How does a MacBook pro locate itself?

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Level 1

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How does a MacBook pro locate itself?

I've had quite a shock today. Someone that I've never seen before in my life, and the police claimed that I had a stolen MacBook pro in my house. There were tons of claims being bandied about such as "GPS doesn't lie sir." So basically, this guy was showing the police on his cellphone some sort of map that showed his laptops location. Needless to say I wasn't going to let the police search my house because some stranger said his Mac was in my house.

So I have a few questions.

How does a Macbook determine it's location when it's lost or stolen?

Does the Macbook Pro have a GPS receiver in it?

Does it have a cellular modem in it that calls home checking to see if it's lost?

Can it use said cellular modem to get a relative location as well?

Thanks for answering, I'm a bit shaken up from all this because this all culminated in a threat of a warrant, in which the officer said, "Make sure your dogs are restrained, they might get hurt when we serve the warrant." ( In other words We're gonna blow them away when we no knock you in the middle of the night. )

Posted on Sep 28, 2012 12:15 AM

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Answer 1

Courcoul

Level 6

18,558 points

Sep 28, 2012 7:10 AM in response to streamlan

streamlan wrote:

That's even scarier because when you look at a Wi-fi map it shows my access point in a residence two houses down from mine! Whats worse the location of the actual access point has almost nothing to do with where it's been scanned. The margin for error is huge. If you look at Wigle for instance half the hotspots seem to be in the road.

Heh heh, call Google and tell them to send their black van down your street once again. Tell them the illegally obtained information they scanned off you and your neighbors for StreetView is blatantly wrong... 😝😀

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Answer 2

Sep 28, 2012 7:52 AM in response to streamlan

Are you sure these were legitimate police? Sounds like someone trying to determine if you had any valuables such as computers in your house. They were likely casing the place. Call your local police and ask them if they really sent a civilian and someone dressed as the police to your house.

I can't imagine the police showing up at your door with a civilian. I think they would come alone to ask questions. The civilian would at least remain in the car when the supposedly officer came to your door.

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Answer 3

@srakrn

Level 1

20 points

Sep 28, 2012 1:04 AM in response to streamlan

Nope, MacBook Pro doesn't have any GPS chips.

However, with the Wi-Fi, you can locate the location of your MacBook pretty easily. It just detect the signal strength, and compare to the database of Wifi names (SSID) around the world.

I've trird FInd my Mac with the iCloud and the locating service is pretty accurate.

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Answer 4

iAlias

Level 1

30 points

Sep 28, 2012 1:07 AM in response to streamlan

The MacBook Pro (and other Macs) triangulates it's location using the inbuilt Wi-Fi, determining the strength of surrounding Wi-Fi signals to work out it's exact location. This is surprisingly accurate and very useful in certain scenarios.

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Answer 5

streamlan Author

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Sep 28, 2012 1:24 AM in response to streamlan

That's even scarier because when you look at a Wi-fi map it shows my access point in a residence two houses down from mine! Whats worse the location of the actual access point has almost nothing to do with where it's been scanned. The margin for error is huge. If you look at Wigle for instance half the hotspots seem to be in the road.

Triangulation would denote that the laptop has a direction finding antenna. I'm somewhat of a radio buff, and while I know GSM has an ability to fix a location somewhat innacurately but that's not done by the phone that is done by the provider via cell towers.

I'm kind of skeptical how accurate getting a direction on a Wi-Fi hotspot would be with a diversity type of antenna.

And even then the physical location of the access point isn't known.

How does it report the local Wi-Fi hotspots back to the user? Must it have a cellular internet connection to it?

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Answer 6

iAlias

Level 1

30 points

Sep 28, 2012 1:26 AM in response to streamlan

I understand your speculation, I'm certainly no pro myself, but I know that this is how they work out the location, obviously in areas with less Wi-Fi APs the location becomes less accurate.

The service does require an internet connection. I'm not sure how exactly it works out the Wi-Fi AP's location, although it seems my personal Wi-Fi network is extremely accurate.

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Answer 7

Zyriab

Level 4

3,344 points

Sep 28, 2012 6:57 AM in response to streamlan

http://features.techworld.com/mobile-wireless/2374/all-about-wi-fi-location-trac king/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145659.htm - this article may be worth your while reading!

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Answer 8

Courcoul

Level 6

18,558 points

Sep 28, 2012 8:10 AM in response to streamlan

streamlan wrote:

Thanks for answering, I'm a bit shaken up from all this because this all culminated in a threat of a warrant, in which the officer said, "Make sure your dogs are restrained, they might get hurt when we serve the warrant." ( In other words We're gonna blow them away when we no knock you in the middle of the night. )

Besides gearing up with a good lawyer, if you're in Texas don't even look at them directly when they show up. Lest they blow YOU away for "threatening the life of a LEO with the evil eye". They blew away a double arm/leg amputee on a wheelchair in Houston a short while ago cause he "threatened" them with a softpoint Sharpie!

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Answer 9

streamlan Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 29, 2012 10:23 AM in response to streamlan

These were definitely real police. I was in my driveway for 30~45 minutes explaining to them that I've never had set eyes on the complainant, or had touched a macbook in at least a year. The guy who's laptop was stolen was actually steaking out my house waiting for the police to arrive, so I was face to face with my accuser whilst the police were questioning me.

After reading up on the true nature of the Apple location services, I'm confident that no judge or magistrate in their right mind would ever sign off on a warrant solely based on the Wi-Fi location service.

That being said, the police were convinced that the location was good enough to goad me into waiving my fourth amendment rights. They were under the impression that the location service was as good as GPS.

At this point I'm still a suspect in an active bulgary case.

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Answer 10

Sep 29, 2012 10:58 AM in response to streamlan

The location that your accuser was seeing on his iPhone is not actually the location of his stolen MacBook Pro. It's the location that the WiFi access point used with his MacBook Pro was last scanned at. The access point doesn't know where it is, and neither does the MacBook Pro.

Here's a possible scenario explaining what happened: a few months ago, a truck operated by Skyhook Wireless or some other location services company passed by your house and picked up your WiFi signal, linking it to the current GPS coordinates, i.e. the location of your house. In the meantime, you've sold your WiFi access point on eBay and someone a few hundred miles away is now using it to connect to the internet with a stolen MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro will pick up the WiFi signature and send it to Skyhook Wireless or some other company, who will check their database of GPS coordinates and show the location as being... your house.

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Answer 11

streamlan Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 30, 2012 1:35 PM in response to Tim Lorenzen

I don't see how it could have used my access point, since it has a very secure WPA2 password on it. And if someone else who had it connected it to their access point, I would hope that the lost laptop utility would report it's last IP address.

I've had the same access point since about 2009.

Everyone here seems to think this location service is laser accurate. Since I can't look at Skyhooks data I'm guessing it's no where near as accurate as GPS.

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