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FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

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Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#41

Post by zekica »

foolfoolz wrote: post #26

every few seconds your phone (if not in airplane mode) will contact all base stations whiting in range and send a globally unique identifier to it. it doesn’t matter if the base station is for your company or if it’s fake (stingray). even if the tower does not give you access, maybe it’s not the company you’re a subscriber for, they still know you were in that area

This is not true:

It is true that your phone listens to control channel on currently selected base station. It is also true that your phone scans other channels relatively frequently to see if a better signal is available, but unless the phone decides (based on data received from the network) to switch to another base station, it will only talk to the network about once or twice per hour.

The network can ping the phone if it wants (and does so whenever there is something to be signalled, or if law enforcement decides to).

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#42

Post by sneak »

gibrown wrote: post #4
sneak wrote: post #2

Presumably this also includes journalists and other people the government has no business tracking. At what point will people say enough is enough to these kinds of insane overreaches?

Huh? Insane? The capitol was assaulted in order to prevent the democratically elected president. An actual insurrection which maybe had some attempted assassination and theft/sale of national security secrets mixed in. Seems like a pretty reasonable response.

I don't see how putting everyone in a huge radius, journalists and those otherwise uninvolved included, under investigative suspicion and location surveillance to respond to what is only charitably described as an insurrection (the group was almost entirely unarmed) is in any way reasonable.

It seems like a massive overreaction. If we're truly interested in democracy and the rule of law, we'd do well to not shred our standard democratic and legal procedures (such as the presumption of innocence, and the fourth amendment's prohibition on searches without probable cause) the instant a few thousand angry, unarmed yahoos show up with pitchforks and banners and achieve precisely nothing.

We shouldn't even do that if a few thousand armed, trained people show up, with the express intent of doing battle, taking control, and holding territory (which, again, to be clear, is not what happened). We absolutely should not do it when a bunch of idiot yahoos break windows and set off fire extinguishers and steal shit.

Even had the building burned to the ground, universal surveillance such as this would not be a proportionate reaction.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#43

Post by thebruce87m »

pjc50 wrote: post #31

"Access denied"? (UK) Anyway, we're now going to see what happens when the huge post-Patriot act homeland security machinery is turned on people who thought they were untouchable, and all of a sudden a lot of powers that everyone was OK being used against nebulous "enemies" are going to end up in the news.

outline.com to the rescue:

https://outline.com/sf9LfV

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#44

Post by mindslight »

sneak wrote: post #2

Presumably this also includes journalists and other people the government has no business tracking. At what point will people say enough is enough to these kinds of insane overreaches?

If the technical capability exists, it is going to be abused. And there is no better catalyst for (ab)use than attacking congresscritters' personal safety.

These latest techno-authoritarian actions are best seen as effects from having lost the battle, rather than another front. For decades, clued in people have been droning on about the insecurity of cell phones allowing them to be persistently tracked by the network, the MITM-idiocy of webapps, etc. The best time to get people to care is before there is some real tangible threat that will make them seek the comfort of authoritarianism, but yet crickets. I blame the sheer amount of money behind big tech, making tech people turn a blind eye to the faults of centralized technology while pushing shiny-but-flawed technologies to the masses.

After something happens? Well of course the power structure wants to unlock phones, track phones, censor speech, etc. At this point, buckle up - political activism on the subject is done, or at least on pause for quite some time.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#45

Post by tiziniano »

gibrown wrote: post #4
sneak wrote: post #2

Presumably this also includes journalists and other people the government has no business tracking. At what point will people say enough is enough to these kinds of insane overreaches?

Huh? Insane? The capitol was assaulted in order to prevent the democratically elected president. An actual insurrection which maybe had some attempted assassination and theft/sale of national security secrets mixed in. Seems like a pretty reasonable response.

Not to be a grammar nazi, but I fail to see how this sentence works "The capitol was assaulted in order to prevent the democratically elected president." On an emotional level, I can see how you see it as a threat to your illusions. Someone was trying to prevent your president from existing. It does sound scary and fits in line with the gnostic thought pervading the American left. "The world is broken, but we will fix it, and it will be not broken then." (Cue the unicorns...)

Now, addressing the actual proposition (short of an argument): Where was the "actual insurrection" and where is the evidence for "attempted assassinations" and "theft/sale of national secrets". I'm not a lawyer and certainly not in your jurisdiction, but it is apparent that you possess evidence of these three things. Hence, I urge you to contact the appropriate law enforcement and share your findings.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#46

Post by maxerickson »

taneq wrote: post #30
caseysoftware wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"More guns" is right. I watched it live and then dug through the videos, selfies, etc after and inside the Capitol, I found one guy who might have had a gun. The other weapons appear to have been convenient - a fire extinguisher, flags, etc. It looks less and less like an "insurrection" and more like jackasses doing jackass things.

This is a good point - this is the same group that is very gun rights focused and has been wandering around the streets armed with automatic weapons. It's kind of weird to see them without guns.

I don't know what the framework was, but open carry wasn't allowed prior to the rally.

This article quotes the police chief saying as much:

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/protests/march-for-t...

I would also expect anyone coming from the rally had been through some security screening.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#47

Post by fennecfoxen »

pjc50 wrote: post #31

"Access denied"? (UK) Anyway, we're now going to see what happens when the huge post-Patriot act homeland security machinery is turned on people who thought they were untouchable, and all of a sudden a lot of powers that everyone was OK being used against nebulous "enemies" are going to end up in the news.

GDPR'd?

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#48

Post by NDizzle »

ghouse wrote: post #22
NDizzle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were reacting to their voting rights being taken away. Seems like a better response than vandalizing a Starbucks.

Were they reacting to their voting rights being taken away, or reacting to having been led to believe that their voting rights were taken away? I have seen no credible evidence that they were disenfranchised.

Well, we can't investigate because the ballots have already been shredded and the voting machines have already been re-imaged. Despite there being laws on the books that cover one, if not both of those cases, making it illegal to do those things.

I guess that means nothing fishy was going on!

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#49

Post by ev1 »

tiagod wrote: post #32
ev1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5G significantly increases granularity by a metric shit ton, and if they were continually pinging in the same area, eventually you end up with roughly one zone.

Who the hell has a 5G device?

Probably anyone that has signed a contract that came with a free phone in the last year and a half, anyone upgrading iPhones.

Lower cost prepaid carriers are also pushing 5G phones heavily (albeit somewhat crappy ones), and offering them for free.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#50

Post by [deleted] »

tobylane wrote: post #39
tiagod wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who the hell has a 5G device?

I’m guessing people who flew into DC on a weekday are more likely than average to own a decent smartphone. QAnon folk don’t seem to avoid mainstream technology in the quantity HN users do.

[deleted]
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