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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

#241

Post by taneq »

vkou wrote: post #53
taneq wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah, you can be followed by a guy in a trenchcoat too, no matter what your phone's privacy settings are.

The difference between cell tower triangulation, and Google/Apple services tracking your location is small. The difference between cell tower triangulation, and being followed by a guy in a trenchcoat is not. In fact, there's a number of categorical differences between the first two, and the third. 1. The first two are automated. 2. The first two are recorded in a computer-searchable database. 3. The first two, by na…

Fair points. I was trying to illustrate that there are plenty of ways other than phones which can track people, but as you say, the guy in the trenchcoat doesn't scale. Better examples would be ubiquitous cameras with facial or number plate recognition.

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

#242

Post by SamReidHughes »

bloak wrote: post #236
coldtea wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How often does someone carrying out a planned crime carry a phone with them that is switched on, these days? Almost all of the time.

Do you have a source for that? I read somewhere how the police once solved a crime by analysing a cigarette butt left behind in a stolen car, but within a few years it was quite common for them to find that a stolen car had its ashtray filled with cigarette butts apparently taken from a public ashtray: even joyriders were clever enough to thus outwit forensics. So it would seem weird to me if armed robbers or profess…

Professionals, sure. Drug cartels use the information revealed in trials to adjust their tactics. But a lot of people are amateur criminals. Even professional criminals, like some CIA spies in recent years, get discovered because of their cell phone use (or habitual lack of cell phone use).

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

#243

Post by fixermark »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #231
fixermark wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic choice of examples, because lacking these tools, you've just identified the tool the police tend to fall back on. We can build algorithms to avoid racial bias, with awareness and effort. How confident are you we can train cops to do the same?

> We can build algorithms to avoid racial bias, with awareness and effort. How confident are you we can train cops to do the same? How confident are you that we can build algorithms to do that? You can't just flatten the probability distribution based on race when many of the legitimate factors are correlated with it, any more than you could do so for gender or age or nationality. Unless you want an absurd false posi…

I believe the article clarifies that this system (much like its sibling, DNA database mining) is used to narrow the search space so that traditional (and comparatively more expensive) sleuthing can find the evidence needed for a conviction. The dragnet is, in a sense, more ruling people out than ruling people in.

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

#244

Post by fixermark »

alistairSH wrote: post #237
fixermark wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic choice of examples, because lacking these tools, you've just identified the tool the police tend to fall back on. We can build algorithms to avoid racial bias, with awareness and effort. How confident are you we can train cops to do the same?

We can build algorithms to avoid racial bias Can we? Those algorithms are built/trained by humans with biases - how can you be sure we can build/train AI to avoid those same biases?

It's an excellent open question. I'd argue that relative to training it out of humans, we have a glimmer of hope of building algorithms that avoid racial bias because you can always bust an algorithm open and "examine its entrails," and the same can't be done with human thinking.

... but it's not categorically, definitely better, just more likely to be so.

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

#245

Post by aussieguy1234 »

So the police have a list of 1000 people who were near a crime scene. Next step is to narrow it down - racial profiling, who has a criminal record... Young people are statistically more likely to commit violent crime, that's probably taken into account.

It might be wise to turn off location if you belong to any minority group.

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

#246

Post by coldtea »

bloak wrote: post #236
coldtea wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How often does someone carrying out a planned crime carry a phone with them that is switched on, these days? Almost all of the time.

Do you have a source for that? I read somewhere how the police once solved a crime by analysing a cigarette butt left behind in a stolen car, but within a few years it was quite common for them to find that a stolen car had its ashtray filled with cigarette butts apparently taken from a public ashtray: even joyriders were clever enough to thus outwit forensics. So it would seem weird to me if armed robbers or profess…

>In online discussions there are always people who claim that criminals are idiots, but I don't think that's accurate. I reckon that when it comes to crime, most criminals are in effect a lot more intelligent than I am with my elite university degree and so on.

Career criminals (mob, drug cartels, etc) yes.

But people who commit random premeditated crimes are more often than not (judging from trial) in "Fargo" movie territory, and most smaller criminals (e.g. gang members, methheads, etc) are dumber than cotton.

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

#247

Post by will4274 »

jancsika wrote: post #162
nabla9 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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?

No, probably not.

The last aerial photo, with a gas station, the police would certainly be able to get warrants for security cameras for the whole area. Warrants require only reasonable belief that they would lead to evidence of a crime. All cameras pointed at the location that a crime was committed would be reasonably likely to contain footage of the robber.

The earlier photos, with 2-5 blocks of coverage, it's less clear, but still likely that the police would be able to get a warrant. The perps driving the get-away car is evidence and cops only need to show that there is a reason to believe that the camera footage shows a glimpse of the get-away car to get the footage.

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

#248

Post by knolan »

Jerry2 wrote: post #169
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.u…

I was there during the riots, the extra police from up the country had their breakfast at our canteen in Imperial. It was surreal. Closest thing I’ve seen was when US troops used Shannon airport en masses during the Iraq war.

When I got off the tube at my stop way out in zone 4 they had a surveillance van covered in cameras and other gear with a big LED display on the side with the words “WE ARE WATCHING”. It could be a strange place.

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

#249

Post by jcranberry »

salawat wrote: post #219
jcranberry wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is unproductive and ridiculous. 1. Histrionic comparison to a dystopian novel. 2. Calling people who disagree with you "naive fools". 3. Evoking this category of "nothing to hide" strawmen. This information can only be attained by a warrant, and doesn't change the fact that you are tried before a judge, by a jury of your peers. Furthermore, Police are funded by local governments with locally elected offi…

At this point, you're gaslighting. The procedure creates a means that can be exploited for fishing expeditions. The details of exploitability have been well enumerated in previously given literary examples. Every infrastructural/institutional mechanism we implement or allow to be implemented is an undeniable weapon . Just as some people may be nervous when others do something perfectly legal (walking around with a fi…

Claiming I'm gaslighting is absurd and blatant rhetoric. It is reasonable for me to ask how the state can exploit the system in such a way which somehow defeats or undermines the checks on exploitation.

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

#250

Post by LeftTurnSignal »

bloak wrote: post #236
coldtea wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How often does someone carrying out a planned crime carry a phone with them that is switched on, these days? Almost all of the time.

Do you have a source for that? I read somewhere how the police once solved a crime by analysing a cigarette butt left behind in a stolen car, but within a few years it was quite common for them to find that a stolen car had its ashtray filled with cigarette butts apparently taken from a public ashtray: even joyriders were clever enough to thus outwit forensics. So it would seem weird to me if armed robbers or profess…

I've worked with a few small town USA type law enforcement agencies. No big city ones, so think towns around a few thousand people total, or a county with 15k people total. This won't reflect the majority of the US, but it does seem to reflect the majority of arrests in this location.

A lot of criminals (again, around here at least) are that stupid. The detectives have solved many cases just by searching for the suspects name on Facebook. Some examples were: seeing the stolen items right in their profile pic, drugs with the suspect standing there while holding a gun, a video of a friend recording someone breaking into a car, hell, they had to get CPS involved because a parent had a video of them hitting (it was hitting, not disciplining) their own child. All of that just on Facebook. The hardest they had to work to get those pictures was add them as a friend under a fake profile.

Now career criminals are a completely different beast. The law enforcement here (luckily) doesn't have many or any "advanced" criminals around here. There are definitely plenty of low hanging fruit here to keep law enforcement busy, and being in small town USA, once they know who you are, they KNOW who you are and who you hang out with.

The detectives always said that if most of these people left their phone at home, didn't take any pictures, and didn't tell their friends about what they did, that crime may not get much priority (or any) depending on what the crime was.

I don't have raw data to back that up, but it does happen here. I do agree with you about the career criminals though, but there are still A LOT of stupid people out there or maybe it's something in the water here.

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