Hi everyone-
This is Joe Keehnast and I am the product manager on Norton Anti-Theft. One of the things in the product that we are constantly monitoring and want to improve where we can is the location accuracy of the product. How well is the product locating you? Do you find differences in accuracy in different locations?
Let us know what your experience has been. Thanks!
Joe Keehnast
Senior Product Manager, Norton Anti-Theft
Hi, Joe,
Kudos for such a proactive approach to this! I mentioned to Erik the first day I had this installed that it was placing my device at a specific address...opposite a significant body of water from where I'd been at any point in time that day! I had this tragicomic vision of my tablet actually getting stolen, and some poor retiree sitting at home trying to enjoy a peaceful breakfast when the cops kick in the doors to recover it. So I'm not terribly impressed by the location feature--I'd much rather have the "poison pill" functionality that Norton gives me on my smartphone, so I can just wipe it clean with a kill code I can send before a would-be thief can hack it or remove the battery.
Note that I don't blame Norton for this: I've got several friends and family members with smartphones--as you might imagine--and every one of us has two or three places (routinely, the same places) that we regularly show up at on Google Maps that we've never been to before. I suspect (have only physically verified this for one) that they're cellphone towers. At first I thought it might correlate with whether Wi-Fi as well as 3G was active, but there's no relationship. So I just consider it to be a limitation of the technology, that Norton is going to suffer with just because you're depending on it too.
Haha, ok. Well for your first concern, I wouldn't be too worried. If you report the location information to the police, it will absolutely be helpful in getting your device back, but they have certain protocols they have to follow to make sure they have the right person before they kick any doors down.
This location information is extremely helpful for you when you have lost the device. Maybe you left it at the library? Your trail of usage is on the map and you should be able to ascertain the last place where the device was pretty easily.
You're right in the second paragraph. We make the best effort possible to give you an accurate location but there are things that can cause it to be less accurate. For instance, if there are no Wi-Fi access points around, we will not be able to rely on those to give a location. Fortunately, there is pretty dense coverage nowadays in most cities. Hopefully you can find solace in the fact that even if in one particular moment the 100% accurate location cannot be delivered, we can still lock the device, take pictures with the Web cam and deliver a message to the person who has found it. That still goes a long way in getting your device back.
Does that help?
Joe Keehnast
Senior Product Manager, Norton Anti-Theft
Oh yeah. I'm not complaining by any means. Just saying that with the technical limits on location accuracy, the wipe feature is way more important to me. But my requirements may be atypical: ask Erik about me sometime....
That's great to know, thanks for the feedback! That's very much in line with what our research has told us. So it's good to hear that we are probably thinking the same way in this area.
Joe Keehnast
Senior Product Manager, Norton Anti-Theft
Hi Joe,
my laptop is always recognised ~20km away from the actual (home) location, but the city is OK :) :)
The same address was detected in the beta versions as well. This happening in Budapest, Hungary.
PapauZ
Hi PapauZ-
That is very good for us to know. I may have to private message you for some additional information at some point because I was under the impression that we should have good coverage in the Budapest area.
Before we sell in a country, we want to know that we have substantial location coverage so fixing this will bring us one step closer to offering the product in Hungary.
Thanks again!
Joe Keehnast
Senior Product Manager, Norton Anti-Theft
Hi Joe
I checked it now again, and noticed these strange things:
1. When I use the machine at the university, the location is almost 100% OK: it detects xyz street 25 instead of xyz street 45. But it is in a 2-300 meters area.
2. But at home it is still 20km away from the true location. I do not know what could cause this.... Maybe it is some wrong info from the ISP or something like this. The location NAT reports for this is a strange one as the location it writes out was one of our previous address we moved from to the current one 5 years ago. ISP is the same like there, but not under the same person's name -> totally new subscription...
JoeK wrote:
That is very good for us to know. I may have to private message you for some additional information at some point because I was under the impression that we should have good coverage in the Budapest area.
Just let me know in a PM what info you need, and I will send thos for you ;).
PapauZ
I am confused as to how NAT is determining location. Is it via GPS, Wi-Fi and/or cell tower triangulation?
When on the NAT website it sometimes reflects that the Device Status is ONLINE and sometimes OFFLINE. What could be causing that to change if my GPS is always on and Google Maps gets my location perfectly using GPS.
My sense is that Wi-Fi is being used because the online/offline seems to be a function of whether Wi-Fi is on or not. I just remembered that I only have Wi-Fi on when the device is in the dock on my desk, otherwise it is off.
When NAT reflects that the Device Statis is ONLINE it reflects a location that is almost 3 miles away from where I am. What would improve this?
Thanks
P.S. I have a Verizon Motorola Droid2 Global.
Hi again blondcb,
As Norton Anti-Theft plug in uses the web it relies on having web access to your device. The "locate" function you are used to in Norton Mobile Security only needed SMS access to your device. So a phone that was on and had a signal could receive and respond to the "locate" message. Norton Anti-Theft however seems to need a bit more than basic phone connectivity, which being a web based system is not surprising. When Norton Anti-Theft reports your device being off line I think it means that it cannot establish web access to it at that moment.
I will not go into location accuracy here as I have already passed some comments on that in another forum and I am still slightly puzzled myself as to how Norton anti-theft seems to be calculating location.
Hope the above helps.
Thanks.
Now NAT online is showing me where I actually am, at my home!
Glad you got home safely blondcb. ;-)
Just a further comment about location and Norton Anti-Theft.
I have just asked the website to find my phone and it comes back with a location about 4.5 miles away although I have GPS enabled. However it is reporting me being offline and says that this fix was 1 hr 30 mins ago. I assume that as I currently don't have internet access on my phone and so it is deemed "offline", then Norton Anti-Theft can't ask the GPS system to give it a fix and it goes back to some phone related data (not sure where it got this from) to offer a location.
Obvious really....until I connect my phone to the internet and Norton Anti-Theft notes that I have come online. So I ask it to locate my phone and I still get the same answer - 4.5 miles away and it tells me that it last knew of my location 1 hr 39 mins ago. So even telling it to locate me when it sees me as online it does not seem to be able to update or use GPS. Now perhaps you can see why I have said elsewhere that I remain puzzled as to exactly how Norton Anti-theft is calculating location.
P.S, there it also no indication on the phone that there has been any attempt to kick start the GPS functionality despite my asking the website to find me at least 5 times. I do know however that sometimes it can find me accurately as it has found you.
Hi
With my Samsung Galaxy S 2 i find the location feature very interesting in Norton Anti-theft as i have tried it a couple of times now and it is very accurate, considering i am just using the Wireless Networks in Android location settings.
It would be interesting as mentioned to know how this technology works? as i have only used it once before with another Security app on the Market and the accuracy for wireless networks with that paticular app mentioned in a previous post in this forum was terrible It gave a circled area with a diameter of about 2 kilometers and basically said pin the tail on the donkey with your blind fold off.
what a joke, so if the lost or stolen device was under some structure you could kiss your little baby goodbye.
As for NAT i find the wireless system can get a accuracy ranging from 50-100 meters from my location using either the text message feature or the Anti-theft website method, both giving a identical location from the test i just ran while typing this post.
So i am yet to have a good play with GPS side of things as i will in the coming days.
Otherwise this looks very promising for all Android NAT and NMS users and can only get better and better. keep up the good work JoeK and the Symantec Norton Team.
Cheers
hi
just did a bit more testing and went for a walk to get a better idea of the accuracy of the wireless network usage of the NAT plugin and the locate feature.
The results show i am 100 to 150 meters (330 to 500 feet) from location point on the Google map.
Which is still a good effort without the use of GPS tracking and pin pointing, but i also live within a kilometer or two of a couple of (.07 to 1.3 miles) transmitting mobile network towers.
I will keep testing and posting results. :)
Cheers
Andmike wrote:Just a further comment about location and Norton Anti-Theft.
I have just asked the website to find my phone and it comes back with a location about 4.5 miles away although I have GPS enabled. However it is reporting me being offline and says that this fix was 1 hr 30 mins ago. I assume that as I currently don't have internet access on my phone and so it is deemed "offline", then Norton Anti-Theft can't ask the GPS system to give it a fix and it goes back to some phone related data (not sure where it got this from) to offer a location.
Obvious really....until I connect my phone to the internet and Norton Anti-Theft notes that I have come online. So I ask it to locate my phone and I still get the same answer - 4.5 miles away and it tells me that it last knew of my location 1 hr 39 mins ago. So even telling it to locate me when it sees me as online it does not seem to be able to update or use GPS.
Hi
perhaps the update frequency has to be changed to allow more frequent refresh cycles, as i am sure we do not always stay in one location for a hour.
In the real world i guess the ideal frequency would be about every 5 minutes .
And perhaps the inconsistent online and offline status may have something to do with the method of loation. If they are using the triangulation method from the network towers, maybe not enough signals were available to triangulate when the 1 hour fequency check of your location took place.???
I guess i am doing a little bit of guess work as we do not know the method of location.
As for the GPS maybe there were not enough sattelites locked at the time of the 1 hour frequency update.????
So more frequent updates of the location i think would be the perfect fix for the issue, one hour seems way too long for me.
Cheers
I'm not sure frequency would make a difference. I know that tower triangulation is the least accurate method, even there are a couple local. Distance is highly dependant on signal strength by distance as well as the environment. I've usually seen "accurate within X kilometers" from triangulation.
For location services, do you only have GPS enabled or Assisted GPS as well? You could try playing around with these settings.
Erik, I'm still not clear on what is being used to establish location for each of the products, NAT & NMS. If using multiple sources, e.g., GPS, Wi-Fi, Web, Triangulation, what is the priority for them being used?
Thanks
For the mobile client it starts with GPS, then AGPS, and then triangulation. It all depends on signal strength for each one, so “results may vary” depending on your environment. GPS is a wonderful technology, but as with most electromagnetic signals what they pass through, reflect off of, etc will impact their path and amplitude.
Hi
I found this info to be very interesting it really is worth a read
A-GPS
"Standalone" or "Autonomous" GPS operation uses radio signals from satellites alone. A-GPS additionally uses network resources to locate and utilize the satellites in poor signal conditions. In very poor signal conditions, for example in a city, these signals may suffer multipath propagation where signals bounce off buildings, or be weakened by passing through atmospheric conditions, walls or tree cover. When first turned on in these conditions, some standalone GPS navigation devices may not be able to work out a position due to the fragmentary signal, rendering them unable to function until a clear signal can be received continuously for up to 12.5 minutes (the time needed to download the GPS almanac and ephemeris
An Assisted GPS system can address these problems by using data available from a network. For billing purposes, network providers often count this as a data access, which can cost money depending on the plan
GPS-
Due in part to regulations encouraging mobile phone tracking, including E911, the majority of GPS receivers are built into mobile telephones, with varying degrees of coverage and user accessibility. Commercial navigation software is available for most 21st century smartphones as well as some Java-enabled phones that allows them to use an internal or external GPS receiver (in the latter case, connecting via serial or Bluetooth). Some phones with GPS capability work by assisted GPS (A-GPS) only,[dubious – discuss] and do not function when out of range of their carrier's cell towers. Others can navigate worldwide with satellite GPS signals as a dedicated portable GPS receiver does, upgrading their operation to A-GPS mode when in range. Still others have a hybrid positioning system that can use other signals when GPS signals are inadequate.
Mobile Signal Tower Triangulation-
Mobile phone tracking refers to the attaining of the current position of a mobile phone, stationary or moving. Localization may occur either via multilateration of radio signals between (several) radio towers of the network and the phone, or simply via GPS. To locate the phone using multilateration of radio signals, it must emit at least the roaming signal to contact the next nearby antenna tower, but the process does not require an active call. GSM is based on the signal strength to nearby antenna masts.[1]
Mobile positioning, which includes location based service that discloses the actual coordinates of a mobile phone bearer, is a technology used by telecommunication companies to approximate where a mobile phone, and thereby also its user (bearer), temporarily resides. The more properly applied term locating refers to the purpose rather than a positioning process. Such service is offered as an option of the class of location-based services
Further links and info-
A-GPS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS
Mobile GPS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_GPS_navigation
Mobile Signal Tower Triangulation-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_localization
i hope that helps to clarify a few things i know it did for me.
Cheers
Good bit of background smithy,
I would make the following comment on A-GPS, which I hope is a little easier to understand than the undoubtedly accurate Wikipedia entry.
As I understand it a pure GPS device has to check and cross check a lot of satellite data to work out where it is. This can take a long time if it has no idea where it is to start with. With A-GPS a phone can use basic network data to give the GPS a fair idea of where it should start from, thus speeding up the GPS's ability to get a good fix.
Not sure if that helped at all. ;-)