Sam Nelson wrote:

There are websites you can sign up to to look at this stuff. I tried it out
once, and was promptly told that the phone dangling from my belt was actually
in a back street 14 miles distant, and I promptly decided that I wasn't going
to take that on as a service.

If your phone is switched off, it isn't trackable by any means I'm aware of.

The "tracking" of a standard GSM mobile can only be done by
triangulation based on signal levels received at the cell base stations.
In a densely populated area (i.e. lots of base stations) that can be
accurate to a few hundred meters under best conditions. Further out in
the sticks it gets far less accurate.

There is a new breed of phones that does include a GPS receiver. The two
technologies can be used together to report far more accurate positional
information. The phone can work out where it is from GPS. It can then
report this information via the GPRS or GSM data networks if required.
Its main selling point is the ability to provide very local information
via SMS.

These are different facilities again from the eves dropping/bugging
capabilities that can be enabled by using bespoke comms equipment to
generate low level GSM stack primitives for control of audio circuits
etc. I believe that if the phone is off (as opposed to standby) then
these are defeated also. However remove the battery if you are paranoid!

--
Cheers,

John.

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