Hello all,
I have been reading the different boards and there was a very interesting discussion taking place in the "developers corner". Apparrently, they have found a way to put a call into the radio stack of the xda and have it return values which correspond to cell site position ( both the cell site identifiers and their approximate distance from it).
I was wondering if this means that we may find ourselves with an application that can give us positioning?
Thanks for your help.
Gene
Gene_uk said:
Hello all,
I have been reading the different boards and there was a very interesting discussion taking place in the "developers corner". Apparrently, they have found a way to put a call into the radio stack of the xda and have it return values which correspond to cell site position ( both the cell site identifiers and their approximate distance from it).
I was wondering if this means that we may find ourselves with an application that can give us positioning?
Thanks for your help.
Gene
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gene,
Yeah, I'm interested in that as well but having a few issues. A lot of the samples of getting the Cell ID are in C/C++, pre-compiled apps, or from the bootloader. Seeing as I'm not C savvy, I'm having a tough time trying to get it to work in eVB [Not that I have much time anyway at the moment].
I read ages ago, on the sourceo2 newsgroups, that O2 [UK] won't release the information on Cell locations. Well, they will but only subsets and only for a price. I then noticed that a mate of mine recently got a camera phone Nokia 7xxx or something. Anyway, he had this Java proggy that told him the ID of the Cell and Area he was in. It got me thinking of writing my own app for the XDA.
His proggy was pretty cool actually. It allows the user to set up events depending on when you are entering or leaving a cell. One use of it, is to automatically switch the phone to silent when entering the area of a cinema. Or as he put it, welcoming you home, when you get to a cell near your house. The mad thing
Basically I was thinking or writing an App initially with two functions. The first would be that it can recognise the Cell ID and allow you to input the general location of where you are. As the Cell ID changes, the app would prompt for a new location description.
The second function would be to display your location if it is already in the database.
The idea would be that I would make it freely available and have a central place wheer users can upload their databases to be merged together and made available to others.
I was also thinking that it might be a little ambitious as I don't think that there are a hell of a lot of users out there with the proper hardware and the will to comit to this project. Thereby, the location information would be limited but I might do it anyway, if I can sort out the reading of the Cell ID. Just a little pet project I wanted to do for teh past month or two.
If anyone can help witha bit of eVB code for reading the Cell ID, I'd be much obliged.
Regards
Keith Burke
Ireland
Related
Last week on a business trip to Rome, my XDA got stolen..
Offcourse I had it blocked as soon as possible and have password protection on it, but resetting it would make it usable for anyone.
If anyone sees a secondhand XDA for sale from Italy (where they are not sold) please remember me....
IMEI: 350312010049224
S/N : HT220CC15367
P/N : 99HJ00007-00
So... when is this new model XDA comming on the market?!
We thought of a program to stick into ROM which would, after cold-boot, send one SMS to a pre-determined number. Could be a friend's number, or possibly even a web-service, where you can look up all the phone numbers of all SIMs ever in that phone at cold-boot. You could even wait a few days to see if the owner field was ever filled out...
Please go into that, as I will buy an XDA again but feel quite bad about this one stolen and would very much want something to have a little more protection/means of getting it back.
I saw an advertisement on www.thinkgeek.com about a software that would automatically send emails with IP adresses when a stolen laptop is connected to internet.
Something like that could possibly be an option in a theft-recovery program?
Thanks,
Lx
Great idea XDA developer Peter Poelman...you guys should definitly do that!!
XDA developer Peter Poelman, that is one of the best ideas I have heard of!! If there were a server you could register your XDA on, then install the 'tracking' software it would be very cool.
Would it even be possible to get a fix on the location by picking up the nodes that the XDA is near? Effectively your XDA would text you its location, name of the new owner and new number to server where you could pickup the info. Hay-presto, you can inform the provider and authorities and maybe even get it back. I bet you could even sell the software to the providers!!
Gil.
Hold on guys, if you developed such a ROM, it should be clearly stated that it is doing that. I can imagine, if people started offering ROMS, that made unsolicited calls to premium rate numbers, that would be a great, and illegal, business venture.
Anything, that works behind the scenes must be clearly highlighted if trust is to be maintained in a public community
Sounds good though. If i could find all the people that have stolen bits and pieces from me, revenge would be sweet!
I guess that watching out for ROMs that have spy-wearz or nasty apps in the background ARE possible, there could be something about now. Let’s face it the ROM tool is not that hard to understand. And if someone was really that nasty they could make a lot of money in a very short period. After all a premium rate text number has no price cap. But lets not get in to that right now.
The answer to this, like a lot of things in IT is A trust in the developer, B trust that is has not been hackled – as above and C you have noting to hide.
The provider can already see al the calls and text that the sent from your phone. So the only thing for them to see would be your ROM version.
If this was made a voluntary process and secure I can see it doing a lot more good than harm.
Also another though on the spy wear bit, it would be good to have an app that watches the activity on you device and allow you to see it.
Sorry for the rant, Gil.
Oh yeah, we've thought of nasty things one could do. Possibly more scary still: if you have this Action Engine framework, someone holding a private key somewhere can remotely update your ROM, without telling you.
perhaps thats how o2 intended to upgrade in the future?
is it easy to place the AE exe file back onto the xda? its just the one file right?
No, it's a whole bunch of files. They were installed from the operator section of the ROM, though AutoConfig.exe, into device RAM.
I'm not really into the programming stuff, but I was just thinking...
If such a thing was to be implemented, you would not want it to be active until your device actually got lost. So how do you tell your device (that probably has a different SIM card in it) that it should start to broadcast it's location and new SIM information? And where to?
I was thinking of a site where you should register, very securely and only upon activating the 'tracking' program from this secure site that a constantly updated log file of all nodes where the device is connected to a GSM/GPRS network would state the deveice's location.
With this list (and possibly the information of the new SIM card) it should definatly be possible to retrieve the device, with collaboration from the provider/authorities ofcourse.
Also I heard a provider can locate any GSM down to 5meters accuratly when the phone is being used, about 100 meters when the device is on stand-by. Don't know for shure if this is true though.
If things like these could be incorporated, this would be the best software/ROM update ever to be made in my opinion. If there is any way in wich I could be of any help I would gladly be of service!
Two complimentary options would be:
the XDA sends a message to a server whenever the SIM card is changed, unless you enter a particular password first.
Send a specifically crafted sms to the XDA that causes it to realize that it is stolen. This starts it sending location info to the server.
I think you could switch XDA in to stolen mode using a broadcast directly to the PIN on the phone. This is how P2P works in the US instead of SMS. This could be done from a web site and the user of the stolen phone would not know until it was too late.
But then again I may be wrong?
Gil.
this is all good and well, but there will be always someone out there that says this is a privacy thing and they do not want people knowing where they are using their XDA
What should be developed is a Rom that once the owner name has changed, the XDA will then send a message to a server(if the XDA is registered) informing of the new number of the inserted SIM, the IMEI number and all other numbers/contacts straight to your provider. they then contact the new provider for information on the new owner. send the bissies round and reclaim your XDA.
this would be big money to phone service providers as it would reduce the amount of insuance claims and hastle.
if it can be done, then I will be buying it (once i own the XDA !!)
cheets
After relatively recently obtaining an XDA with ready installed ROM (from a friend) i've enjoyed every bit of the time we've spent together...isn't it a wonderful toy, if i may use such a derogatory term for such a wonderful piece of hardware.
However, there is one niggling problem i've been having, there seems to be some problem with my brain, that renders me unable to locate an option which lets me show the names of my contacts on a recieved text message. All i get are the numbers, and, not having an immense short term memory means i have to trawl through my phonebook matching the number.
The only time i have found it to work is with an American number of a friend which i updated from my SIM.
Any help please, i will be forever in your debt...
Disclaimer: Only to a certain extent.
I'm sorry, i've just read the sticky's and managed to solve the problem. Please don't think bad of me
Feel free to close or delete this thread.
wouldnt calss the XDA as a toy more of a peice of kit.
you can class nokia 3650 and 6600 as toys as their features aint up to par with that of the xda sereis :roll:
HI,
I used to have an XDA/Walaby but I lost it.
I posted a topic about making an option in the rom for the device to send it's network position for it to be retrievable.
Now that I've got a MDA II / Hymalaya I am wodnering if this is something that can be done for this devide.
I'm sorry but I'm no expert programmer, just a regular user with little in-depth knowledge, so please forgive me for my bad explenation and terms.
What I was thinking about having something built into the bootrom that would check a certain website everytime it connects with GPRS or WIFI to the internet.
Hidden and 'in stealth' ofcourse, without knowing of the 'new' owner.
On this website there would be a code, normally stating 'green' meaning the devide is in good hands.
When the device is lost or stolen, the original user change this code to 'red' by a password protected email, login/change setting or something like that.
When the devide connects to the site and finds it's code turned to 'red'it should send a log file with information on witch netwerk point it is connected, WiFi point, Current SIM (plus mobile number and owner-) information and so on.
Maybe it's even possible with just SMS messages so the devide doesn't even has to connect ot the internet but a normal GSM signal would do.
With all this information it should be possible to go to the authorities and get the device back, or atleast give prove of theft for insurance purposes.
And since this function should run from the bootrom, a normal update would not affect it's functionality.
Again, I am absolutely no programmer but I would really like to see if people find this an interesting feature. I would be more than happy to assist in anyway possible in developing.
Greetz,
Lx
Interesting idea
You may be interested in this also: http://wiki.xda-developers.com/wiki/IIWPO
Yeah, that was the thread that came after I wondered about retrieval options for my XDA.
I will be testing IIWPO asap.
Still I think a lot more information could/should be send, especially since insurance companies won't do anything unless you have 'prove'of theft.
Someone else's SIM info and wherabouts seem hard to dismiss in a theft-quiry.
Maybe someone could give some comment on this?
Since we know the main reason Google did Android was the same as all their other free products - collect more info from users, can the built in VPN settings be trusted? It just seems to me that the only reason Google would be "kind" enough to build in a system to defeat the reason they built Android in the first place would be if they wanted a way to offer "security" with a back door for themselves??? i.e. Maybe all traffic goes through Google before being sent to VPN??
Or maybe a simple question is can Google still see your traffic or get the info they want if you use the built in VPN settings (with a VPN service of course)?
Would using an OpenVPN app be more secure than the standard settings?
Thanks and I'll apologize in advance if this is a stupid question!
Remove the tinfoil hat for a second and listen:
Even if the traffic from the VPN were to be sent to Google, they would only receive the encrypted traffic!
Erm, yeah, that is, if no other part of the VPN framework is sending the encryption key to Google servers -in an encrypted form so as to not be so easily detectable by sniffing the traffic...
Heck, the FBI and the NSA do it with e-mail (google-search "carnivore program" and "Echelon communications interception", you'll find plenty of info on these -surprisingly not well known- topics) and truckloads of other communication forms, why would Google mind ?
You're absolutely right to be wary -especially if you live in the USA, where the "Patriot Acts" 1 and 2 give practically free-hands to the government to wiretap everything they want, in the interest of "national security" (or so they say. Most times though, it's used for more 'impure' intentions), and sometimes forward the collected info to big corporations who can make big money out of it. That's how Boeing practically stole a multibillion $ contract right under the nose of Airbus : the NSA tipped them off after they intercepted emails and faxes emitted by Airbus about the bid, and told Boeing to slightly -just enough- increase their own bid, and voilà... (but they never acknowledge anything by saying "we intercepted comms that said they'll bid so much or so much", nope, it's way more sneaky than this : it goes like "about this contract, we think that it would be a good idea to slightly increase your bid, by say a million or two", never mentioning any wiretapping -and of course the people who benefit from the info are way too glad to think about spoiling the ambiance by asking embarassing questions. "you don't look a gift horse in the mouth", after all...
If you really wanna have a (mostly) relaxed mindset about this, I see only one reliable solution : code your very own VPN app, and keep it to yourself, forever and ever, so it can't be reverse-engineered by no one (and even this is no 100% guarantee, you're never safe from anything in this sorry world)..
That being said, I'm not entirely convinced Google created Android just for gathering info from its sheepish users.. There probably is some of that, sure -althoug, to be a Android user requires way more technical knowledge and curiosity about the device you're using (that is, if you wanna use it at 100% of its capabilities) than the "average frustrated Windows chump".. And this kind of user is way more liable to uncover the "conspiracy", sooner and easier than just a WinMo or iOS user.. It's kind of like sawing the branch you're sitting on..
And if this happened -Google being discovered spying upon the communications of Android users- they'd probably be in biiiig trouble, probably more than what makes it worth trying it. Just look at Apple when it got known that every iPhone has a hidden memory area that stores the GPS coordinates of your every move and periodically uploads them to Apple servers. Jobs managed to dodge the bullet by publicly explaining that it was meant to enhance the algorithms that will be used by future GPS chips, but who the hell believes that ? For one thing, Apple never manufactured GPS chips, and probably never will, mostly because building a chip-foundry factory costs a huge wad of dough (just ask Intel how much they're spending to upgrade their infrastructures each time they reduce the die-sizes by a few nanometers, the amounts are hard to believe when you're making about 15$ an hour like me..), and also because there are already too many competitors out there -most of which are better than Apple at designing quality hardware.. It's probably no mystery if Apple prefers using 3rd-party hardware than making their own : it's cheaper, easier, and at least if you get some f-ed up hardware, you can just blame it on the corporation who sold it to you instead of having to make an embarassing and very public mea-culpa (at this point, the words "HTC", "eMMC" and "Samsung-made chips" are popping into my mind.. Is anyone else feeling those symptoms ? ^^). And it would be way harder -if not downright impossible- for Google to find a believable and reasonable explanation for such a mischief (I think it's even called a felony at this level.. But I'm no yankee, can't be 100% sure about this detail -and right now I'm too lazy to Google it up and find out.. xD).
But then again, who can be 100% sure ? It's always wise to be wary, and always be prepared for every contingency, as far as is humanly possible
I personally think that if Google created Android it's probably more because they wanted to thwart Microsoft from ever gaining complete monopoly of the mobile OS market, like they did with Windows and the PC OS market -which they mercilessly dominate by every means possible, even those that are borderline illegal sometimes, if the outcome makes it very worth the risk..
Google and Microsoft just can't stand each other (just like Microsoft and SCO-Unix couldn't stand each other back in the heroic days.. Actually, Microsoft has had many a foe along the way, IBM is counting among those too -but MS finally managed to kill off their offspring OS/2. It wouldn't die by itself so they had to kill it.. But they only managed to do so because they were more determined on taking it out of the OS scene than IBM was determined on defending it.. ), and they just will do anything that is in their respective grasp to piss off one another -with varying success..
And I gotta admit that they did a pretty good job out of it, all things considered : the Unix open-source community benefits from one more interesting project (even if the sources for every new Android release are often very long to come out. But then, the GNU public licence only states that you have to release the source code with your app if you're reusing some GNU-licensed code, it never mentions any deadlines, or that it has to be released together with the compiled binary), and Microsoft is held back from completely winning a juicy prize, which makes their new CEO Steve Ballmer mad with rage -which is hilariously funny to me (I can't get enough of seeing this fatass enraged. Too bad Bill Gates retired, it'd probably have been equally as funny -if not more- to see him enraged, with Ballmer towering over him by his side and trying to make himself as small as a mouse so he could escape by a crack in the nearest wall, the "angry dwarf and the 'not-too-bright-but-very-bulky' giant". In the movies that's always a winning combo)..
Snakeforhire said:
Erm, yeah, that is, if no other part of the VPN framework is sending the encryption key to Google servers -in an encrypted form so as to not be so easily detectable by sniffing the traffic...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, if you want to follow that road, what's telling you that the VPN clients around aren't sending that very same key to law enforcement agencies?
The answer is simple, it would be a huge, gigantic ****up, as you said!
read the rest of my post, I address this issue a few lines down.
@Alcap12 I don't generally consider myself to be part of the tin foil hat club. But I am older and have learned (the hard way) the difference between regrets and mistakes - mistakes you can fix. I think there is going to be a whole **** load of young folks who are going to regret not taking their privacy a little more seriously in a few years.
Thanks for the reply SnakeforHire.
I understand the man-in-the-middle type of attack and if you're using an ssl vpn the only thing the middleman sees is encrypted traffic. But Google isn't in the middle they own the starting point. So is it possible: A user sends some data, Android phones home with the metadata, and then Android encrypts the data and sends it to the vpn server? Tons of the apps on the market are tracking you - heck the Dolphin browser just got busted doing it right here on XDA so why not Android itself??
I'm thinking a packet sniffer would tell us the answer. I'm also thinking if I've thought of this one of the professionals here on XDA has too and has checked it out already. At least I'm hoping so. I just posted this thread in the hopes of finding out for sure.
you're assuming the filtered-out data would be sent over to the eavesdropper in an unencrypted form, otherwise the packet sniffer would just see meaningless garbage..
And I kinda doubt that anyone willing to go to such lengths to spy on others would be so foolish as to forget to add encryption to his upload framework.
Well, it seems to be a very good and informative question. I use VPN service and i don' think that google can trace out your traffic though the traffic from the local ISP transmit through a sound means which is absolutely encrypted and protected so there won't be any chance for anyone to look into you data and traffic...
i use the service of hidemyass and i can say that its is the best iphone vpn. I have been searching around the web for several aspects related to vpn and my research concluded that through vpn no data can be traced..All what google or anyone else will receive is the encrypted data like [email protected]#$^^&*. So impossible for anyone to see it
Since the arrival of latest Android Phones, we have been seeing people searching for the most reliable and trustworthy Android VPN Providers. It has not been easy for anyone of us, searching for VPN provider that can support our latest Android Phones settings. In fact this has not been easy for us to compile this entire list of Android VPN Providers.
Setting up commercial VPN on Android 3.0 or older versions is a piece of cake nothing to worry about. You just have to tap here and there on your New Android Phone and you are connected.
Before providing you with the step by step process, I would again mention the ‘disclaimer’ that this blog-post is not for the experts or techies, but this is for those who are new to VPN or android and want to setup their VPN accounts for the first time on their Android Phones.
Let’s cut the crap and start with the tutorial, I will first tell you how to setup a simple PPTP VPN connection on your Android Phone.
Go to your Phone settings.
Tap on Wireless Controls and then VPN Settings.
Click ‘Add VPN’ and you are Half way through J
Tap on “Add PPTP VPN”. Do not worry about others, we will let you know about the other protocols as well.
Add your “VPN Name”. It can be your name, you can even name it “I Do not need VPN”
Now the so-called difficult part arrives, entering the Server Name. Server Name can only be entered, if you have a VPN account, or you have setup your own VPN. If you do not have both, please do not try this, you will not get anything
Server name is being provided by the VPN Provider, it will be like “usa.bestvpnservice.com”.
You can enable the encryption here. (If VPN still does not work, try again after disabling it)
Do not worry about DNS Search Domains until or unless you are planning to use Internal DNS Server, if yes enter them here.
Save the Settings and You are all set with your New VPN Connection on your Android Honeycomb.
Now, comes the connecting part. Go to your VPN Settings and there you will get your added VPN connection. Tap to connect it and enter your Username and Password, which you will get after paying your VPN Provider. You will see a small Key like icon on the Top, which means you are now safe, secure and anonymous in the digital world. You can disconnect your VPN by going to the same area with VPN settings and tapping on your connected VPN Connection.
I hope it will helpful for you to configure settings on your Android. Currently i am Using my Ipad its more easy as compare to Android.
To see Ipad VPN and its seetings:
bestvpnservice.com/blog/how-to-connect-to-a-vpn-on-ipad-2
Hello!
First at all, my apologies if I posted in a wrong forum section. I certainly can't say that at this point I understand much of these forums structure.
Anyway, so I got a tablet computer which I know by the name of:
Lenovo TAB 2 A10-70
and in reference to this, what I also know by this point is that the name I just provided you and the one that I have on the box is not the one everybody recognises it by, because whenever I try to google the problems I'm interested to solve, the names of lenovo tablets that people use are completely different than what I just shared above. I also haven't yet figured out how do you convert one to the other. It's like... Mine is that TAB 2 whatever, while what people actually use (on the internet) is Lenovo Axxx, etc. I certainly haven't seen anybody discussing the issues of these by referring to the model with what I have on the box. Why don't they?
Aside from the model name thing, what I really want to understand is, how can I start using it without it taking actions I'm warned about the manual. Let me quote:
When this product is turned on for the first time (and is connected to the internet), the international mobile station equipment identity (IMEI) number or serial number (SN) of this product together with the information about the country and city where this product is first activated will be registered with Lenovo; this will be a one-time registration. Confirming the mobile phone/tablet's activation will facilitate after-sales service to you by veryfying the product's authenticity. For the registration, the data transmitted is less than 1KB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assume what I need is a root. Now, can I even do that without having to connect the device to the internet in the first place? All the solutions I've stumbled upon so far have that part in it, unfortunately.
Best regards.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/general/help/lenovo-tab-2-a10-70f-how-to-downgrade-t3227578