I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone

Vice ^ | January 8, 2019 | Joseph Cox

[C19fan]

Nervously, I gave a bounty hunter a phone number. He had offered to geolocate a phone for me, using a shady, overlooked service intended not for the cops, but for private individuals and businesses. Armed with just the number and a few hundred dollars, he said he could find the current location of most phones in the United States.

The bounty hunter sent the number to his own contact, who would track the phone. The contact responded with a screenshot of Google Maps, containing a blue circle indicating the phone’s current location, approximate to a few hundred metres.

[C19fan]

The private life is dead.

[exinnj]

Turn it off

[keving]

That’s how Hillary does it

[9422WMR]

Then place it in the microwave. Cook for 1:59 to disable tracking😉

[marktwain]

I find it hilarious that the article assumes government tracking will never be used for malicious purposes, but assumes private tracking is malicious.

It is insane that we allow this. The tracking of phones without the owners' consent was never even debated.

[DainBramage]

911 can triangulate to your phones location better than that guys service did.
Hell find my iPhone takes me to with a few feet.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I like to watch murder mysteries and it still astounds me how many criminals never think their phone, or the phone of their victim, will be used to track down the facts of the case!

[bgill]

We found kiddo’s by getting the last numbers called, calling those numbers and threatening the kids who answered that they better give up who called them. Then uniform up with handcuffs and badge and knock on their door in the night. Easy peasy.

[gr8eman]

Yes and it’s free if it’s enabled on your phone! 300 bucks? wow

[Bulwyf]

Skip the badge and uniform and go straight for the 3am belaclava visit. Works great.

[Dixie Yooper]

Two of my best friends(husband and wife)keep track of each other with google maps. Both are retired Navy Commanders that see a benefit to maximizing time, travel and effort. If things ever go bad, it could turn into another Mr. & Mrs. Smith thing...

[ArtDodger]

A couple of years ago, a girl, Hannah Graham, was murdered in Charlottesville by a perve, Jesse Matthews. She had a cell phone on her and it should have given an accurate ping for her location as she was missed pretty quickly. No one, press or police, ever talked about the cell phone location process in the eventual un raveling of the case. Her pink cell phone was never found.
Maybe the police don’t want to give out their detecting secrets..

[beef]

I think the method used to figure this location is cell tower triangulation, which is not all that precises. To get closer, they would have to collect GPS information from your device. Many apps do this, and you agree to it when you install the app. I would like to see this information come under a HIPPA style law. We Americans have our heads in the sand when it comes to data like this.

[woodbutcher1963]

I take my phone with me when I go out into woods with the dog. Once you set the compass on your phone you can navigate very easily with your phone two within a few hundred feet. I use Google maps satellite view on my phone when I am out in the woods of NH all the time.

[beef]

Police officers lying. And proud of it. Great.

[Leaning Right]

> a blue circle indicating the phone’s current location, approximate to a few hundred metres <

Maybe I’m missing something. Unless the owner is able to conduct a house-to-house search, how would that information be helpful?

[bigbob]

Anyone who is surprised by this must have been in a coma. A mobile phone is a radio with a GPS attached that is in constant contact with infrastructure.

[BornToBeAmerican]

Don’t want to hijack this thread, but.....

Have you guys heard of Life360. Its a phone app that uses of cause GPS. It’s a tracker. I know where my wife and son are all time. It’s great, when my wife travels to the valley.

Big brother? Perhaps, but has anyone checked out, Googles Timeline?

“They” know When, Where and which roads you took to get there.

To escape, simply build off the grid. No phones period and Solar for everything. Oh, don’t live closer then 5 miles to your nearest neighbor. Privacy is not longer private

[sheana]

My grandson lost his iphone and his mom tracked it right to our front yard.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I accidentally dropped my iPhone on a hike a year ago. I borrowed a phone from another hiker, logged onto my iCloud account (fortunately I remembered my own), and found my phone very quickly about a half mile back down the trail (he ringer sound was off, so calling the phone was useless). Amazing tech!

The article says he can find any phone within a few hundred meters. How, exactly, is that useful? It’s like saying “We’ve narrowed your phone location down to this town.”