this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Privacy
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If your cell phone is turned on, the phone company knows where you are. This fact is why your GPS doesn't take 5 minutes to show your location every time you turn on your phone. The OS gets the cell towers to identify where you are and combines that with GPS to get a quicker lock and more accurate location.
The most secure Android OS cannot turn that off. If you transmit or receive data to a cell phone network, your location is known.
Sure, there's no way around that, even dumb phones are triangulated by default and that data is sold.
But doing just that is better than being triangulated AND leaking your GPS data to every Tom Dick and Harry that asks your phone.
EDIT: Sorry, I am idiot. What I described IS triangulation.
~~Reeeeeee! Phones. Are. Not. Triangulated.~~
Most cell towers use phased antenna array, so they know relative direction all the time. And distance can be estimated from latency and signal strength.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles. Angles are derived from phase differences on elements of array and can't be manipulated like latency or signal strength.
But using two cell towers and angles would literally be triangulation....
2=3?
What do you think the cell towers are triangulating and forming angles with? The person's phone is the third point in the triangle. You only need two other points to triangulate something's position.
I checked it. Damn. You are right. Point with unknown coordinates counts. Now I have to edit my comment and answer other subcomments of people I confused.