Thread: Trick Cell Phones

I wonder, how hard would it be to start slipping modified cell phones into the local cell phone supply in a place like Afghanistan. Perhaps rigged so they have small internal batteries (in addition to the detachable one), and occasionally turn them selves on and send out a GPS signal without indicating any sign of being turned on to the user.

Or maybe another option would be for the cell phone to have an internal clock, and if it's turned on after it's been left turned off for a long time it sends a GPS signal the moment it is activated. Most normal people don't buy a cell phone and then leave it turned off for months on end. (Some do, of course, just not most people.)


The basic idea is that, if some types of erratic behavior cause a cell phone to transmit GPS information, then we would not only know when people are behaving erratically, but we'd also know where they are when they do it.

Knowing someone is behaving suspiciously from when and how often they turn their cell phones on and off?
Elaborate please?

Ok. I'm thinking that if we analyzed the random behavior of millions of cell phone users, we'd find that there are a few seemingly arbitrary actions that are only very rarely taken in the course of normal cell phone use,. But maybe some of those same arbitrary actions are very common when a terrorist is planning to use a cell phone as part of an IED or bomb. The idea is that we start making cell phones with chips inside them that watch for these behaviors and send coded GPS signals out whenever one is observed. It's based on probability, so there would be some false leads, but there would also be good leads.

Then we start making it really easy for terrorists to steal these phones in bulk. Ideally we would release multiple models, and keep varying their appearance over time so the enemy has no way to know what phones are safe.

Good idea, but most cell phone users, even in places like Quetta and Kandahar don't use their cell phones to detonate bombs, making it hard to collect data, as in order to compare the behavior of regular cell phone users to terrorist behavior. It could be a huge help though, and if you add wiretapping (even though no one wants to intrude on other peoples privacy, but maybe just on phones sold to terrorists through some agent or something, if we have them), it becomes even more helpful.