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Comment by hilbert42 | Hacker News Reader

Am I missing something here? Wouldn't most reasonably smart criminals leave their smartphones switched on at home before they go on a job? 'Switched on' at home would be an alibi if later questioned. Alternatively, at least switching to airplane mode or switching the phone off (but that could indicate intent).

It seems to me then that only the stupid would get caught this way. That raises the question of how much longer will this method be effective when even the stupid get wind of the fact that their phones will betray them.

From the unsolved crimes mentioned it seems the smart have caught on already. I wonder if there are any stats on whether crooks are actively aware of the dangers of carrying a phone. If so, then is there any trend downward in solving crimes as the knowledge of the fact spreads?

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"Only the stupid".. what about " the desperate" instead? I believe many may engage in illegal activities because their situation (be it financial or otherwise) is so dire that they themselves see no other option (even if there are options). Most petty crime is not orchestrated by some super intelligent super criminal like depicted in a heist movie.

Stealing bread to feed your starving family is one thing, planning a heist doesn’t feel like the same thing. Isn’t shoplifting not really the kind of case for which Google data would be requested?

"Most petty crime is not orchestrated by some super intelligent super criminal like depicted in a heist movie."

Right, that's the problem, it's why strict safeguards have to apply. Given half a chance law enforcement would welcome a real-time connection to Google's location data. If it ever reaches that stage then we'd be in Orwell's world.

Note that desperation does not preclude a degree of planning, nor does intelligence rule out desperation.

Considering how long phone tracking has been part of movies about crime, I imagine "turn off your phone" would be in the same category as "don't leave blood stains", "don't fire a traceable fire-arm", etc.

... But maybe we should try to avoid accidentally making this thread read like a how-to for committing crime.

Agreed, but it's curious it's still so effective. Perhaps much of the population thinks differently to many posting here and law enforcement relies on this.

I agree, funnily enough though a period where the phone is turned off may be used to prosecute if there is otherwise a consistent location history. Planning aside, it's actually a hard challenge so I still personally think most criminals probably don't intelligently overcome it.

I've seen a few stories of murders where the "smart" criminal turned their phone off during the exact window the crime took place. That and being seen at the scene of the crime was used as evidence.

So the intent part is definitely a thing if they simply turn off their phone.

Well, you can check in current Ukraine vs. Russia war how both sides lost soldiers for using mobile phones. People tend to forget they carry device that might hurt them in the end.

I'm surprised soldiers are actually allowed to carry mobiles whilst on active duty.

It's a long time since I did any military stuff and it was before smartphones but I distinctly remember the incessant lectures about carrying unnecessary items that would identify one or one's mission. By those standards carrying a smartphone would definitely be outlawed and if caught one would be up on a charge.

Edit: it seems to me that back then that had smartphones been around they'd have been classified as radio equipment and there were very strict rules and procedures about 'radio silence'.

Wasn't ever part of any military but as far as I understand having something to kill time on while there's almost nothing happening for hours and days on end is one of the main uses of having mobile phones in the trench-lines of Southern Ukraine. Also, to almost always keep in touch with the loved ones from back front, I can imagine that that has to be good for morale when you don't know if you're going to be still standing the next day.

And as far as front-line battles go, the amount of cheap drones being employed by both sides makes "identification by mobile-phone signal" pretty moot, if you're close to the front-line the other side knows exactly where you're located long before checking with your mobile-phone tower or whatever. I agree though, use of mobile phones is still a pretty good location giveaway when there's troop concentrations just at the back of the front, where it's more difficult to employ drones.

Also, this is the first protracted war fought between near-peer adversaries since the advent of the "IT revolution" (or whatever we want to call the last 30 or so years), there's lots of things that militaries are now learning when it comes to adapting said IT/tech to the battle-fronts and to the soldiers themselves.

Drones can spot camouflaged positions only from some closer distance, certainly less than 1000m.

Mobile phone signals can be pinpointed from further away, 10km is easily possible, and the cellular network means that you have a network of antennas in a tighter grid than that. And beyond switching off your phone, there is no camouflaging cell phone signals.

So even if you then employ the drones e.g. to aim and correct the artillery (300m precision from cellphone tower cross location isn't precise enough), cell phones will quickly tell you where to start looking with your drones.

> Drones can spot camouflaged positions only from some closer distance, certainly less than 1000m.

You should check some of the war videos from Ukraine, there's lots and lots of drones up in the sky, it's the classic "quantity that has a quality of its own". Some events/attacks/actions get filmed with 3 or more drones, I remember several such events where there were three different POVs coming from those drones.

I'm tempted to say that camouflage has lost most of its value on a battlefield like that of Southern Ukraine. Even though that would probably be wrong, seeing individual soldiers chased by artillery (mortars, mostly) under heavy foliage, while those soldiers are still wearing adequate camouflage, makes me have second thoughts about the relevance of said camouflage.

More generally, I've yet to see a serious discussion coming from the tech circles about how cheap drones have transformed warfare. Eric Schmidt had tried something like that earlier this year in a Foreign Affairs piece [1], but unfortunately the article wasn't that smart, too many platitudes. In his defence, he was writing at the start of the year, for example this "prediction" of his:

> Marines in urban warfare, for example, could be accompanied by microdrones that serve as their eyes and ears.

has already been implemented by both sides (UA and RU) during this past summer (replace "urban" with the fields around Rabotyne or Bakhmut).

[1] https://archive.is/lSnm5

Those videos are only published in cases where there is something interesting and propaganda-wise useful to show. Mostly a success of the publishing party. What you do not see are the hours and hours of flying along tree lines hoping to spot something. For every soldier you see being chased by a drone, you don't see the dozens overlooked by that same drone.

Camouflage is never panacea, but useful camouflage exists, even today. I've (almost) stepped on comrades in an exercise that were hidden well enough to not see them from 3m in broad daylight. But for things to work that well, you need to know what makes humans detect their prey. Movement is a dead giveaway, so as soon as you are running you are toast anyways, and only sheer luck might save you. Form and contour is another problem, something human-shaped and green will stand out, even among other green things. See something rectangular in the forest? Bomb it, rectangular trees are rare. Texture is another giveaway, things looking smooth, regular or out-of-place compared to nearby textures. That's why your camouflaged tank will look like a bush or pile of leaves when properly camouflaged.

All this means that of course you have to go beyond camouflage paint and camouflage clothes. Both are a start, and will help to a point, as a base layer, and for great viewing distances. But even before drones, proper camouflage also involves covering yourself and objects in leaves, branches, nets, parking below trees, etc.

Another interesting point about Ukraine war videos: What you also usually do not see are videos of camouflage being broken by thermal imaging. Both sides have thermal equipment, but I guess are reluctant to point their enemy at how much or how little of it they have, and how vulnerable or not vulnerable the others' camouflage techniques are to it.

Also, smaller drones have a limited reach. To get at the juicy targets (logistics, headquarters) way in the back, you need more expensive and rare long-range drones. So I guess the drone density will sharply drop off beyond the first lines of trenches.

"What you do not see are the hours and hours of flying along tree lines hoping to spot something. For every soldier you see being chased by a drone, you don't see the dozens overlooked by that same drone."

Agreed, and I also agree with your other comments. But those limits (luckily for troops on the ground) are because to make detection better and more sensitive is expensive and this has to be traded off against the loss of drones and the risk of downed or crashed ones being reverse-engineered to determine their capability. Also, providing countermeasures such as thermiting the electronics when in trouble or downed not only adds precious weight but also increases costs significantly. Moreover, not only is detection sensitivity a tradeoff but the tech one gets often depends on what's actually available at that instant. Next month, week or even next encounter the tech might have improved.

As I said in my post to the comment, I'm not up to full speed on the tech being used in drones in Ukraine but over 20 years ago I was working on tech that could easily identity many targets at once. What's happened since is that this tech has become much, much more miniaturized and a great deal more sensitive not to mention much cheaper.

Right, seriouly advanced detection tech is already here as its development was already underway before the conflict for both industrial and military purposes. It's now just a matter of packaging it to be suitable for drones, and you can bet London to a brick that there are dozens working to better integrate the different technologies.

Combine it with new miniature camera tech, new LIDAR and back-end (AI) processing and it's phenomenal what can be achieved nowadays. I'd venture that if this conflict continues to drag on then you'll likely see a huge and very worrying change in drone capability.

"Camouflage is never panacea, but useful camouflage exists, even today. I've (almost) stepped on comrades in an exercise that were hidden well enough to not see them from 3m in broad daylight."

Agreed. Whilst it was long ago, I've not forgotten going A-over-T after tripping over another's legs during war games and ruled as 'dead' by the umpire thus no longer a participant because camouflage worked. That said, back then one of camouflage's giveaways was the face. We were trained to look for eyes which was effective (if close enough) because unless facial camouflage is applied properly the eyes stood out, and as most soldiers applied it to themselves and the fact that they weren't much good at incorporating the eyes in ways that created a 'delusional' image, it was a known weakness. Moreover, the facial camouflage took a lot of removing so there was resistance to applying enough of it.

Again, I'm not up to date on how facial camouflage has improved or is applied today but I'd be almost certain it wouldn't stand scrutiny from the best electronic systems. It'd be a real worry if one side had sophisticated tech in their helmets and the other didn't.

"...makes me have second thoughts about the relevance of said camouflage."

I can't say that I'm fully up on the latest cameras used in drones but I've been employed on the engineering side of video tech and surveillance and it's clear there's no end of the trickery that modern cameras can get up to. Modern sensors can easily respond to both IR and UV and with the right filtering can be made very selective in what they see.

Combine this with front-end motion detection and back-end processing and one has a really powerful detection system. I'd reckon with this tech that traditional camouflage would be nigh on useless. Moreover, if the drone were coupled by link to 'home' and very powerful back-end processing with AI then the game would be up for troops on the ground (seems to me either these guys are either extremely patriotic or they're unfamiliar what the tech will do). That's not the end of it either, there's also LIDAR that will see through much camouflage, combine it with those camera sensors and anyone on a battlefield would stick out like the proverbial.

Incidentally, this type of detection goes back a long way so it's now well developed tech. Film was made IR-sensitive before WWII and during the War Kodak perfected a false-color IR reversal film for detection of camouflage, etc. As a keen photographer I used to use a later 35mm version of this film and it was surprisingly good at emphasizing objects that weren't highly visible with normal color film.

https://kolarivision.com/the-irchrome-infrared-photography-f...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

Solution: military-issue Nintendo Switch.

"...having something to kill time on while there's almost nothing happening for hours and days on end is one of the main uses of having mobile phones in the trench-lines of Southern Ukraine."

That's understandable, but for as long as war has been conducted soldiers' lives have always been long stretches of utter boredom followed by short episodes of horror, death and destruction. It's always been this way, there are many accounts of where waiting in anticipation have seemed worse than the conflict. Managing armies in quiet periods has always occupied commanders' attention, it's why, say, brothels were allowed near the Western Front by high command in WWI despite the risk of VD (which was often a chargeable offense).

Also, to almost always keep in touch with the loved ones from back front, I can imagine that that has to be good for morale.

Reckon it definitely would be, but from what is being said about consequential deaths one wonders if it's too much of a luxury. There's no doubt that decades ago that a luxury of this type on the battlefield (even if it had been available) would have been unthinkable as commanders would have deemed it a strategic danger—giving away a platoon or battalion's position, etc. I can't see why something as fundamental as weakening strategy would have changed nowadays but then I'm not a commander. (Incidentally, there's any number of references to such strategies but there's two that stand out: Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz, I doubt there's a commander in the world that hasn't studied them—BTW, I'm not suggesting for a moment you read them.)

Perhaps, these days, with the abandonment of conscription in many countries, militaries have made a pragmatic decision to allow smartphones as an enticement for people to join the military. I've not followed this recently (as I once would have), if so, then I'd reckon it's a nasty callous tradeoff.

Re your last point, it's my understanding that troops in Iraq and Afghanistan also carried phones but I'm unfamiliar with the rules that would have applied.

Most often when people engage in small crime, they are not engaging in smart behavior overall. Having phone with them is just one of multiple stupid decisions that were done that week. They are used to have smartphones with them all the time, so they do not think about them at all.

Another pretty common way of catching you is that you brag to friends or family about the crime and one of them tells the cops.

Accepted, that's the stupid class. And no doubt such detection would be very useful in solving serious but unintended crime such as a hit-and-run accident.

Most reasonably smart people can have careers without resorting to petty crime.

Answered this in another comment here, but can repeat. Phone location is not a valid alibi in court. As you pointed out with your example here, it only proves your phone was at a location not that you were so it isn't accepted as an alibi. Police use phone location to generate leads not as evidence in court to prove someone they charged was at a location. They need better evidence than that in court to prove someone committed a crime.

"We have proof you were there. Will you risk 10 years in jail, or take this plea bargain? Are you feelin' lucky, punk?"

> before they go on a job?

Not every burglar is a "cat burglar". Many of them respond to crimes of opportunity, where they could not have foreseen the need to leave their phone on but at home.

Of course, this investigation method is going to decrease in quality. Only going to take a few popular songs mentioning leaving Netflix on at home before this method only catches the innocent and amateur criminals.

I was a on a jury back in 2002 where the prosecutor was presenting cell tower data to show the suspect was in the area. We are at 20 years from then and people are still committing crimes with their phones on, and the phone is more part of daily lives now.

> I wonder if there are any stats on whether crooks are actively aware of the dangers of carrying a phone.

burner phones are a thing prominently featured in all kinds of popular media ('breaking bad' and 'better call saul' come to mind)

Google also tracks your app interactions so leaving your phone at home, switched on but not showing any interactions is possibly telling the authorties something.

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