cell phone tracking foils kidnapper

Yesterday afternoon on my scanner I listened to sheriff's deputies
tracking down a kidnapper talking on a cell phone from his vehicle.
While he was on a call the Sprint company had his lat/lon, although
each time he hung up they lost him. Fortunately, he was using the
phone heavily. The coordinates from Sprint were 1 minute behind the
actual position but accurate to 45 meters, said somebody at the
sheriff command post.

There was a hitch, though. The Sprint numbers were obviously decimal
degrees (latitude 33.9+), while the helicopter assisting in the hunt
used decimal *minutes*. From the copter: "I'm not sure they're using
the same format we are, but if they are, the car is way to the west."
At one point the copter radioed their own coords to the CP and asked
if they were close. Nobody seemed to know how to solve this problem.
Eventually they lost interest in lat/lon.

However, they also knew the street and cross street where the
phone was operating. I'm not sure how they got that, but it enabled
ground units to spot the kidnapper. They tried to tail him, but the
crook "made" the unmarked sheriff car. He was wearing a bulletproof
vest and waving at them, said the cops. After a short pursuit the guy
bailed out of the vehicle and hid in a park, where he was arrested.

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4842768/detail.html


On the Sprint site I didn't see anything about their location
technology, but their report on this page says they use
GPS for E911.

http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/repo...e2-waiver.html


--
Paul Hirose <[email protected]>
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› See More: cell phone tracking foils kidnapper

OK, I know that kidnapping is a very bad thing, but did the sheriff get
a warrant for that data, or what? I would think that somewhere in the
fine print of the contract you are agreeing to much more information
being made available without your permission, but is there anything
keeping a cell provider from giving out your location to anyone who
wants it (.gov or otherwise)?

Of course, if it was an Amber alert-type call, maybe all rules are off.
Wouldn't suprise me.

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> OK, I know that kidnapping is a very bad thing, but did the sheriff get
> a warrant for that data, or what? I would think that somewhere in the
> fine print of the contract you are agreeing to much more information
> being made available without your permission, but is there anything
> keeping a cell provider from giving out your location to anyone who
> wants it (.gov or otherwise)?
>
> Of course, if it was an Amber alert-type call, maybe all rules are off.
> Wouldn't suprise me.
>

I wrote up a little snippet about this at 3GUpload. You shouldn't even
have to register there to read this:

http://www.3gupload.com/ringtones/mo...Topic/fid/10/t
id/147541

That link probably line-breaks. If you'd rather "surf" to it, go to
http://www.3gupload.com, click on "3G Forums", then look for the Sprint
PCS forum, and it's currently on page 5 of the thread listing, titled
"So They can Locate You Now. Who's "They"?"

Thanks to some info from Wireless Week magazine, I think it'll answer
your questions.

--
RŲß
O/Siris
-+-
A thing moderately good
is not so good as it ought to be.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue,
but moderation in principle is always a vice.
+Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man", 1792+

> On the Sprint site I didn't see anything about their location
> technology, but their report on this page says they use
> GPS for E911.



If they actually refer to E911, shouldn't E911 also define a standard
coordinate format for verbal exchange? Would be insane otherways.

- Carsten

C.P Kurz wrote:

> If they actually refer to E911, shouldn't E911 also define a standard
> coordinate format for verbal exchange? Would be insane otherways.

Verbal exchange?

Between who? The caller and the E911 center?


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Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
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On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 11:39:01 -0700, Steve Sobol wrote:
>C.P Kurz wrote:
>> If they actually refer to E911, shouldn't E911 also define a standard
>> coordinate format for verbal exchange? Would be insane otherways.
>Verbal exchange?
>Between who? The caller and the E911 center?

Verbal exchange between the E911 center and the emergency personnel
responding to the call. In this case, if I recall correctly, the
position data was coming from Sprint with fractional lat/long degrees
specified in minutes/seconds, while the emergency personnel were
accustomed to dealing with the fractional degrees in decimal (or vice
versa). There was no quick, convenient means to convert between the
two formats. Definitely something that needs to be fixed...

Joe Huber
[email protected]

There was a hitch, though. The Sprint numbers were obviously decimal
degrees (latitude 33.9+), while the helicopter assisting in the hunt
used decimal *minutes*.

__________________________


I've said it before - the different formats will cause critical
confusion in emergencies.

Steve Sobol schrieb:
> C.P Kurz wrote:
>
>> If they actually refer to E911, shouldn't E911 also define a standard
>> coordinate format for verbal exchange? Would be insane otherways.
>
>
> Verbal exchange?
>
> Between who? The caller and the E911 center?

For example. But in this case, between e.g. E911 center or police/rescue team,
cell provider, whatever.

- Carsten

"C.P Kurz" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> If they actually refer to E911, shouldn't E911 also define a
> standard coordinate format for verbal exchange? Would be insane
> otherways.

There are standards for the display at the dispatch center. See the
links on ALI on this page:

http://www.td.dgs.ca.gov/Services/911/we911

The format is decimal lat/lon to 6 decimal places, with uncertanty
factor in meters, and % confidence factor. There is a place on
the display for elevation, speed, and direction, but it's not used
yet.

Especially interesting is the WSP W-ALI matrix:
http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/td/9...-ALIMatrix.pdf

The blue table shows the cell phone companies that serve California
and the technologies they use for E911 Phase II. (The yellow table is
for E911 Phase I, which gives only the tower location, not the phone
location.)

In the incident I wrote about, the criminal was talking to the kidnap
victim's husband, so E911 was not a factor. I think the police were on
the phone with Sprint to get the position data. The command post said
the lat/lon was coming from Kansas (halfway across the US) and was 1
minute old.

--
Paul Hirose <[email protected]>
To reply by email remove INVALID

[email protected] wrote:
> There was a hitch, though. The Sprint numbers were obviously decimal
> degrees (latitude 33.9+), while the helicopter assisting in the hunt
> used decimal *minutes*.
>
> __________________________
>
>
> I've said it before - the different formats will cause critical
> confusion in emergencies.

Anybody qualified to fly an aircraft should know that there
are 60 minutes in a degree. So, 33.9 degrees latitude =
33 degrees, 54 minutes. What's so hard about that?
Also, one would think that their onboard navigation system
would accept either input form.

--
John Richards