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Forensic methods used by police and intelligence go much deeper than just looking at phones near the crime scene. 1. They look at phones moving towards the cri
by nabla9 6y ago
Forensic methods used by police and intelligence go much deeper than just looking at phones near the crime scene.
1. They look at phones moving towards the crime scene and going dark when getting close. This is also how you can detect secret meetings between people. They move towards the same area and shut down their phones.
2. They look at suspect phone going dark anywhere around the time of the incident.
3. Leaving a phone at home that is not answering calls or creating traffic during the time of interest is also a lead (if you already have a suspect).
- suifbwish 6y ago3 raises a very interesting and somewhat concerning possibility. In the near future as AI develops more in the crime detection arena you may become a suspect for crimes occurring in your geographical area based on things you are not doing or based on some set of states your smart devices have that match a statistical model of a suspicious person. The idea of becoming a suspect because you didn’t touch your smartphone during a particular timeframe is chilling.
- bilbo0s 6y agoThis already happens, most of us just don't live in the neighborhoods where it happens. That's the unfortunate reality of today's America. It's also the reason that these techniques will be employed in a ubiquitous fashion in tomorrow's America. If we wanted to stop this, the time to complain was years ago when the practice was started in the drug war. Or even recently, when the practice was employed during the BLM riots. Any attempt to stop it now brings howls of racism. Causing police departments and other law enforcement agencies to double down on insisting that they use it on everyone in their attempts to prove the people screaming racism wrong.
- 13415 6y agoLike with any other form of surveillance, if it's a bad practice, then it shouldn't be used on anyone, regardless of race.
- bilbo0s 6y agoPoint is, the time to stop that particular practice was in its infancy. Waiting until the practice is both widespread and normalized is a losing strategy. The use of cell phone data is well understood, well litigated, and for all intents and purposes, settled law. To come along and unwind all that now is sisyphaean. We need to start getting out in front of the issues. Not reacting all the time. And certainly not allowing privacy violations that affect others, then trying to prevent the very same privacy violation from affecting our own. The people doing the violating are going to double down. They don't want their critics being proved right. They don't want to be accused of being hypocritical. So what are they going to do? As privacy activists, we need to make it easy for potential partners to cooperate with us. Right now, we're making it very difficult for potential partners to cooperate with us. We're putting potential partners in very difficult positions, and then asking why they won't support us?
- Enginerrrd 6y agoThis is unnecessarily defeatist. GPDR proved that you could get enough support for large scale walkback of thoroughly entrenched practices.
- simple_phrases 6y agoThe US isn't Europe, and in the US, law enforcement has undue influence in government and significant lobbying power. PBAs successfully lobbied to keep marijuana illegal all over the country, and it took public referendums to get it legalized in states that it is legal in. Even then, PBAs had undue influence in crafting legislation so that municipal police could still ticket and jail people in order to still generate revenue from marijuana possession and sale violations.
- nitrogen 6y agoWe need to start getting out in front of the issues. Not reacting all the time. It's kind of difficult when the privacy violations in question begin in secret. Consider police trying not to disclose their use of Stingrays, for example. I somehow doubt police departments and intelligence agencies are going to agree to run all future uses of tech by a privacy watchdog, so how do you suggest getting ahead of the problem?
- _underfl0w_ 6y agoI recall (likely pre-covid) seeing a story posted here of some unsuspecting schmuck who became a suspect in a crime because his smart watch showed him circling near the area on his usual bike route. Scary times.
- Wistar 6y agoPerhaps this story about a Florida man and his fitness app data that "placed him" at the scene of a burglary because he had the misfortune of having ridden by the crime site three times during his ride? https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/7/21169533/florida-google-runkeeper-geofence-police-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/7/21169533/florida-google-ru...
- XorNot 6y agoBeing a suspect does not mean you are guilty. Being arrested and charged does not mean you are guilty. This whole line of "what could go wrong!?" starts from a much deeper sickness in the way Americans view the criminal justice system.
- djmips 6y agoIt's almost become that arrested is conflated with guilty.
- jki275 6y agoFor a professional, being arrested for a major crime in America is a life ending event. Proving one's innocence once the powers that be have determined one to be guilty will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, will almost certainly mean loss of job, family and friends, etc. And you might still go to prison for the rest of your life anyway.
- shkkmo 6y ago> This whole line of "what could go wrong!?" starts from a much deeper sickness in the way Americans view the criminal justice system The sickness is in how the criminal justice system works. Jury trials are a rare edgecase, most detminations of guilt are made by DAs. For most people in this country, being arrested and charged means you will be pushed into a plea deal and those that fight for their innocence face retaliatory harsh charges and sentencing.
- simple_phrases 6y agoML is really good at picking up anomalies, and that is scary if, say, law enforcement or prosecutors are doing dragnet surveillance for anomalies in order to drum up charges.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoit's inherently scary if one is somewhat anomalous in behavior.
- Wistar 6y agoIndeed. Witness all the folks who insisted Amanda Knox was guilty because she didn't act and look as they thought she should were she innocent.
- exporectomy 6y agoThey already do that with their human brains. I've been stopped by the police for: - Sitting in a parked car in a suburban street for too long. - Going shopping at 2am. - Walking under a bridge at night. It's OK as long as they quickly realize you're harmless and leave you alone.
- the8472 6y agoHuman brains tend to be stateful, they can be talked to. And they're only deployed at small scale. AIs don't update and can be deployed at scale.
- kordlessagain 6y ago> AIs don't update Currently.
- ficklepickle 6y agoPolicing in the USA, to a nearby outsider, appears to be more about enforcing societal norms than safety or laws. It seems to me they harass anyone they perceive to be abnormal. As a delightfully abnormal human, I'm very glad I was born just north of the 49th parallel. It's not perfect, but I do feel free to be myself.
- exporectomy 6y agoThere's nothing wrong with that as long as the law enforcement is trustworthy and competent. We do want to catch criminals. That's the whole point of having law enforcement. It's funny that in America, people seem to have so given up on the idea of the police being honest and competent that all they want is to reduce their power. They don't seem to want reform and instead would rather suffer from crime than be investigated by the police. Becoming a suspect shouldn't be a scary thing to avoid. You should be able to just ignore your status and wait for the police to exclude you. But somehow it's a problem in America that people just accept.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y agoBecause basing the system on the assumption that police will always be honest and competent is what got us into the situation we're in. Once bitten, twice shy.
- exporectomy 6y agoI'm talking about accountability, not blind trust.
- satellite2 6y agoIt's generally well accepted in the criminology field that you can reduce crime and that actually the most effective way to reduce crime happen well before and are not related to policing anyone. No one wants to suffer from crime by inaction.
- NotPavlovsDog 6y ago>There's nothing wrong with that as long as the law enforcement is trustworthy and competent "there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly" Neil Gaiman, American Gods
- BurningFrog 6y agoYou can become a suspect for all sorts of random things you have no control over, like being near a crime, knowing certain people, etc. I don't see how it can work any other way.
- donkeyd 6y agoWhich means there will be 100 suspects where usually there would be maybe 2. Which means the data is useless and therefore won't be used. Law enforcement doesn't want a system that incorrectly flags hundreds of people, unlike what some people seem to think. They want systems that reliably flag potential suspects, because that reduces work in stead of increasing it.
- inefficient 6y agoThat is only true if you assume they truly care about having the correct suspect rather than having a suspect they can get convicted. However, there is a long history of wrongful convictions and police and prosecutors using bad data to get them. Check out the Central Park Five for a big name one.
- AWildC182 6y agoThis. To put it simply, they like Precise data, not Accurate data. They want a bunch of data-points saying one thing and couldn't care less if it's objectively the right target, not a bunch of data points saying a bunch of things, one of which is actually right. Precision data gives them convictions and convictions give them promotions. As they say, any metric that becomes a target... This is why giving the police invasive surveillance tech is a terrible idea, they will only focus on the data that fits their narrative and discard the rest. The defense doesn't even need to know that any other data exists.
- rbanffy 6y ago> They want a bunch of data-points saying one thing and couldn't care less if it's objectively the right target If your system produces data points with 8 significant digits of wrong data, we have two problems: the system and whoever approved the purchase. Any convictions will have to be corroborated by other evidence.
- ashtonkem 6y agoThat’s already a thing, not a future possibility. Jogging too close to a crime can get your location subpoenaed from Google or whoever has it. Stories crop up on HN occasionally about this.
- playingchanges 6y agoI would think a warrant would still be required, so not as minority report as all that.
- irrational 6y agoYou are a suspect because you do not own a smartphone.
- exhilaration 6y agoYou don't need a smartphone to get tracked, even your flipphone reports its location, here's a wired article from 1998: https://www.wired.com/1998/01/e911-turns-cell-phones-into-tracking-devices/ https://www.wired.com/1998/01/e911-turns-cell-phones-into-tr...
- konjin 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOA75NAoN6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOA75NAoN6Q There is a low tech solution to every problem. For a real world example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White#Conclusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White#Conclusi...
- titzer 6y agoYet another reason to not let them normalize mass surveillance.
- RivieraKid 6y agoWhere did you learn this by the way? (I'm assuming this is not just a speculation.)
- nabla9 6y agoI read books about spatial techniques used in forensic investigations and listened some lectures. The company I worked for used to have law enforcement customers needing GIS and data mining consultants.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ramraj07 6y ago3 could also be perfect. Call your friend, let him come pick your phone up and show it a good time, while you go commit a crime, perfect alibi!
- hindsightbias 6y agoBrowsing fingerprints would not be the same.
- rootsudo 6y agoYou don't have to browse all the time, if it's a pattern just being alongside friends phone, and your phone is locked - it'd make sense. You're enjoying conversation, he's doing the spotify playlist.. There you go.
- draugadrotten 6y agoI know of a murder case where the suspect is trying to use a web page refresh in the middle of the night as evidence he did not kill his lover. The prosecution thinks it was an automatic refresh but have difficulties proving it.
- vmception 6y agoRegarding 3 I’ve been thinking of launching a courier service for this that would pollute data on a wide scale. Basically a “phone walking” service that also charges your phone. Could just be a side gig for Uber drivers, having phone lock boxes in their cars. The infrastructure is already there, phone lock boxes for charging exist in airports and nightclubs. This would be one that moves.
- grumple 6y agoIs there a use for this that isn’t to enable criminals?
- selestify 6y agoI don’t see how you can have it both ways. Any privacy protections for the average law-abiding citizen is going to help out the criminals too.
- dhosek 6y agoThe question is what the non-crime use case is. I can't think of such a thing. In any event, having your phone in an uber with a bunch of other phones and not following "normal" uber ride patterns would be yet another detectable pattern.
- vmception 6y agoYes, that model would be detectable, what does that get anyone though? I found flaws with a lot of models, whether it was greater vulnerability of not getting your phone back, or having too many other phones in the same place. I decided that more phones in the same and route was more tolerable. But any model I didnt think of I’d like to read it.
- enriquto 6y ago> The question is what the non-crime use case is. To protect against a tyrannical government.
- umvi 6y agoWell during covid my phone doesn't leave home 99% of the time, so that wouldn't tell them anything.
- phkahler 6y ago>> Leaving a phone at home that is not answering calls or creating traffic during the time of interest is also a lead (if you already have a suspect). Interesting. My phone uses WiFi for everything by default. I wonder if they'd be able to tell (probably via Google?) If I were to leave it home for a day. On the weekend of course, since daily commute will hit the towers except for an atypical occurrence. With such capability I feel like it's obvious they don't want to stop certain things.
- watwatinthewat 6y agoYour phone still stays connected to a tower when it can unless you turn that off explicitly, else how would a call be able to come in?
- phkahler 6y agoGood point.
- giancarlostoro 6y agoGood thing I rarely answer calls and my phone creates traffic on its own. Hell, I wouldnt be surprised if I could just spoof my phone's traffic with simple scripts.
- alwayshumans 6y agoInterestingly the same techniques are applied to the fishing industry to monitor for illegal fishing in protected areas.
- everdrive 6y agoAre these methods actually used by police, or are these speculations based on the sort of inferences police could draw?
- systemvoltage 6y agoI am also wondering the same. Would be great if the OP would provide some sources around this.
- trhway 6y agobasically leaving you phone or going dark is by itself already suspicious behavior warranting a quick interview with the police AI-based precognition screener and/or dispatch of a police welfare check drone.
- gruez 6y ago>3. Leaving a phone at home that is not answering calls or creating traffic during the time of interest is also a lead (if you already have a suspect). Won't most phones being left at home generate no traffic because it's connected to wifi? AFAIK most phones turn off their mobile data connection if connected to wifi. It's also not too unreasonable to have very little baseline voice traffic, since everyone's texting these days. As for texts, it might be suspicious if you have a high baseline amount of texts, but it's also not too unreasonable for someone to communicate almost exclusively using chat apps (eg. signal, imessage).
- dboreham 6y agoProbably that's not what happens.
- gruez 6y agoElaborate?
- elliotec 6y agoLocation and traffic data still happen over wifi of course, so I wouldn't think that's considered "gone dark"
- gruez 6y agoI was more thinking of data collection by cellphone companies, but what you've described can conceivably be done if you had cooperation from os vendors (apple/google).
- Taniwha 6y agoMaybe the data connection, but not the radio that's listening for incoming calls (and it's periodically pinging the closest cell tower so that the cell network knows which cell tower to send that call to)
- goatinaboat 6y agoForensic methods used by police and intelligence go much deeper than just looking at phones near the crime scene. It’s amazing how efficient the FBI has suddenly become, practically overnight.
- alsetmusic 6y ago> 3. Leaving a phone at home that is not answering calls or creating traffic during the time of interest is also a lead (if you already have a suspect). I wonder if there’s any value to putting a phone in airplane mode and saying you were watching a movie or having a date night with a partner. Probably only useful if someone pulled logs off a phone within a short window of time.
- mkhpalm 6y agoYikes, I don't know if I'd call it "forensics" using a negative to suggest a positive. That actually sounds pretty dystopian to me. What happens if you just happen to be in the area of random nefarious deeds and your phone runs out of battery? Or maybe you accidentally left your phone at home? Now you're caught up in some drag net you had nothing to do with? Cities are large and a lot of things are going on all around us all the time...
- Consultant32452 6y agoLaw enforcement isn't going to tell you their capabilities or what behaviors put a red flag on you. This "cell phone pinged near the capitol" is the kind of language I expect them to use in a press release. It's generic enough and close enough to true that it conveys the basic idea without revealing secrets. Another recent example is how the FBI was asking people to help identify people who entered the White House on Jan 6 by their pictures. I'm sure the FBI has some of the best facial recognition software on the planet at their disposal and they knew who those people were in real time during the event. Asking the public to help identify people serves two purposes. First, it doesn't reveal their full facial recognition capabilities to other threat actors. Secondly, it trains the population to snitch on each other.
- anoyesnonymous 6y agoGait recognition is supposed to be as good as a fingerprint. Plenty of video footage to identify everyone there even with masks on and no phone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_analysis#Gait_as_biometrics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gait_analysis#Gait_as_biometri...
- Raidion 6y agoGaits, like fingerprints, would do a pretty good job of matching a suspect to evidence, but if they have a gait (or fingerprint) and there is no match in the system, then what?
- mike_d 6y agoAre you aware of a database of everyones gait to match against?
- White_Wolf 6y agoSo if you want to do something illegal, put a small stone in your shoe to change things a bit?
- Triv888 6y ago> 3. Leaving a phone at home that is not answering calls or creating traffic during the time of interest is also a lead (if you already have a suspect). solution: always leave it at home but then they will use the sensors from phones[1] in your vicinity to detect your particular brain waves... /s 1. super spying device
- Mandatum 6y agoI think with open WiFi networks and city mesh networks, using a WiFi-only tablet (probably iPad given their treatment of unique device ID's and privacy to prevent tracking by commercial device catchers) with a VPN is probably the best way to avoid this type of surveillance. Although it does leave you in a sticky situation if you can't find an open network.