Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

wusa9.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 516 posts

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

#291

Post by kyleblarson »

simple_phrases wrote: post #121
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…

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.

What is even scarier is the likelihood of law enforcement agencies buying tech from fly-by-night companies who will use all of the buzzwords in their sales pitches (AI, ML, big data, etc) but who have no real knowledge of such things and are just selling a shit product that will entrap innocents.

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

#292

Post by donkeyd »

BurningFrog wrote: post #207
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…

You can become a suspect for all sorts of random things you have no control over, like being near a crime, knowing certain people, etc. I don't see how it can work any other way.

Which means there will be 100 suspects where usually there would be maybe 2. Which means the data is useless and therefore won't be used.

Law enforcement doesn't want a system that incorrectly flags hundreds of people, unlike what some people seem to think. They want systems that reliably flag potential suspects, because that reduces work in stead of increasing it.

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

#293

Post by ashtonkem »

suifbwish wrote: post #77
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 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…

That’s already a thing, not a future possibility. Jogging too close to a crime can get your location subpoenaed from Google or whoever has it. Stories crop up on HN occasionally about this.

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

#295

Post by powersnail »

ficklepickle wrote: post #252
exporectomy wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already do that with their human brains. I've been stopped by the police for: - Sitting in a parked car in a suburban street for too long. - Going shopping at 2am. - Walking under a bridge at night. It's OK as long as they quickly realize you're harmless and leave you alone.

Policing in the USA, to a nearby outsider, appears to be more about enforcing societal norms than safety or laws. It seems to me they harass anyone they perceive to be abnormal. As a delightfully abnormal human, I'm very glad I was born just north of the 49th parallel. It's not perfect, but I do feel free to be myself.

Not just policing. I've found that in USA, the society in general wants to meddle with people's business.

Me and my buddy were standing on the sidewalk of a bridge, making a time lapse. Within one hour, someone called the police on us twice.

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

#296

Post by alsetmusic »

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. 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).

I wonder if there’s any value to putting a phone in airplane mode and saying you were watching a movie or having a date night with a partner. Probably only useful if someone pulled logs off a phone within a short window of time.

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

#297

Post by ashtonkem »

dcolkitt wrote: post #260
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…

And yet, violent crime this year is at a multi-decade high[1]. It's one thing to suffer the indignity of a surveillance, but it's quite another when the surveillance doesn't even deliver its purported benefits. [1] https://time.com/5922082/2020-gun-violence-homicides-record-...

It’s pretty clear that a huge percentage of police budgets have nothing to do with public safety. All one needs to do is point out how many small towns have APCs for some inexplicable reason. It’s not a huge jump to assume that a non trivial percentage of police techniques don’t have anything to do with stopping crimes either.

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

#298

Post by elliotec »

gruez wrote: post #279
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. 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). Won't most phones being left at home generate no traffic because it's connected to wifi? AFAIK most phones turn off their mobile data connection if connected to wifi. It's also not too unreasonable to have very little baseline voice traffic, since everyone's texting t…

Location and traffic data still happen over wifi of course, so I wouldn't think that's considered "gone dark"

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

#299

Post by vladTheInhaler »

nitrogen wrote: post #138
bilbo0s wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is, the time to stop that particular practice was in its infancy. Waiting until the practice is both widespread and normalized is a losing strategy. The use of cell phone data is well understood, well litigated, and for all intents and purposes, settled law. To come along and unwind all that now is sisyphaean. We need to start getting out in front of the issues. Not reacting all the time. And certainly not allo…

We need to start getting out in front of the issues. Not reacting all the time. It's kind of difficult when the privacy violations in question begin in secret. Consider police trying not to disclose their use of Stingrays, for example. I somehow doubt police departments and intelligence agencies are going to agree to run all future uses of tech by a privacy watchdog, so how do you suggest getting ahead of the problem…

Well maybe we need to go over their heads then. That's supposed to be the purpose of the legislative branch - make rules about how the government is allowed to operate.

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

#300

Post by goatinaboat »

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…

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.

They will mysteriously remember that they can do that in the next spate of unrest, now that it serves no useful purpose.

Post reply on HN