Trope: Police have to keep bad guy talking on the phone long enough to trace them and find their location. Professional bad guys hang up right before it triangulates their coordinates.
Apparently, Hollywood’s been getting this inspiration from a pre-digital age when they use this trope in movies. See link for more info. It’s just funny that most of the “tracing the call” scenes I’ve seen are definitely after the 2000’s.
Another link: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/10/how-hard-would-it-be-to-trace-the-sniper-s-phone-calls.html
A fun gif: https://i.gifer.com/9QtC.mp4
I know for sure that cops can use cell towers. Are there any examples of using Bluetooth and wifi?
I believe you. Im just curious.
I’ve heard of a technique to track specific vehicles based on the tire pressure monitoring system in newer cars that use Bluetooth. I kinds of assume anything wireless that broadcasts a unique ID can be tracked somehow.
It is how phones without GPS hardware get your location for things like Maps and whatnot. If you’ve ever had it ask you to turn BT on for better accuracy, that’s why; it just opens up more connection points to triangulate position.
And, just triangulation itself works by doing math on the signal range between a minimum of 3 points of connectivity. It could be done with any wireless communication system.
Interesting. I’ve never been able to get any map app to know my location without cell data and turning Location on.