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I believe this Ars Techica article (covering an AP News + EFF project) may be describing the same product/service: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/

I believe this Ars Techica article (covering an AP News + EFF project) may be describing the same product/service: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/cops-wanted-to-keep-mass-surveillance-app-secret-privacy-advocates-refused/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/cops-wanted-to-k... What is most distasteful to me is that both the vendor and the police try hard to hide the fact that they are using it. Why hide it if it’s legal? Odds are because they don’t want to be a squeaky wheel that gets greased.

epgui 4y ago
> Why hide it if it’s legal? Legal and moral are two different things, and the police is a public service. Public trust and perception are important because they give legitimacy to government.
- srcmap 4y ago
  Also PR problem. Public opinions can trigger state/congress to make service illegal or limited.
- thephyber 4y ago
  My rhetorical question was more a play on the common refrain by police supporters “why not X if you have nothing to hide?” But perhaps was too dry to notice without body language. Agree with your statement.
TylerE 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
wmf 4y ago
Cell site simulators such as Stingray were challenged in court and rather than explain how they work the evidence was withdrawn. Perhaps they aren't reliable. Gunshot triangulation systems like ShotSpotter aren't reliable either. This tool may be in the same boat.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Gunshot triangulation systems like ShotSpotter aren't reliable either. They also pick up conversations which have later been used as evidence: https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/crime/2012/01/11/shotspotter-recording-street-argument-raises/49773221007/ https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/crime/2012/01/11/...
- wildzzz 4y ago
  Stingrays won't be able to give exact location but can determine who's cellphone is in the surrounding area and the signal strength of that phone. If you know who that IMSI belongs to, you could setup the Stingray to alert when the IMSI is near. Then you can drive around checking signal strength and send out an officer with a portable unit to literally go door to door checking for where the signal is strongest. Is it legal? Who knows. Cops can drive around with license plate readers automatically looking for certain plates or just cataloging them. Is a nearby phone being tricked into broadcasting it's IMSI similar to recording a publicly visible license plate? That's for the courts to decide. Cops can do parallel reconstruction where they set aside illegally obtained evidence and build up a new chain of legal investigation that arrives at the same conclusion. I suspect that cops aren't willing to gamble on their Stingray-obtained evidence being constitutional so the easiest route is just to use it as a guiding hand for their official, legal investigation and just never make it part of the evidence so it can't really be challenged.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    There's also the issue that since Stingrays don't authenticate the subscriber into the network, you could probably feed it bogus IMSIs. If I had more free time and money I'd make a PoC.
  - thephyber 4y ago
    I didn’t think Stingrays were needed for geolocation. The fixed towers can already supply that info. I thought Stingrays forced all nearby cell phones to connect to them and downgraded the connection to 2G so encryption was not a protection. What am I missing?
- 4y ago
upsidesinclude 4y ago
Circumventing a warrant is not legal and if challenged in court, would be overturned. The goal is to use illegal means, but not have evidence of that illegal means in court. This is what has been described as "parallel construction". A quaint turn of phrase for when the police use criminal practices to prosecute "criminals". Welcome to the future Edit: Please forgive American English phrasing. [This practice is described as...]
otikik 4y ago
Because it isn’t legal.
- thephyber 4y ago
  I don’t like it, but I’m pretty sure third party doctrine makes it legal because they are only using data that is freely available to any paying customer. I’m curious if the identifier correlation methods would stand up in court…
News-Dog 4y ago
HN discussion thread of the Ars Techica article : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32686750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32686750
renewiltord 4y ago
> Why hide it if it’s legal? True, if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear. That's why it doesn't matter if the police have the data. Actually, that's bullshit, as is "Why hide if it's legal?". The obvious answer is that The Court of Public Opinion will convict on many counts that are both legal and ethical.

epgui 4y ago

> Why hide it if it’s legal? Legal and moral are two different things, and the police is a public service. Public trust and perception are important because they give legitimacy to government.

srcmap 4y ago
Also PR problem. Public opinions can trigger state/congress to make service illegal or limited.
thephyber 4y ago
My rhetorical question was more a play on the common refrain by police supporters “why not X if you have nothing to hide?” But perhaps was too dry to notice without body language. Agree with your statement.

TylerE 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

wmf 4y ago

Cell site simulators such as Stingray were challenged in court and rather than explain how they work the evidence was withdrawn. Perhaps they aren't reliable. Gunshot triangulation systems like ShotSpotter aren't reliable either. This tool may be in the same boat.

autoexec 4y ago
> Gunshot triangulation systems like ShotSpotter aren't reliable either. They also pick up conversations which have later been used as evidence: https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/crime/2012/01/11/shotspotter-recording-street-argument-raises/49773221007/ https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/crime/2012/01/11/...
wildzzz 4y ago
Stingrays won't be able to give exact location but can determine who's cellphone is in the surrounding area and the signal strength of that phone. If you know who that IMSI belongs to, you could setup the Stingray to alert when the IMSI is near. Then you can drive around checking signal strength and send out an officer with a portable unit to literally go door to door checking for where the signal is strongest. Is it legal? Who knows. Cops can drive around with license plate readers automatically looking for certain plates or just cataloging them. Is a nearby phone being tricked into broadcasting it's IMSI similar to recording a publicly visible license plate? That's for the courts to decide. Cops can do parallel reconstruction where they set aside illegally obtained evidence and build up a new chain of legal investigation that arrives at the same conclusion. I suspect that cops aren't willing to gamble on their Stingray-obtained evidence being constitutional so the easiest route is just to use it as a guiding hand for their official, legal investigation and just never make it part of the evidence so it can't really be challenged.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  There's also the issue that since Stingrays don't authenticate the subscriber into the network, you could probably feed it bogus IMSIs. If I had more free time and money I'd make a PoC.
- thephyber 4y ago
  I didn’t think Stingrays were needed for geolocation. The fixed towers can already supply that info. I thought Stingrays forced all nearby cell phones to connect to them and downgraded the connection to 2G so encryption was not a protection. What am I missing?
4y ago

upsidesinclude 4y ago

Circumventing a warrant is not legal and if challenged in court, would be overturned. The goal is to use illegal means, but not have evidence of that illegal means in court. This is what has been described as "parallel construction". A quaint turn of phrase for when the police use criminal practices to prosecute "criminals". Welcome to the future Edit: Please forgive American English phrasing. [This practice is described as...]

otikik 4y ago

Because it isn’t legal.

thephyber 4y ago
I don’t like it, but I’m pretty sure third party doctrine makes it legal because they are only using data that is freely available to any paying customer. I’m curious if the identifier correlation methods would stand up in court…

News-Dog 4y ago

HN discussion thread of the Ars Techica article : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32686750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32686750

renewiltord 4y ago

> Why hide it if it’s legal? True, if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear. That's why it doesn't matter if the police have the data. Actually, that's bullshit, as is "Why hide if it's legal?". The obvious answer is that The Court of Public Opinion will convict on many counts that are both legal and ethical.