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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?

#41

Post by anikamariam »

duaneb wrote: post #36
anikamariam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

yes it will hold up in court.

Police don't let suspects out of detention just because they complain they have to pee. High-tech state-of-the-art tracking technology from Google and Apple indicates that these people are somehow involved in the disappearance of a missing person. How dumb would the officer look if he let a suspect destroy evidence, escape, or otherwise pull something on the claim that they have to pee?

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#42

Post by mentat »

mmagin wrote: post #19
mapgrep wrote: post #9

My 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…

Well, BSSID, not the easily-changed ESSID (as commented below.) Presumably some manufacturer of ultra-cheap wifi gear isn't properly setting a unique BSSID range into the units they make, and some stolen-phone operation has the same BSSID as these folks do.

They are modifiable in software too...

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#43

Post by ljbha007 »

mmagin wrote: post #19
mapgrep wrote: post #9

My 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…

Well, BSSID, not the easily-changed ESSID (as commented below.) Presumably some manufacturer of ultra-cheap wifi gear isn't properly setting a unique BSSID range into the units they make, and some stolen-phone operation has the same BSSID as these folks do.

You maybe getting the point there. This incident sounds a lot like an inaccurate Wifi locating result.

Or someone in a large stolen-phone operation has been using a randomly picked MAC address to confuse the Find-My-Phone softwares. That's a lot easier to do.

I bet someone at Google or Skyhook could look into the Mac address to see if there are any abnormalities for that particular one.

I really hope Sherlock Holmes will be there to resolve the mystery.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#44

Post by mentat »

pjc50 wrote: post #30
patrickmay wrote: post #20

I 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…

They had probable cause: the last reported location of a missing teenage girl was their house.

Reported by something that has <90% accuracy? Less than 99%? It matters...

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#45

Post by MatthaeusHarris »

ghaff wrote: post #8
xlayn wrote: post #3

Other 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).

The problem is not that the router is currently broadcasting a BSSID that exists elsewhere. The problem is that a geo-wifi database contains an association between their address and a BSSID.

They can change the router, and eventually the problem should sort itself out (if it is indeed their router and not a neighbor's that is the issue), but it's going to take until the old record ages out of the database for it to happen. And that could be months or years.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#46

Post by wvenable »

mapgrep wrote: post #9

My 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…

Unfortunately, it's not likely that there is anything they can do to change this. This is just a record in a database somewhere now and until that record is changed (and propagated everywhere) this will continue to happen for them.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#47

Post by nness »

bloaf wrote: post #15

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.

The geolocation would probably be enough evidence for claims of libel to be ineffective.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#48

Post by mentat »

anikamariam wrote: post #41
duaneb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

yes it will hold up in court. Police don't let suspects out of detention just because they complain they have to pee. High-tech state-of-the-art tracking technology from Google and Apple indicates that these people are somehow involved in the disappearance of a missing person. How dumb would the officer look if he let a suspect destroy evidence, escape, or otherwise pull something on the claim that they have to pee?

There's no way it would hold up in court. Perhaps the court of public opinion but nowhere else.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#49

Post by phil21 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #26
craigmccaskill wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would not the location tracking telling them the girls phone was inside the house be probable cause? Seems more reliable than a dog alerting on a car.

Whoever said that the phone location tracking was anywhere near this level of reliable? IMHO, it's really only good as a sort of hint on where your phone _might_ be.

Which is more reliable than other pieces of evidence that meet the probable cause bar. Such as a police dog alerting.

Certainly seems to meet the (pathetically low) threshold to me at least.

Re: Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

#50

Post by frogpelt »

manmal wrote: post #34
fibbery wrote: post #29

Crazy 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?

I'm gonna guess no.
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