I wonder if the couple could make a profit on this mishap by suing anyone who accuses them of stealing phones (i.e. on social media) after visiting their house.
likely the company that provides the data source would be more liable
Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
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Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#32My money is on a wifi SSID that matches the one used by thieves or a heavily-trafficked location the victims all pass through. My company moved ~5 blocks and it really screwed up the map on my phone (which I use to get around the city) for several months. My company had left the network SSID the same in the old location, so that no one had to re-configure their wifi. Even with GPS on, my phone was always convinced it…
I thought it was the MAC addresses of routers which were used for mapping, not SSIDs. Duplicate SSIDs are very common.
The Google Maps Geolocation API only uses the access point's MAC address (aka BSSID).
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geolocation...
Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#33Other options: -The name of the wireless in a database and picking up the first one, could not be fixable changing the router name or ip address as it is already recorded somewhere -Same for other routers or ip address in the neighbor -Maybe it's not their fault but someone else did it on purpose, e.g. take the cell phone and manipulating it inside a room with stolen/faked/forged data somewhere else and wrapped in a…
Wouldn't hurt to change the MAC of the router (and the SSID while they're at it).
They said they reset it, but I am surprised they didn't buy a completely new one to guarantee a different hardware fingerprint.
Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#34Crazy idea: install a heavy, wood engraved sign in front of their house that says "No, your phone isn't here".
If I were a regular phone thief, I would do exactly that, no?
Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#35Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The police shouldn't be able to detain someone for over an hour without probably cause and without arresting them. They can't. The police officer in question was wrong and they did not exercise their rights.
they have the right to detain those people on reasonable suspicion.
Yea, but it's unclear how the "find my iphone app" could ever lead to reasonable suspicion by itself. Among other things, they seemed to be cooperating, not resisting, and all the evidence is from a third party—no immediate evidence would have produced any reasonable suspicion. This is an abuse of police power from a position of ignorance.
Do you really think that would hold up in court? I sincerely hope not. The man should have been allowed to use his own bathroom.
Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#37My money is on a wifi SSID that matches the one used by thieves or a heavily-trafficked location the victims all pass through. My company moved ~5 blocks and it really screwed up the map on my phone (which I use to get around the city) for several months. My company had left the network SSID the same in the old location, so that no one had to re-configure their wifi. Even with GPS on, my phone was always convinced it…
Something similar happened to me. I moved maybe 5 blocks a couple years ago and for the first couple of weeks my location-based stuff would have trouble deciding where I was. Eventually the combination of GPS and cellular triangulation must've forced the SSID database to update but for a little while it was a minor annoyance.
Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#38What's sad is how the local police seem to have some sort of learning disability or amnesia about this problem. They showed up there repeatedly and harassed the occupants.
Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#39I found this particularly disturbing: > In June, the police came looking for a teenage girl whose parents reported her missing. The police made Lee and Saba sit outside for more than an hour while the police decided whether they should get a warrant to search the house for the girl’s phone, and presumably, the girl. When Saba asked if he could go back inside to use the bathroom, the police wouldn’t let him. > > “Your…
Stories like this further my conviction to simply never answer the door if it's a police officer unless they specify having a warrant. They can't detain you if you don't answer, and chances are the officer will escalate the situation on his own if he wants a reason to detain you. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?
#40Once this is resolved, we might temporarily have a way to fool the 'illegal' surveillance gear used by law enforcement?
Unless they use some completely different scheme to snoop on cell phone users?