your a kid and reject the parents may start to feel that your doing something you shouldn't. Though the government should be able to bi pass the request system if your missing or something so that they can find you.
what d'you think??
goochy1

[pd.ryder]

Good idea - although someone beat you to it
There's a website (too lazy to be specific/post a link) which allows mobiles to be tracked for a fee. The mobile user has to respond to a specific text message, and that's it - located down to nearest 10m or so. Clever, and only about ?5 a go - although this could become expensive with a brood of errant nippers on your hands

/P

[goochy1]

Errr yes could become very expensive.
D'you reckon it'd still cost evn if the person dosn't respond?
goochy1

[pd.ryder]

Guess so. I'll take a look... hold on...

[pd.ryder]

There's CHILDLOCATE which seems quite reasonable price-wise. There's FOLLOWUS too but I can't tell from their front page how much they charge, but looks like there's a subscription and a low 'per-track' fee rather like VERILOCATE.

There seems to be tons of them turning up from a Google search.

[goochy1]

Blimey i didn't realise that it was an actual possibility although they could scam ya by saying the person didn't respond.
goochy1

[jimbouk]

If you pay up the ?5 a month for this, and register a number on these systems, it sends an sms to the device - which the phone owner must reply to once. The system can then track the phone wherever it is (and it doesn't need to send an sms or anything to do so).

In order to avoid secret tracking, the system sends further authorisation texts on a random basis which must be responded to - but these are purely to make sure the owner of the phone is aware that he is being tracked.

The random authorisation texts are to stop someone (like a suspicious partner) from setting up tracking whilst they have your phone, so they can reply to the first authorisation text whilst you are in the shower or whatever. So if you get weird text that says something like "Keep Tracking?" - you need to reply NO or STOP or something and then go home and sort out your suspicious partner!

[Swampie]

The system used doesn't *physically* require authorisation, but that access to the systems requires the users (the websites etc) to agree to get permission before providing data.

At work we've had trial access via a 3rd party's website and we've been able to track members of staff without getting their permission via SMS first.

There was also a test (ie. hidden) site on the net in the past which also did this.  It was shut down very quickly once it was found.

In our case, we need a username and password to access the system (provided by the 3rd party) but after that we were able to track pretty much any mobile we put in.  There were some errors, and I think Orange were the most reliable.

I'm not sure whether it was down to the networks doing an auto-sign up or something (eg. my T-Mobile didn't work, but other's Oranges did work).

It was very worrying I thought - as there was no physical enforcement of the SMS authorisation before tracking data was provided.

[jimbouk]

Swampie, on Aug 22 2006, 09:30, said:

The system used doesn't *physically* require authorisation, but that access to the systems requires the users (the websites etc) to agree to get permission before providing data.
...snip...
It was very worrying I thought - as there was no physical enforcement of the SMS authorisation before tracking data was provided.

Don't know who you guys used, but there is a voluntary code that most Uk GSM tracking companies used for this very reason. More about it here

[Confucious]

I find it easier just to keep my kids locked in the cellar.....

[pd.ryder]

confucious, on Aug 22 2006, 13:53, said:

I find it easier just to keep my kids locked in the cellar.....

Now there's an idea...

[chucky.egg]

A while back I did some tests with this stuff, and on the whole it's pretty inaccurate.

I remember one time it "found" me ... but it was 1.5Km out.  That's a big radius if you're looking for your kid.