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Devices nowadays are interconnected with the internet far more than before. People nowadays are also wanting the ability to track the phone using Internet. With people now having more and more gadgets that they own, it is highly likely that these devices use some of internets cloud services. If you linked your smartphones with the Gmail app, it is possible for you to track down your phone if it got stolen or lost. This is because when the smartphones are being accessed through the internet, the Gmail app will detect the IP address and therefore you can use that information to roughly estimate where your devices located at are.

All you need to do is to log on to security.google.com. Once logged in you need to go to under accounts Security Recent Activity. There you will not just find related activities in relation to your Gmail but also other recent activity for all Google products that you have subscribed. So, if in case that your phone or even your laptop is stolen, whenever the phone or your mobile devices is connected to the internet, these google products will automatically trace the IP address of the internet connection that the devices used.

(source: security.google.com)
Other possible application to trace back your stolen devices is by using Dropbox. However, as this post is being published, they can only detect the IP address of your laptop only and not your cell phones. However, the same concept used and that is to detect back your lost devices by checking on the last IP registered. If you set the pictures to be automatically sync with your device, it would also help greatly if your phone has been stolen. If the thief does not wipe all the apps, and he or she start taking pictures, immediately you can see the pictures updated in your Dropbox. This will help you to some clue to where are the whereabouts of your phones and devices.

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Remember the free Wi-Fi your phone detected when you are in the airport or while you are at your favorite coffee store sipping your latte? The good news is that these Wi-Fi coverage and services are getting better and better. The bad news is that the owner of these Wi-Fi hotspots can use it to track your phone and by tracking your phone, they are basically tracking you.

To make it even worse, they do not even need your cellphones to log-in to the Wi-Fi to track your cellphone. If your cellphones are in Wi-Fi detection mode, the Wi-Fi server can automatically know where are your cellphones located since your cellphone will be transmitting inquiries to the Wi-Fi server even though you are not accessing the Wi-Fi. This kind of technology is available and is already being tested by retail companies such as Nortsdrom.

By using this technology, the company hopes to track its customers movements by following their customer’s Wi-Fi signals emitted from their smartphones. So, if any company would use this concept, they can actually track their customer’s real-time movements in their retail shop. By doing this, they can learn the buying pattern of its customers and therefore help them rearrange the layout of their retail store to better improve the buying experience of shoppers.

Since your smartphones identity is unique, the technology can also keep track of whether the customer is a new customer or a repeat customer and what the items that they will usually buy. They can also track the duration of the customers spending their time inside the retail store.

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First of all, what is IMSI? IMSI stands for International Mobile Subscriber Identity. If IMEI number refers to the unique identity of the phone, IMSI actually represents the unique identity for the subscriber of the phone including the origin country and mobile network that the subscriber subscribes. It basically identifies the user of a cellular network and every cellular network has its own unique identification.

In layman’s term, if IMEI can be considered similar as the plate number of your car, IMSI represents the unique identity of whoever is driving the car. Basically, all GSM and UTMS networks use IMSI as the primary identity of a subscriber or user. The number that represents IMSI can be as long as 15 digits or shorter.

The first three digits are the mobile country code and followed by the mobile network code. The information of IMSI is also contained in the SIM card. IMSI are normally used by network operator to examine the subscribers and whether to allow the subscriber to use another network operator.

Law enforcement has been using certain technology such as Stingray or Triggerfish to track the IMSI number of a subscriber. By using the technology to track your IMSI, the authority can actually track not just the location of your phone but also who you are calling, at what time and where the call is made.

The Stingray will act as a fake cell towers that then will trigger your cell phone to communicate with it. Once communication is established, the technology will able to even capture your conversation. This technology is controversial however as innocent public probably do not want their conversation to be captured or heard. Triggerfish technology envisions a scenario that usually happens in an espionage movie.