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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?

#101

Post by mschuster91 »

Houshalter wrote: post #93
mentat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would guess that the find my phone apps have greater than 99% accuracy. Just not 100%. I'm disturbed by how anti-police HN is. Like even searching for a missing person is now some great abuse of power.

> I'm disturbed by how anti-police HN is. Like even searching for a missing person is now some great abuse of power.

Because police, be it in the US or anywhere else, has time and again proven that they are not to be trusted and any power the legislation grants them can and will be exploited or illegaly expanded.

Add to this that police (and most legislators, as well as most judges) don't have a fucking clue how computers work on a technical level, or at least not enough to be viewed as "reasonable".

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

#102

Post by sideproject »

I had a similar experience about a month ago, when I thought I lost my iPhone 5s.

Logged onto "Find my iPhone" app and it told me it was about 1km away from my house. I thought I must've dropped it somewhere nearby.

So I got the address from Apple Map, drove there and knocked on the door to greet a rather defensive (obviously) lady who, of course, denied ever picking up an iphone that day.

I snooped around to see if there were any suspicious people around, maybe she has a wayward son who goes around and steals other people's phones.

I then went to the police office nearby and asked them what I could do. They told me they can't use the GPS tracking as an evidence for a search warrant - doh!

It was frustrating because the app was telling me that my phone was right there! At the back of this lady's house!

At this moment, I was going through all sorts of thoughts - such as "should I break into her house at night?", "should I go back and just barge into her house and locate my phone and shout 'AH HA! I KNEW IT! YOU THIEF"!

Feeling dejected, I came home, only to find my phone sitting on the top of my drawer.

2 seconds ago, I swear I thought she was the thief.

Apple - you disappointed me.

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

#103

Post by c22 »

gknoy wrote: post #33
ghaff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They might not understand the concept of a hardware fingerprint. The article mentions that they also "changed the frequency" of their ap which would seem to me extremely unlikely to make a lick of difference.

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

#104

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Your smartphone is a sensor that collects and provides that data to Apple/Google.

For an iPhone, I would try doing a backup/restore to isolate the problem.

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

#105

Post by dntrkv »

Bjartr wrote: post #85
dntrkv wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 int…

>what are the other options Go to a judge, communicate the situation, and maybe get a warrant if the judge deems it appropriate. That's how the system is designed to work. >The chance of checking and making sure while in the process inconveniencing someone far outweighs the chance of not checking. >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,…

>There are good reasons we don't let emotional parents head the investigations of their missing children.

And where did I suggest that? There is a huge difference between having a parent head an investigation and asking a police officer to check out a potential house where someone's kid may be held. And the couple was well within their right to not open the door to the police.

I'm not suggesting the police should have the ability to detain people indefinitely, but they do need some ability to carry out questioning / searches if there is a reasonable suspicion. I know, reasonable suspicion is really vague and abused but what is the alternative? Anytime a cop sees suspicious activity they need to head over to the court and get a warrant? They would never get anything done.

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

#106

Post by Swannie »

What's shocking is the lack of a clear explanation by the so-called experts contacted in this article.

My explanation as to what is likely happening: "Every WiFi router has a special unique number - think of it as serial number - baked into the device by the manufacturer (known as a MAC address). Manufacturers request a range of these unique numbers from the IEEE, and are never meant to duplicate them. When you connect to a WiFi router, you connect to its friendly name (SSID), but also your phone receives a part of this special unique number (BSSID address) [1].

Companies like Apple, Google, and SkyHook, record the location of WiFi routers using this unique number. When a phone or other device has a strong GPS location and a strong WiFi signal, they can fairly reliably assume that this unique number is at this specific location.

However, not all manufacturers strictly follow the unique number allocation rule, as getting allocations can be a time consuming process. 999 times out of 1000, reuse of these numbers is not a big issue, and goes undetected. In this case, it is likely that the thieves are using, or are located near, a WiFi router with the same unique number as this couple. Changing this special unique number is sometimes possible on expensive enterprise grade WiFi routers by knowledgeable experts, but not possible or advisable on home routers. The couple should change their WiFi router."

Yes, I have conflated a number of terms there for simplicity. For technical accuracy: WiFi router -> access point.

Edit: added [1] https://arubanetworkskb.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/FAQ/Ho...

As BSSID is != MAC address.

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

#107

Post by Houshalter »

mschuster91 wrote: post #101
Houshalter wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess that the find my phone apps have greater than 99% accuracy. Just not 100%. I'm disturbed by how anti-police HN is. Like even searching for a missing person is now some great abuse of power.

> I'm disturbed by how anti-police HN is. Like even searching for a missing person is now some great abuse of power. Because police, be it in the US or anywhere else, has time and again proven that they are not to be trusted and any power the legislation grants them can and will be exploited or illegaly expanded. Add to this that police (and most legislators, as well as most judges) don't have a fucking clue how comp…

That's fine, and has absolutely nothing to do with this case. The police were just doing their job searching for a missing girl and had strong evidence that her phone was in the house. And people here are outraged. It's absurd. The point of the fourth amendment is to stop excessive or abusive searches, not all searches ever.

Second I think some of the police hate is just availability bias. If you read nothing but articles on the Internet about police somewhere doing something bad, of course you will think they are all terrible. Like people that watch the news and think air travel is more dangerous than driving.

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

#108

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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…

I don't think it's too great an assumption that information on a location involved in a suspected crime is added to a database so that lookups concerning that location have a backlog of such information. That's got to be close to MVP for a police database surely.

The dispatcher who gives the officers the call to attend would then give the background information known - "Murder here 2 years ago - previous occupants; parking violations issued to this address; 53 unconfirmed reports of stolen phones, 47 of which were later found not to be stolen just giving wrong GPS info. Caller says their stolen phone is at this location according to GPS reports.".

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

#109

Post by true_religion »

mentat wrote: post #97
nanofortnight wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Probable cause' doesn't require 99% accuracy. It's a legal term with a well-defined definition. 'Probable cause' is slightly higher that 'reasonable suspicion' but much lower than 'beyond all reasonable doubt'. Essentially, it boils down to: Would a 'reasonable man' (another technical term) suspect that something is the case? If yes, one has reasonable suspicion.

Reasonability breaks when the implementation requires technical knowledge to assess and has specific undisclosed issues in cases that matter.

The law isn't written to allow for a perfect implementation to exist.

It's there so on average, most people will agree that the police did the right thing.

If most people have no knowledge of the implementation details of technology, they'll happily allow said searches to continue.

On the whole, many laws are like this. They are made so we can all live together and nothing more.

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

#110

Post by apricot »

Houshalter wrote: post #93
mentat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would guess that the find my phone apps have greater than 99% accuracy. Just not 100%. I'm disturbed by how anti-police HN is. Like even searching for a missing person is now some great abuse of power.

People tend to be pro-police right up until the day when they find themselves the target of a police officer who knows what they can get away with.
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