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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

#501

Post by tehwebguy »

fatsdomino001 wrote: post #371
bastardoperator wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These folks weren't smart enough to leave their tracking devices at home and a ton of them filmed their crimes. Everyone has a right to remain silent, but it's not going to help in most of these cases where the evidence is so abundant.

I wonder if these same techniques will be used to track down all the rioters and looters from this past summer. Or is it just used against particular groups?

Literally thousands of protestors were arrested over the summer, violent and nonviolent alike. Hundreds had the shit kicked out of them by police and have no recourse, please take a few hours and watch some of the videos. It seems heavy handed policing, brutality and large numbers of arrests are certainly happening to only one group, just not the way you are implying.

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

#502

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #281
BurningFrog wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that one is explainable and the other is not. "He was near the scene of the crime and has no convincing alibi," is very different from, "The computer said he's a suspect and we don't know why, but we still want a warrant." People being targeted for being anomalous is bad, but centralizing and scaling it up is worse.

It means the person is a suspect. It means we might have to ask them a few questions. Doesn't mean they did anything.

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

#503

Post by Mandatum »

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…

I think with open WiFi networks and city mesh networks, using a WiFi-only tablet (probably iPad given their treatment of unique device ID's and privacy to prevent tracking by commercial device catchers) with a VPN is probably the best way to avoid this type of surveillance.

Although it does leave you in a sticky situation if you can't find an open network.

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

#504

Post by diebeforei485 »

nexthash wrote: post #156
diebeforei485 wrote: post #124

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]…

So it's not a protocol change from 4G, it's just the higher density of access points allowing for more granularity. Gotcha.

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

#505

Post by phkahler »

watwatinthewat wrote: post #473
phkahler wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 cap…

Your phone still stays connected to a tower when it can unless you turn that off explicitly, else how would a call be able to come in?

Good point.

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

#506

Post by JohnBooty »

syshum wrote: post #496
JohnBooty wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberty is allowing people to live their lives unmolested by government laws and regulations You live in a society. Presumably you would like some legal remedy if somebody tries to harm you, or poison your drinking water upstream, or violates a written contract, sexually assaults your loved ones, or so forth. A life "unmolested by laws and regulations" is the most naive kind of fantasy imaginable. If history has taug…

>>A life "unmolested by laws and regulations" is the most naive kind of fantasy imaginable. Not really, the fundemntal foundation of a libertarian law would be best highlighted from Frederic Bastiat's The Law "The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural…

Your post is thoughtful and well-written. I upvoted your post even though I disagree. I dislike the HN tradition of "dislike = downvote." We need more posts like yours, not less.

    And this common force is to do only what the 
    individual forces have a natural and lawful 
    right to do: to protect persons, liberties, 
    and properties;
Progressives/liberals/etc wouldn't disagree much with this premise, but we'd differ mightily on what this premise means in practical terms.

- The FDA is far from perfect, but it generally does a good job of protecting my person from snake oil medicine and adulterated foods.

- A federal healthcare mandate/provider protects my person against dying of curable diseases because if I have no job/insurance at the moment

- Taxpayer-funded education gives me the liberty to become literate and obtain a basic level of education so that I may become employable and so forth even if my parents are unwilling or unable to educate me

And so on. There are a lot of ways for your person, properties, and liberties to be threatened, most of which are indirect.

    It has converted plunder into a right, in order to 
    protect plunder
Sounds like unfettered capitalism to me. I would strongly argue history tells us this is precisely what happens when government has too little influence and corporations therefore become centers of power.

We would agree, at least, that equally bad things happen when governments have too much power. We would disagree on what "too much" means, obviously.

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

#507

Post by syshum »

JohnBooty wrote: post #506
syshum wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>A life "unmolested by laws and regulations" is the most naive kind of fantasy imaginable. Not really, the fundemntal foundation of a libertarian law would be best highlighted from Frederic Bastiat's The Law "The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural…

Your post is thoughtful and well-written. I upvoted your post even though I disagree. I dislike the HN tradition of "dislike = downvote." We need more posts like yours, not less. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; Progressives/liberals/etc wouldn't disagree much with this premise, but we'd differ mightily…

>>Sounds like unfettered capitalism to me. I would strongly argue history tells us this is precisely what happens when government has too little influence and corporations therefore become centers of power.

My argument is not about the intensity of the influence but rather about the type of influence, and what influence the government is allowed.

I agree with most "progressives" on the nature of the problems we face as society, where I differ is on what should or can be done to solve them. History as shown that leaning on Authoritarian government regulations do not work out very well either, and leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. As the libertarian saying goes "Government: If you think you have problems now, what until you see our solutions"

The ironic thing as well is when people paint "unfettered capitalism" with "corporations" A Corporation is a government created liability shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" system or rather a true free market. Corporations are part of the government regulatory apparatus system.

One of the key problems we have is the regulatory capture, because we have allowed government to create corporations, which in turn become powerful and desire to capture the regulations that created them so they can make themselves more powerful, vicious circle

>>We would disagree on what "too much" means, obviously.

I dont know that we would disagree with "too much power", currently it is not how powerful the government is that I have the most problem with, it is the centralization of power that more concerning. The US for all its flaws did get one thing right. Power is best when it distributed. Power wants to consolidate, and centralize, it is up the the people to resist this and we the people have been very poor at that, especially since the Great Depression. We now look to the Federal government to solve all of our problems this is not how our system was to be.

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

#508

Post by JohnBooty »

syshum wrote: post #507
JohnBooty wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is thoughtful and well-written. I upvoted your post even though I disagree. I dislike the HN tradition of "dislike = downvote." We need more posts like yours, not less. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; Progressives/liberals/etc wouldn't disagree much with this premise, but we'd differ mightily…

>>Sounds like unfettered capitalism to me. I would strongly argue history tells us this is precisely what happens when government has too little influence and corporations therefore become centers of power. My argument is not about the intensity of the influence but rather about the type of influence, and what influence the government is allowed. I agree with most "progressives" on the nature of the problems we face…

    A Corporation is a government created liability 
    shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" 
    system or rather a true free market. Corporations are 
    part of the government regulatory apparatus system.
I'm intrigued. (That's not sarcasm)

What's the libertarian alternative? What are examples of situations where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations?

It seems to me that corporations, minus the liability shield, would still be nearly as potentially dangerous. They are more or less sociopathic entities by necessity; ceasing to exist if they cease to turn profits, a thing they can only do if they compete successfully against their equally sociopathic rivals. Corporations can of course behave responsibly and generously, but this is always going to be at odds with their fundamental mission.

(While all of this sounds anti-corporation, I'm not. Private enterprise is and should be the backbone of society. It's just that it's awfully destructive, unchecked.)

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

#509

Post by syshum »

JohnBooty wrote: post #508
syshum wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Sounds like unfettered capitalism to me. I would strongly argue history tells us this is precisely what happens when government has too little influence and corporations therefore become centers of power. My argument is not about the intensity of the influence but rather about the type of influence, and what influence the government is allowed. I agree with most "progressives" on the nature of the problems we face…

A Corporation is a government created liability shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" system or rather a true free market. Corporations are part of the government regulatory apparatus system. I'm intrigued. (That's not sarcasm) What's the libertarian alternative? What are examples of situations where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations? It seems…

Private Enterprise should not be confused with corporations. Especially not modern corporations and all the legal structures that encapsulate them.

Libertarian Private enterprise is more like LLC's, and partnerships than Corporations.

As to where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations?

You see hints of it all the time, anytime you see a situation where someone comments "if a person would have done X they would be in jail" well the Corporation is shielding the people that actually did the harm to society from consequences from their actions. Most of the time the actual bad actors simply move from one corporation to another continuing to inflict manage on society with no accountability because of those liability shield

you view it as "sociopathic", but viewing it that way is part of the problem, we have anthropomorphized corporations to were we treat them like people, punish them (the corporations) with fines and other actions but never punish the actual human actors responsible for the activity

I understand the need for some kind of limited liability in business, Strict Liability would likely cause very poor investment into private enterprise the problem is with corporations, especially publicly traded corporations we have created such a impenetrable liability shield around them that the incentive curve has shift so far towards "profit by any means" that the people in corporations are only punished when they DO NOT do bad things (i.e Pollute the environment, screw workers, etc) in chasing of more profit, and NEVER when they do those thing at most the corporation may pay a fine for doing it but the actual people responsible are never liable

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

#510

Post by throwaway09223 »

mfkp wrote: post #135
throwaway09223 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a Pixel4 in March 2020 :(

Assuming you meant Pixel 4a, that one does not have 5G. The "4a 5G" model does, though, but it came out later in the year.

No, the regular Pixel4. No 5g.
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