FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by Drip33 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #8

>"And they can actually pinpoint on Google Maps exactly where you were standing. Like, he knew where I was standing on the sidewalk, like specifically, based on my cell phone ping." You don't get that level of granularity by merely triangulating cell tower pings. Sounds like they got GPS location data from people's Google accounts.

I have access to some marketing data and for fun,

select * from mobile_location where latitude between 38.88778433380732 and 38.891917997746894 and longitude between -77.01269830654866 and -77.00613225870377 and epoch_timestamp between 1609954200 and 1610067600

Returned quite a number of mobile devices accurate to the meter. Was fun to see which phone was in which room or blade of grass of the building. I'm not even American.

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

#152

Post by stretchcat » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

KMag wrote: post #149

stretchcat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight correction: Legal automatic weapons. It is hard to estimate how many people have or could retrofit semiautomatic weapons into automatic weapons illegally. There are public plans for such modifications floating around the net, and at least some of them actually work, with some guns. And that's not counting the quasi-automatic stuff like bumpstocks or gimmicky 'trigger cranks.' I once met somebody who wears a li…

I think the risk-to-reward ratio is pretty low for having an illegal automatic weapon. It takes a lot of trigger discipline even for average trained soldiers to not to quickly waste most of their ammo with fully automatic weapons. Then again, just because it's not smart doesn't mean people don't do it.

It really depends on what their objectives are; what they think they might accomplish by having an automatic rifle. There are a wide array of tactical objectives, some better served by automatic weapons than others. Consider particularly the different tactical objectives terrorists and soldiers might have. Particularly, soldiers need more discipline because they're likely to be fighting people who can fight back. Having bullets come back at you would surely fray the nerves.

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

#153

Post by adrr » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

olah_1 wrote: post #59

This makes me appreciate kill switches more on the librem five phone. And it also makes sense why Apple doesn’t want you to be able to fully disable wifi on your phone.

Most common use case of disabling Wifi is when you're at a range where wifi traffic is so degraded that you're better off using the cell network. Thats why it is temporary from the control center but you can disable permanently in settings.

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

#154

Post by ForHackernews » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

guilhas wrote: post #120

ForHackernews wrote: post #67

It blows my mind that a bunch of conspiracy-minded folks (the sort of people who won't get a vaccine because they think it contains a tracking chip from Bill Gates) would stage an insurrection and not turn their phones off! Honestly, what did they think was going to happen? As the saying goes, "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." You don't get to fail miserably at your coup and then go back home to your re…

Because no one was there for an insurrection. Thats a conspiracy theory by mainstream media and the democrats

What euphemism do you prefer for trying to overturn the result of democratic election using violence?

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

#155

Post by KMag » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

stretchcat wrote: post #152

KMag wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the risk-to-reward ratio is pretty low for having an illegal automatic weapon. It takes a lot of trigger discipline even for average trained soldiers to not to quickly waste most of their ammo with fully automatic weapons. Then again, just because it's not smart doesn't mean people don't do it.

It really depends on what their objectives are; what they think they might accomplish by having an automatic rifle. There are a wide array of tactical objectives, some better served by automatic weapons than others. Consider particularly the different tactical objectives terrorists and soldiers might have. Particularly, soldiers need more discipline because they're likely to be fighting people who can fight back. Hav…

Point taken, but I think most people tempted to have illegal automatic weapons are the paranoid home defense crowd, not the massacring unarmed civilians crowd. They're probably imagining having to use them against SWAT and military.

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

#156

Post by nexthash » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

diebeforei485 wrote: post #124

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.

Could you share some resources with more information on this- how does it increase granularity?

Here's Verizon's explainer [1] about how 5G works. Basically, since the frequencies needed to transmit large amounts of data are so high (28 - 39 GHz millimeter wavelength bands), the signal does not reach as far as a 4G tower. Therefore, a higher density of towers is needed (500 feet apart to effectively penetrate buildings [2]), allowing for higher granularity cell-phone triangulation/tracking as a by-product.

[1] https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-far-does-5g-reach

[2] https://www.celltowerleaseexperts.com/cell-tower-lease-news/...

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

#157

Post by ggm » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

guilhas wrote: post #120

ForHackernews wrote: post #67

It blows my mind that a bunch of conspiracy-minded folks (the sort of people who won't get a vaccine because they think it contains a tracking chip from Bill Gates) would stage an insurrection and not turn their phones off! Honestly, what did they think was going to happen? As the saying goes, "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." You don't get to fail miserably at your coup and then go back home to your re…

Because no one was there for an insurrection. Thats a conspiracy theory by mainstream media and the democrats

This isn't reddit, so the /s has to be presumed.

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

#158

Post by iamacyborg » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

Drip33 wrote: post #151

DebtDeflation wrote: post #8

>"And they can actually pinpoint on Google Maps exactly where you were standing. Like, he knew where I was standing on the sidewalk, like specifically, based on my cell phone ping." You don't get that level of granularity by merely triangulating cell tower pings. Sounds like they got GPS location data from people's Google accounts.

I have access to some marketing data and for fun, select * from mobile_location where latitude between 38.88778433380732 and 38.891917997746894 and longitude between -77.01269830654866 and -77.00613225870377 and epoch_timestamp between 1609954200 and 1610067600 Returned quite a number of mobile devices accurate to the meter. Was fun to see which phone was in which room or blade of grass of the building. I'm not even…

Yeah, that raises a whole bunch of other ethical questions though, like why you’re able to do this, what access to PII you have and why you’re able to run queries like this on a Saturday.

I hope your employers keeps track of stuff like this.

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

#159

Post by DennisP » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

trident5000 wrote: post #148

vehemenz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It is possible to believe in law enforcement and the curbing of privacy-invading legislation at the same time.

Actually no. You cannot believe in curbing privacy-invading legislation and also cheer on warantless mass cell phone location tracking at the same time. You need to pick one.

Great: no surveillance

Not so great: surveillance on everyone and catching criminals with it, but within a democratic framework

Disastrous: surveillance on everyone, while giving a pass to insurgents attempting to overthrow democratic governance, because if they take over the surveillance infrastructure you're doomed

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

#160

Post by ramraj07 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 8:35 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #33

Forensic methods used by police and intelligence go much deeper than just looking at phones near the crime scene. 1. They look at phones moving towards the crime scene and going dark when getting close. This is also how you can detect secret meetings between people. They move towards the same area and shut down their phones. 2. They look at suspect phone going dark anywhere around the time of the incident. 3. Leaving…

3 could also be perfect. Call your friend, let him come pick your phone up and show it a good time, while you go commit a crime, perfect alibi!