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Seattle PD Mum On Tracking By Its New Wi-Fi Mesh Network
An anonymous reader writes "The Stranger reports that Seattle's police department has installed a Wi-Fi mesh network paid for by the Department of Homeland Security. FTA: 'The SPD declined to answer more than a dozen questions from The Stranger, including whether the network is operational, who has access to its data, what it might be used for, and whether the SPD has used it (or intends to use it) to geo-locate people's devices via their MAC addresses or other identifiers.'"
geo-locate people's devices via their MAC addresses
If you use public wireless at all, changing your MAC is just wise, for privacy reasons.
# ifconfig eth0 hw ether
This just looks likely to be an out of the box Aruba Airwave (tracking) install on an Aruba MSR4000 mesh network. So just turn your wifi off when your not using it?
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Stasi Police Dragnet.
Coming soon to a fully-integrated nationwide real time tracking, private records collection, and surveillance system near you.
To fight drug abuse, arrest paedophiles, stop terrorists, and...right?
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
How long before we see something like this:
Cops show up at "suspects" work or home
Cops: "Sir, your MAC address was at the scene of the crime/terrorist attack yesterday. How do you explain that."
Suspect: "I have no idea."
Cops: "Sir, you need to come with us."
Neighbors or work associates: "WTF?! We were right next to the guy and he's a TERRORIST!"
And in the meantime, the criminals will just leave their electronic devices at home. - at least the smart ones. The terrorists will have none.
Badge + gun == grunt.
All this sophisticated tracking technology will only further destroy our freedoms.
...what some policeman's mother has to say?
And in the meantime, the criminals will just leave their electronic devices at home. - at least the smart ones. The terrorists will have none.
No, they will spoof honest citizens mac addresses.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So, we just need a applet that every so often will generate a random new mac address for your device. Sure, if its in the middle of the day you lose connection for a moment, but is that really that big of a deal on a phone/tablet?
Of course i have been saying for years that eventually you will have to register your mac address(es) of all your devices at time of purchase and it will become a crime to spoof. Along with being handed out your assigned block of ipv6, again for tracking reasons.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I can see a time coming, not so far from now, where all this is used as a quasi-radar system to track people, feeding into the machine that already tracks by face and license plate recognition.
Perhaps now is the time for constitutional amendment. Let's outlaw mind-reading machines, which are on the horizon, while we're at it. As in supra-4th Amendment, "Neither Congress nor any State shall (something flowery about invading a mind's operation to determine thoughts.)"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That's only part of the equation. You can still be tracked by the pings your phone sends to local cell towers. If you are concerned about tracking, you may as well leave the phone at home. The alternatives - setting the phone to airplane mode, powering it off, or removing its battery effectively render it useless for most things anyways.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
If this new technology stops nefarious activities and dastardly villains, I'm all for it.
Did you know that placing a member of law enforcement or the military in every home - including yours - will stop nefarious activities and dastardly villains too. The same could be said for placing cameras with feeds to law enforcement or the military. Still all for it?
I seem to be missing a point here, why sould the PD care about identifying devices by MAC Address if they alredy have the capability (and have had this capability for decades) to trace the same device by it's phone number and just make your tipical Verizon collaborte with them. I mean, this is how you recieve phone calls, it wouldn't even work without this capability. So what do they plan to do with it?
Jee, we can't let Google store this kind of information, good thing the police can do what they want with out a warrent!
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
One way to protect ourselves from this sort of thing (at least for a while) is to stop using many convenient technologies. The more stories about government surveillance I read, the less technology I use. So far it is little things like leaving my cell phone turned off most of the time, using cash instead of debit cards, not shopping online, etc. Most importantly I now think about leaving a digital footprint and privacy any time I use technology. The NSA does not have god-like powers and I will not give up trying to enforce my privacy. As side benefit there is less of a digital footprint for marketing companies and criminals to use against me.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
But now they're thinking about it. Thanks a lot, The Stranger.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Pursuant to RCW Ch. 42.56 (Public Records Act), I hereby request the following records: The maps, purchase orders, maintenance contracts, technical specifications, usage policies, access procedures, data retention policies, installation instructions, device configurations, interconnect details, and other public records requests for the wireless mesh network installed in the second half of 2012.
Obviously these are all things they should have right? I've been fighting with the police department for months, and the best I've gotten is a picture of a crumpled up printout of a low resolution map of the system. You'd think there would be source files for that picture right?
There is clearly a coverup going on here, but the police aren't going to talk about it. So I went to the IT and Finance people. Well, I got back quite a few interesting records from them! For example, this project included $9795.19 RADIUS server. On what planet does a RADIUS server cost that much? It turns out to be a $1000 dell server running FreeRADIUS. Even that is overkill.
Another interesting feature, is the camera aspect you brought up. There are already 36 high-res pan tilt zoom cameras on this network, and there is enough bandwidth for them to add over 1600 more. In addition, they significantly overpaid for the cameras by not properly following their own bidding process rules.
There are real problems with this project and most of them are not related to surveillance. Even when it is just a small blogger investigating, it is the Seattle Police Department's responsibility under Washington state law to turn over copies of records requested. Hopefully The Stranger article will bring enough attention to this problem to encourage the Police department to do the right thing, obey the law, and release the records to anyone who asks for them.
I call BS, There is no US v Haddon that involves obstruction of justice.
This is why you must cite your sources, because now I just think your a liar.
So which US v Haddon was it?
1977?
1991?
1995?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
The press most definitely is a check on police powers. The fact you think differently shows how little you understand the importance of the press.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.