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it will end up as a cat and mouse game surely poeple who are up to no good, would just turn off their phone - possibly taking the battery out or placing it in

it will end up as a cat and mouse game surely poeple who are up to no good, would just turn off their phone - possibly taking the battery out or placing it in a foiled bag. or give it to another person or even hide it somewhere else doesn't seem very hard to circumvent

ProjectArcturis 5y ago
The vast, vast majority of criminals are too dumb to do any of that.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  But we don't need new tools to catch criminals who were always easy to catch.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  The ones that get caught, at least. I worry that availability bias makes it hard to know what "true" crime looks like, so we end up chasing the wrong things.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  People have gotten away with heinous crimes for decades, only to ever be caught by chance. There are a staggering amount of unsolved murders and missing persons who have never been found. Even white collar crimes with clear paper trails can go on for decades. As long as you're not committing a high profile crime, and you make a informed effort to minimize and/or erase as much evidence as possible, you're pretty likely to get away with a crime.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    And they never teach that in schools.
gknoy 5y ago
The issue is if you're doing something illegal that you don't know are illegal, but are one of the small number of people in the geofenced area. We don't even have to be guilty, the police just have to _think_ you are guilty for them to make you have a bad day.
Syonyk 5y ago
Or just leave it at home. But then there's the flip side of that, which is that if you always have your phone... except when you're up to no good, the courts could potentially use that to indicate that you planned on going out for no good. It's a far better habit to regularly leave your phone at home somewhat randomly. I no longer take mine into town every time, half the time deliberately, half because I just legitimately forgot. I've de-fanged my phone, leave it on the counter instead of in my pocket, and have moved back to a flip phone (week long battery life!), so it's not that much of a loss - but I've had to work to get there. 6-7 years ago, realizing I'd left my phone behind was very much a panic moment. Even though I grew up before them.

ProjectArcturis 5y ago

The vast, vast majority of criminals are too dumb to do any of that.

pessimizer 5y ago
But we don't need new tools to catch criminals who were always easy to catch.
nitrogen 5y ago
The ones that get caught, at least. I worry that availability bias makes it hard to know what "true" crime looks like, so we end up chasing the wrong things.
mywittyname 5y ago
People have gotten away with heinous crimes for decades, only to ever be caught by chance. There are a staggering amount of unsolved murders and missing persons who have never been found. Even white collar crimes with clear paper trails can go on for decades. As long as you're not committing a high profile crime, and you make a informed effort to minimize and/or erase as much evidence as possible, you're pretty likely to get away with a crime.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  And they never teach that in schools.

gknoy 5y ago

The issue is if you're doing something illegal that you don't know are illegal, but are one of the small number of people in the geofenced area. We don't even have to be guilty, the police just have to _think_ you are guilty for them to make you have a bad day.

Syonyk 5y ago

Or just leave it at home. But then there's the flip side of that, which is that if you always have your phone... except when you're up to no good, the courts could potentially use that to indicate that you planned on going out for no good. It's a far better habit to regularly leave your phone at home somewhat randomly. I no longer take mine into town every time, half the time deliberately, half because I just legitimately forgot. I've de-fanged my phone, leave it on the counter instead of in my pocket, and have moved back to a flip phone (week long battery life!), so it's not that much of a loss - but I've had to work to get there. 6-7 years ago, realizing I'd left my phone behind was very much a panic moment. Even though I grew up before them.