I would think the capability of having an Off phone receive a radio signal to turn itself On would require pretty deliberate hardware design.
I do remember reading about locally fingerprinting an Off phone based on its passive radio response, and this seems feasible.
When the phone is On, total location privacy is out the window, as Ma Bell always knows what towers you're near and can triangulate. Everything else you've said can be (and probably is) implemented in invisible layers of software.
End-to-end privacy would be a nice step forward, but assuring this requires an auditable interface between the radio transceiver and the computer/sensors. Any fix for the location problem involves decoupling identity/billing from the physical infrastructure.
>I would think the capability of having an Off phone receive a radio signal to turn itself On would require pretty deliberate hardware design.
Wake on LAN (WoL) is a pretty common feature for network chipsets. I don't know anything about mobile networks (so take this as the semi-educated speculation that it is), but it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine WoL over 3G. It wouldn't have to be a feature advertised to end users of the SoC.
What it comes down to is "what does 'off' mean on a cell phone?"
I do remember reading about locally fingerprinting an Off phone based on its passive radio response, and this seems feasible.
When the phone is On, total location privacy is out the window, as Ma Bell always knows what towers you're near and can triangulate. Everything else you've said can be (and probably is) implemented in invisible layers of software.
End-to-end privacy would be a nice step forward, but assuring this requires an auditable interface between the radio transceiver and the computer/sensors. Any fix for the location problem involves decoupling identity/billing from the physical infrastructure.