23 ms·

Google tracking a bike ride past a burglarized home made the rider a suspect

519 points by oftenwrong 7y ago

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
And also cleared him, for what that's worth. If this concerns you, go [here](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols) and disable location history.
- gbrown 7y ago
  > And also cleared him He's lucky an overzealous prosecutor didn't go after him anyway.
  - augustocallejas 7y ago
    Also lucky his parents had money to pay for a lawyer: > So he went to his parents’ home in St. Augustine, where, over dinner, he told them what was happening. They agreed to dip into their savings to pay for a lawyer.
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      This is WHY they didn't go after him anyway. If your goal is to turn resources into results the best roi is to punish anyone they can plausibly accuse and threaten into taking a plea.
    - trophycase 7y ago
      I guess the silver lining here is that perhaps another person has finally learned about the value of privacy. And that "nothing to hide" is bullshit
- Thorrez 7y ago
  Make sure you also disable Web & App Activity (on that same page). > Important: If you have other settings like Web & App Activity turned on and you pause Location History or delete location data from Location History, you may still have location data saved in your Google Account as part of your use of other Google sites, apps, and services. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687
- ilamont 7y ago
  "Explore your timeline. Rediscover the places you’ve been and the routes you’ve traveled in your timeline. Only you can see your timeline." Based on TFA, this statement is untrue.
- northz 7y ago
  [citation needed] there is no official word from Google saying that disabling location history disables sensorvault. As far as I know, sensorvault is originally sourced from "improve location accuracy" events sent by the phone (hence the original name: sensorvault and not userlocation-vault), and kept "anonymized" until request for de-anonymization by law enforcement.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Google has a shit-ton of dark patterns making it hard to turn it off completely. Maps will refuse to center on your location even though the phone has a GPS lock and the blue pip is right where it is supposed to be. You can restrict data to three months which would have been helpful here.
  - llacb47 7y ago
    Not true...
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    Just tried turning off all these settings and maps still centers for me just fine. Can you post a video of this happening? Are you sure you haven't denied your location to Google Maps on your phone entirely?
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      It comes and goes intermittently.
- sneak 7y ago
  Google will still track your coarse location by geolocation history of your IP. You cannot continue to use any of these services and opt out of location surveillance.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    Citation? I do not believe this is true, but I'd be happy to learn of evidence to the contrary.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  Yeah, but it cost him several thousand dollars to fight something he shouldn't have had to fight. Would we be ok if the police just randomly fined people $2000 bucks for no reason? That is basically what happened here.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    He didn't have to fight them getting his location data. It was a choice he made.
    - MereInterest 7y ago
      Wanting privacy on your daily bikeride is a $2000 choice? Wanting to prevent police overreach into your daily life is a $2000 choice? No, not at all. Quit blaming the victim.
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
        Personally I don't have any problem with geofenced warrants. I actually think they are a pretty great idea. So I would more say that he spent $2000 pointlessly. What would likely have happened if he hadn't fought it is the prosecutors would have gotten the data, seen who he was, and been like, nah, not our guy. They don't just go and arrest every single person who has been in a geofenced region when they get these warrants. They use it to look for who might be worth additional investigation.
        dmix 7y ago
        You need to spend some time googling “wrongful convictions” there’s literally thousands of these cases and who knows how many we don’t know about. The further we broaden police powers to dragnets the more innocent people will be within their crosshairs and have to be “filtered” out, often at the accused expense. Next watch some “first day in jail” videos on Netflix and see the ridiculous stuff that gets people in scary overfilled jails, even for small even legitimate reasons and it’s enough to make it obvious there’s a serious problem with justice and law enforcement in the US. One of the worst that affected me was an older middle class guy who ended up spending months in jail because he lost his job and at some point in the last 5yrs had a kid with some woman he met on a christian dating site who refused to have an abortion. The courts eventually ruled and said he owed $4k+ in child support in a short time span (a month?) otherwise you’re going to jail, when he was already struggling to live having lost his job. He was one of the few white guys, the stories of the black kids (most looked straight out of highschool) were often even smaller and even dumber reasons which immediately exposes them to living with other real criminals for extended periods of times which they then become friends with... etc. The US is extremely punitive and the use of jails/prisons and stupid bail schemes is beyond excessive. That makes wrongful convictions all that much worse. Which all happens well before the trials even start.
- JensRex 7y ago
  Better go to where you can delete your Google account entirely. It's baffling to me that people would voluntarily submit themselves to the kind of invasive surveilance Google conducts.
- qilo 7y ago
  It’s not certain that the guy had Location History enabled. In the article he only talks about Location Services (enhancing precision using WiFi and/or Bluetooth).
AlexandrB 7y ago
> They also scoop up data from people who have nothing to do with the crime, often without their knowing ─ which Google itself has described as “a significant incursion on privacy.” This is masterful re-framing of Google's deplorable attitude towards user privacy. Apparently the real incursion on privacy is not when Google collects and tracks this information, but when government officials subpoena the information from Google. Amazing.
crazygringo 7y ago
Of course it made him a suspect. So would anyone caught on security cameras nearby, cars passing intersections that record license plates, and so on. Or anyone a neighbor described seeing walk by. And then of course he was cleared. Because unless they then find additional evidence like him selling the jewelry on eBay or something... there's nothing there. I don't know about you guys, but I appreciate living in a world where we have reasonable tools to catch criminals, rather than live in fear of burglary and worse. I'm glad we can use cell phone locations to help catch the actual criminals. Obviously abusing that power is bad (e.g. a police officer using it to stalk an ex.) But as long as there are procedures, safeguards and accountability in place... this seems like a win, no?
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  > I don't know about you guys, but I appreciate living in a world where we have reasonable tools to catch criminals, rather than live in fear of burglary and worse. Why is this the only choice? Is there any evidence that crime would increase if geofence warrants were disallowed entirely? Crime has been on the decline for decades now even without invasive techniques like geofence warrants. Considering the historically low crime rates, living in fear of burglary is irrational - a "you" problem, not a law enforcement technology problem.
  - crazygringo 7y ago
    > Crime has been on the decline for decades now even without invasive techniques like geofence warrants. So we should stop trying to lower crime further? Why don't you tell that to the families of murder victims? > Considering the historically low crime rates, living in fear of burglary is irrational - a "you" problem, not a law enforcement technology problem. Burglary is by definition a law enforcement problem, and law enforcement uses tools like technology. It always has. You're writing as though burglary and other crime doesn't exist anymore. Lower crime does NOT equal no crime. Perhaps if you'd ever had someone close to you be a victim of a crime, you'd be a bit more empathetic. The idea that fear of crime is "irrational" is just... one of the most callous comments I've read in a while.
- 7y ago
freeAgent 7y ago
This article brings up one of the biggest problems I have with our justice system. When someone is falsely suspected or accused of a crime, they typically have to hire a lawyer and take time off work and out of their lives. This can cost thousands of dollars that many people can't really afford to spend. The police or court may eventually say, "oops, our bad," but the accused typically has no way to recover what they spent on their own defense. The whole situation is asymmetric given that investigators, courts, and prosecution don't have to spend personal funds to conduct investigations and try people in court.
- EarthIsHome 7y ago
  It's because our justice system is an instrument of the wealthy. It works for them with little friction, and it doesn't work for most people without disrupting our lives, or even ruining them (e.g. bails and bonds that most people can't afford to pay).
- barrkel 7y ago
  There's also the fact that the courts are driven by narratives; the prosecution just needs a credible story to tell, and doesn't have much of an incentive to find out the truth - it's up to the defense to tell the counter-narrative. Over time, as more tools become available to find people with precise overlaps with a crime, the stronger the narrative is for innocent people (as well as the guilty). IMO a more inquisitorial approach which tests the counterfactual of each evidentiary point rather than relying solely on defense ought to hold up better in the future.
  - hedora 7y ago
    I doubt better surveillance tools will lead to more accurate prosecutions unless individuals also have direct access to the tools. Police and prosecutors in the US are notorious for leaving out evidence that exonerates the accused, even though they are supposedly required to provide the defense with all evidence relevant to the case. Also, well-connected victims’ cases are investigated much more carefully than normal victims. For instance, some SFO luggage handlers were stealing stuff from bags. People repeatedly reported them to the police, but nothing happened until they stole from a retired cop. An investigation was launched and they were arrested the next week. Similarly (based on personal experience with multiple incidents in multiple cities with multiple victims), they normally won’t bother to pull location database records for successful burglaries, even if they have exact timestamps of the incident (up to and including video), even in remote areas in the middle of the night involving literal truckloads of loot (where the location records would be a slam dunk, and the evidence would take a while to dispose of).
HarryHirsch 7y ago
Don't talk to the police. Don't carry a tracking device.
- minitoar 7y ago
  I suspect both of these things are nearly impossible in the US. At some point you will have to talk to police, if only to identify yourself. At some point you will be tracked, if only by your license plate, or soon your face.
  - sneak 7y ago
    I do believe a license plate counts as a tracking device, which GP suggested not taking with you. Here's a US-based criminal defense attorney saying that not only is that good advice, it's also practicable (in the US): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE Do not talk to the police. Under any circumstances at all. (But especially if you're innocent!)
    - minitoar 7y ago
      Yes, I agree it counts as a tracking device. My point was that it’s probably extremely impractical for most people in the US to forgo a license plate.
    - suby 7y ago
      Am I missing something? If you take your license plate off your car, you will be pulled over by a cop. It's not practical for most people in the U.S. to give up driving.
      - sneak 7y ago
        The thing you're missing: I wasn't suggesting that you remove the license plate from your car. I was suggesting that a car, with a license plate attached, is a tracking device which you should avoid. Most cars these days also have GSM modems in them, letting the manufacturer, the cell tower, and by extension the entire military intelligence community and federal investigators know exactly where they are at all times (they receive all GSM HLR data in realtime from the carriers). It really is that bad. We know for a fact that domestic federal law enforcement is using parallel construction to conceal the fact that they are receiving tips from the military's mass surveillance systems: https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-searches-secret-evidence/ https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega... Furthermore, millions of Americans that don't own or drive cars stand in direct evidence contrary to your claim that giving up driving is impractical. Driving is actively harmful to our society, our safety, our cities, and our future well-being. Everyone should be avoiding it as much as possible, including but not limited to moving to places where it's not necessary, or only very rarely necessary.
smlckz 7y ago
google knows so much about us. how many people [have] read t&c and privacy policy?
- banads 7y ago
  Is there anyone that has ever had more information on more people in human history than Google or FB? They have gotten to God like levels with their omniscience
willart4food 7y ago
The police wanted all the data, so my guess is "including search and browsing data" oh oh... time to switch to Firefox. To be noted: real bad actors will start shutting their phones off before their actions.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > To be noted: real bad actors will start shutting their phones off before their actions. Which would be a signal as well. They'd rather just leave their phones at home.
  - LeoTinnitus 7y ago
    Reminds me of the college kids that painted swastikas on the cement and were caught cause their phones were connected in the area.
- chewz 7y ago
  Fake GPS can mock your location and simulate natural movements. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blogspot.newapphorizons.fakegps&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blogspot.n...
Snetry 7y ago
This kinda reminds me of Watch_Dogs 2
Myrmornis 7y ago
There’s nothing in the article that indicates that cooperating with the enquiry would have been problematic (he appears to have a physical appearance that wouldn’t trigger race-based police prejudices). I do mistrust US police in general, but it must be a bit annoying for them for every good faith investigation direction to be treated adversarially like this.
- luckylion 7y ago
  The risk you're accepting by believing it's a "good faith investigation" is too high. If it is, great. If it's not, you've helped them build a case against you.
  - Myrmornis 7y ago
    See my comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512317 I also think you're losing perspective: it was just some nobody at the local police station investigating a theft of jewelry from some old woman! I bet it would have been totally fine if he'd popped in and chatted to the detective in question.
    - princekolt 7y ago
      You're making so many assumptions here that I don't even know where to start. But let me pick one: Say the bike rider was a person of color (plenty of those to go around), and the investigator was a racist cop (also plenty of those to go around). Do you think the stakes would have been the same? Reality is a lot more complex than your world perspective.
      - Myrmornis 7y ago
        If it's me you're referring to, take a look at my comments in this thread. I have twice explicitly drawn attention to the fact that cooperating with the police here is only to be contemplated because the person in question is white, which implicitly acknowledges that doing so would be an instance of "white privilege".
PhantomGremlin 7y ago
It's not just Google. It is many many apps. Here is a posting from a month ago that didn't get any traction. It links to a Washington Post article that says that the US government is buying location data from apps. It conveniently means they don't need a warrant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22285638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22285638 Here is a posting from 2018 that got 253 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938548
code_duck 7y ago
They can also come through and completely destroy your house in an operation that has absolutely nothing to do with you, and not only do none of the individuals involved have any financial responsibility but neither does any government agency. https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/30/swat-team-destroyed-greenwood-village-familys-home-police-dont-have-to-pay-for-damages/ https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/30/swat-team-destroyed-gr... In this case, police in Colorado destroyed a man's $600,000 home while pursuing a shoplifting suspect.
- throwsprtsdy 7y ago
  A shoplifting suspect who barricaded himself inside someone else's home during the pursuit and fired gunshots at the police.
  - cthor 7y ago
    If society thinks blowing up a house is worth catching the perp then they at least oughta pay for the damn house.
    - throwsprtsdy 7y ago
      So if a shooter sets up in a sufficiently expensive property, the police have to sit there passively and risk being shot because they don't have the money to pay for the damage caused by going in? That makes no sense. I'm generally of the opinion that police are too heavy-handed in the US, but in this particular case I don't think there was any other reasonable option. Moreover the ancestor post referring to the suspect as simply a "shoplifter" was inaccurate.
      - RandomBacon 7y ago
        Wait out the suspect.
        hinkley 7y ago
        Right? The flip side of this ad absurdist argument is that if a suspect holed up in MoMA, it’s okay to burn it down because he shot three of the maybe fifteen bullets he has in his possession? No, no it is not.
fortran77 7y ago
This is outrageous! It's bad policing. The police in my area do this too, but they use the "anonymized" data and warrents aren't issued unless they see the same id involved with several burglaries in the area.
vermontdevil 7y ago
* I’m definitely sorry that happened to her, and I’m glad police were trying to solve it,” McCoy said. “But it just seems like a really broad net for them to cast. What’s the cost-benefit? How many innocent people do we have to harass?”* I understand he doesn’t have the resources to fight the constitutionality of the whole process. This quote is why ACLU, EFF, and others need to work together to take it up further. Stop the police from continuing the habit of just sweeping people’s data and worry about the details later.
- throwaway17_17 7y ago
  There is no constitutional issue in this case. This person gave their information to Google and Google was asked for the information. There is no 4th Amendment protection for information a person gives to someone else. The ACLU, EFF, and others have nothing to take further.
  - theluketaylor 7y ago
    The third party doctrine is badly outdated in the modern world where third parties hold immense volumes of information about our locations and interactions. Since it was a court ruling that brought the doctrine into being, the passage of legislation or further court rulings can overturn it or reduce the scope. There is absolutely work for groups like the ACLU and EFF to do here. Here in Canada several of our wireless providers banded together to fight an incredibly broad request for information about everyone hitting particular cell towers during a robbery. The crown tried to simply drop the request when challenged, but thankfully the judge didn't let them off so easily. The court issued some rather strict requirements for similar requests. https://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2016/01/ontario-court-provides-clear-guidance.html https://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2016/01/ontario-court-provides...
    - kspacewalk2 7y ago
      Judicial oversight requirements should be strict, but it should absolutely be a police investigation tool. Calling it "dragnet" to imply dystopian surveillance is silly. Oversight is the crux of the issue, not the tool itself.
tcd 7y ago
delete your google account. don't use android (or iOS really). don't carry a smartphone. I mean, it may seem inconceivable but you're not forced to carry a spy in your pocket =).
- jumpinalake 7y ago
  Is this what you do?
  - wizzwizz4 7y ago
    It's what I do, and it's a huge inconvenience. Instead, I recommend getting a smartphone known not to have dedicated spying hardware, replacing the OS with Lineage OS, installing F-Droid and microG (and perhaps Yalp, but only install apps from it if you really really need them) and then keeping it usually switched off (unless you need it on).
jb775 7y ago
Couldn't he just show the police his exact bike route for that day? It would show him passing the house only momentarily. That's probably more than enough for them to eliminate his as a suspect, especially considering they have access to Google's metadata for cross-reference.
- quadrifoliate 7y ago
  That's not the point. What if he stopped to have a drink of water like 10 minutes from there? Innocent people who happened to be in the vicinity should not have to explain their every moment on some day months in the past because the police don't want to spend time doing more detailed investigations and interviewing potential eyewitnesses.
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  You are presumed innocent. In civics class you learn that the prosecution has to prove your guilt (that's bullshit, of course, because you'll be offered a plea deal and have the choice between a copping a plea and finding yourself before a crooked jury that would convict a ham sandwich), but even so, why would you talk to the police and offer them ammunition that can be twisted into a story against you?
  - cat199 7y ago
    > You are presumed innocent. This is once your case makes it to court. Police/Prosecutors are looking to find/prosecute the culprit, and will assume guilt where they think it makes sense - the court then confirms/denies if this assumed guilt was correct in a trial.
- cesarb 7y ago
  > It would show him passing the house only momentarily. Passing the house momentarily (three times within an hour, according to the article) could mean he was checking out the house as a potential target. That's probably more than enough to mark him as a suspect. Were he the culprit, he could have then turned off the phone, or hid it within some distant bushes making it look like he stopped to rest, while actually doing the burglary.
apk-d 7y ago
Are there any recommendations how one can limit the amount of information Google is collecting on them, preferably without completely giving up on Android and Google services (such as maps)? I'm already considered a hermit by friends for not having a Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn account, but to me it constantly feels like I haven't gone far enough. This shit is downright dystopian, and I'm outraged by the general lack of outrage.
- glial 7y ago
  If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff. It's not exactly a 'how to' manual for privacy, but it is helpful for understanding the scale of the problem.
- Youden 7y ago
  So long as Google Play Services is installed, there's only so much you can do to limit it. It's essentially equivalent to giving Google root access to your phone. The best thing you can do is cut off Google completely. Install AOSP, LineageOS or a similar ROM and don't install Play Services. Get apps from FDroid or where necessary something like Aurora Store (an open-source Play Store implementation). Don't use apps that depend on Google. There are alternative apps for maps that are pretty great, mostly OSM based (e.g. OSMAnd and the Maps.me-based "Maps" app in FDroid). However that's not always something you can do. Some apps just won't work without some kind of connection to Google. For those, there's MicroG, an open-source implementation of Play Services that gives you a whole lot more control and even allows you to use different location backends like those provided by Mozilla or Apple.
pjdemers 7y ago
What surprises me is that somewhere there is a police department that can afford the time to investigate a $2,000 loss.
- notRobot 7y ago
  There are too many cops in the US. So they need the work. This is also why they have police cops in all schools. Which seems horrifying to anyone not from the US. (They're often on a power trip and take even the smallest opportunities to beat up kids. A web search brings up a long list of such cases.)
  - burlesona 7y ago
    They are really unevenly distributed though. Many major cities are short on police, while most suburbs have plenty to spare. This has a lot of effects on day to day, for example in most cities you aren’t getting a traffic ticket unless you do something egregious, the police will see you commit a very minor offense (probably on accident), and just shrug and let it go. They have no time to spare. But in a lot of suburbs they’ll come ticket you with this attitude that they’ve saved the world from a criminal. It’s frustrating.
- TwoBit 7y ago
  Perhaps there was a pattern in the area that this burglary was part of, and there was serial burglaries they were trying to stamp out.
- briandear 7y ago
  If they don’t, then you’ll have an increase in $1999 crimes. Look at the effect of Prop 47 in California. Crime has increased.
rb808 7y ago
Surely this is a good thing about the future? Everyone is tracked and when a serious crime happens we can find out who was there. I agree it feels weird now and will need some controls worked out but seems inevitable and not that scary.
- banads 7y ago
  If you've studied history or care about freedom of thought and movement, you wouldn't be so optimistic.
- lostcolony 7y ago
  And it only costs several thousand dollars a pop to prove you're innocent! What progress!
- cesarb 7y ago
  For the innocent, being falsely accused sure is scary. The consequences of being wrongly declared guilty, or even just accused, can be severe.
- greenyoda 7y ago
  > Everyone is tracked and when a serious crime happens we can find out who was there. At some point, criminals will figure out that it's not smart to carry your cell phone when you intend to commit a crime. At which point, the police will only be able to find all the innocent people who were there.
jumpinalake 7y ago
How inconvenient is it to turn off all location sharing at the OS level on a mobile device? I have just started testing moments ago and am not sure what I’m up for.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  It's a step in the right direction, but be aware the police could also ask the cell service provider for location information.
- gruez 7y ago
  Why would it be an issue? Unless you use maps, you shouldn't notice a difference
jeffdavis 7y ago
This might run afoul of the Carpenter decision, right? It basically held that asking for cell tower location data is a search of the person rather than a subpoena of records. EDIT: maybe not. This one had a warrant rather than a subpoena. I'd still be interested in the interaction though.
- ajross 7y ago
  Exactly, the warrant is exactly the mechanism used by our legal system to document the suspension of rights otherwise granted by the fourth amendment. And it's why I think a lot of the ire here is misdirected. I mean, sure, the police were wrong for asking for this data, but it's easy to see why they wanted it -- it makes their job easier in an obvious way. The real problem here is the judge that granted the warrant.
- throwaway17_17 7y ago
  Doubtful, Carpenter was based on the fact that the cell tower location was not a willing transfer of international, but merely a functioning of the cellular technology and so the information was still protected under the 4th amendment requirement for a warrant. In this case, suspect ‘willingly’ transferred that information to Google and there was a warrant request for the information. Although, I suspect that the warrant was more to make it easier to get Google’s compliance than to deal with 4th amendment concerns.
superkuh 7y ago
Lets be real here. They didn't track his bike. They tracked his phone. Your phone is how you are tracked. It doesn't matter if you're using an application where you didn't read the TOS and opted in or what. The basestations are always going to be collecting years of aggregate multilateration data on your habits of movement and saving it.
jobseeker990 7y ago
Are Apple products any safer on this issue, or not at all?
- ajross 7y ago
  Not really. The phone companies have relevant data too for this kind of search. What's notable here isn't that Google was a single source for this data, but that they notified the user when it happened, even if it means everyone on HN now thinks they're the bad guys in the situation.
  - theferalrobot 7y ago
    Yes the phone companies have data but it is far far less precise than GPS which was required in this case. Additionally, Apple does not collect your location data like Google does so I am not sure why we should let Google off the hook.
    - ajross 7y ago
      You don't know that GPS was required, nor whether or not cell records were subpoenaed as part of this investigation. All we have is what Google told the guy in the story. And as far as Apple, I don't think that's true. Apple has a location history feature just like Google does. If that data ever reaches their machines in a non-anonymized way, then it's subject to subpoena just like anyone else's data is. Do you have a cite that explains why this is impossible?
      - theferalrobot 7y ago
        >You don't know that GPS was required, nor whether or not cell records were subpoenaed as part of this investigation. All we have is what Google told the guy in the story. I do know that because cell tower triangulation is on average only precise within about a square mile, which is considered far too broad for these types of searches. >Apple has a location history feature just like Google does. If that data ever reaches their machines in a non-anonymized way, then it's subject to subpoena just like anyone else's data is. Do you have a cite that explains why this is impossible? Location history on ios is stored locally, not logged and stored by Apple. Any data that is passed to Apple is anonymized. Per Apple: "Where you go says a lot about you. Maps delivers a great experience without Apple knowing which stores, neighborhoods, or clinics you visit. And because Maps doesn’t include a sign-in, where you go isn’t associated with your Apple ID at all. Personalized features, like locating your parked car, are created right on your device. Data used to improve navigation, such as routes and search terms, is not associated with your identity. Instead, that information is based on random identifiers that are constantly changing." AND "If Location Services is on, your iPhone will periodically send the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers (where supported by a device) in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple, to be used for augmenting this crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations." https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056
sedachv 7y ago
Do you need to take phone calls and answer messages while riding your bike? When it became obvious to me that the scenario described in the article was going to be increasingly common, I started to carry my phone in airplane mode, in an electromagnetically shielded pouch (most of which only work marginally), when in transit from place to place. I only turn GPS on when I need it. This also has a nice side-effect of prolonging battery life. As far as bike fitness tracking, I have and highly recommend the Sigma BC 14.16 bike computer - it runs for over a year on a single coin cell battery, comes with a barometric altimeter, and even does altitude plotting. And it does not and cannot report you to the police! https://www.sigmasport.com/en/produkte/fahrrad-computer/wired/wired/bc1416 https://www.sigmasport.com/en/produkte/fahrrad-computer/wire...
- glitcher 7y ago
  I get it that this is a simple thing one can do today to help increase their privacy a little, but this is wholly the wrong attitude. One can still easily be caught up in a geofence dragnet without riding bikes, regardless of how often they turn on airplane mode. If law makers/enforcement continue down this dystopian path, having your phone off or not with you at all may become enough to make you a suspect.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > I started to carry my phone in airplane mode, in an electromagnetically shielded pouch (most of which only work marginally), when in transit from place to place. That looks extremely suspicious. If they don't have a match, looking for "who turned their phone off somewhere in the vicinity and turned it back on 30 minutes later somewhere else" makes sense. If you don't want to get tracked, leave your phone at home, and carry a switched-off burner for emergencies.
jcims 7y ago
All it would take is a curious engineer an Google to assemble location data on politicians and the 'associates' they appear to be exercising with privately to help move the regulatory needle here.
- luckylion 7y ago
  They do get hundreds of thousands of reasons per year to not do that, and stock options on top. Don't put your hope on the people that benefit from the problem.
gerardnll 7y ago
Everything about the case is nuts but, to me, one of the worst thing is this line "They agreed to dip into their savings to pay for a lawyer.". No money, no justice.
joering2 7y ago
> Not long afterward, Kenyon said, a lawyer in the state attorney’s office assigned to represent the Gainesville Police Department told him there were details in the motion that led them to believe that Kenyon’s client was not the burglar. > On Feb. 24, Kenyon dropped his legal challenge. Here is the problem. Getting entangled he should have press harder and get them to answer precisely what they are referring to.
- fluidcruft 7y ago
  I think it's just saying that information provided in the John Doe motion to block Google from releasing his identity led them to believe that John Doe was not the burglar. It's not like the police had any info to rule him out, just some fragment of a location trace or whatever that said he was someone to look into. It could be some guy biking round his neighborhood or some guy who drove in to stalk the neighborhood for a burglary. If they don't know his identity, how can they even know it was his neighborhood? They don't have any reason to exclude him until they have more info.
shaneprrlt 7y ago
The idea of living off the grid becomes more and more appealing every day.
iamleppert 7y ago
He sure don’t look like an avid bike rider.
- jsjddbbwj 7y ago
  He probably fills the water bottle with soylent ;P
miguelmota 7y ago
American justice system is broken; if you’re arrested you get put in jail until your court date unless you can pay the bail. If you can’t pay the bail then you can be in jail for months or years for something you didn’t do. The prosecutor will tell you to take plea deal for a shorter sentence or risk losing fighting in court and get a more severe punishment. A lot of innocent people end up taking plea deals because the odds are against them. Court cases can drag on for years and cost a fortune in lawyer fees. The biggest lie is that you’re 'innocent until proven guilty'. If you get accused of a felony and end being proven innocent, there’s still no way to get that off your permanent record and will show up in background checks and follow you for life.
- metabagel 7y ago
  California eliminated cash bail in 2018. In California, a risk assessment is done to determine whether a suspect can be safely released.
informativeguy 7y ago
I don't get it. How did data taken by runkeeper end up with google. Can someone help me get paranoid here?
Noos 7y ago
Even before all of this tech, if you looked suspicious you would get stopped or worse. A story was when I moved to a different state, I went out walking in my new area. Exploring the suburbs. I had brought a book with me, and it was starting to rain. I kept my book under my shirt to protect it. As I went home, I was suddenly stopped by four police cars; apparently a resident thought my book was a gun, and I was casing the area or something and the suburb I walked through must have been worried about crime. It was darkly funny to show them my book, which was a defense of political civility. It stopped me from walking there, though, as long as i lived there. I think one aspect of this is the surprise that an engineer would get swept up in this, but this isn't really something that can be solved by tech.
- ehsankia 7y ago
  There are so many stories of people becoming a suspect just because a neighbor named them, or they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, or other kinds of random coincidence. At the end of the day, the hope is that the evidence is taken in the right context and proper investigation will catch the right person. Unfortunately, especially in this era of True Crime documentaries, we've seen it go awry one too many time, and people are rightly scared that they may be next.
- maram 7y ago
  >>Even before all of this tech, if you looked suspicious you would get stopped or worse. Tech is IMPROVING our lives. Software is an enabler, it solves our problems. If the software is making our problems worse, then there is something wrong with the software, we fix the software. But the issue here isn't the software, the issue here is privacy invasion. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy aren't comprehensive enough to inform users what they are doing or how and when they are collecting their personal data. From the story “I didn’t realize that by having location services on that Google was also keeping a log of where I was going, I’m sure it’s in their terms of service but I never read through those walls of text, and I don’t think most people do either.” McCoy said. Steve Jobs had a solution for this: "Privacy means that people know what they’re signing up for. In plain English, and repeatedly. I believe that people are smart. Some people want to share more than others. Ask them...Make them tell you to stop asking them. Let them know what you’re going to do with their data"
cnst 7y ago
I think it's interesting that these articles are always from the PoV of living in a surveillance state. What about legitimate uses of geofence warrants? Does that not exist? What if your mobile device gets stolen? Why should you not have the right to get its location easily? Happened to me in Northern California, and both AT&T and the police were useless. Part of the reason why I'm not very interested in returning to Cali.
- chrischen 7y ago
  You have a right... so long as you don’t encroach on others’ rights.
  - cnst 7y ago
    Well, it's my phone and service, I paid for it, and I want to give the police the address of the perpetrators for them to check out. But, no, I'm not allowed to do that, because privacy; and, no, the police in California won't do that, either, because courts are overcrowded, and they don't feel like asking the judge for a warrant that AT&T requires. I don't think the criminals who steal my device are supposed to have any privacy rights. Just sayin'.
    - chrischen 7y ago
      Actually the real reason is probably that the GPS data isnMt that accurate nor real time enough that they can just go to the spot and it pinpoints the person, so they aren’t going to go on a wild goose chase to recover your private property while other more serious crimes are being committed.
robocat 7y ago
It took the prosecutors 10 months to follow up: “burglary of an elderly woman’s home 10 months earlier”, “ He looked up his route on the day of the March 29, 2019”.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago
The police have far too much power in this. The police should only have the power to name a suspect and then request a single GPS fix in a window of their choosing. Anything else requires more judges to sign off. This power of dragnet, "give me everyone within 200 feet of this property in the last 48 hours" is just astoundingly one-sided.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Why? They use it to compile a witness list, maybe suspect list, rule out many people, as a first approximation. As long as the data is archived and not open for abusive use; where do you feel any harm comes in?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Because such information should only be used to confirm as specific person was present, not to dragnet a bunch of innocents.
  - jellicle 7y ago
    "Somebody walked by the outside of a house where a 97-year-old said something was stolen" wasn't previously sufficient grounds to search every document you had ever written or received, but now it is.
    - kspacewalk2 7y ago
      Sure it was, if they walked/biked by the house 3 times in close succession around the time of the burglary. A completely legitimate reason to make him a person of interest and interview him. If he was picked up on a neighbour's door cam, this wouldn't even be on the news.
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    Because it costs each innocent victim tens of thousands of dollars to defend themselves. If they are poor, they may have no defense. Next, they are plea bargaining to a crime they didn’t commit because that is the only reasonable option left.
upofadown 7y ago
A good reminder that even if you have nothing to hide, privacy is still very important. The more data you make available the greater chance of a false positive. Those who protect their privacy will in the long run come out ahead. It is one of the few situations with no real tradeoffs.
antpls 7y ago
It makes you wonder how many of these stories exist and are unheard of. I'm OK with Google sharing some aggregated metrics and statistic to help fight criminals, but tracking individuals is a nightmare becoming real. It is not directly Google's fault, they are required by laws to provide the data. Laws are democratically voted, yet are people okay with police able to open their private lives with just a button?
- Youden 7y ago
  > It is not directly Google's fault, they are required by laws to provide the data. It's Google's fault for collecting the data in the first place. They could have collected it anonymously rather than tie it to a user but they chose not to do so.
x__x 7y ago
So if he were using an old cellphone, before the days of apps, would he still have been served a notice from the phone company for his phone tower location? The article says: "drawn from users’ GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular connection" and cellular connection.
- bm98 7y ago
  _That_ is the question we should be asking. If not, is it because geofence warrants have a higher legal bar if issued to a phone company? Or is it about the level-of-effort?
- greenyoda 7y ago
  Cellular location data is not nearly as precise as GPS. A cell tower could serve an area of many square miles (the fewer users there are in the area, the larger an area the tower can accommodate), so just knowing which cell tower you're talking to can't place you at a particular address.
x__x 7y ago
"law enforcement authorities say those worries are overblown...is not enough to justify charging someone with a crime, they say." But it is enough to justify the person spend thousands and thousands of dollars on their legal defense so they can prove their innocence
DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
Tangential question about the work "burglarized": Is there a term for a word that's the result of inefficient application of modifiers? I would guess that "burglarized" is formed by this evolutionary chain: A1) burgle A2) buglar : someone who burgles A3) burglarized : an object which has been acted upon by a burglar But I would think a more canonical chain is: B1) burgle B2) burgled : an object of burgling A3 and B2 seem to mean the same thing, so I would think B2 is preferable because both the word itself, and the chain of applied modifications, are shorter.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  Interesting that A3 is American English and B2 is British English.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  If anything it reminds me of the criticism of F.R Leavis who often railed against a tendency of making English more Germanic and thus less elegant, often in pursuit of filling one's writings with a professional jargon that would sound more intelligent and devoid of energy.
- mistersquid 7y ago
  This is a guess, but I think “burglarize” is a back formation coming from “burglarization”, the state of having been burgled or an instance of same. “Burglarization” is, naively but grammatically, caused by someone or something that “burglarizes”. It’s similar to “orientate“ instead of “orient”. An object or person has an “orientation” produced by someone or something that “orientates”. This in contrast to someone or something that “orients”. It’s ugly English, for sure, but I believe it’s perfectly cromulent in grammatical terms.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
colordrops 7y ago
This is a perfect example of a concrete problem arising from lack of privacy in electronic devices. It's not some abstract fear of being manipulated, but instead a simple and direct invasion of privacy that leads to dire consequences. I didn't know police had such free access to Google data btw. This is super concerning to me.
zmmmmm 7y ago
It's ironic that in the end the narrowness of the warrant was what hurt him. They could see he went past the house during the time of the burglary but not that he went past there regularly. By showing them more data he convinced them he was innocent. Not that I am arguing for more pervasive powers for data collection. But rather, appreciating how poweful data is and how dangerous data without context is. People need control over and access to data about them guaranteed.
hyperion2010 7y ago
I love how many people in this thread think that Google's location tracking is the issue here. If you have a phone at all you are tracked. If you drive many newer cars you are tracked. If you go out in public where there are cameras you are tracked. The difference is that the individual will never be able to get access to the cell tower tracking information, cctv footage, etc. The problem if there is one, is that it is too easy for law enforcement to get access to Google's information and use it in ways that are probably a violation of the constitution. While turning your tracking off may seem like a good idea, and for some threat models it certainly is, for many users this actively disempowers them relative to corporations and states. Someone already has your data, you might want to get a copy of it too.
dchyrdvh 7y ago
I like how an innocent person needs to have a criminal mindset to avoid going to jail for a made up charge. I mean this attitude "never talk to the police" seems backwards until you realise why. Someone made a good analogy that police is the HR department of the state and you know that if an HR wants to talk to you, it's rarely for your benefit.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
I'm surprised various mobile tech breadcrumbs aren't being used to track / cross track the random ppl who getting C19. I'm not suggesting I'm in favor of it; only that I'm surprised it's not happening. Yet?
discordance 7y ago
Before you sign up for a service online check tosdr.com to see what you’re signing up. It’s crowd sourced site that shows what’s inside the terms of service.
- aembleton 7y ago
  I get the message: Tosdr.com is for sale
  - discordance 7y ago
    correction: tosdr.org
hyperpallium 7y ago
There's a simple solution to ubiquitous surveillance: conform. Don't do anything out of the ordinary. Do exactly what everyone does, and you won't get hurt. If you enjoy exploring and experimenting, discovering and inventing, creating and wondering, you'll need to train yourself out of that, because thoughts lead to actions. Think Same.
- kspacewalk2 7y ago
  The whole point is that it's the conforming behaviour (leaving the location tracker on) rather than the non conforming one (turning it off) that led to him being a person of interest. A completely legitimate one, I might add.
rdiddly 7y ago
Another day, another new outrage. “I would think the majority of citizens in the world would love the fact that we are putting violent offenders in jail,” Armbruster said. Remind me to bust that one out the next time anyone disagrees with me. "I would think the majority of citizens in the world would want us to watch another UFC fight, honey, instead of Stranger Things."
mckoss 7y ago
Why the hell isn't Google challenging these sweeping untargetted searches? This is akin to giving law enforcement all of our location data without reasonable suspicion.
- srtjstjsj 7y ago
  ctrl-F "warrant". You may disagree with the law, but Google is required to comply.
sundvor 7y ago
Bah, if riding with eg a Garmin or Wahoo it would clearly show there was no stopping at the front of the house and that should be it. If Google Fit is a bit like Samsung Health, it would probably stop an activity at the spot of the burglary so without that there's proof of no involvement. In Australia there'd be no point wasting money on a lawyer, just show the data and you'd be in the clear. The whole story feels stupid, but that's probably mainly because I stem from a more (on overall) enlightened country (Norway).
kaelzhang 7y ago
Google, does do evil

519 points by oftenwrong 7y ago

And also cleared him, for what that's worth. If this concerns you, go [here](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols) and disable location history.

gbrown 7y ago
> And also cleared him He's lucky an overzealous prosecutor didn't go after him anyway.
- augustocallejas 7y ago
  Also lucky his parents had money to pay for a lawyer: > So he went to his parents’ home in St. Augustine, where, over dinner, he told them what was happening. They agreed to dip into their savings to pay for a lawyer.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    This is WHY they didn't go after him anyway. If your goal is to turn resources into results the best roi is to punish anyone they can plausibly accuse and threaten into taking a plea.
  - trophycase 7y ago
    I guess the silver lining here is that perhaps another person has finally learned about the value of privacy. And that "nothing to hide" is bullshit
Thorrez 7y ago
Make sure you also disable Web & App Activity (on that same page). > Important: If you have other settings like Web & App Activity turned on and you pause Location History or delete location data from Location History, you may still have location data saved in your Google Account as part of your use of other Google sites, apps, and services. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687
ilamont 7y ago
"Explore your timeline. Rediscover the places you’ve been and the routes you’ve traveled in your timeline. Only you can see your timeline." Based on TFA, this statement is untrue.
northz 7y ago
[citation needed] there is no official word from Google saying that disabling location history disables sensorvault. As far as I know, sensorvault is originally sourced from "improve location accuracy" events sent by the phone (hence the original name: sensorvault and not userlocation-vault), and kept "anonymized" until request for de-anonymization by law enforcement.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Google has a shit-ton of dark patterns making it hard to turn it off completely. Maps will refuse to center on your location even though the phone has a GPS lock and the blue pip is right where it is supposed to be. You can restrict data to three months which would have been helpful here.
- llacb47 7y ago
  Not true...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  Just tried turning off all these settings and maps still centers for me just fine. Can you post a video of this happening? Are you sure you haven't denied your location to Google Maps on your phone entirely?
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    It comes and goes intermittently.
sneak 7y ago
Google will still track your coarse location by geolocation history of your IP. You cannot continue to use any of these services and opt out of location surveillance.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  Citation? I do not believe this is true, but I'd be happy to learn of evidence to the contrary.
cortesoft 7y ago
Yeah, but it cost him several thousand dollars to fight something he shouldn't have had to fight. Would we be ok if the police just randomly fined people $2000 bucks for no reason? That is basically what happened here.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  He didn't have to fight them getting his location data. It was a choice he made.
  - MereInterest 7y ago
    Wanting privacy on your daily bikeride is a $2000 choice? Wanting to prevent police overreach into your daily life is a $2000 choice? No, not at all. Quit blaming the victim.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      Personally I don't have any problem with geofenced warrants. I actually think they are a pretty great idea. So I would more say that he spent $2000 pointlessly. What would likely have happened if he hadn't fought it is the prosecutors would have gotten the data, seen who he was, and been like, nah, not our guy. They don't just go and arrest every single person who has been in a geofenced region when they get these warrants. They use it to look for who might be worth additional investigation.
      - dmix 7y ago
        You need to spend some time googling “wrongful convictions” there’s literally thousands of these cases and who knows how many we don’t know about. The further we broaden police powers to dragnets the more innocent people will be within their crosshairs and have to be “filtered” out, often at the accused expense. Next watch some “first day in jail” videos on Netflix and see the ridiculous stuff that gets people in scary overfilled jails, even for small even legitimate reasons and it’s enough to make it obvious there’s a serious problem with justice and law enforcement in the US. One of the worst that affected me was an older middle class guy who ended up spending months in jail because he lost his job and at some point in the last 5yrs had a kid with some woman he met on a christian dating site who refused to have an abortion. The courts eventually ruled and said he owed $4k+ in child support in a short time span (a month?) otherwise you’re going to jail, when he was already struggling to live having lost his job. He was one of the few white guys, the stories of the black kids (most looked straight out of highschool) were often even smaller and even dumber reasons which immediately exposes them to living with other real criminals for extended periods of times which they then become friends with... etc. The US is extremely punitive and the use of jails/prisons and stupid bail schemes is beyond excessive. That makes wrongful convictions all that much worse. Which all happens well before the trials even start.
JensRex 7y ago
Better go to where you can delete your Google account entirely. It's baffling to me that people would voluntarily submit themselves to the kind of invasive surveilance Google conducts.
qilo 7y ago
It’s not certain that the guy had Location History enabled. In the article he only talks about Location Services (enhancing precision using WiFi and/or Bluetooth).

AlexandrB 7y ago

> They also scoop up data from people who have nothing to do with the crime, often without their knowing ─ which Google itself has described as “a significant incursion on privacy.” This is masterful re-framing of Google's deplorable attitude towards user privacy. Apparently the real incursion on privacy is not when Google collects and tracks this information, but when government officials subpoena the information from Google. Amazing.

crazygringo 7y ago

Of course it made him a suspect. So would anyone caught on security cameras nearby, cars passing intersections that record license plates, and so on. Or anyone a neighbor described seeing walk by. And then of course he was cleared. Because unless they then find additional evidence like him selling the jewelry on eBay or something... there's nothing there. I don't know about you guys, but I appreciate living in a world where we have reasonable tools to catch criminals, rather than live in fear of burglary and worse. I'm glad we can use cell phone locations to help catch the actual criminals. Obviously abusing that power is bad (e.g. a police officer using it to stalk an ex.) But as long as there are procedures, safeguards and accountability in place... this seems like a win, no?

AlexandrB 7y ago
> I don't know about you guys, but I appreciate living in a world where we have reasonable tools to catch criminals, rather than live in fear of burglary and worse. Why is this the only choice? Is there any evidence that crime would increase if geofence warrants were disallowed entirely? Crime has been on the decline for decades now even without invasive techniques like geofence warrants. Considering the historically low crime rates, living in fear of burglary is irrational - a "you" problem, not a law enforcement technology problem.
- crazygringo 7y ago
  > Crime has been on the decline for decades now even without invasive techniques like geofence warrants. So we should stop trying to lower crime further? Why don't you tell that to the families of murder victims? > Considering the historically low crime rates, living in fear of burglary is irrational - a "you" problem, not a law enforcement technology problem. Burglary is by definition a law enforcement problem, and law enforcement uses tools like technology. It always has. You're writing as though burglary and other crime doesn't exist anymore. Lower crime does NOT equal no crime. Perhaps if you'd ever had someone close to you be a victim of a crime, you'd be a bit more empathetic. The idea that fear of crime is "irrational" is just... one of the most callous comments I've read in a while.
7y ago

freeAgent 7y ago

This article brings up one of the biggest problems I have with our justice system. When someone is falsely suspected or accused of a crime, they typically have to hire a lawyer and take time off work and out of their lives. This can cost thousands of dollars that many people can't really afford to spend. The police or court may eventually say, "oops, our bad," but the accused typically has no way to recover what they spent on their own defense. The whole situation is asymmetric given that investigators, courts, and prosecution don't have to spend personal funds to conduct investigations and try people in court.

EarthIsHome 7y ago
It's because our justice system is an instrument of the wealthy. It works for them with little friction, and it doesn't work for most people without disrupting our lives, or even ruining them (e.g. bails and bonds that most people can't afford to pay).
barrkel 7y ago
There's also the fact that the courts are driven by narratives; the prosecution just needs a credible story to tell, and doesn't have much of an incentive to find out the truth - it's up to the defense to tell the counter-narrative. Over time, as more tools become available to find people with precise overlaps with a crime, the stronger the narrative is for innocent people (as well as the guilty). IMO a more inquisitorial approach which tests the counterfactual of each evidentiary point rather than relying solely on defense ought to hold up better in the future.
- hedora 7y ago
  I doubt better surveillance tools will lead to more accurate prosecutions unless individuals also have direct access to the tools. Police and prosecutors in the US are notorious for leaving out evidence that exonerates the accused, even though they are supposedly required to provide the defense with all evidence relevant to the case. Also, well-connected victims’ cases are investigated much more carefully than normal victims. For instance, some SFO luggage handlers were stealing stuff from bags. People repeatedly reported them to the police, but nothing happened until they stole from a retired cop. An investigation was launched and they were arrested the next week. Similarly (based on personal experience with multiple incidents in multiple cities with multiple victims), they normally won’t bother to pull location database records for successful burglaries, even if they have exact timestamps of the incident (up to and including video), even in remote areas in the middle of the night involving literal truckloads of loot (where the location records would be a slam dunk, and the evidence would take a while to dispose of).

HarryHirsch 7y ago

Don't talk to the police. Don't carry a tracking device.

minitoar 7y ago
I suspect both of these things are nearly impossible in the US. At some point you will have to talk to police, if only to identify yourself. At some point you will be tracked, if only by your license plate, or soon your face.
- sneak 7y ago
  I do believe a license plate counts as a tracking device, which GP suggested not taking with you. Here's a US-based criminal defense attorney saying that not only is that good advice, it's also practicable (in the US): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE Do not talk to the police. Under any circumstances at all. (But especially if you're innocent!)
  - minitoar 7y ago
    Yes, I agree it counts as a tracking device. My point was that it’s probably extremely impractical for most people in the US to forgo a license plate.
  - suby 7y ago
    Am I missing something? If you take your license plate off your car, you will be pulled over by a cop. It's not practical for most people in the U.S. to give up driving.
    - sneak 7y ago
      The thing you're missing: I wasn't suggesting that you remove the license plate from your car. I was suggesting that a car, with a license plate attached, is a tracking device which you should avoid. Most cars these days also have GSM modems in them, letting the manufacturer, the cell tower, and by extension the entire military intelligence community and federal investigators know exactly where they are at all times (they receive all GSM HLR data in realtime from the carriers). It really is that bad. We know for a fact that domestic federal law enforcement is using parallel construction to conceal the fact that they are receiving tips from the military's mass surveillance systems: https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-searches-secret-evidence/ https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega... Furthermore, millions of Americans that don't own or drive cars stand in direct evidence contrary to your claim that giving up driving is impractical. Driving is actively harmful to our society, our safety, our cities, and our future well-being. Everyone should be avoiding it as much as possible, including but not limited to moving to places where it's not necessary, or only very rarely necessary.

smlckz 7y ago

google knows so much about us. how many people [have] read t&c and privacy policy?

banads 7y ago
Is there anyone that has ever had more information on more people in human history than Google or FB? They have gotten to God like levels with their omniscience

willart4food 7y ago

The police wanted all the data, so my guess is "including search and browsing data" oh oh... time to switch to Firefox. To be noted: real bad actors will start shutting their phones off before their actions.

luckylion 7y ago
> To be noted: real bad actors will start shutting their phones off before their actions. Which would be a signal as well. They'd rather just leave their phones at home.
- LeoTinnitus 7y ago
  Reminds me of the college kids that painted swastikas on the cement and were caught cause their phones were connected in the area.
chewz 7y ago
Fake GPS can mock your location and simulate natural movements. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blogspot.newapphorizons.fakegps&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blogspot.n...

Snetry 7y ago

This kinda reminds me of Watch_Dogs 2

Myrmornis 7y ago

There’s nothing in the article that indicates that cooperating with the enquiry would have been problematic (he appears to have a physical appearance that wouldn’t trigger race-based police prejudices). I do mistrust US police in general, but it must be a bit annoying for them for every good faith investigation direction to be treated adversarially like this.

luckylion 7y ago
The risk you're accepting by believing it's a "good faith investigation" is too high. If it is, great. If it's not, you've helped them build a case against you.
- Myrmornis 7y ago
  See my comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512317 I also think you're losing perspective: it was just some nobody at the local police station investigating a theft of jewelry from some old woman! I bet it would have been totally fine if he'd popped in and chatted to the detective in question.
  - princekolt 7y ago
    You're making so many assumptions here that I don't even know where to start. But let me pick one: Say the bike rider was a person of color (plenty of those to go around), and the investigator was a racist cop (also plenty of those to go around). Do you think the stakes would have been the same? Reality is a lot more complex than your world perspective.
    - Myrmornis 7y ago
      If it's me you're referring to, take a look at my comments in this thread. I have twice explicitly drawn attention to the fact that cooperating with the police here is only to be contemplated because the person in question is white, which implicitly acknowledges that doing so would be an instance of "white privilege".

PhantomGremlin 7y ago

It's not just Google. It is many many apps. Here is a posting from a month ago that didn't get any traction. It links to a Washington Post article that says that the US government is buying location data from apps. It conveniently means they don't need a warrant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22285638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22285638 Here is a posting from 2018 that got 253 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938548

code_duck 7y ago

They can also come through and completely destroy your house in an operation that has absolutely nothing to do with you, and not only do none of the individuals involved have any financial responsibility but neither does any government agency. https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/30/swat-team-destroyed-greenwood-village-familys-home-police-dont-have-to-pay-for-damages/ https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/30/swat-team-destroyed-gr... In this case, police in Colorado destroyed a man's $600,000 home while pursuing a shoplifting suspect.

throwsprtsdy 7y ago
A shoplifting suspect who barricaded himself inside someone else's home during the pursuit and fired gunshots at the police.
- cthor 7y ago
  If society thinks blowing up a house is worth catching the perp then they at least oughta pay for the damn house.
  - throwsprtsdy 7y ago
    So if a shooter sets up in a sufficiently expensive property, the police have to sit there passively and risk being shot because they don't have the money to pay for the damage caused by going in? That makes no sense. I'm generally of the opinion that police are too heavy-handed in the US, but in this particular case I don't think there was any other reasonable option. Moreover the ancestor post referring to the suspect as simply a "shoplifter" was inaccurate.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      Wait out the suspect.
      - hinkley 7y ago
        Right? The flip side of this ad absurdist argument is that if a suspect holed up in MoMA, it’s okay to burn it down because he shot three of the maybe fifteen bullets he has in his possession? No, no it is not.

fortran77 7y ago

This is outrageous! It's bad policing. The police in my area do this too, but they use the "anonymized" data and warrents aren't issued unless they see the same id involved with several burglaries in the area.

vermontdevil 7y ago

* I’m definitely sorry that happened to her, and I’m glad police were trying to solve it,” McCoy said. “But it just seems like a really broad net for them to cast. What’s the cost-benefit? How many innocent people do we have to harass?”* I understand he doesn’t have the resources to fight the constitutionality of the whole process. This quote is why ACLU, EFF, and others need to work together to take it up further. Stop the police from continuing the habit of just sweeping people’s data and worry about the details later.

throwaway17_17 7y ago
There is no constitutional issue in this case. This person gave their information to Google and Google was asked for the information. There is no 4th Amendment protection for information a person gives to someone else. The ACLU, EFF, and others have nothing to take further.
- theluketaylor 7y ago
  The third party doctrine is badly outdated in the modern world where third parties hold immense volumes of information about our locations and interactions. Since it was a court ruling that brought the doctrine into being, the passage of legislation or further court rulings can overturn it or reduce the scope. There is absolutely work for groups like the ACLU and EFF to do here. Here in Canada several of our wireless providers banded together to fight an incredibly broad request for information about everyone hitting particular cell towers during a robbery. The crown tried to simply drop the request when challenged, but thankfully the judge didn't let them off so easily. The court issued some rather strict requirements for similar requests. https://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2016/01/ontario-court-provides-clear-guidance.html https://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2016/01/ontario-court-provides...
  - kspacewalk2 7y ago
    Judicial oversight requirements should be strict, but it should absolutely be a police investigation tool. Calling it "dragnet" to imply dystopian surveillance is silly. Oversight is the crux of the issue, not the tool itself.

tcd 7y ago

delete your google account. don't use android (or iOS really). don't carry a smartphone. I mean, it may seem inconceivable but you're not forced to carry a spy in your pocket =).

jumpinalake 7y ago
Is this what you do?
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  It's what I do, and it's a huge inconvenience. Instead, I recommend getting a smartphone known not to have dedicated spying hardware, replacing the OS with Lineage OS, installing F-Droid and microG (and perhaps Yalp, but only install apps from it if you really really need them) and then keeping it usually switched off (unless you need it on).

jb775 7y ago

Couldn't he just show the police his exact bike route for that day? It would show him passing the house only momentarily. That's probably more than enough for them to eliminate his as a suspect, especially considering they have access to Google's metadata for cross-reference.

quadrifoliate 7y ago
That's not the point. What if he stopped to have a drink of water like 10 minutes from there? Innocent people who happened to be in the vicinity should not have to explain their every moment on some day months in the past because the police don't want to spend time doing more detailed investigations and interviewing potential eyewitnesses.
HarryHirsch 7y ago
You are presumed innocent. In civics class you learn that the prosecution has to prove your guilt (that's bullshit, of course, because you'll be offered a plea deal and have the choice between a copping a plea and finding yourself before a crooked jury that would convict a ham sandwich), but even so, why would you talk to the police and offer them ammunition that can be twisted into a story against you?
- cat199 7y ago
  > You are presumed innocent. This is once your case makes it to court. Police/Prosecutors are looking to find/prosecute the culprit, and will assume guilt where they think it makes sense - the court then confirms/denies if this assumed guilt was correct in a trial.
cesarb 7y ago
> It would show him passing the house only momentarily. Passing the house momentarily (three times within an hour, according to the article) could mean he was checking out the house as a potential target. That's probably more than enough to mark him as a suspect. Were he the culprit, he could have then turned off the phone, or hid it within some distant bushes making it look like he stopped to rest, while actually doing the burglary.

apk-d 7y ago

Are there any recommendations how one can limit the amount of information Google is collecting on them, preferably without completely giving up on Android and Google services (such as maps)? I'm already considered a hermit by friends for not having a Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn account, but to me it constantly feels like I haven't gone far enough. This shit is downright dystopian, and I'm outraged by the general lack of outrage.

glial 7y ago
If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" by Shoshana Zuboff. It's not exactly a 'how to' manual for privacy, but it is helpful for understanding the scale of the problem.
Youden 7y ago
So long as Google Play Services is installed, there's only so much you can do to limit it. It's essentially equivalent to giving Google root access to your phone. The best thing you can do is cut off Google completely. Install AOSP, LineageOS or a similar ROM and don't install Play Services. Get apps from FDroid or where necessary something like Aurora Store (an open-source Play Store implementation). Don't use apps that depend on Google. There are alternative apps for maps that are pretty great, mostly OSM based (e.g. OSMAnd and the Maps.me-based "Maps" app in FDroid). However that's not always something you can do. Some apps just won't work without some kind of connection to Google. For those, there's MicroG, an open-source implementation of Play Services that gives you a whole lot more control and even allows you to use different location backends like those provided by Mozilla or Apple.

pjdemers 7y ago

What surprises me is that somewhere there is a police department that can afford the time to investigate a $2,000 loss.

notRobot 7y ago
There are too many cops in the US. So they need the work. This is also why they have police cops in all schools. Which seems horrifying to anyone not from the US. (They're often on a power trip and take even the smallest opportunities to beat up kids. A web search brings up a long list of such cases.)
- burlesona 7y ago
  They are really unevenly distributed though. Many major cities are short on police, while most suburbs have plenty to spare. This has a lot of effects on day to day, for example in most cities you aren’t getting a traffic ticket unless you do something egregious, the police will see you commit a very minor offense (probably on accident), and just shrug and let it go. They have no time to spare. But in a lot of suburbs they’ll come ticket you with this attitude that they’ve saved the world from a criminal. It’s frustrating.
TwoBit 7y ago
Perhaps there was a pattern in the area that this burglary was part of, and there was serial burglaries they were trying to stamp out.
briandear 7y ago
If they don’t, then you’ll have an increase in $1999 crimes. Look at the effect of Prop 47 in California. Crime has increased.

rb808 7y ago

Surely this is a good thing about the future? Everyone is tracked and when a serious crime happens we can find out who was there. I agree it feels weird now and will need some controls worked out but seems inevitable and not that scary.

banads 7y ago
If you've studied history or care about freedom of thought and movement, you wouldn't be so optimistic.
lostcolony 7y ago
And it only costs several thousand dollars a pop to prove you're innocent! What progress!
cesarb 7y ago
For the innocent, being falsely accused sure is scary. The consequences of being wrongly declared guilty, or even just accused, can be severe.
greenyoda 7y ago
> Everyone is tracked and when a serious crime happens we can find out who was there. At some point, criminals will figure out that it's not smart to carry your cell phone when you intend to commit a crime. At which point, the police will only be able to find all the innocent people who were there.

jumpinalake 7y ago

How inconvenient is it to turn off all location sharing at the OS level on a mobile device? I have just started testing moments ago and am not sure what I’m up for.

RandomBacon 7y ago
It's a step in the right direction, but be aware the police could also ask the cell service provider for location information.
gruez 7y ago
Why would it be an issue? Unless you use maps, you shouldn't notice a difference

jeffdavis 7y ago

This might run afoul of the Carpenter decision, right? It basically held that asking for cell tower location data is a search of the person rather than a subpoena of records. EDIT: maybe not. This one had a warrant rather than a subpoena. I'd still be interested in the interaction though.

ajross 7y ago
Exactly, the warrant is exactly the mechanism used by our legal system to document the suspension of rights otherwise granted by the fourth amendment. And it's why I think a lot of the ire here is misdirected. I mean, sure, the police were wrong for asking for this data, but it's easy to see why they wanted it -- it makes their job easier in an obvious way. The real problem here is the judge that granted the warrant.
throwaway17_17 7y ago
Doubtful, Carpenter was based on the fact that the cell tower location was not a willing transfer of international, but merely a functioning of the cellular technology and so the information was still protected under the 4th amendment requirement for a warrant. In this case, suspect ‘willingly’ transferred that information to Google and there was a warrant request for the information. Although, I suspect that the warrant was more to make it easier to get Google’s compliance than to deal with 4th amendment concerns.

superkuh 7y ago

Lets be real here. They didn't track his bike. They tracked his phone. Your phone is how you are tracked. It doesn't matter if you're using an application where you didn't read the TOS and opted in or what. The basestations are always going to be collecting years of aggregate multilateration data on your habits of movement and saving it.

jobseeker990 7y ago

Are Apple products any safer on this issue, or not at all?

ajross 7y ago
Not really. The phone companies have relevant data too for this kind of search. What's notable here isn't that Google was a single source for this data, but that they notified the user when it happened, even if it means everyone on HN now thinks they're the bad guys in the situation.
- theferalrobot 7y ago
  Yes the phone companies have data but it is far far less precise than GPS which was required in this case. Additionally, Apple does not collect your location data like Google does so I am not sure why we should let Google off the hook.
  - ajross 7y ago
    You don't know that GPS was required, nor whether or not cell records were subpoenaed as part of this investigation. All we have is what Google told the guy in the story. And as far as Apple, I don't think that's true. Apple has a location history feature just like Google does. If that data ever reaches their machines in a non-anonymized way, then it's subject to subpoena just like anyone else's data is. Do you have a cite that explains why this is impossible?
    - theferalrobot 7y ago
      >You don't know that GPS was required, nor whether or not cell records were subpoenaed as part of this investigation. All we have is what Google told the guy in the story. I do know that because cell tower triangulation is on average only precise within about a square mile, which is considered far too broad for these types of searches. >Apple has a location history feature just like Google does. If that data ever reaches their machines in a non-anonymized way, then it's subject to subpoena just like anyone else's data is. Do you have a cite that explains why this is impossible? Location history on ios is stored locally, not logged and stored by Apple. Any data that is passed to Apple is anonymized. Per Apple: "Where you go says a lot about you. Maps delivers a great experience without Apple knowing which stores, neighborhoods, or clinics you visit. And because Maps doesn’t include a sign-in, where you go isn’t associated with your Apple ID at all. Personalized features, like locating your parked car, are created right on your device. Data used to improve navigation, such as routes and search terms, is not associated with your identity. Instead, that information is based on random identifiers that are constantly changing." AND "If Location Services is on, your iPhone will periodically send the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers (where supported by a device) in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple, to be used for augmenting this crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations." https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056

sedachv 7y ago

Do you need to take phone calls and answer messages while riding your bike? When it became obvious to me that the scenario described in the article was going to be increasingly common, I started to carry my phone in airplane mode, in an electromagnetically shielded pouch (most of which only work marginally), when in transit from place to place. I only turn GPS on when I need it. This also has a nice side-effect of prolonging battery life. As far as bike fitness tracking, I have and highly recommend the Sigma BC 14.16 bike computer - it runs for over a year on a single coin cell battery, comes with a barometric altimeter, and even does altitude plotting. And it does not and cannot report you to the police! https://www.sigmasport.com/en/produkte/fahrrad-computer/wired/wired/bc1416 https://www.sigmasport.com/en/produkte/fahrrad-computer/wire...

glitcher 7y ago
I get it that this is a simple thing one can do today to help increase their privacy a little, but this is wholly the wrong attitude. One can still easily be caught up in a geofence dragnet without riding bikes, regardless of how often they turn on airplane mode. If law makers/enforcement continue down this dystopian path, having your phone off or not with you at all may become enough to make you a suspect.
luckylion 7y ago
> I started to carry my phone in airplane mode, in an electromagnetically shielded pouch (most of which only work marginally), when in transit from place to place. That looks extremely suspicious. If they don't have a match, looking for "who turned their phone off somewhere in the vicinity and turned it back on 30 minutes later somewhere else" makes sense. If you don't want to get tracked, leave your phone at home, and carry a switched-off burner for emergencies.

jcims 7y ago

All it would take is a curious engineer an Google to assemble location data on politicians and the 'associates' they appear to be exercising with privately to help move the regulatory needle here.

luckylion 7y ago
They do get hundreds of thousands of reasons per year to not do that, and stock options on top. Don't put your hope on the people that benefit from the problem.

gerardnll 7y ago

Everything about the case is nuts but, to me, one of the worst thing is this line "They agreed to dip into their savings to pay for a lawyer.". No money, no justice.

joering2 7y ago

> Not long afterward, Kenyon said, a lawyer in the state attorney’s office assigned to represent the Gainesville Police Department told him there were details in the motion that led them to believe that Kenyon’s client was not the burglar. > On Feb. 24, Kenyon dropped his legal challenge. Here is the problem. Getting entangled he should have press harder and get them to answer precisely what they are referring to.

fluidcruft 7y ago
I think it's just saying that information provided in the John Doe motion to block Google from releasing his identity led them to believe that John Doe was not the burglar. It's not like the police had any info to rule him out, just some fragment of a location trace or whatever that said he was someone to look into. It could be some guy biking round his neighborhood or some guy who drove in to stalk the neighborhood for a burglary. If they don't know his identity, how can they even know it was his neighborhood? They don't have any reason to exclude him until they have more info.

shaneprrlt 7y ago

The idea of living off the grid becomes more and more appealing every day.

iamleppert 7y ago

He sure don’t look like an avid bike rider.

jsjddbbwj 7y ago
He probably fills the water bottle with soylent ;P

miguelmota 7y ago

American justice system is broken; if you’re arrested you get put in jail until your court date unless you can pay the bail. If you can’t pay the bail then you can be in jail for months or years for something you didn’t do. The prosecutor will tell you to take plea deal for a shorter sentence or risk losing fighting in court and get a more severe punishment. A lot of innocent people end up taking plea deals because the odds are against them. Court cases can drag on for years and cost a fortune in lawyer fees. The biggest lie is that you’re 'innocent until proven guilty'. If you get accused of a felony and end being proven innocent, there’s still no way to get that off your permanent record and will show up in background checks and follow you for life.

metabagel 7y ago
California eliminated cash bail in 2018. In California, a risk assessment is done to determine whether a suspect can be safely released.

informativeguy 7y ago

I don't get it. How did data taken by runkeeper end up with google. Can someone help me get paranoid here?

Noos 7y ago

Even before all of this tech, if you looked suspicious you would get stopped or worse. A story was when I moved to a different state, I went out walking in my new area. Exploring the suburbs. I had brought a book with me, and it was starting to rain. I kept my book under my shirt to protect it. As I went home, I was suddenly stopped by four police cars; apparently a resident thought my book was a gun, and I was casing the area or something and the suburb I walked through must have been worried about crime. It was darkly funny to show them my book, which was a defense of political civility. It stopped me from walking there, though, as long as i lived there. I think one aspect of this is the surprise that an engineer would get swept up in this, but this isn't really something that can be solved by tech.

ehsankia 7y ago
There are so many stories of people becoming a suspect just because a neighbor named them, or they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, or other kinds of random coincidence. At the end of the day, the hope is that the evidence is taken in the right context and proper investigation will catch the right person. Unfortunately, especially in this era of True Crime documentaries, we've seen it go awry one too many time, and people are rightly scared that they may be next.
maram 7y ago
>>Even before all of this tech, if you looked suspicious you would get stopped or worse. Tech is IMPROVING our lives. Software is an enabler, it solves our problems. If the software is making our problems worse, then there is something wrong with the software, we fix the software. But the issue here isn't the software, the issue here is privacy invasion. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy aren't comprehensive enough to inform users what they are doing or how and when they are collecting their personal data. From the story “I didn’t realize that by having location services on that Google was also keeping a log of where I was going, I’m sure it’s in their terms of service but I never read through those walls of text, and I don’t think most people do either.” McCoy said. Steve Jobs had a solution for this: "Privacy means that people know what they’re signing up for. In plain English, and repeatedly. I believe that people are smart. Some people want to share more than others. Ask them...Make them tell you to stop asking them. Let them know what you’re going to do with their data"

cnst 7y ago

I think it's interesting that these articles are always from the PoV of living in a surveillance state. What about legitimate uses of geofence warrants? Does that not exist? What if your mobile device gets stolen? Why should you not have the right to get its location easily? Happened to me in Northern California, and both AT&T and the police were useless. Part of the reason why I'm not very interested in returning to Cali.

chrischen 7y ago
You have a right... so long as you don’t encroach on others’ rights.
- cnst 7y ago
  Well, it's my phone and service, I paid for it, and I want to give the police the address of the perpetrators for them to check out. But, no, I'm not allowed to do that, because privacy; and, no, the police in California won't do that, either, because courts are overcrowded, and they don't feel like asking the judge for a warrant that AT&T requires. I don't think the criminals who steal my device are supposed to have any privacy rights. Just sayin'.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Actually the real reason is probably that the GPS data isnMt that accurate nor real time enough that they can just go to the spot and it pinpoints the person, so they aren’t going to go on a wild goose chase to recover your private property while other more serious crimes are being committed.

robocat 7y ago

It took the prosecutors 10 months to follow up: “burglary of an elderly woman’s home 10 months earlier”, “ He looked up his route on the day of the March 29, 2019”.

2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago

The police have far too much power in this. The police should only have the power to name a suspect and then request a single GPS fix in a window of their choosing. Anything else requires more judges to sign off. This power of dragnet, "give me everyone within 200 feet of this property in the last 48 hours" is just astoundingly one-sided.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Why? They use it to compile a witness list, maybe suspect list, rule out many people, as a first approximation. As long as the data is archived and not open for abusive use; where do you feel any harm comes in?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Because such information should only be used to confirm as specific person was present, not to dragnet a bunch of innocents.
- jellicle 7y ago
  "Somebody walked by the outside of a house where a 97-year-old said something was stolen" wasn't previously sufficient grounds to search every document you had ever written or received, but now it is.
  - kspacewalk2 7y ago
    Sure it was, if they walked/biked by the house 3 times in close succession around the time of the burglary. A completely legitimate reason to make him a person of interest and interview him. If he was picked up on a neighbour's door cam, this wouldn't even be on the news.
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  Because it costs each innocent victim tens of thousands of dollars to defend themselves. If they are poor, they may have no defense. Next, they are plea bargaining to a crime they didn’t commit because that is the only reasonable option left.

upofadown 7y ago

A good reminder that even if you have nothing to hide, privacy is still very important. The more data you make available the greater chance of a false positive. Those who protect their privacy will in the long run come out ahead. It is one of the few situations with no real tradeoffs.

antpls 7y ago

It makes you wonder how many of these stories exist and are unheard of. I'm OK with Google sharing some aggregated metrics and statistic to help fight criminals, but tracking individuals is a nightmare becoming real. It is not directly Google's fault, they are required by laws to provide the data. Laws are democratically voted, yet are people okay with police able to open their private lives with just a button?

Youden 7y ago
> It is not directly Google's fault, they are required by laws to provide the data. It's Google's fault for collecting the data in the first place. They could have collected it anonymously rather than tie it to a user but they chose not to do so.

x__x 7y ago

So if he were using an old cellphone, before the days of apps, would he still have been served a notice from the phone company for his phone tower location? The article says: "drawn from users’ GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular connection" and cellular connection.

bm98 7y ago
_That_ is the question we should be asking. If not, is it because geofence warrants have a higher legal bar if issued to a phone company? Or is it about the level-of-effort?
greenyoda 7y ago
Cellular location data is not nearly as precise as GPS. A cell tower could serve an area of many square miles (the fewer users there are in the area, the larger an area the tower can accommodate), so just knowing which cell tower you're talking to can't place you at a particular address.

x__x 7y ago

"law enforcement authorities say those worries are overblown...is not enough to justify charging someone with a crime, they say." But it is enough to justify the person spend thousands and thousands of dollars on their legal defense so they can prove their innocence

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago

Tangential question about the work "burglarized": Is there a term for a word that's the result of inefficient application of modifiers? I would guess that "burglarized" is formed by this evolutionary chain: A1) burgle A2) buglar : someone who burgles A3) burglarized : an object which has been acted upon by a burglar But I would think a more canonical chain is: B1) burgle B2) burgled : an object of burgling A3 and B2 seem to mean the same thing, so I would think B2 is preferable because both the word itself, and the chain of applied modifications, are shorter.

wizzwizz4 7y ago
Interesting that A3 is American English and B2 is British English.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
If anything it reminds me of the criticism of F.R Leavis who often railed against a tendency of making English more Germanic and thus less elegant, often in pursuit of filling one's writings with a professional jargon that would sound more intelligent and devoid of energy.
mistersquid 7y ago
This is a guess, but I think “burglarize” is a back formation coming from “burglarization”, the state of having been burgled or an instance of same. “Burglarization” is, naively but grammatically, caused by someone or something that “burglarizes”. It’s similar to “orientate“ instead of “orient”. An object or person has an “orientation” produced by someone or something that “orientates”. This in contrast to someone or something that “orients”. It’s ugly English, for sure, but I believe it’s perfectly cromulent in grammatical terms.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

colordrops 7y ago

This is a perfect example of a concrete problem arising from lack of privacy in electronic devices. It's not some abstract fear of being manipulated, but instead a simple and direct invasion of privacy that leads to dire consequences. I didn't know police had such free access to Google data btw. This is super concerning to me.

zmmmmm 7y ago

It's ironic that in the end the narrowness of the warrant was what hurt him. They could see he went past the house during the time of the burglary but not that he went past there regularly. By showing them more data he convinced them he was innocent. Not that I am arguing for more pervasive powers for data collection. But rather, appreciating how poweful data is and how dangerous data without context is. People need control over and access to data about them guaranteed.

hyperion2010 7y ago

I love how many people in this thread think that Google's location tracking is the issue here. If you have a phone at all you are tracked. If you drive many newer cars you are tracked. If you go out in public where there are cameras you are tracked. The difference is that the individual will never be able to get access to the cell tower tracking information, cctv footage, etc. The problem if there is one, is that it is too easy for law enforcement to get access to Google's information and use it in ways that are probably a violation of the constitution. While turning your tracking off may seem like a good idea, and for some threat models it certainly is, for many users this actively disempowers them relative to corporations and states. Someone already has your data, you might want to get a copy of it too.

dchyrdvh 7y ago

I like how an innocent person needs to have a criminal mindset to avoid going to jail for a made up charge. I mean this attitude "never talk to the police" seems backwards until you realise why. Someone made a good analogy that police is the HR department of the state and you know that if an HR wants to talk to you, it's rarely for your benefit.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

I'm surprised various mobile tech breadcrumbs aren't being used to track / cross track the random ppl who getting C19. I'm not suggesting I'm in favor of it; only that I'm surprised it's not happening. Yet?

discordance 7y ago

Before you sign up for a service online check tosdr.com to see what you’re signing up. It’s crowd sourced site that shows what’s inside the terms of service.

aembleton 7y ago
I get the message: Tosdr.com is for sale
- discordance 7y ago
  correction: tosdr.org

hyperpallium 7y ago

There's a simple solution to ubiquitous surveillance: conform. Don't do anything out of the ordinary. Do exactly what everyone does, and you won't get hurt. If you enjoy exploring and experimenting, discovering and inventing, creating and wondering, you'll need to train yourself out of that, because thoughts lead to actions. Think Same.

kspacewalk2 7y ago
The whole point is that it's the conforming behaviour (leaving the location tracker on) rather than the non conforming one (turning it off) that led to him being a person of interest. A completely legitimate one, I might add.

rdiddly 7y ago

Another day, another new outrage. “I would think the majority of citizens in the world would love the fact that we are putting violent offenders in jail,” Armbruster said. Remind me to bust that one out the next time anyone disagrees with me. "I would think the majority of citizens in the world would want us to watch another UFC fight, honey, instead of Stranger Things."

mckoss 7y ago

Why the hell isn't Google challenging these sweeping untargetted searches? This is akin to giving law enforcement all of our location data without reasonable suspicion.

srtjstjsj 7y ago
ctrl-F "warrant". You may disagree with the law, but Google is required to comply.

sundvor 7y ago

Bah, if riding with eg a Garmin or Wahoo it would clearly show there was no stopping at the front of the house and that should be it. If Google Fit is a bit like Samsung Health, it would probably stop an activity at the spot of the burglary so without that there's proof of no involvement. In Australia there'd be no point wasting money on a lawyer, just show the data and you'd be in the clear. The whole story feels stupid, but that's probably mainly because I stem from a more (on overall) enlightened country (Norway).

kaelzhang 7y ago

Google, does do evil