
Feds ordered Google location dragnet to solve Wisconsin bank robbery - heshiebee
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/28/20836855/reverse-location-search-warrant-dragnet-bank-robbery-fbi
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rdtsc
Wonder if someone suspected Feds would do this, they could ask their
accomplice to take their phone and walk around with it in a different part of
town. They would then have a alibi and be discarded as a potential suspect.

~~~
bilbo0s
Just FYI, you would have to have an exceedingly clever accomplice. They would
need to walk around in a part of town where there are no cameras, and
preferably very few witnesses. (If someone remembers seeing him alone, or
cameras verify he was alone, or God forbid, if one of his buddies sees him and
strikes up a conversation, the gig is up.)

Your accomplice would have to take possession of the phone at a comfortable
distance from the target bank. (Again, in a place that no one, and no camera
can observe the arrival of either party.) And the co-conspirator actually
robbing the bank would have to make his/her way to said bank without being
observed leaving the phone drop site. (And without being observed traveling in
a direction inconsistent with his/her phone's location data.)

All of that is not as easy as it sounds. One traffic camera on a stoplight and
they got you, in your car, heading towards the bank, in the opposite direction
of your phone. Now your co-conspirator is in trouble too. (Aiding and Abetting
at minimum.)

We're creeping towards an age of ubiquitous gaze, and only people who are way
smarter than I really know if there's any averting it at this point. I think
the only real defense against ubiquitous, 24/7 surveillance right now is to
live life in a remarkably unremarkable fashion.

~~~
mattmanser
The point is to exclude you from suspicion in the first place, not verify your
alibi.

You've got it all back to front. They won't check the CCTV _outside_ the
robbery area against non-suspects _outside_ the robbery area.

You're basically saying they'll check the whole of the world that they weren't
in Wisconsin.

~~~
munk-a
It's possible (especially if you're in a criminal database) that this might
actually paint a bigger target on your back - if a traffic camera caught you
going toward the bank and facial recognition picked it up in an automated
sweep... then the fact that your phone was broadcasting as being in a
different location might be a red flag on it's own.

While humans are doing the piecing together this tactic will probably be
pretty decent, but it wouldn't be super hard to marry those datasets after
you've seen it happen a time or two.

~~~
girvo
And now everyone who forgets their phone on their way to work gets flagged.

I’m not even disagreeing with you. It makes me sad, however, that this sort of
automated surveillance is mostly accepted by wider society. We will force
everyone into a Brave New World styled life, where being entirely unremarkable
is the only way to avoid suspicion, no matter how innocuous the behaviour.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I bet hardly anyone travels without their phone on them. Even in a large
city...maybe tens or hundreds of people.

~~~
dannyw
You forget all the senior citizens.

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persistent
Governments serve Google with over-broad search warrants frequently, but there
is not information in this article stating or implying that Google responded
to this or other similar warrants. Google has a whole department of attorneys
dedicated to evaluating search warrants. They claim they won't comply with
vague and overbroad warrants.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeKKHxcJfh0&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeKKHxcJfh0&feature=youtu.be&t=72)

~~~
HnSpectre
> They claim they won't comply with vague and overbroad warrants.

Assumably it’s the judge’s opinion on this that matters, right? In the case of
a national security letter this fight wouldn’t even be public. Assume the
worst.

~~~
henryfjordan
A judge would review the warrant before issuing it hopefully. I think Google
can basically say "Look, this is a bad warrant and you'd be better off
narrowing it a bit" and that would work in most cases.

You, as a defendant, can also challenge the warrant as part of your trial if
you are caught, potentially getting the results of the search thrown out.

~~~
saagarjha
Can you if there's a national security "concern"?

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_trampeltier
\- Why asking Google? (My GPS is allways off) \- Why not ask the phone
providers? \- Even the dumbest criminal does know today, don't carry your
phone with you, if you do something like this.

I switzerland was a murder an rape case close to one of most busy highway. The
police asked the phone providers for phones in this area (highway included).
The first bill from the providers was 860'000CHF, they reduced it later to
200'000CHF.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nzz.ch/amp/schweiz/teure-
ue...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nzz.ch/amp/schweiz/teure-
ueberwachungen-kantone-sollen-kuenftig-pauschale-bezahlen-ld.1446017)

~~~
loa_in_
I wonder, is Google even compensated by US feds in the article story?

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rhacker
2010 - 2030 This kind of thing happens with lots of alarming stories in the
news. People are kind of worried that they will get dragged in as a crime
suspect simple because they were driving by the area when a crime was being
committed nearby.

2030 - 2040 This kind of investigation becomes so common that the independent
news outlets just stop finding instances of it. People are kind of relaxing
about it.

2040 - 2050 It turns out that, like DNA evidence, there's now an entire
innocence project started dedicated to getting people out of incarceration for
any crime where the totality of evidence was GPS data and some made up
stories.

2050 -> Oh sorry that new energy source blew up, earth is gone.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
You're assuming this will wind up being like DNA.

Given the history of every other technique the cops have ever used to solve
crime I'm betting it's gonna wind up somewhere between forensic bite mark
analysis and eyewitness testimony (i.e. not worth shit unless you've got a lot
of other stuff to corroborate it). Of course a generation of prosecutors will
get to make their careers on this kind of crap before it gets debunked.

~~~
rhacker
Well beyond suggesting that, as stated in other threads, as the criminals get
smarter they will simply leave the phone at home and yes, innocent people that
have a digital footprint near (and when) the crime will be caught instead.
Once the police have identified a potential fall guy and they are black, or an
immigrant or some other disadvantage, we'll see eyewitnesses come forward to
"help" the police officer.

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693471
That's why you do crime in airplane mode

~~~
Litmus2336
Google really needs to release a dedicated "Crime Mode" so we don't need to
keep using this airplane mode workaround.

~~~
umvi
I can see the mental gymnastics now:

"Criminals deserve just as much privacy and safety as anyone else. If the
government violates the criminal's rights to solve, prevent, or preempt
crimes, even more crimes have occurred (privacy violations, killing of the
criminal, etc.)

There should be explicit modes for phones and browsers available to criminals
that allow them to safely commit crimes without risk of their rights being
infringed upon."

~~~
henryfjordan
I know you were being facetious, but a mode somewhere in between "track me"
(data enabled) and "remove my phone from the network" (airplane mode) would be
nice.

Maybe "for the next hour, don't do the normal location-tracking/biometrics
monitoring/reporting". I get that Google has no incentive to make that feature
but maybe Apple does?

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doodliego
"If you do the crime, leave the phone behind."

Criminals will adapt, they always do.

Because this was a bank robbery, it's a Federal warrant which is harder for
Google to fight or procrastinate on (if for some reason they chose to).

~~~
girvo
Most criminals I knew over a decade ago knew this already. Phones were left
behind as much as possible, batteries pulled out when discussions happened,
and so on. I’m long away from that world (been clean for 7 years), but I would
be surprised if they’ve not adapted even further

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altmind
Can't Feds ask mobile phone servers providers(there are only couple of them in
US) for phones registered at specific base station? I think police have been
doing this for ages.

~~~
javagram
They can but that could pick up way more people and not be accurate enough for
location tracking. Cell sites can have a range of multiple miles.

Phones have a much more accurate location history since they can localize
using AGPS. And with google location history turned on it stores that location
to googles cloud.

~~~
novok
I thought the cell sites triangulate the location of customers for better
analytics. It's not AGPS level, but it isn't single cell site range either.

~~~
bilbo0s
If you were a cop, would you want the AGPS range data? or some triangulated
range of phones?

Cops are only doing what makes sense. You can't really blame them. There needs
to be a law that prevents them from doing it. Absent that, people need to stop
being so liberal with their information.

This was a bank robbery, but the principle certainly applies to other
activities as well. I mean really, do you really need your phone on you if
you're going to see your mistress? I don't think you do.

~~~
Iolaum
Not receiving/responding to messages from family and/or friends can be a
signal in itself.

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melling
There’s probably a market for bank cameras with image recognition that
automatically set a silent alarm if they spot a gun. Several cameras inside
and out could track the individuals.

~~~
inetknght
I don't think you understand the problem scope. Guns are hidden behind
clothing and you're going to have a _lot_ of false positives.

~~~
melling
In this instance, it certainly would have worked.

“One man jumped onto the teller counter and pulled out a handgun, throwing
down a garbage bag for the tellers to fill with money”

Outside cameras could have tracked them into a car, if it was reasonably
close.

A security firm can monitor for false positive.

This would probably work for your average convenience store robbery too. In
the US, we have a large market for security.

~~~
whenchamenia
Perhaps you would be suprused by the number of people who carry guns 24/7\.
This would be very hard to implement.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Perhaps you'd be surprised that some countries with banks have very few guns
in private possession.

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wpdev_63
Isn't this a blatant constitutional violation? Maybe while they are at it they
can search through everyone's house as they "might be there".

Granted the fusion center already have access to this information - alot of
times they have to make it official to be admissible in court. So there might
be something foul in play here(besides the blatant 4th amendment violation).

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kissickas
Why does the article say they got "every Android phone in the area" \- are
iPhones using Google Maps not going to get picked up as well?

~~~
megaremote
Google maps is not on all the time.

~~~
hans1729
IIRC, Google Maps is still opt-in (opposed to "Maps"), at least it was when I
got my phone ~3 years ago

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devoply
> With nearly a year elapsed since the warrant was served, that suggests this
> particular reverse location search may not have been as fruitful as
> investigators hoped.

They did not find anything. But God help you if you have a prior record and
happen to be black or match the description of the assailants... and just
happened to be around the bank at the time.

~~~
EpicEng
>But God help you if you have a prior record and happen to be black or match
the description of the assailants... and just happened to be around the bank
at the time

Seems reasonable that you would be approached by investigators if you were
present at the scene and matched a witness description.

~~~
devoply
It would be fine if they simply approached people and tried to rule them out,
but due to the psychopathy in the justice department they often try to paint
the people they find into the perp often hiding evidence that exonerates
them.. in other cases photo-shopping their face to cover up tattoos to make
them look more like the assailant.

The issue is that prosecutors don't act in good faith... and because of that
legitimate exercises maybe used against people in illegitimate ways.

~~~
EpicEng
Yes that sort of thing happens, but "often"? How often are we talking here?
You make it sound like a common occurrence and I'm not convinced that's the
case.

~~~
stevenjohns
Happened to me, so I can speak about this first hand.

I fit the description: I was between 5'3" and 5'11" and my skin color can be
described as "coffee with a touch of milk."

Video evidence that showed, fifteen minutes before it happened, that I was
13km away at a wedding having dinner wasn't enough since I could have left
immediately after the footage was taken and driven down.

I still have video evidence of the senior detective basically instructing the
witness to select me out of a lineup. They also whispered to each other
throughout which I only managed to hear thanks to some expensive headphones I
had.

I made fake Facebook accounts and befriended all of the "witnesses" and
victims. Beat the case on a technicality thanks to a post I found on Facebook
by a eye witness.

I'd still be in jail right now 9.5 years later.

I'd say it happens extremely frequently, it's just that the people it happens
to aren't as lucky as I am.

~~~
LeonB
Wow. Have you written about this anywhere else? Glad you’re free!

~~~
stevenjohns
Thank you.

It's not something I'm particularly proud of or something I talk about -
outside of my immediate family no one really knows all of the details, and
only a handful of people outside of my immediate family know about it. It's
the most traumatic experience of my life and had significant consequences on
my mental health that still affect me daily.

My blind optimism helped me through it, but it had really hurt my family too.

~~~
LeonB
Understandable, it must've had a big impact.

Good luck and I'm glad the optimism paid off!

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sdinsn
Slightly misleading title. "In an attempt to solve" would be better, since the
case is still unsolved.

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falcolas
This is particularly relevant with the recent discussion around Amazon's Ring
partnership with law enforcement. "We will always ask you for permission" gets
a bit thin when warrants like this can be issued.

~~~
sdinsn
Well of course. Warrants are warrants, it doesn't matter whether Amazon has a
partnership or not.

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m3kw9
Like straight out of movie Hell or high water

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Zenst
Most criminals tend to use burner phones of the non-smart variation.

