What I really do not understand is why the secrecy over methods at all. A cellphone is giving out an identifiable radio signal. Any half decent electronic engineering degree student should be able to cook up something that could track cellphones.
Maybe in the '90s. Today's students are busy cooking up ways to use ambient radio signals ("illuminators of opportunity") as passive radar to see into houses.
I'm not an expert an the matter, but surely something like that could be challenged under privacy laws or even unlawful search and seizure.
The legality of stingrays hasn't been brought before a court yet as far as I'm aware, and it sounds like law enforcement and prosecutors are in no hurry to allow it to be.
Passive radio location and broadcast stream decoding of the gsm announcements made by the phone, should be feasable, i dont see why the phone has to be tricked into a conversation with a fake cell tower to locate it. Under those circumstances would it still be a search, is it not the same as the owner of the phone wearing an audio system that broadcast loudly thier name.
