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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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The question is what the non-crime use case is. I can't think of such a thing. In any event, having your phone in an uber with a bunch of other phones and not following "normal" uber ride patterns would be yet another detectable pattern.

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

#192

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

> The fact that all protestors are being tracked

If the riotors in Portland decided to travel to DC en masse to take down the US government, to hang members of Congress, you betchya it would be the same.

I condemn all violence but there is a major difference of the context.

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

#193

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

FBI targets the left pretty extensively as well. COINTELPRO says hello, first of all. Other sources:

- https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/06/the-fbi-has-identified-...

- https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/fbi-survei...

- https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/fbi-...

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

#194

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

Wow you're dumb as a box of rocks. Do you not remember the unmarked federal agents whisking away protestors? Or do you not have the nuance to understand the difference between protesting oppression and committing an act of sedition?

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

#195

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

Cell phone location data does not imply person is guilty and people will get their day in court if the FBI actually determines they've committed something illegal.

This is similar to 2011 England riots where end result was "By 15 August 2011 around 3,100 people had been arrested, of whom over 1,100 had appeared in court"

As I remember, they went pretty hard in England as well, a judge stated that "an overwhelming obligation on sentencing courts to do what they can to ensure the protection of the public", that "the imposition of severe sentences, intended to provide both punishment and deterrence, must follow" and that "[t]hose who deliberately participate in disturbances of this magnitude, causing injury and damage and fear to even the most stout-hearted of citizens, and who individually commit further crimes during the course of the riots are committing aggravated crimes".

Also, what do you expect them to do after 2 police officers were killed on tape, one lady got killed by her stupidity, pipe bombs found, imbeciles looking for Pelosi to hang... Computers with potentially sensitive data stolen... and god knows what foreign agents could have taken/compromised just blending in...

What would you do if you were in charge of the investigation?

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

#196

The big deal here is not the technology, it is that the FBI is involved in tracking participation of a protest. For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime. Most of the people who went to DC did so peacefully…

The activity at the Capitol clearly went beyond the bounds of what I’d call a protest. Furthermore, as a resident in an area which saw destruction by left-leaning groups, I believe those individuals should also be prosecuted.

I don’t think this has anything to do with “right” or “left”, it has to do with illegally breaking into the Capitol, especially while congress was present. A group of left leaning trespassers would likely have seen, and deserved, a similar response.

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

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]…

Well GPS is 1.2 to 1.5GZ and you can get accuracy to a few meters easily. I have a higher end module that gets down to a meter[1]. Seems obvious that G4 which uses roughly same frequencies but with cell towers vastly closer than a GPS satellite could get 1M.

[1] Give it a few minutes and it'll pin point where my desk is inside my office.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course. All privacy is like that. All encryptions is like that.

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

#199

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?

Maybe... phone walkers who scrape your data while charging and hand it over to the cops?

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 raises a very interesting and somewhat concerning possibility. In the near future as AI develops more in the crime detection arena you may become a suspect for crimes occurring in your geographical area based on things you are not doing or based on some set of states your smart devices have that match a statistical model of a suspicious person. The idea of becoming a suspect because you didn’t touch your smartphone…

ML is really good at picking up anomalies, and that is scary if, say, law enforcement or prosecutors are doing dragnet surveillance for anomalies in order to drum up charges.

it's inherently scary if one is somewhat anomalous in behavior.
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