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

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

#211

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

headcanon wrote: post #193

sam_goody wrote: post #177

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-...

COINTELPRO ended in the 70s.

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

#212

Post by throwaway3699 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

Raed667 wrote: post #182

iamacyborg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does your company log every select query you do on your prod db? If yes, does it automatically raise alerts when PII is accessed? I'm genuinely asking, I have never seen such a setup.

This is standard practice at large companies with proper data controls. Usually they have a "break glass" feature for emergencies and don't let any humans access PII without a damn good reason.

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

#213

Post by kuyan » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

sam_goody wrote: post #177

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…

> 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.

I don't think this claim is accurate. Federal, state, and local law enforcement have always been happy to investigate and suppress nonviolent protest activity (much of it from the left).

Other commenters have pointed out the FBI's involvement. Other state overreactions that immediately come to mind:

- Oil companies and the North Dakota AG working with private military contractors to "defeat" peaceful protests oil pipelines https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-...

- Military surveillance technology used against peaceful graduate student protests at UC Santa Cruz https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kppna/california-police-use...

- 'The Drug Enforcement Administration has been granted sweeping new authority to “conduct covert surveillance” and collect intelligence on people participating in protests over the police killing of George Floyd, according to a two-page memorandum obtained by BuzzFeed News.' https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/george-flo...

Among others.

eta: more good reading here -- https://theintercept.com/2019/10/22/terrorism-fbi-political-...

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

#214

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #203

suifbwish wrote: post #77

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…

There's nothing wrong with that as long as the law enforcement is trustworthy and competent. We do want to catch criminals. That's the whole point of having law enforcement. It's funny that in America, people seem to have so given up on the idea of the police being honest and competent that all they want is to reduce their power. They don't seem to want reform and instead would rather suffer from crime than be invest…

Because basing the system on the assumption that police will always be honest and competent is what got us into the situation we're in. Once bitten, twice shy.

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

#215

Post by jackson1442 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

olah_1 wrote: post #141

gareim wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it also makes sense why Apple doesn’t want you to be able to fully disable wifi on your phone. If you're referring to the lack of a hardware kill switch, that's true for 99.9% of Androids too. If you're referring to the temporary WiFi off toggle in the Control Center, the reasoning is that most people don't remember they turned off WiFi (my parents for example) and won't remember to turn it back on. But you abs…

Maybe that’s new in iOS14. I remember last year seeing a Shortcut for turning off wifi completely. But even then I thought it turned itself back on randomly.

You've always been able to ask Siri or go into settings to disable wifi since the first beta of that feature; I ran it.

I think it's nice since I frequently need to tell my phone to hop to mobile data while walking around campus since it's hopping from AP to AP and the control center switch is geofenced, so when I stop walking I'm almost always outside the geofence and wifi is back on like I wanted it to be.

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

#216

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #197

nexthash wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GPS does not use triangulation.

It does some real dark arts physics wizardry to compute a position. Nothing like that can be done for cell phone signals.

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

#217

Post by convery » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

tyleo wrote: post #196

sam_goody wrote: post #177

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 wo…

There were estimates upwards of 300K people there to peacefully protest, that some people decided to enter the building does not negate the protesting. Even if social media calls for the arrest and ostracisation of everyone within a 5 mile radius.

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

#218

Post by throwaway3699 » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #209

breck wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No we cant, the US was never to be a democracy, and you can not engineer a better one We are a constitutional republic with a LIMITED government, we as a society has lost respect for those constitutional limits and instead of taking principled stands to restrict government we have taken unprincipled stands based on the outcome we desire for society Attempting to "engineer" a better society is the exact problem we hav…

This is a losing battle long term I fear. Far too many people see government as the way to push their ideology onto society as a whole.

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

#219

Post by papa_reton » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #165

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 r…

Didn't you hear of Snowden's revelations?

NSA has full access such data. The police does not.

The police cares about murders and bank robberies. NSA does not.

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

#220

Post by iamacyborg » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

_trampeltier wrote: post #202

iamacyborg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you think, most such data comes from Apps, they just ask for permission and give you no rights at all. Location data is a such business, for traffic or business. Look at this example from Thasos. The look many hours and shifts are in companys and sell the data to traders. http://thasosgroup.com/blog/thasos-data-tesla-wsj/

Just because something is being done does not mean it’s ethical. Fortunately, this is illegal in Europe.