How confidential are your calls?
This case, discovered by Indian cybersecurity researcher Anand Prakash, was just a bug of bad programming, and is euphemistically called IDOR, short for Insecure Direct Object Reference.
Untrackable phones refer to the phone’s ability to hide its real geo-location by showing its location in a different place than where the phone actually is. Some kids’ apps available on Google Play Store or Apple Store use third-party data connections and servers and display a fake GPS location in another part of the world, which is not only stupid but also dangerous when it comes to law enforcement:
You can’t trick authorities with this kind of apps, because the real GSM location used by law enforcement to track a cell phone will reveal their real location despite VPN.
Conceptually, location tracking is usually misunderstood or confused with GPS location tracking:
Location tracking does not use GPS data, but connection data. There are 4 main options when it comes to location tracking by state actors:
The first two can be performed remotely. The third method requires a certain distance to the target cell phone (up to 5 km).
When you talk about untraceable cell phones and untraceable phone calls, it pretty much depends on what perspective you’re looking at it from.
From a normal person’s point of view, all phone calls and all cell phones are completely untraceable. There is no way to track a cell phone unless you manage to install a commercial spy/tracking app on the target phone. Remote installation is not available for commercial spyware, so there are practically no chances to track a cell phone.
From a hacker’s perspective, things look a little different. Experienced hackers can track the location of some cell phones depending on which network the phone is registered to (depending on whether the mobile network has an effective SS7 firewall) and how much information the hacker has about the phone number, IMEI, and so on. The same hacker can even intercept phone calls and messages by using some open source software and SDR hardware through sniffing and MITM attacks. However, the hacker itself is not the real danger, but the people who can afford to hire such a hacker. Don’t worry, hiring a competent hacker will be way too expensive for your mother who just wants to find out where and with whom you spent the last night.
Finally, from the perspective of government actors such as intelligence, homeland security or law enforcement. For all of them, with very few exceptions, there are NO UNTRACKABLE PHONES.
Now let’s be honest: Who do you really fear? Your neighbor? Your girlfriend? Your father? Probably not, so that leaves only the government actors mentioned above.
To avoid location tracking, you have few options:
True location concealment cannot be achieved with any apps, as the phone user (we are talking about regular phones) cannot manipulate the connection to the cell tower, as is the case with XCell Stealth Phones.
BTS (Base transceiver station).
This case, discovered by Indian cybersecurity researcher Anand Prakash, was just a bug of bad programming, and is euphemistically called IDOR, short for Insecure Direct Object Reference.
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