photo by Engin Erdogan/flickr
A common question about HEPKIE is: “what about integrity?”. ”If one can catch all phones in an area, will that not be violating the integrity?”. Well, we have a few answers to that question, and it depends on the search method, but the short one is: “There is no integrity problem.”
It is impossible for the rescue team to know who they are looking for. The HEPKIE system only works with IMSI’s. An IMSI is the identity of your mobile subscription. When the rescue team gets the direction of the position of someone, they will actually see the direction towards a specific IMSI, not a phone number. HEPKIE can not search for phone numbers. The operator is the only one that can connect an IMSI to a phone number and thus to a certain person. So no one can use HEPKIE to go “hunting” for a celebrity by tossing in the phone number in the system.
In some search scenarios HEPKIE disconnects phones from their networks. When you are a police organisation and is trying to find a person to save that person’s life, what comes first is finding that person. During the process people close to the search area may get disconnected from their networks for a little while. They will get back to their networks within minutes and their phones will work just fine.
An example. There is an avalange. The rescue team on the scene do not know the number of persons, their identities nor the IMSI’s of their phones. The HEPKIE system jams all networks for 10-15 seconds. All IMSI’s within range will pop up on the screen. By using the search unit the rescuer will see the direction of each phone and the signal strength. If someone in the ski lift is caught by the HEPKIE system, obviously they are not in trouble, and they will be disconnected from the HEPKIE system as soon as the rescuer discovers that they are not the one he is looking for, and then go back to their mobile network.
