So, it’s safe to say that from birth to death, it’s possible to take a phone, from point of sale, all the way through the rest of it’s usage history, watch it float around, and then tie it presumptively to an individual, whenever the phone’s various identifiers appear on the network, and that might turn out to be pretty accurate most of the time?

I mean we’ve known about the identifiable aspects of cellular phones for a long time, but I’m not sure I’ve heard of a store claiming a number of unsold phones as stolen goods, handed off a list of targets to police, who then utilize technical resources, attempt to passively triangulate on anything in their jurisdiction, and then hunt them down.

In this case, it was point of theft to doorstep, and the accuracy was sacrificed for a rush job to “catch a bad guy” or “save lives” as is so often said, but consider the operations of a slower, more patient, even cautious operation.