According to BlackBerry official blog, the services was launched on on September 9th, 2011 to provide a quick and accurate fix for location based apps.

Google has been using street view cars and Android to collect cell phone towers and WiFi access points for a long time to build its location database after Skyhook pioneered this field. Later Google Maps and Google Earth all come with a feature called my place, which can pinpoint a location without GPS quickly. This web-based service requires mobile internet and is less accurate than GPS, but it works great indoors and in places where GPS signal is weak or not available.

Another cell phone giant Apple also used its iOS devices to record base stations and WiFi hotspots, and Apple even got sued for tracking and storing user whereabouts although it claimed it intended to use it to improve its location based services. Although Apple continued to integrate Google Maps into their handsets, soon or later it will launch its own mapping service.

Microsoft, who developed Windows Phone 7, was said to be logging and store such data as well.

Since its main competitors all got their own location services, RIM seemed to be left behind. Only a year ago did RIM roll out its cell towers based geo-location service, which Google has been using for a very long time in its various products like Google Latitude, Google Maps etc.

RIM WiFi geo-location API was introduced together with its new OS BlackBerry 6, all devices running BlackBerry 6 or higher can leverage this service.

Every year, Black Hat conference brings us interesting news and technology, which surely represent the new trend in security field. And this year is no exception.

Two security researchers called Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins showed off on Wednesday their remote controlled drone that could crack WEP and WPA and WPA2 secured WiFi network and intercepts cell phone calls.

The drone is called Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform (WASP) which costs at some $6000, is made from FMQ-117B U.S. Army target drone. It equips with EPIA Pico-ITX PC, on-board VIA EPIA Pico-ITX PCBackTrack Linux OS (BackTrack is Linux based professional security OS to crack encrypted wireless network). When flies, it can sniff WiFi network and crack it using a dictionary of 340 million words to gain access.

In addition to hack WiFi networks, the plane also use a IMSI catchers alike device to create a cell tower. The device emits strong signals to nearby cell phones to trick them into routing encryption disabled out-going calls via the fake base station. Then the call was routed via VoIP to the receiver (or just anyone the hacker wishes) and recorded, which is really horrible.

Although the plan can only fly under 400 feet which is enough to quite the noise and in line of sight according to FAA regulations, but it does not violate any FCC regulations, which means it can be purchased by anyone. Which also means others might be doing the same thing to spy any cell phone. Considering the price, almost anyone can afford it and those private detectives may make a fortune -:).

First, we need to know how Google collect our wireless AP. Generally, Google has been using its street view car to detect and collect the WiFi hotspots. Google street view vehicles have been equipped with an antenna which can receive data broadcasted by WiFi AP; these data are then processed and sent to Google location server. However, under pressure from global governments, Google has stopped it and will not resume it anytime soon.

Then Google turned to its mobile map application Google Maps. Due to its huge user bases, Google could easily collect such data. Whenever Google Maps is running, it will detect if the cell phone is connected to any wireless network and starts to collect and send the data back to Google.

Second, we need to figure out what data Google collects. In general, the data Google are interested includes SSID, MAC address, signal strength, latitude and longitude etc. Google uses MAC address to identify each wireless AP as this address is unique. Latitude and longitude are used to determine the location of the wireless router.

Now we know what data Google collects and how, we are able to check if Google has our WiFi location pinpointed. In fact, there are only two easy steps.

First, logon to your wireless router dashboard and find its MAC address. Take Netgear wireless router for example, you can find two MAC addresses, but you only need the WAN address, just copy it.

Second, go visit this WiFi tracker, enter the MAC address you just found and hit check it. If your wireless router was logged by Google, then it will show its address, latitude, longitude and location on Google Maps. Otherwise, it will say Google is not spying on you.

Wizi is free location based sharing (LBS) app which allows you to send to your friends and family your location on a map via SMS, Email, Twitter and Facebook.

To be exact, Wizi is more like a location sharing social tool because you can not track your friend and show his/her movements in real-time on a map, but it’s quite simple. If you have a GPS enabled cell phone, it can determine your current location, and you can set your location on the map manually as well. As it is using GPS, WiFi and nearest cell tower to find your location, it’s quicker than other GPS tracking apps. After that it will generate a  URL to your location (you can add your address and coordinates), and you can send the URL via SMS from your mobile phone to your friends and associates, they will be directed to Wizi website and showed your location on a map once they click on the link.

In addition, you can do the same on your computer, but this time you can send the URL via Email, twitter and Facebook etc. In the meantime, you can copy the URL to your clipboard and paste it to anywhere you like.

Wizi now is available for Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows Mobile phones. Just type get.wizi.com into your address bar of your web browser on your cell phone, and you can start to download their app, and it’s totally free. And your can sign up with them to get your personalized URL.

According to techcrunch.com, the world’s largest social network website Facebook is to roll out a cell phone geographic location tracking service for iPhone and Android cell phones.

Facebook’s mobile version http://touch.facebook.com, a new sub domain, was reported to be found something called the “places_tab.” in the JavaScript file. However this new feature is not enabled yet, and the code was not found on Facebook’s other mobile version site yet.

As per the code, Facebook will record not only your latitude and longitude, but also your altitude, heading, and speed, according to this code (and assuming they can get all of that information). It will also record the accuracy of the location measurement.

With that said, when an iPhone or Android cell phone types http://touch.facebook.com or any other mobile version site where the code is being inserted into the mobile browser in the future, Facebook will be able to track the cell phone location. However, Facebook will support other touch screen cell phones in the future is not certain, people may have to wait for more news about this.

MobiWee

MobiWee currently supports Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry cell phones. Users can remotely Locate and track their device, retrieve their information, then lock, wipe, encrypt, delete certificates (for the corporate user), and shutdown their device from any web browser- even if the SIM card has been removed.

Find more about MobiWee

Find My iPhone

Once you enabled Find My iPhone on your iPhone, you can: 1. Locate your iPhone on a map. 2. Set a passcode lock remotely. 3. Display a message or play a sound on your lost iPhone. 4. Protect your privacy with Remote Wipe.

Find more about Find My iPhone

Buddyway

Buddy is a free GPS track maker for mobile devices that allows you to track any mobile phone or PDA with built-in GPS (or with Bluetooth GPS receiver) in real time. 1. Track any GPS-enabled phone in real-time online. 2. Save trips for later reference. 3. Share the trips with desired people or keep them private. 4. Capture and comment on particular locations of your trip (in real-time) directly from your phone. 5. Import and save trips to Google Earth to visualize them in 3D-mode and more. 6. View route statistics and charts: route length, route duration, avg. & max. speed, altitude changes, etc. 7. Setup alerts on desired regions and get alerted when nearby. 8. See the list of supported devices on the website.

Find more about Buddyway

Mobile tracking system

Mobile Tracking System 1.51 is a free mobile phone tracker, it allows you tracing a mobile phone location via Gps. 1. Tracking a mobile phone location from a GSM mobile phone or GPS receiver. 2. Tracing your current location from a GSM cell phone or GPS receiver. 3. Add or edit a cellid directly from the mobile client. 4. Realtime any user tracking (if allowed by user). 5. Send and receive e-mail messages directly to and from the MTS client. 6. Send and receive MTS chat messages. 7. Send and receive files.

Find more about Mobile tracking system

InstaMapper

InstaMapper is a free service that allows you to track a GPS-enabled cell phone online in real time. 1. Lots of storage. 2. Access to raw data. 3. Location sharing.

Find more about InstaMapper

Among above cell phone tracking software, BuddyWay, Find My iPhone, Mobile tracking system and InstaMapper are free to use, you can choose any one of them depending on your cell phone OS.

This means anyone have a domain and website can start his/her own GPS mobile phone tracking service which is very exciting, as in the past if you wanna track someone’s location on Google Maps you have to sign up with some GPS tracking company with an account, free or needs to be paid. However, in order to use his tracking package you need to have a GPS mobile phone with a data plan to access your website. You also need to get a Google API key for your website. For detailed instructions, you can check his ReadMe text file enclosed in his project.

However according to the reviews, some said it’s amazing while a few others said it did not work, you may want to test it for yourself if you have a Gps cell phone and want to start your own online GPS mobile phone tracking service.

Well it’s worth noting that start your own cell phone tracking businesses requires a lots of skills include knowledge and expertise in web hosting, Apache, MySQL, PHP and mobile apps etc. To cut it short, it’s not easy!!

There is also a GPS cell phone tracking blog where you can find more information about GPS tracking, you may want to check it out sometime.