Would I be likely to get caught for GPS spoofing in this instance (doing for honest reasons!)?

[dalekcaan1963]

There's a gym in the wooded area nearby, and it's level 9 and the same team as me. I'd love to go in there and raise up the level and get my Pokemon in there, but the GPS signal is too poor to get close enough (I can get close enough to see it nearby but not enough to take it on). The GPS is so bad that I'm already seemingly teleporting as far as 1/4 of a mile away every few seconds, but never coming close enough to the gym. If I were to walk up to the gym and therefore appearing nearby on the map, would it be detected that I was GPS spoofing if I then used an app to fix my coordinates at the gym so I can actually fight it? What usually determines whether or not someone will be caught? As much as I want to take this gym, I've caught nearly every available Pokemon now so I'd be devastated to get a permanent ban suddenly (I've had no soft bans or anything before either).

 

[Neltharion83]

You mean the internet connection, because its not really possible for the GPS signal to be poor in an area like you describe it.

Its sattelite based, so GPS works perfectly even without internet reception. As long as you can see the sky, GPS will work, it fails underground or under water or when there is lots of metal above you.

Maybe your phone has no real GPS and uses fake gps based on cellphone tower trinagulation? That would indeed go wonky like you describe it if too few cell towers are in range.

So the idea would be to borrow a phone with a real GPS receiver built in.

 

[Melody]

Unfortunately if you're on Android this is actually difficult.

1) Niantic has actually banned older versions of Pokemon Go from being used that lack the checks I will mention
2) Latest versions of Pokemon Go have been embedded with Google SafetyNet checks to prevent users with Rooted Devices from playing.
3) Root Access is Required to run Xposed Framework, which is required to fool the check that Pokemon Go does for the "Use Mock Location" setting.
4) Go will not Run with this setting, "Use Mock Location" enabled
5) You must have "Use Mock Location" set to use tools to allow you to manually specify your location
6) Niantic does deploy server-side checks; you may still trip them and get at least soft banned if the system thinks you're doing something odd.

Fortunately there exists a method to circumvent this; parts 1-5; but it is not supported on all devices. Magisk systemless root allows you to root your device without tripping the SafetyNet check. This should allow you to install a similar systemless Xposed Framework which won't trip SafetyNet either...but again the software is not supported on all devices. Of course this is still all with the usual caveats of rooting your device, there's always a small chance you could brick your device to a state beyond your ability to repair it. So rooting is risky; and if you are not someone who is good with tech, you're probably gonna have a very bad time of it.

As for reason #6, you could be a single mistake away from a soft ban if you forget and leave your device constantly spoofing it's location or something that might trip the server side checks. Furthermore Niantic could release future updates to Pokemon Go that better detect when you are running a rooted environment and receive a ban for that.

So in the long run it's not worth it. Inform Niantic of the problem, but don't cheat or spoof; maybe later versions will be a lot less unstable. You may need to purchase a new phone as well. do not simply borrow another person's phone. That may lead to a soft ban or ban as well if the original owner decides to play GO and you forget to sign out/uninstall GO and all to ensure that your account data isn't linked to their phone. Niantic also takes a dim view of account sharing so they may have automated bans for that. You could trip one of those bans and be regretting it later.

 

[Neltharion83]

I do not believe that you need to root the device just to get some basic GPS hacks going. Also, in the world of android, many manufacturers allow you to root your devide using simple commands on the built-in firmware. I think i did it on my phone, i had an issue that required full access via the developer options on my phone. To enable access, you go to one point in the systems menu, and click it 7 times. After 2 clicks it says "click 5 more times to enable developer mode". Then it counts down as you click. Then you get deeper access and additional options within the firmware itself. That makes it easy to root it to specs.

So the idea that rooted phones are bad is nonsense, and you do not need to root your phone to hack the GPS.

I got a softban merely for using the subway and freezing pokemon go whenever i was in the tunnels. It caused some buggy teleportation as the signal recovered.

 

[dalekcaan1963]

I've got an iphone 5c.

The weird thing is, I have a perfectly fine phone and 3G signal in that area, I tested to make sure, but the GPS signal goes absolutely flat the moment I enter the woods. I don't really know much about phones so I'm not sure why it would be... I wonder if it's worth putting the phone on a selfie stick and raising it up high in the hopes that I can poke it above the trees to make it work? xD

 

[Neltharion83]

I know how GPS works. Its a constellation of 31 active sattelites in a medium-high orbit, your device passively listens to their signals, and 3 signals are enough to trinagulate your position.

Unfortunately its owned by the US military, so in the past they made it run less precisely in active war zones and near important military bases by introducing small errors, so in those cases it only worked nicely for US military equipment, because only that has the technology to fix the small errors.

Officially this is not being done anymore, it would also be pointless now because the civilian european galileo-system works everywhere. So it should even work properly near a military base. For the signal, woods are transparent. It really only fails if there are large amounts of rock, soil, water, or metal above you.

Maybe the GPS-antenna in your phone is broken and the phone compensates by doing pseudo-GPS with cell tower triangulation. Your internet will work fine with just one cell tower in range, but then the triangulation fails.

I googled it, apparently the GPS antenna in the iphone 5 can break, and it can be replaced. Apparently the phone can fall down hard enough to damage the connection to the GPS antenna but not hard enough to damage the display or anything else, then you have a phone where everything except the GPS works just fine.

Replacing it seems really really difficult, i found a video showing how it is done. Apparently you need professional level soldering skills and equipment, so the most useful aspect of the video may just be that it shows what the iphone 5 GPS antenna looks like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3gw1KDWuPw

There should be ways to determine if the GPS antenna is broken using just the firmware of the phone, or maybe a diagnostic tool, otherwise i do not see how apples service or a phone repair shop can tell if the antenna needs to be replaced.

Anyway, the easiest solution is still to borrow a phone from a good friend or family member that also has pokemon go installed, and use that to take the arena. Bringing the phone to an apple store, just for diagnostics to see if the GPS antenna is broken, may also be a good idea. Replacement will cost money, but if you just want it diagnosed because you suspect it is broken, i think they do that for free.

EDIT: Further research confirms my suspicion. An iphone 5 with a broken GPS antenna will compensate using cell tower triangulation, and it will not notify you, so you only notice that it is broken in remote locations.

That makes it extremely likely that your GPS antenna is broken, the problem you describe is a perfect match with what you should expect from an iphone 5 with a broken GPS antenna.

 

[VisualJae]

Phone issues or not, if you're in a situation where you think doing something is outside of how a game is meant to be played and likely within realms of what the developers have outlined as "against the Terms," then don't do it.

There's really no such thing as "for honest reasons" in online gaming. People can't bot and say, "I just want to know how long it would take for me to reach max level if I played 24/7." People can't spoof and say, "I have a medical condition with my legs and shouldn't walk more than 10km a day."

As soon as someone tries to find a loophole or bypass set rules, either others will further twist it to their advantages or the developers will have to constantly set exceptions due to precendents and no one wants to be bothered with that.

Obviously some game developers are way more lax than others, but Niantic's already proven that they're on the strict side. Use third party tools at your own risk. You can breathe a sigh of relief if you go under their radar. Or don't be surprised if something happens. I can't count how many people—including some personal friends—have been banned for something stupid already.

IMO get a new phone when the opportunity comes up. In the meantime, feel free to "cheat" just to get that little satisfaction for taking a single Gym or just forget struggling with that one location.