Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

You forget all the senior citizens.

In addition to your concerns, I don't think there's even anything to be gained by intentionally trying to create a false trail since the warrant only looked for phones in the area of the bank around the time of the robbery. The robbers could just as easily leave their phones at home (or any other place far away from the bank) and they would not be flagged by the reverse location search.

Or they could just leave their phone at home, or at work, where they probably spend most their time.

It's not yet illegal to walk around without phone.

"Show me your papers citizen"

You could also mail your phone via ground. It wouldn't hold up to intense scruitiny because your locations would all coincide with package delivery places but it might help.

So this tactic works best if you're a bank robber that happens to be employed by UPS.

I feel like we're making this far more complicated than it needs to be. Just leave your phone at home and use a 2-way radio for comms.

In that case, you can scan all license plates in an area, and compare with all mobile users in the same area, and investigate all who don’t match.

Obviously don't bring your own car to the robbery! Even just watching Hollywood movies one would know that.

Co-conspirator leaves his phone at home, dresses and puts make up on to look like you, takes your phone to a couple of spots with a digital trace of your phone but only low tech cameras, and builds an alibi for you. Their alibi would be being home sick. Could even meld the two stories by buying yourself some DayQuil.

Go hiking?

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