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“Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

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Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#161

Post by _bxg1 »

stunt wrote: post #5
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

Every time I see one of these I'm validated in my decision to switch to Apple.

Apple is the same. There are a lot of hidden regulations when you work on that scale.

"But while Apple's location data processing is anonymous, two hard-to-find settings— "Location History" and "Web and App Activity" — allow Google to keep track of everything their users search, and everywhere they go. It affects all Android users, and iPhone or iPad users with apps like Google Maps installed on their device."

iOS keeps as much location data local to the device as possible, and anonymizes the rest. In many cases there's nothing for them to give up.

Also, you could even use Google apps and just disable background location for those. Because unlike Android, iOS actually respects that choice.

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#162

Post by jancsika »

nabla9 wrote: post #102
renholder wrote: post #52

> He noted that even if it did target the wrong person, "it doesn't mean they're going to get convicted or arrested, it just gives the detective a look at who could be involved." ...because no case has ever been so righteously pursued, with such a vigorous degree of righteous indignation, that an innocent person was ever thrown in prison[0], yeah? This blasé attitude about sweeping-up data of innocent people is preci…

All criminal investigations start with group of innocent people. That's the only way to investigate. Police collects data from security cameras, road cameras, credit card purchases, witnesses, and now from mobile service providers. I agree that privacy erosion is real, but you argument was not convincing.

> All criminal investigations start with group of innocent people. That's the only way to investigate.

Agreed. Also, all methods of gathering evidence from a group of innocent people are not legal. So let's take your examples one at a time:

> Police collects data from security cameras,

If a proprietor wishes to give the police footage. If not, they need a warrant in the U.S. to search them. If the police asked for a general warrant to go collect footage from everyone's security cameras in the same area it would probably have been denied, no?

> road cameras,

Agreed.

> credit card purchases,

Citation needed for local law enforcement getting a general warrant to run a credit card purchase history search "so expansive in time and geography that it had the potential to gather data on tens of thousands of Minnesotans."

> witnesses,

Again, citation needed where police can force tens of thousands of witnesses to answer questions and/or submit relevant data to the police.

> and now from mobile service providers.

Agreed.

> I agree that privacy erosion is real, but you argument was not convincing.

I agree it's not very persuasive, but neither is your counterargument. I'd like to have a deeper discussion about what triggers a violation of constitutional rights, and how to design technology that doesn't threaten to erode those protections.

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#163

Post by martin_a »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #153
jasonjayr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that protest @ the beginning of Trumps presidency? Or any protest that has elements that go bad? When they were seeking images of people they could recognize in order to detain/question/harass because they were in the vicinity of some mischief? It is already known that agent provocateurs are used to incite peaceful mobs. It would be no great difficulty to use a agent provocateur to give a probable cause to p…

I'll go back even further. Remember when police used honey pot wifi access points at the DAPL protests? Remember the hippie's getting beat at occupy? You don't need to lecture me. I'm with you. In fact, I participated in the Restore the 4th protests just after the Snowden leaks. What I'm saying is let's not cry wolf here. Yes surveillance technology can be used to set up a system of oppression. So can many other stat…

> That is why we have a system of courts and warrants and checks and balances etc.

The problem is that those are worth nothing if judges and courts do not understand (or don't want to) the full consequences of carelessly signing those warrants.

In Germany we have some local courts which are "famous" for being very near to the police and will often rule against your personal freedom or accept half-cooked "evidence" from copyright holders (rather their shady lawyers) for purposes of spamigation and alike.

You can't trust in the court system to rule in favor of freedom here.

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#164

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

turc1656 wrote: post #151
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement will just go to the carriers who have your rough location data regardless of your GPS settings. They probably aren't keeping detailed tracklogs like Google today but I'm sure some fat government contracts can fix that.

Yes, but that gives them tower connectivity only. Which is very, very general in terms of location unless you triangulate the location in real-time. And even then, you have to be connected to at least 3 towers at once for that to be accurate, which to my knowledge is not how phones operate. So they will only get the very rough location based on which tower you were connected to and when. In any modestly populated are…

I wouldn't trust that GPS is actually off for the baseband processor when you set it off. This is key for the real time location tracking by phone number.

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#165

Post by treis »

mtgx wrote: post #135
IIAOPSWmobile wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh come on. we're not talking about mass survaliance here. this is a clear cut case of a warrant, deacribing the place or thing to be searched and or the persons to be siezed, issued by a judge presented with probable cause.im weary of state overreach too but this isnt it.

The judges are not made aware how many people will be affected by this. In fact the FBI has often hid the scope of Stingray operations from judges for precisely this reason.

>The judges are not made aware how many people will be affected by this.

Only one person was affected by it. The initial request was for anonymized data and the subsequent request for actual data was made for only one specific person.

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#167

Post by tomschlick »

geggam wrote: post #146
antris wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The country with the greatest personal liberty, currently probably the US, is consistently a place that people would choose to live if they had a choice You haven't been around the world very much, have you? I wouldn't say that many people in the Nordic countries, for example, would choose to move to the US. If they do, liberty is certainly not among the reasons why.

I have visted a few countries. In the US you have the potential to make more money but you damn sure arent more free. Even Mexico has more freedoms

> Even Mexico has more freedoms

Citation needed.

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#168

Post by justjash »

clort wrote: post #46

"Most human beings can't interpret large strings of numbers and GPS coordinates without a map to illustrate them, and judges are no exception," said Nathan Freed Wessler, an attorney for the national American Civil Liberties Union. One would hope though (clearly not, in this case) that a judge would be motivated to recognise when they were unable to interpret data like this that they were given, and request that it b…

You would hope, but I bet it rarely happens. I've only been in a courtroom once and hope to never have to deal with that again. Its a real let down seeing how decisions are made so quickly.

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#169

Post by Jerry2 »

knolan wrote: post #23

Several years ago while living in London we had a visit from the police because they were able to access my partner’s Oyster travel card registration details — she had provided her home address and I hadn’t. They were following up on an apparently minor assault and pulled tbe Oyster card details for everyone on a specific train. Considering this is a city with ubiquitous CCTV, smart phones are just another data sourc…

>Considering this is a city with ubiquitous CCTV, smart phones are just another data source.

London is quickly becoming one of the most dystopian cities in the world. I recently read a story [0] how London police are now face-scanning pedestrians and you are not allowed to cover up you face. If you protest this scanning, you're issued a £90 fine. You're basically treated like cattle.

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recogniti...

Re: “Reverse location” search warrants identify all cellphones near a crime scene

#170

Post by fixermark »

renholder wrote: post #52

> He noted that even if it did target the wrong person, "it doesn't mean they're going to get convicted or arrested, it just gives the detective a look at who could be involved." ...because no case has ever been so righteously pursued, with such a vigorous degree of righteous indignation, that an innocent person was ever thrown in prison[0], yeah? This blasé attitude about sweeping-up data of innocent people is preci…

The risk of a false positive is nonzero, but how does it balance against the value of a true-negative? Given that alternatives the police have include "picking up anyone who just looks like they might be a perpetrator" (which all too often translates to racist policing), is there value to communities (especially communities with past racial policing concerns) of tools that tell the cops it's probably not any of the people the system doesn't identify (or identifies as affirmatively not in the area of interest)?
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