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by mstolpm 2466 days ago
Why would an actor use Apple as a target vector? It is much easier to get location tracking thru the mobile service providers. They have the location data in real time and can’t deny that. It’s done thousands of times a day all over the world with and without a warrant. No vendor specific phone and no activation of special functions needed.
2 comments

Or any third parties that you agreed to broadcast location data. We know the geo-location + time dragnet warrants are already used very widely with Google.
> Why would an actor use Apple as a target vector?

I can only speculate. But if I wanted someone’s location without making some noise, this increased precision would be nice to have over carrier’s coarse location data. Your GPS position could localize you to a building, but your UWB position could perhaps localize you to a room. And actually if the law enforcement agency had a device capable of detecting yours based on its UWB signal, they could find you very quietly.

Using current generation technologies like OTDOA and similar, cell carriers can already localize you to a room in a building in many cases.

Verizon can do down to around 10 centimeter accuracy with their LTE-M network in the best case (don’t have a link to support that handy, otherwise I’d share).