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>prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use When I read the figure of 3000, I ricocheted between being shocked at the large
by alister 15y ago
>prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use
When I read the figure of 3000, I ricocheted between being shocked at the large number of people being tracked, then realized that it's actually tiny compared to the US population of 313M, and then back to be being dismayed that it's not so small after doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Here's my thinking:
The US has 254M registered vehicles (Wikipedia), but cars are shared within families and the average family size is 2.6 (US census). If we further assume that a subject is tracked for about a month, the tracking device gets used on ~10 vehicles per year. Hence, 254000000/3000/2.6/10 = 3256.
So your chances of regularly riding in a "bugged" vehicle during the year are 1 in 3256. I have more than 3256 accumulated contacts in my email -- probably you do too.
Conclusion: It's very likely that you know someone who's vehicle is being tracked by the FBI this year.
- mickey7 15y ago~80% of americans own a cellphone your chances of being tracked are 1/1
- foobarbazetc 15y agoThey can track you via your phone already. The dedicated devices are presumably more reliable for them and were used so they didn't have to get a warrant for phone tracking.
- alister 15y agoGood point. Considering that the phone companies have a long history of secretly sharing foreign call data with the NSA, and a recent history of secretly sharing domestic call data as well, we can expect more of the same. Rather than fighting this Supreme Court Ruling, maybe law enforcement will instead push for real-time access to GPS data from the carriers.
- cperciva 15y agoIt's very likely that you know someone who's vehicle is being tracked by the FBI this year. You're assuming that the rate is evenly distributed. I think it's very likely that it isn't; if you're involved in espionage or organized crime, you probably know several people who were being tracked by the FBI. Based on your "more than 3256" people you know by name and the (bogus) equidistribution hypothesis, you should also know 1 or 2 victims of violent crime and about 10 victims of property crime each year, and at some point in your life you should know a homicide victim.
- mahmud 15y agoNY police is snooping on people "just" for being Muslim[1] (I put Muslim in quotes just in case you think that in and of itself supicious) So, you don't need to associate with the hypothetical drug barrons & foreign agents: you just need to know a Muslim. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/24/police-spying-new-york-muslim_n_1300379.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/24/police-spying-new-y...
- cperciva 15y agoTrue. And since one of your friends being Muslim is correlated with another of your friends being Muslim, this makes the distribution of number-of-friends-being-GPS-tracked even further away from Poisson.
- maratd 15y ago> NY police is snooping on people "just" for being Muslim And what would be your best guess as to why they did that?
- alister 15y ago> You're assuming that the rate is evenly distributed. I think it's very likely that it isn't; if you're involved in espionage or organized crime, you probably know several people who were being tracked by the FBI. Yes, I assumed an even distribution because it's the best I can do based on available information. If the FBI would publish an annual list of the names of people they tracked and the reasons why, then we could create more precise odds based on individual circumstance.