So there is this article on reddit.com
about Government being able to track Nokia phones even if GPS is turned off. Now I really dont care about the gov tracking me for I have not killed any one lately. But can the phone's gps be enabled remotely with its factory firmware?

Sub-Thread (Reddit):
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/c...ompany/c0xqug5

Original Article:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/ir...-1225910475504

I didn't understand the article. It said Iranian authorities tracked him outside of Iran? If it's in Iran than the control the cellular towers so they can track you like any other government can. But this article makes it sound like the gps was remotely used.

all phones can be traced via cell broadcast anyway cant they? my gps position on ovi maps is never bang on anyway. they would bust down the house down the road looking for me lol

i would imagine they wouldn't need GPS if they can get a court order to access (or if they already have access by other means) to the cell network; i've read the other day that thing in movies and TV where they need to wait for a call to happen and last for a given time is ********, it's just to add suspense or help with the plot, in real life tracing a number is pretty much instantaneous, in some cases it doesn't even need a call to be done

Yes thats what I figured also. So the question is, is it possible to access the Nokia/N900 GPS remotely? I know this can be done if 3rd party software installed, but can it be done with the "Stock/Out of the box" Firmware?

!!You can track via cell towers but it just tells you the person is in the area, you wont really find the exact location of the person. Only GPS can find exact location!!

By triangulating the position with cell towers they can get fairly close. Nokia is by no means alone in tracking their phones..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking

Governments, Hackers (Phreakers), etc, have been able to trace and track cell phones for quite some time now.

no you cannot use the gps system inside the n900 with the out of the box firmware to track phones.

cell signal triangulations can give a pretty accurate location when you know who youre looking for. i personally know of cases where the police has used (abused) their powers to track down criminals/missing people. no legals problems at all in pakistan.

I've always wondered if keeping the phone in offline (tablet mode) would prevent them from triangulating your signal, and also accessing the mic, or is another method used?

I think that the exact word your looking for is Mobile Terminated Location Request. Its part of the standard, so not just Nokia or Nokias Phones

But since you can have multiple never-used Sims with you (and I think the international bad guys do), it's got to be very hard to know who to track; if you think you are being tracked, just throw in a different Sim, right?