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Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

theintercept.com

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Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#121

Post by jccc »

jpollock wrote: post #110
jccc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it enough that a few people like this simply turn their backs and walk away to different work? I would think their vacancies would be quickly and easily filled. Is there really a shortage of people willing and able to do this kind of work for these companies and government agencies? I'm asking because I truly don't know. And if not, could we think of some other ways people in these positions could exert some influ…

Yes it has an effect. In a tight labour market, any restriction on the number of people who are willing to do your work will increase your costs. Eventually, you might start to ask "why" and change some things to bring the costs back in line. For example, I know lots of people (including me), who refused interviews with Uber post harassment revelations.

I understand that in principle it could have an effect, and I understand how.

I'm questioning whether that market for developers really is tight enough to matter, whether employers and top policy makers would even notice that some number of people withhold their skills in protest.

I'm wondering if perhaps there are other more powerful ways for these developers to exert their influence, whether in these positions or outside of them.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#122

Post by ghaff »

sbierwagen wrote: post #98
helios_invictus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should not have to be good at opsec or economically advantaged to be able to demonstrate.

Then don't bring a cell phone to a protest?

It would certainly seem as if far and away the easiest and best opsec is to not have your phone on you or at least not turned on. Have people really become so dependent on their phones that the thought of being somewhere without one doesn't even come up as an option? I'd certainly at least turn my phone or a burner phone off before depending on not being compromised.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#123

Post by ideals »

function_seven wrote: post #46
boring_twenties wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Android, enter \ #\ #4636#\ #\ in the dialer. Then select "LTE only." (This will prevent 3G as well as 2G) edit: You gotta be kidding me with this formatting. Replace backslashes with asterisks.

My apologies if this comes out garbled. Trying something... ∗#∗#4636#∗#∗

Before I entered a random string into my phone I did a quick search which pulls up a bunch of other dialer commands for Android. It's pretty interesting

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1468/do-you-know...

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#124

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

pvaldes wrote: post #37
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a doco last night where researchers put a sounding beacon inside a shark. Inside it! They said something like "these sharks are used to cuts and scrapes and heal quickly." It's no wonder people don't immediately associate their phone with a locating beacon.

Maybe I'm not translating correctly "sounding beacon", but I would assume that what you see was just an (I don't know the exact term) "electronic tag". This is standard procedure in ecology, veterinary and animal husbandry. We did it sometimes. Is a rice grain size object, and does not left any noticeable scar in fishes.

All good, I don’t have any issue with attaching or implanting tracking devices for research purposes in what looks like a wholly harmless way.

From what they were saying, it emitted a ping every ten minutes, wasn’t entirely clear if it was acoustic or radio. Shark didn’t seem to mind.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#126

Post by mellow2020 »

dang wrote: post #109
mellow2020 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't change rape by being a good rapist. All that serves IMO is to normalize being an accomplice and doing evil things with good intentions. > People have a series of rationalizations. People say for example that science and technology have their own logic, that they are in fact autonomous. This particular rationalization is profoundly false. It is not true that science marches on in defiance of human will, inde…

Would you please stop posting generic ideological comments to HN? It looks like you've been doing it repeatedly. It's against the site guidelines because it leads to repetitive threads which are tedious at best and nasty at worst. This site is supposed to be for curious conversation and those things are not compatible. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Would you please stop posting generic ideological comments to HN?

If you explain to me how the comment I replied to isn't just as generic, and what you mean by "ideological" that is present in my comment and not in the parent, sure.

You allow a claim, coated in "wondering", an old chestnut trotted out time and time again -- and don't the clear refuting of it, by one of the greats in the field? There are no principles here you are applying fairly, it's utterly arbitrary. My point stands. Graying it out just adds the data that some people would rather bury and smear it, than learn. That's on them.

And no, it doesn't lead to any conversation of any kind, because agreement is expressed in upvotes, and I doubt anyone can muster a coherent rebuttal. I don't see you trying either, you just say what would have happened, if you hadn't made replying impossible. Weizenbaum is correct, and apparently, some people cannot let that stand.

> It's against the site guidelines because it leads to repetitive threads which are tedious at best and nasty at worst.

Which part of them?

> This site is supposed to be for curious conversation and those things are not compatible.

Saying "it" and "those things" doesn't make up for a clear definition of them.

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#127

Post by dang »

mellow2020 wrote: post #126
dang wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop posting generic ideological comments to HN? It looks like you've been doing it repeatedly. It's against the site guidelines because it leads to repetitive threads which are tedious at best and nasty at worst. This site is supposed to be for curious conversation and those things are not compatible. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Would you please stop posting generic ideological comments to HN? If you explain to me how the comment I replied to isn't just as generic, and what you mean by "ideological" that is present in my comment and not in the parent, sure. You allow a claim, coated in "wondering", an old chestnut trotted out time and time again -- and don't the clear refuting of it, by one of the greats in the field? There are no principl…

Actually I missed that you were linking to a 1985 article by Weizenbaum. I agree, that's more interesting. Had I seen that I probably wouldn't have replied to you here.

On the other hand:

(1) "You can't change rape by being a good rapist" is just flamebait. Please don't.

(2) Your account has mostly been posting in ideological arguments and it all looks pretty generic to me. Please don't do that either.

If you want an explanation about why we don't want generic discussion on HN, and above all not generic ideological discussion, there are plenty at these links:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#128

Post by Negitivefrags »

Random story: I once saw an one of the vans for the local ISP driving around wtih a box labeled "Stingray" and got all excited.

Picture here: https://imgur.com/a/P1nPSD2

Turns out that "Stingray" is also the name of a system for air-blown optic fiber installation.

Personally I would have avoided the reuse of that particular name for anything in telecommunications because it has somewhat dark connotations already!

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#129

Post by closeparen »

sbierwagen wrote: post #98
helios_invictus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should not have to be good at opsec or economically advantaged to be able to demonstrate.

Then don't bring a cell phone to a protest?

Are there documented examples of people in the US facing repercussions because they were known to have been at a protest?

Re: Stingrays and Dirtboxes: how cops can secretly track your phone

#130

Post by dylan604 »

jdefr89 wrote: post #19

Hey. Someone who briefly worked on the Stingray team here. I left the company that develops the stingray (who’s name is mentioned in the article but I shall not say it) because I didn’t feel comfortable with the ethics of how it could potentially be easily abused without legal permission and/or repercussion. I fear these technologies will become more commonly used against Americans by low level law enforcement withou…

What kind of NDAs did they force on you? It's one thing to walk away silently, but you know they just filled your role with someone else with less morals.

The other option is scorched earth similar to the recent news articles where there were blog posts publicly shaming the company. Wondering what kind of in between options are available. Anonymous posts are a start at least to get the inquisitive types to look in that direction and/or add some weight to previous anonymous posts.

Edit: just read further down the list, and see others have essentially asked the same thing

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