[AlexanderYamanu]

euhm, well. 112 programmer here. There are multiple levels. Cell tower triangulation come in automatically from providers. But they are only in tower numbers. They might be wrongly entered by engineers, hence the confirming question about where you are. Second is subscription information, as in registered address. Chances are if called from nearby your address, you are at your address. Next is a text to your phone number, which is intercepted by firmware and sends gps coords back. This can be turned off, since implementation.

[jeroenhd]

American carriers have a different protocol than the EU. The EU (and probably EU derived networks) uses a """secret""" SMS format that's opt-in, but the 911 system works differently.

The 911 feature can be activated fully remotely, the 112 feature is supposed to only activate when dialing an emergency number.

[yencabulator]

The US one is called E911: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_911

[gruez]

>The 911 feature can be activated fully remotely

Source? Even if the phone isn't actively doing a 911 call?

[stavros]

Wait wait, so if I know the "secret" SMS format I can text someone's phone and get their coordinates back?

[IshKebab]

> This can be turned off, since implementation.

Not by users. The new thing is that Apple allows users to disable this feature. Hopefully they still detect emergency calls on the phone and enable it unconditionally for those.

[jeroenhd]

I believe they're talking about this feature (https://support.google.com/android/answer/9319337?sjid=18079...).

This is a system you can disable as a user, but it's not the on-modem feature discussed in the article.

[KellyCriterion]

Note sure: In my country exactly this feature is used by police & state enforcement to find locatin, because this "ping" message is not forwarded from the modem to the OS, so the OS is not aware of any of these messages

[AlexanderYamanu]

yeah, there always was. It's a service code, like getting your imei. But it was a weird long one, and manufacturer dependent. Now UI switches are created for it apparantly. Can't find it anywhere on the internet though. I don't work there anymore, so can't look it up.

[ErroneousBosh]

Do you use triangulation or GPS? EISEC in the UK only uses GPS, never triangulation.

[dfc]

Did you read the article or are you merely responding to the title? The article begins by acknowledging triangulation and then moving on to the point of the article. The article is about commands built into the UMTS and LTE specs for requesting GPS from the device. Your comment seems to be about everything but the main point of the article.

[jb1991]

The hacker news guidelines forbid you from suggesting someone has not read the article. Please do not participate in this forum with such conduct.

[M95D]

Did you read the complete comment?

> Next is a text to your phone number, which is intercepted by firmware and sends gps coords back.