locating cellphones

[Shecky]

Even a being's true name isn't 100% guaranteed if that being happens to be mortal, and thus changeable and changing.

With a mortal, the true name is only true when it takes those things into account. It's a link like any other, susceptible to diminution and reliant on the caster's full mental knowledge of the target's identity. And a cell phone, if it's something the person has with him at all times, that the person lives with and lives BY, is conceptually a strong link to that person, part of what defines his everyday life, his daily identity.

Is it a perfect link? No. Nothing is, for that matter, as you've rightly pointed out. The effectiveness of that link, again, relies heavily on the caster's intimate knowledge of the target... and we're back full circle. The only full link is to have that person right there, which renders a tracking spell kind of redundant.

You do realise that this brings up a completely tangential issue: what if the tracking target is completely brainwashed to believe that hair or similar taken off their own body is not actually theirs?

And that brings us back to the wizard's intimate knowledge of the target - if he's aware of the brainwashing, of the target's mental state, that adds to the knowledge and may potentially more than make up for the target's belief.

It's all conjecture until/unless we see Jim use one of these situations, to be honest, but given how many times Harry has insisted (and been proven correct) that the effectiveness of the link lies largely in how well the wizard knows the target as it is currently. And the presence of a cell phone in a person's daily self-identification may well play a very strong role in that.

[UmbraLux]

If you want to locate someone, you need something from him, blood, hair, or his true name to do a spell that would do this. If you don't have any of this, there might still be something you possess, that could help you locate him: his cellphone number.

Or as I want to call it: his cellphones "true name". Well, technically the true name of the little card inside, but that is not the point. The point is, that there is a link between a phone number and a phone, that might transcend the technical and might help you get a connection on the magical side.

It's a multi-step process.  Simplifying a bit - your cell has an ID which registers at the nearest (best signal) cell tower.  This ID will move from one tower to another as you travel.  The company's systems link your phone number to the ID and route it to the tower that ID registered with.

Magically*, the symbolic link to the cell itself needs to be that ID.  The phone number is just a tower pointer on the company's phone switching system.

*This ignores all of the issues with a) knowing the system well enough to conceptualize it and b) casting your spell without hexing some or all of the systems involved.

[Richard_Chilton]

First, a on topic bit:
Why I say that cell phone's "true name" more than just its phone number? Because the names we usually use to mentally link "that's him" aren't our true names.

For the first books, Murphy thought of Harry as Dresden.  That was the link in her mind to him.  Then she started to think of him as Harry Dresden and now he's Harry to her.  That's her mental link to him.

While the link changed in Murphy's, Harry's name didn't.  For the the entire of the books Harry's name has been Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden - although (as a mortal) the intonation for his name can change.  I would argue that his True Name changed a couple of time as his life changed.  That he was different enough after Grave Peril to say his True Name shifted, and the same after Dead Beat and Turncoat.

A phone's current number might be 555-5555, but to me its true name would be 555-5555 + the unique serial number - just Harry's is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.


Now for the off topic, using mental links instead of "props" - I'd say doing so doubles or triples the number of steps needed and opens the wizard up to damage.  Harry uses fake latin to isolate his mind from the raw power of magic what's rawer than skipping the symbols?

Richard

[comprex]

It's a multi-step process.  Simplifying a bit - your cell has an ID which registers at the nearest (best signal) cell tower.  This ID will move from one tower to another as you travel.  The company's systems link your phone number to the ID and route it to the tower that ID registered with.

Magically*, the symbolic link to the cell itself needs to be that ID.  The phone number is just a tower pointer on the company's phone switching system.

*This ignores all of the issues with a) knowing the system well enough to conceptualize it and b) casting your spell without hexing some or all of the systems involved.

The problem with this is that the cell phone itself doesn't understand symbolic links.   Humans understand symbolic links, and the phone number is a far stronger symbolic link than the IMSI.  

(Especially if the IMSI is not sent to the VLR, but a randomly coded TMSI is sent instead    ).

[Haru]

I did not factor in cell towers or anything like that for good reasons. If you call a phone number, you don't need to know where that phone is, you just get connected to it, and thus to the person holding it. That is the symbolic link, right there. Sure you can change the phone, but the number on the sim card stays the same, provided of course, you use the same sim card in the new phone. Changing numbers would be like cutting of your hair, as others pointed out.

I thought about it like Harry calling for Toot. He calls out his name and there is only one being in existence, that will respond to this name. Much like a cellphone, you don't get randomly connected to any phone, you get connected to one specific phone, and one phone only. I admit, the whole technical process might be different, but from a users point of view a phone number and the phone are directly connected.

Hexxing the phone might be an issue, that's true, but if you have nothing else to work on, it might be worth it.

While I myself would allow this, I would not point the players to it, they would have to think of this themselves.
Email addresses on the other hand would not be okay. When I call a phone, I get connected to the person on the other side, an Email gets send to a server and can be accessed from pretty much everywhere.

[UmbraLux]

The problem with this is that the cell phone itself doesn't understand symbolic links.   Humans understand symbolic links, and the phone number is a far stronger symbolic link than the IMSI.  

(Especially if the IMSI is not sent to the VLR, but a randomly coded TMSI is sent instead    ).

The phone doesn't need to understand a symbolic link.  The human does need to use / envision a link to the actual target...and that isn't the phone number.  The number is an interim link - a path to the phone's identifier (I'm avoiding jargon.).  The path changes as the cell phone travels and gets passed from one tower to another.  The cell phone's ID doesn't change and is unique (at least on a given provider's network).  The combination of unique identifier tied to the actual target is what a symbolic link needs.

Perhaps it's worth pointing out phone numbers aren't always unique.  Large private phone networks often assign internal numbers without relation to phone companies' designated lists.  So, no only does your number designate a path instead of a target but the number alone may well have multiple uses.

[evileeyore]

It's all conjecture until/unless we see Jim use one of these situations, to be honest, but given how many times Harry has insisted (and been proven correct) that the effectiveness of the link lies largely in how well the wizard knows the target as it is currently. And the presence of a cell phone in a person's daily self-identification may well play a very strong role in that.

I like the cut of your jib sir.


For me, I'd have a non-mage Assistant call the recipient and when the other phone picks up say a word and use that Spoken Word as the link between the two, the Person Who Spoke and the Device That Repeated It.



In fact I'll have to pull this in the game I'm playing a Changeling with Unseelie magic in, because I could get away with using my own Voice and my own phone.   

On second thought Unseelie Magic isn't appropriate for Tracking, unless I can tie in a Winter Theme.

[Shecky]

These are all nifty details, folks! Magic, however, seems to work on human-symbolic principles when you're talking about sympathetic links than on technological principles, so I suspect many of these technology-important details are moot in this context.

[MorkaisChosen]

The problem with this is that the cell phone itself doesn't understand symbolic links.   Humans understand symbolic links, and the phone number is a far stronger symbolic link than the IMSI.  

See, I'd always interpret it as a link in the caster's mind, not in the target's. Sure, they need to get it right- but "the mobile phone identified by this serial number" seems as valid to me as "the person with the hair on his head that this piece of hair was part of."

[Roxy Rocket]

On second thought Unseelie Magic isn't appropriate for Tracking, unless I can tie in a Winter Theme.

Hunting isn't a theme now?

Shecky made me rethink this and I suppose it really does make sense. I'm just not much of a technology person so I have a bias here. My bad really.

And Thaumaturgy is used to do Impossible Things. I should have started by rereading that section.

[Shecky]

Hunting isn't a theme now?

Shecky made me rethink this and I suppose it really does make sense. I'm just not much of a technology person so I have a bias here. My bad really.

And Thaumaturgy is used to do Impossible Things. I should have started by rereading that section.

Not so much that it does make sense as that it COULD make sense, but that all depends on the magic system defined by the gameworld's players/GM. I'm just saying that reasonable arguments could be convincingly made for it.

[Roxy Rocket]

I'm just saying that reasonable arguments could be convincingly made for it.

Yup. That's the part I now agree with.

Now I'd just say no fashionable wizard would be caught dead tracking cell phones.

It. Is. Soooo Gauche! 

[Silverblaze]

The theory behind it is sound in concept, but likely wouldn't work for wizards.  Sponsored thaumaturgy etc may however not 'splode the technology.

Again, should vary from game to game, but were I running I think I'd be strict with its usage.

[citadel97501]

All in all, this stuff could work but wouldn't it be easier to try and get your contacts with the cops to make a call and run the phones gps, so you can locate where they are?  The other option is to full a move out of the Za lord's hat and call up for some pixies. 

[evileeyore]

Hunting isn't a theme now?

Sure... but I'm hesitant to extend it to Unseelie magic who's Theme is "Winter" and covers "wildness, cold, slumber, death, and decay" and gives "Entropomancy".  Similiar for it's opposite, Seelie magic being "Summer".


However if someone wanted "Erlking Magic" then I'd say Hunting was in it's purview.