1) I don't totally understand the whole deal as far as tracking as described in the article. I am a bit confused by it, because I am sure that with the cell phones my family has had, it is a very simple set up function to turn on or off the "GPS" or location function so that even 911 cannot find where your cell is. I know because reading the instructions for set up when we all got phones during a family crisis, I wanted to make sure it was on for one chronically ill parent and my disabled brother and off for myself. the latter because of various and sundry reasons I won't go into.

The instructions said directly that if you turn it off then they can't find you, i.e., warning you that you might be sorry, because then you can't be found if you like have a heart attack. The default is usually that it is on, but you can turn it off.

Of course, all calls are logged by phone companies, but that was the case before cell phones. As far as tracking where your cell phone calls transmit  to/from if you have that turned off that location funciton, I dunno much about it. But if you've ever tried to figure out transmission problems as regards cellular service, you'll find that the location of transmitters is real complicated and also kind of like state secrets, that some techies try to figure out and publish on websites by checking out government licenses for new transmitters going up all the time but can never keep up, they are constantly going up all over the place. And if you've tried when traveling to get extra service, like in Mexico and your plan is CDMA and not GSM service, it sure seems that your call is bouncing all over the place.

2) I thought of all of this when I saw the news on China tracking movements of people via the "GPS" function or whatever you want to call it on their cell phones when they were expecting demonstrations, and I wondered whether they only sold them there with the function permanently on. And whether Chinese hackers/techies had figured out how to get around that.