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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?

#61

Post by cubano »

You know, its not completely out of realm of the possible that these people are lying and really know much more then they are telling police.

I am not implying anything about these people, but I am just saying it isn't impossible.

I lived in Las Vegas for a couple of years and was involved with some people who, from the outside, seemed like very normal folk...in fact, in many ways, I was someone like that, too, due to issues I was fighting at the time.

We all have a different set of experiences in our lives, and, unfortunately for me I suppose, my experiences make me think about this in a different way then many here might.

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

#62

Post by coderdude »

cubano wrote: post #61

You know, its not completely out of realm of the possible that these people are lying and really know much more then they are telling police. I am not implying anything about these people, but I am just saying it isn't impossible. I lived in Las Vegas for a couple of years and was involved with some people who, from the outside, seemed like very normal folk...in fact, in many ways, I was someone like that, too, due t…

Based on the article that would also mean they're kidnappers and/or murderers so it might be best to avoid playing the Devil's advocate on this one.

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

#63

Post by phantom784 »

lucb1e wrote: post #56
JonnieCache wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's not exactly difficult for the likes of google to remove the millions of 'Netgear' SSIDs from their dataset.

I always wondered how it would handle lesser known systems, like the SSID "Train's on-board WiFi" (Dutch: "WiFi in de trein") that we have in the Netherlands. There are not a million trains, but they do appear in a million places. Like with airlines, I'd think they notice, or have a script to detect, "oh we have a bunch of locations many kilometers apart" and then remove them, but since I don't use WiFi location serv…

I had this problem on a train in the US. My phone insisted that I was in Boston the whole trip, when I was actually several states away.

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

#64

Post by ehaughee »

kazinator wrote: post #38

What'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.

Disclaimer: I agree with the intent of your comment but, as this is the second time I've seen this comment in this thread, I'll bite and play devil's advocate. Additionally, I have absolutely no knowledge of dispatch or any other law enforcement software.

Where would the knowledge of this phenomena be stored? Does the dispatch software have a notes field? If so, is it procedure to put that sort of information in place? Do cops have access to it? If so do they regularly look at it? If "no" to those points, how would a police force as large as Atlanta's maintain that knowledge? A lot of large organizations rely heavily on tribal knowledge, so that's a possibility. But only assuming officers always patrol/police the same areas and never quit or get fired, or if they do, they always pass on the entirety of their tribal knowledge to the successor.

So again, I agree with the general sentiment, but this doesn't have to be a matter of incompetent law enforcement personnel. It could easily be a problem of lacking software and a system prohibitively large to maintain that kind of granular information among all agents.

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

#65

Post by wang_li »

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…

It seems much more likely that there is some bogus location data set somewhere that improperly links SIDS and GPS coordinates or filters fail and result some index into a GPS table that happens to correspond to this couple's home.

If I were these two people, I'd contact the local police department every single time anyone shows up at their house and require that the PD fill out a report of some kind and keep it in a single case/incident/folder. Then put a sign on the door that says:

> Before knocking contact the police department at ###-###-#### and ask about incident #XYZ. The get off our property.

It's bullshit that police are coming to the door and dragging them outside while trying to determine if a search warrant is in order.

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

#66

Post by dntrkv »

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…

Now flip the situation around. If there was a missing girl being held there and the police didn't check it, how would people react? The chance of checking and making sure while in the process inconveniencing someone far outweighs the chance of not checking. Sure it sucks, but what are the other options? If you are the parent of this missing kid and the police tell you your child might be there but they can't look into it, you would be ok with that?

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

#68

Post by emilecantin »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #22
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…

This seems like a stretch. SSIDs aren't whats stored here, its the mac address of the access point that's stored. There are millions of SSID called "Netgear" for example. You can't use the name as a unique value, so mac addresses it is. Regardless, phones are smart enough to understand that GPS is authoratitive, AGPS second, and wifi/IP address as last. If GPS/AGPS says Chicago, but the wifi says Atlanta, the phone s…

Minor nitpick: AGPS, or Assisted GPS is actually almost the same as GPS. The only difference is that it gets the Almanach data off the Internet, instead of the satellites themselves (the satellites are constantly broadcasting that data, but it takes a few minutes to download it all).

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

#69

Post by bigiain »

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…

I'd guess MAC address is more important that SSID.

(If this were me, I'd want to somehow covertly install that router at Google/Apple/Skyhook/the-local-police-station, I suspect that'd pretty quickly get someone to give-a-shit enough to solve the problem...)

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

#70

Post by kazinator »

ehaughee wrote: post #64
kazinator wrote: post #38

What'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.

Disclaimer: I agree with the intent of your comment but, as this is the second time I've seen this comment in this thread, I'll bite and play devil's advocate. Additionally, I have absolutely no knowledge of dispatch or any other law enforcement software. Where would the knowledge of this phenomena be stored? Does the dispatch software have a notes field? If so, is it procedure to put that sort of information in plac…

> Where would the knowledge of this phenomena be stored?

In the same place where cops record false intruder alarms and give people a warning or fine for too many.

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