Certain iphones now can limit cell towers' ability to triangulate your device.

gristle-cause

I'd need to see detailed technical documentation before putting any stock on this. It's not immediately clear how you'd limit triangulation without degrading cell service.

This could be some novel networking technique, a poorly a explained feature, misinformation, privacy theater, or something else entirely. No way to know before Apple discloses better documentation

Blastoidea

I would like to know how this works.

They give out no useful information whatsoever.

BeepBeep

Interesting. Wondering whether they utilize a sort of gain randomization -- simulating different distances from different towers by altering transmitter strengths to each.

MotherShipton

Wait til the governments around the world ban this feature...... "for the children"

mercury

"The limit precise location setting doesn't impact the precision of the location data that is shared with emergency responders during an emergency call."
https://support.apple.com/en-us/126101

That tells me Apple know exactly where you are at all times, when connected to a network, but they are just choosing not to share it with some telecom providers.

typical big tech double talk....

xxx

mercury typical big tech double talk....

Sad but true! We just shouldn't trust them.

dawt

My guess is that the LTE/5G standards contain ways for cell towers to request location information from phones (eg. signal strength from neighboring cells), which could be used to triangulate you with greater accuracy. Enabling this option disables this so cell towers have less information. You still have to be connected to a cell tower, so obviously the cell network will still know roughly where you are.

DeletedUser622

Read the article

they might be able to determine only a less precise location — for example, the neighborhood where your device is located, rather than a more precise location (such as a street address).

Blastoidea

I find it hard to believe that carriers get their location information from Apple etc.

Does someone have a reference?

AcclaimSublevel19

Blastoidea that's not what's being mentioned. When a phone connects to a cell network, the carrier can triangulate your location based on your distance to base stations (probably based on signal strength). I don't know much about cell network technologies, but perhaps the specifications also include some commands to request the device location.

The modems on some newer iPhones (Apple's C series of chips) can reportedly reduce the accuracy of those measurements to some extent, although the community has no evidence of this and the extent it can do so is unknown. Since cell networks need to know your approximate location (which cell you're in) to properly route calls to you, this can't do much to protect your privacy, especially in densely populated areas.

andrej567

Interesting is in the description from apple that it works only with a few providers. As if the cellphone would not send some mandatory data, it would be kicked out from the tower (with other providers). No idea how this works.

Blastoidea

AcclaimSublevel19

Thank you.

Interesting idea, I guess.

horde

https://an.dywa.ng/carrier-gnss.html related

de0u

horde Great link. Thanks!

xxx

horde
Ouch! I did not know.

andrej567

horde Very interesting
I am wondering about 2 things (not expecting answer)

from the text: So the network simply asks “tell me your GPS coordinates if you know them”

What if the cellphone would pretend it does not know its coordinates (for example power saving is on)

or differently, who feeds the cellular modem the data about the precise position? is it the operating system,
or the cellular modem+gps receiver is one module and they communicate without needing the OS to pass the data between them?

third stupid - suppose you have patched this and return to cell provider wrong data, that are accidentaly matching crime location.. that would be bad.

DeletedUser622

horde Does GrapheneOS protects from RRLP and LPP requests?

blissartt

could be a firmware thing, could be a deal with carriers.
i hope it can be implemented elsewhere, too

N1b

pizzadequeso This should be a standard feature on the upcoming GOS OEM phone.

It might be

waterlubber

I'd likewise like to know. gOS FAQ claims that the baseband is isolated but is spare on details. Not sure if this functionality is implemented in the modem firmware (awful!) or by the operating system/carrier services. Hopefully, the latter.

de0u

waterlubber [GrapheneOS] FAQ claims that the baseband is isolated but is spare on details.

The FAQ also includes multiple warnings about issues inherent to cellular networks:

"Cellular networks use inherently insecure protocols and have many trusted parties."
"Legacy calls and texts should be avoided as they're not secure and trust the carrier / network along with having weak security against other parties."
"Connecting to your carrier's network inherently depends on you identifying yourself to it and anyone able to obtain administrative access."
"Airplane mode is the only way to avoid the cellular network tracking your device and works correctly on the devices we support."

IOMMU isolation of the baseband processor is intended to prevent attacks on user data stored on the device, not to prevent the cellular network from tracking cellular devices.

waterlubber

de0u While it is true that cellular networks can track the device through radiolocation (towers connected to, signal strength, potentially even phase information if the phone's carrier is stable enough), there is a significant difference in privacy between coarse tower-level data and fine GNSS data. Allowing the latter is a serious omission, especially given gOS assumption of the carrier as a hostile party and the fact that, given the insecurity in protocols themselves, this would effectively expose precise location data to an extremely large number of people.

"Simply use your phone in Airplane Mode all the time" is not really a suitable option for a cell phone operating system.