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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

#161

Post by vmception »

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…

Regarding 3 I’ve been thinking of launching a courier service for this that would pollute data on a wide scale.

Basically a “phone walking” service that also charges your phone.

Could just be a side gig for Uber drivers, having phone lock boxes in their cars. The infrastructure is already there, phone lock boxes for charging exist in airports and nightclubs. This would be one that moves.

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

#162

Post by umvi »

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…

Well during covid my phone doesn't leave home 99% of the time, so that wouldn't tell them anything.

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

#163

Post by grumple »

vmception wrote: post #161
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…

Regarding 3 I’ve been thinking of launching a courier service for this that would pollute data on a wide scale. Basically a “phone walking” service that also charges your phone. Could just be a side gig for Uber drivers, having phone lock boxes in their cars. The infrastructure is already there, phone lock boxes for charging exist in airports and nightclubs. This would be one that moves.

Is there a use for this that isn’t to enable criminals?

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

#164

Post by vsareto »

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.

Kill switches seem a bit silly against the US government. If you're doing something that drastic, it's probably better to take pains to organize without any electronics on you at all.

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

#165

Post by 01100011 »

hourislate wrote: post #82

All cells phones, at all times, are tracked everywhere. I'm sure there are 1000's of cameras that are also used to capture visual data (in DC area). Every person flying (domestic/international) is already tracked. MC/VISA/Bank/ATM records are tracked. Every txt, post, voice call, letter you send, package you receive, is tracked (OCR's). Your vehicle is tracked via programs like Onstar, etc, even if you don't sign up…

Yeah but the funny thing is that these surveillance networks never actually seem to be used to solve normal crimes. Is it laziness on the part of the police? Are they trying to reserve these systems for more serious crimes so we forget they exist? Is it just a matter of time before police culture catches up and we see license plate readers, cell phone records, CCTV networks, etc used to track down petty thieves and robbers?

Last year the police were begging for help to solve some of the gun store robberies that happened during the BLM unrest. Why did they need the public's help? They could have checked cell phone records, stitched together traffic camera video, and likely tracked down the suspects within weeks.

I think the most likely scenario is that we gave all these tools to create a surveillance state, but the bureaucracy is too lazy to use them.

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

#166

Post by breck »

syshum wrote: post #101
breck wrote: post #40

This is cool! Good job on the FBI. Remember it's a good thing to have phones be pinging. 1. I want to be billed correctly 2. If my service drops often in a certain geo, I want engineers to be able to pinpoint exactly where the problem is and fix it. 3. If I get attacked by a shark, I want to provide breadcrumbs for rescuers to find me. 4. If my wife accuses me of going to the arcade, it is important that my dog runni…

This seems like an extension of "“Nothing to hide, nothing to fear” (NTHNTF) fallacy [1][2][3] [1] https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Identity-Privacy-and-Tru... [2] https://www.wired.com/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-... [3] https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/secrecy/you-may-...

Not a big deal. Good engineering demands logged pings. Not doing that would be bad engineering.

Could it be abused? Sure. But that's why we need to continue to engineer a better democracy as well.

We can do both.

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

#167

Post by asutekku »

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.

The world is not black and white. You absolutely can pick both.

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

#168

Post by throwawy4rzn »

LEO using cellphone triangulation is not new.

I worked as a network tech for one of the big providers. I was pulling tower location data for LEO regularly at request of corporate legal only. Though sometimes LEO would try to end run around and go to stores who would contact me.

I socially engineered them to believe I could not access that info without a code generated by corp legal.

Not true, of course. But hell if I was going to risk being mired in a legal fiasco for a possibly immoral investigator.

Tracking of our cellphones has been a thing since well before smartphones. Smartphones just enable it to be real time, and more granular than a tower triangulation.

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

#169

Post by selestify »

grumple wrote: post #163
vmception wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding 3 I’ve been thinking of launching a courier service for this that would pollute data on a wide scale. Basically a “phone walking” service that also charges your phone. Could just be a side gig for Uber drivers, having phone lock boxes in their cars. The infrastructure is already there, phone lock boxes for charging exist in airports and nightclubs. This would be one that moves.

Is there a use for this that isn’t to enable criminals?

I don’t see how you can have it both ways. Any privacy protections for the average law-abiding citizen is going to help out the criminals too.

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

#170

Post by phkahler »

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…

>> Leaving a phone at home that is not answering calls or creating traffic during the time of interest is also a lead (if you already have a suspect).

Interesting. My phone uses WiFi for everything by default. I wonder if they'd be able to tell (probably via Google?) If I were to leave it home for a day. On the weekend of course, since daily commute will hit the towers except for an atypical occurrence.

With such capability I feel like it's obvious they don't want to stop certain things.

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