[X] My Assistant

[nezumi]

Alright, so when the GPS on my car say, tells me 'you are on I-95 heading south, the nearest McDonald's is 20 mi and on the right', is all ofthis data stored on the GPS system? If I have a query, does it send the query to the satellite, or does it deal with it on my dashboard? Is that the same with maps? Does my GPS have a map of the entire U.S. stored somewhere on the car, or does it get it from somewhere else?

[Zazen]

It's all in your car.

[Birdy]

[BaronJ]

IIRC in canon (and reality, too), cell-phones broadcast to the towers saying "where's the nearest tower" constantly, even when they're not being used. This allows the phone to 'instantly' tell the nearest tower controlled by it's carrier that it's making a call, and also to let the system know which tower to send the signal for a call to, so it's not broadcasting your Mum telling you to come home over the entire metropolitan area (or the entire country, depending on the service you have).

This being said, that means that the Cell company knows to within about 3 miles (currently, probably more precise in canon) where your phone is. In use or not. Now, the matrix work to find a phone in use is much easier (Trace Comcall), but you can still do it by decking through the proper database. Don't have TNs, but it's in the Matrix sourcebook, I'm pretty sure.

Effective solution? Pagers. They don't have to tell the system where they are, and they're so low-bandwidth (less than a kbps) that a broadcast is cost-effective. Have 'em page you, and you'll call 'em back. Makes you less traceable, and if you're busy, you don't have to worry about the page interrupting your...work.

[Kurukami]

However, that doesn't seem as though it would apply if the phone was turned off. In use? Sure. On? Sure. Power off or battery pulled? Doubtful.

[Azryl]

If the phone was turned off then no it could not be found but if its powered on and just not being used then yes you could find it.

[BaronJ]

True.. a dead phone isn't reporting, but it's a hassle to power up the phone everytime you didn't want to be found... someone would get the hint, and find you when you weren't 'hiding' and put a tracer on you, so they could find you when you were...:vegm:

[Talia Invierno]

Try a parallel to triangulating a pirate broadcaster, for which there is canon (Shadowbeat, p.28). What's needed are multiple transmission samplers (1 k :nuyen: ), which worked in a similar fashion to rigger ECM and ECCM. The only way to break such a trace was to break off the broadcast altogether for a minimum of 24 hours (depending upon how "hot" the subject matter was, of course).

The minimum time to trace was d6 x 10 minutes, the maximum was the pirate's net successes in hours - but time until detailed triangulation could be further constricted by using highly mobile drones to trace, or extended either by a similarly mobile transmitter or by broadcasting something no one particularly cares about. (Not that this last situation will apply to any self-respecting shadowrunner here ...)

[Fahr]

Cell companies are required to give triangulation for cell phones now, its called Phase II ani/ali this info is transmitted to the dispatchers and give latitude/longitude within about 5 meters.

the problem is that today IRL the companies have not been implementing this in the US as fast as they said they would, and the FCC is sueing a lot of them. by SR times, it should be old hat to locate a cell signal from the phone net.

that assumes that they still use big towers all over, ther eis no reason why they couldn't set up a series of Wireless access points throughout a town and use that instead, or even have the cell signals o through multiple routes. as long as it was transparent to the end user, most won't care.

-Mike R.