Can someone find where your cell phone is, based on it's ip address?
 

Question for you smart people. If you are connected to 3g or 4g internet on your phone, can someone find out exactly where you are located or what your name is? I understand they will be able to find out that it's in the Kansas City Area, or whatever area. But how proximate can it get?

From what I understand, each time you reboot your phone, or turn your data on and off again, you are assigned a different IP address. This IP address can be used to accommodate thousands of people, and different people may have that same address and have used it before.

When I do some IP location lookups, I get everything from Overland Park, to St Louis, to just north of Wichita, and I'm in Olathe.

I basically just need to know that based on my cell phone ip address, my exact location (like down to a block away) and my name cannot be obtained (unless of course with a subpoena or something, then obviously anybody can find out anything)

watch your apps...many apps show the exact address where you are

Even with your Location Services turned off?

Depending on who "someone" is makes a big difference. If it's your cell phone provider or these days they guys who control the communcations of your cell phone network (think outsources providers like TING) then they will be able to track you down to within a about a hundred yards of your location in a metropolitian area through triangulation of cell phone towers.

This technology was abailable long before cell phones by the way.

If it's someone like a mod on CP that can only see your IP address then no, they're lucky if they can track your location down to a 50 or 100 mile raidus of your true location. As far as your apps and location finder they do user more sophisticated methods than a simple IP lookup so yes they'll be able to pinpoint about the same as your cell phone provider.

I'm not quiet the hard core techie I once was but I'm pretty sure this is still the rule of thumb.

The answer is yes and no, if they know precisely what your ip address is than yes they can track it down by that, however as you said it is quite simple just to change the address

Yeah I don't care if my ISP or cell phone provider knows where I am, don't to the exact latitude & long Just whoever is the owner of a website or a piece of software that I am using.

I'm still fuzzy on how the apps give out where I am, is there a way to check that or to ensure that doesn't happen?

Nothing is as simple as on or off but here's a starter for reading. Because knowing is half the battle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location-based_service

Oh, and "triangulation" is probably an outdated term today. It's probably more like hepta-angulation in metro areas these days.

No

It's much more accurate than that even now. Cell phone triangulation can get you to with a few feet if there is enough tower density. You'd only be 100s of feet off if you were out in a rural area.

Yep, you got it basically right but IP geolocation has gotten LOADS better in the last 2-3 years. I'd say it's more like 5-10 miles now. Of course that's for home services. For cell phones it gets a bit trickier and the accuracy varies by region quit a bit... but it'll still get you in the right city or damn close most times.


(I do a ton of geolocation work for clients dealing with google maps and google location autocomplete fields)