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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?

#111

Post by true_religion »

coderdude wrote: post #62
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.

Or... They are involved with people who steal, buy or refurbish stolen phones.

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

#112

Post by [deleted] »

Swannie wrote: post #106

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 conne…

[deleted]

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

#113

Post by kazinator »

njharman wrote: post #99
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.

So, get police to come out for X when you haven't done X. Then do X and police should ignore it cause last time they had evidence of X it turned out to be wrong? Police should always investigate. They should have history of previous investigations, but that should not stop them from future investigations.

At the very least, they should handle it differently, and not with complete amnesia.

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

#114

Post by mschuster91 »

Houshalter wrote: post #107
mschuster91 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 art…

> The point of the fourth amendment is to stop excessive or abusive searches, not all searches ever.

"Stop and frisk" and "asset forfeiture" means anything to you?

And it's not just the US where police commonly fabricates evidence, in particular when it comes to drug or gun "offenses".

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

#115

Post by Outdoorsman »

soylentcola wrote: post #37
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…

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.

I've lived on the same 200 acres for 22 years...remote, rustic...you cannot GPS me (find me) even if I give you the state, county, and mailing address...G-maps has roads and features mislabeled all around me...at one point part of the land I live on was labeled "Public Use", meaning open to hunters...that's the only thing I ever bothered to get changed...I sort of like things the way they are...

My point is, anything is possible...tech (especially apps) is still very new, despite what we think we coders think we've accomplished...

Would like to know how long they've lived in that house...don't think the article provided that info...

Spoofed IP > wifi network improperly linked, or worse, aggregated > lying in a database somewhere as a reference point...just a possibility...

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

#116

Post by tarikjn »

Changing their router or even turning it off won't necessary help.

Here is a way to reproduce this issue and explain my point: if you are a thief, you could setup a GPS spoofer pointing to that house or have had your router in that house in the past so that some phones registered/verified it's MAC address to be at the house location. Now assume the thieves live in a location where they took this router with them and where there is no GPS signal or other router or cell signal, but only the thieves' router turned on. Now as soon as the thieves connect the stolen phones to their router, they will report being at the house.

My bet is that this is likely an intentional attack by the thieves and that they are aware of what they are doing. There is a small chance they could have been people living in the house before or drove by to setup their spoof as it would have been much easier than getting their hands on a GPS spoofer.

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

#117

Post by manarth »

harryh wrote: post #86
beeboop wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Civilized society depends on the cooperation of the law abiding populace. It's your civic duty to answer the door. It's a categorical imperative.

Civilized society depends on well-articulated laws that enable citizens to understand what is legal and what isn't, and allows Police to make use of force when it is appropriate, and prevents them from using force when it isn't.

"The legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so."

Edit: the principal is known as "Policing by consent", or the Peelian Principal [1], which is fairly common in the UK.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles

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

#118

Post by gnu8 »

mikeash wrote: post #14
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…

An amusing example of this sort of problem shows up sometimes on airplanes with onboard WiFi. If the phone doesn't get a GPS lock right away (common when you're in a metal tube) then it may show the position based on the mapped location for the hotspot MAC address, which is often at a completely different airport. Obviously, Skyhook isn't driving around mapping airliners, but I think these days they have the mobile d…

Maybe the industry should assign a bit in the BSSID to indicate a mobile AP that shouldn't be used for mapping purposes.

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

#119

Post by GhotiFish »

sideproject wrote: post #102

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…

out of curiosity, does it only show you a single point? Does it not show you the potential error?

I'm working on a mapping app that uses GPS data and the first thing we had to address was the fact that the data we got from the GPS units in the field are not perfect, they have error, hell they report their error, and our application shows that error as part of the map data.

based on the data we have gotten from mobile phones, when a phone approximates its position based on cell towers it spits out a large error. That surely is being shown, right?

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

#120

Post by ensignavenger »

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.

Then they should have gotten a warrant, and it should not have taken them an hour to realize it was a mistake.
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