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Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

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Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#241

Post by hedora »

1123581321 wrote: post #209
stefan_ wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we have the stats and at 30mph already a pedestrian has a low chance of survival. So there is a perfectly good case to be made that just exceeding 20mph is reckless. Maybe we just limit cars there, then at least we are not "circularly informed", whatever that means.

It means to use posted speed limits to decide what is a safe speed, rather than to evaluate the actual risk or at least have some model for what makes a number unsafe other than what the sign says. Your method, picking a number based on pedestrian survival rate, wouldn’t be that.

Ah, but posted limits are a terrible signal of safety, at least in all the states I've lived in.

One state likes speed traps for out of towners, so the speed limit is 55mph (and not enforced) on 1.5 lane gravel country roads, but 35 for four lane divided roads just outside city limits.

The other state decided to upgrade the roads in affluent cities/towns so existing speed limits would be 10-20 mph too low, but then didn't raise speed limits afterwards. So you need to know what the road budget was a few decades ago in order to compute safe speed from the speed limit signs. (Or, just use common sense...)

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#242

Post by d110af5ccf »

pdoege wrote: post #224
542458 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. Re: chipset firmware, the GPS chip and the cellular modem are typically separate and not directly connected, right? So doesn’t that mean there is necessarily something in the main phone software that’s handling passing GPS data from the gps to the modem chip on-demand from the modem firmware?

No. We would use the baseband PMIC and DMA to move the info out of the AP if they were not integrated.

I thought the kernel had the ability to restrict DMA on modern devices. But a sibling comment indicates that modems integrate GPS support these days so I guess it's irrelevant.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#243

Post by 8note »

nh2 wrote: post #147
warning26 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I don't think speed limits really should exist in any context. If you want people to go slow, design the roads for slower driving, don't just impose arbitrary limits.

Pessimise roads because people cannot stick to basic rules? That's silly. Instead, take away their ability to drive if they can't do it responsibly. If an ambulance has to go that way, you'd want that to be able to drive fast. Also, people can drive poorly on any type of road.

I'm fine with the ambulance driving safely, rather than causing more emergencies from driving too fast.

If you care about the time to get to an emergency room, get hospitals closer to people?

People can drive poorly on any road, but they'll do it more if the road guides them to misbehave.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#244

Post by dictateawayyyee »

klyrs wrote: post #216
dictateawayyyee wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is very dangerous to drive at the speed limit on a 55-65mph interstate. You'll get 18-wheelers harassing you, even if you stick to the slow lane and don't mind paying extra attention to the on-ramps every mile. And those semi trucks almost never get pulled over; their job is hard enough.

Funny, I've run that line in front of a judge, challenging a ticket for 45 in a 35 that feels like 50 should be safe. He said "That's the most lethal road in the city. Next time, turn up your radio and ignore the honking." I paid full price.

No post body was provided.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#245

Post by tomc1985 »

jameshart wrote: post #233
tomc1985 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my experience is on continental Europe, where it seemed like multilane highways topped out at 55-65 km/h. So you're probably right. No need to go on the offensive though. "Gaol" is a pretty dead giveaway of Britishness.

(Oh, and to put you out of your misery, a more recent comment by OP contains the clue: "Where I live (Aotearoa)", which suggests they're a New Zealander. So, you missed your guess by around 11,000 miles, and apparently 80 years or so in terms of English language usage.)

Slow golf clap from me I guess. Pedantry is super impressive.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#246

Post by devilbunny »

tomc1985 wrote: post #153
worik wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golly.I read that article. What a hideous person. Who drives so fast on country roads? Very selfish people who do not care about their own lives let alone the lives of others. What a good punishment! Much better than a fine. We should use short prison sentences much more for the sorts of crimes rich privileged reprobates like this do. Then the winging! It seems gaol is not pleasant. Does the writer want sympathy? Non…

The 101 through Sonoma/Humboldt/Mendocino counties is, at some places, a 2-lane highway weaving its way through a twisty curvy Redwood forest at 55-65mph, and up to 75mph when it's a six-lane highway. And here in Southern California I regularly get away with 80-85mph in front of CA highway patrol. Most places I've been to in the US seem to consider 5-10 over the limit to be acceptable. I have even heard of freeways i…

I don't know precisely what countries you're indicating, but I've driven in the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and Poland, all in the past five years. Some of the country roads had what seemed to be fairly low speed limits (e.g., 80 km/h), but freeways are much higher in general - usually 120-130 km/h.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#247

Post by devilbunny »

cycomanic wrote: post #126
cryptonector wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American highways for decades now have been designed for very high speeds, often 100mph or more, but the speed limits are set much much lower than that. Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on, and the roads are designed for natural speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so. Here in the U.S., speed limits are set to give pol…

> Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on, and the roads are designed for natural speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so. What are you talking about? With the exception of Germany all countries in Europe have maximum speed limits and I have no idea what you mean by natural speeds. Sweden which has highways that are in bet…

85 mph is on one road skirting Austin, Texas. It's 146 km long. That's it.

Everything else is 80 (~130 km/h, actually a little slower) or less, and even 80 only applies to western roads with pretty much nothing around. But if you drive in the parts of the US where most people live, you're looking at 70 (a bit over 110), or 65 (~105) in rural areas. But those 105-112 km/h limit roads are in most states, even when the European example would suggest that 75 (which is almost exactly 120 km/h) would be far more appropriate.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#248

Post by cycomanic »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #194
cycomanic wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on, and the roads are designed for natural speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so. What are you talking about? With the exception of Germany all countries in Europe have maximum speed limits and I have no idea what you mean by natural speeds. Sweden which has highways that are in bet…

Some highways in Sweden go up to 130 kph. E4 in Halland is an example. Still not 85mph but close.

Really, TIL. I live in the Gothenburg area and in all my driving I only encountered 110 km/h so I assumed that was the maximum. Should have looked it up, thanks for correcting me.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#249

Post by ldiracdelta »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #76
Sohurt00 wrote: post #41

SCOTUS ruled in 2020 government agents can be sued for violating constitutional rights: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-71_qol1.pdf

> SCOTUS ruled in 2020 government agents can be sued for violating constitutional rights This…has always been the case? It’s a raison d’être for SCOTUS.

Look up "Qualified immunity" and "civil asset forfeiture"

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#250

Post by neither_color »

et-al wrote: post #213
neither_color wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with the autobahn? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn Parts of highway with unrestricted speed are not only possible, they're not particularly dangerous either.

Except in Germany cars need to undergo an roadworthiness inspection every 24 months and the driving test is much more strict there. If you have a pulse, you can get a license in America.

American cars get safety(and emissions) inspections too and the second part is just not true. I think there's more to it than just casually dismissing americans as too "unregulated" and dumb to handle high speed roads. In the case of Germany's autobahn, after the reunification, road accidents initially increased in former East Germany so it's not like Germans are inherently superior drivers.
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