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Stingray Case Lawyers: "Everyone Knows Cell Phones Generate Location Data" (techdirt.com)
An anonymous reader writes with news that the Maryland Attorney General is arguing that anyone who has ever used a smartphone knows it's tracking them, so no warrant is needed for stingrays. Techdirt says: "Up in Baltimore, where law enforcement Stingray device use hit critical mass faster and more furiously than anywhere else in the country (to date...) with the exposure of 4,300 deployments in seven years, the government is still arguing there's no reason to bring search warrants into this. The state's Attorney General apparently would like the Baltimore PD's use of pen register orders to remain standard operating procedure. According to a brief filed in a criminal case relying on the warrantless deployment of an IMSI catcher (in this case a Hailstorm), the state believes there's no reason for police to seek a warrant because everyone "knows" cell phones generate data when they're turned on or in use.
The brief reads in part: 'The whereabouts of a cellular telephone are not "withdrawn from public view" until it is turned off, or its SIM card removed. Anyone who has ever used a smartphone is aware that the phone broadcasts its position on the map, leading to, for example, search results and advertising tailored for the user's location, or to a "ride-sharing" car appearing at one's address. And certainly anyone who has ever used any sort of cellular telephone knows that it must be in contact with an outside cell tower to function.'"
The brief reads in part: 'The whereabouts of a cellular telephone are not "withdrawn from public view" until it is turned off, or its SIM card removed. Anyone who has ever used a smartphone is aware that the phone broadcasts its position on the map, leading to, for example, search results and advertising tailored for the user's location, or to a "ride-sharing" car appearing at one's address. And certainly anyone who has ever used any sort of cellular telephone knows that it must be in contact with an outside cell tower to function.'"
Don't leave home. If you do, getting raped is your fault.
Welcome to the united states of saudi america!
The mere fact that the data exists is not itself the point. It is completely reasonable to expect some degree of privacy in one's communications regardless of how easily they are intercepted (which everyone "knows"). Physical mail is easily intercepted and read too. Is this the new standard that will allow the police to randomly read an entire neighborhood's mail as well? What ever happened to "probable cause"? But then, I was born in the 20th century, so I guess I'm just old-fashioned.
He's missing the point. Everyone knows that the post office handles all your mail, but it's still not allowed to tell the police what you're receiving without a warrant. The existence of a record does not imply the availability of that record to law enforcement or the government.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Post that shit online at 5 sec intervals.
Then why did they keep the Stingray surveillance secret? They should immediately release all the Stringray documents into the public domain! Even now they're fighting tooth and nail to conceal not just the details of the device, but the details on when it was used!
I also don't think people realize the depth of the surveillance problems with these smartphones, and I bet most people think dumb phones (without GPS) don't track location at all. They would be wrong, even a dumb-phone is location trackable. So his claim of full knowledge of everyone (and some sort of implicit agreement) is therefore false.
But Stingray also tracks ASSOCIATIONS, who you call and who calls you, even if you're not the target being followed, and possibly even the calls themselves and other data. We don't really know because Stringray is just one brand and we can't see the data on what these devices are capable of, we only know that modern calls have piss poor encryption courtesy of meddling.
i.e. it violates the freedom of association by imposing warrantless surveillance.
It's been used against journalists to locate their whistleblower sources and against protestors to block protests, so it does not have mass knowledge+consent.
That logic doesn't really hold up for Smart Phones, since there's a reasonable expectation the public is not able to access location data stored by cell towers. Hand waving about using GPS based services for searching for restaurants is completely unrelated as GPS location is computed on the phone and transmitted to those apps based on the user allowing the information to be shared.
Dumb Phones which don't have GPS and only make phone calls are also affected by this rule, and I highly doubt it is common knowledge that the Service Provider can triangulate your location as accurately as is currently possible using your phone's signal strength as measured by multiple celluar towers.
The lawyer who wrote said breif undoubtedly has a cellphone, perhaps he can demonstrate how the public can use it to pinpoint his location? Public View... not even close... The only other actor who it is reasonable to assume knows your location is your service provider as they have the link between your IMEI and your identity. Just like my email provider knows the contents of my emails as long as they're sent in plain text.
What's next? No warrants needed for unencrypted emails as SMTP puts everything in the public view by transmitting them unencrypted?
...this is a dangerous part of town where street violence is common, so there's no need to investigate who robbed you on the street in broad daylight.
On second thought since you were there you probably are a criminal yourself, so why don't you take a seat while we dig up some dirt on you.
Everyone already knows police officers are full of shit, lie, and assault people.... so let's dispense with those warrants too.
By their own logic I should have just as easy of a time to be able to set up my own cell towers and siphon in all the location data that comes into it, and the government can't say boo about it. I should be able to know where everyone who connects to my personal cell tower is located at that moment, in an effort to stalk my girlfriend without her ever knowing about it. As noted in other threads already: They can't legally expect to be able to go through the mail of an entire neighborhood at the post office level, as such, they should not expect to be able to do essentially the same thing with setting up their own cell towers.
Mobile phones operate on licensed bands, where the public is neither allowed to send or receive with the kinds of devices that would allow them to intercept location information. The phone doesn't broadcast its position on a map either. It unicasts data from which its position can with some certainty be derived by the recipient of that data, which is not "the public", you lawyer scumbag.
Removing the SIM doesn't change the IMEI.
Hailstorm tracks by IMEI; SIM data is incidental. Someone should demonstrate tracking him with his SIM removed. I expect he might be ... disturbed.
So if a regular being had one, it is free to use them on political figures and law enforcement.
This has nothing to do with being a "leftist" (whatever that is).
I imagine I'm falling for a troll or some sort of FUD, but honestly your post is an excellent example of how the average person can be tricked into supporting an absolutely ridiculous set of principles. It's not about picking a "side". You don't have to support some sort of perverse political version of a football team.
The ideas of protecting people from predatory business practices and protecting peoples' privacy are not mutually exclusive.The sooner people start realizing that, the sooner we can start moving past this ridiculous two party system.
Everyone knows that the windows of the Stingray lawyers generate visual data. That's why it's OK to put surveillance drones at each of the windows of Stingray lawyers. Also, everyone knows that sound is just vibrations, which is why it is also OK to use a laser's reflection off the windows of the Stingray lawyers to record what they're saying. Everyone knows it's really easy to intercept mail and anyone who really wanted to could do it, which is why it is OK to read the Stingray lawyers mail.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
So the /. readership is mostly comfortable with Shodan because, although the webcam owners aren't broadcasting, if you broadcast a signal into someone's home, you might get a signal in return.
However, if that person walks out of their home with a device that broadcasts all the time no matter where it is, the /. readership is uncomfortable with that signal being received.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Stingray!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Your suggested interval is too much work, BUT...
If someone were to figure out the MAC address of his cell phone's WiFi interface (assuming it isn't an Apple that scrambles MAC addresses), a volunteer-run network of consumer-grade routers scattered around the city could get a pretty good fix on his location. I'm using the term 'network' very loosely here, of course; it's a network in that they're affiliated, not in that they're functionally connected. It would be 100% legal and inexpensive to do.
www.wavefront-av.com
Why get upset? Everyone knows it's happening. Therefore you must expect it and tolerate it when the police do it.
You still have the right to a private and family life. Just because your phone was switched on doesn't mean you consent to being spied on. Likewise, accidentally leaving your bedroom curtains open doesn't mean you consent to having details of your bedroom life be collected or published in a magazine.
By their own logic I should have just as easy of a time to be able to set up my own cell towers and siphon in all the location data that comes into it, and the government can't say boo about it
Surely you jest. Even if you were serious, you probably don't have the resources to pull it off nor you may have any ideas of how to make money off this. But all it takes is someone to plant this idea in the head of some pointy haired boss in Goldman Sachs or JPMC. There are sitting on two trillion dollars of excess capital and don't know what to do with it. They might decide to do it. Atleast with the government you might get a chance to vote against it or legislate against it. But once Goldman does it, that is the end. There is nothing anyone, including Goldman can do about it.
So stop giving them ideas.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Under existing Fourth Amendment law, you are sharing the location information with the cell company and therefore have no legitimate expectation of privacy in it.
Under *Existing* law. There is a reason why SCOTUS is pushing back a little against Orwellian surveillance, and eventually stingray cases will get to them. Hopefully the case will be brought to them because of a good defense attorney *rather than* because it is the case of choice for the Department of Justice.
The whereabouts of a cellular telephone are not "withdrawn from public view"
Except it isn't in the public view. The general public does not have access to this information.
Hang around the law courts, DEA and the local police station, and the prosecutors office which is usually hidden and unmarked.
Pay some felons of bad repute to cluster in the law court precinct. Yep , the evidence trolley is loaded.
Ensure to say lots of inflammatory statements - like you entire stash sold out in 10 minutes and they are powder hounds.
Therefore Judges and detectives will have their numbers and goings harvested and logged too - as these people have no expectation of privacy either.
After some months this goes to secondary storage - ready to be harvested by hackers as probably connected to the internet.
Actually one telco published a Judges address and phone number - and for some reason was very upset. And you think drug cartels cant afford their own private stingray clones?
What kind of blathering non-sequitur trolling is that?
You seem to be saying that it's "leftist" to support this kind of ubiquitous warrantless surveillance, yet as far as I can tell, more "rightists" seem to support these kinds of increased police powers (e.g. in support of the "war on terror", "being tough on crime", etc).
Everyone also knows that those who built the phones intentionally made it so we cannot disable that little "feature" without rendering the device inoperable.
Since we have no means of disabling it, other protections must be in place to safeguard the data. Thus, just flashing a badge or a NSL isn't sufficient. ( nor lucrative government contract deals )
Target a specific device with a warrant and few will have any issues with it. ( other than the government )
Keep up the mass surveillance and this house of cards you've built is going to come crashing down on you once American products are blacklisted due to being untrustworthy.
I lived there a few years.
No way I'd live there again.
The place is run by a bunch of fascist assholes.
Add to that the sad truth that it's populated by a bunch of idiots and
the place is a decent simulation of Hell.
( I don't actually believe a place like hell exists, but you get the idea )
Even if cellphones are technically trackable, what "everyone knows" is that the government is legally required to refrain from using that information without a warrant. You know, the whole "rule of law" and all that? Any government official who has problem with that concept should be removed from office.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I do not consent for third parties to exploit my private contract with my carrier. It is a violation of privacy. Pure and simple. Warrant needed, because a police use of the data is for the purpose of taking away my rights. It purpose matters to the discussion. Have an inherent 5th amendment right not to self-incriminate, even if by a device I own. The constitution refers to papers and things. This is the modern version of papers and things.
JJ
On his fat ass in his office. Done your welcome
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
The AG appears to fully understand the point and is trying to avoid it.
A cell phone presents location information to your cell service provider under a precise protocol called the air interface.
The air interface operates in a RF band that is under exclusive license to the cell provider.
The air interface is designed so that mere monitoring of communication is not sufficient to figure out what is going on.
The cell service provider is under strict rule when and when not to divulge this information.
(Perhaps the secrecy in communication act.)
The user has an expectation that these rules be followed.
Stingray appears to operate by having the intercept device override communications between the phone and service provider.
This would disrupt phone service for some short (thus avoiding detection) time interval.
This would violate the exclusive license of the service provider to use the RF spectrum.
Additionally, it is possible that Stingray uses the opportunity to place malicious software on the phone.
This would violate the air interface spec and perhaps damage the phone.
These seem techniques suitable for a Bond film, going after somebody ready to stop the world.
The do not seem appropriate of the use against ordinary criminals, even with a warrant.
(Instead, an attempt should be made to use the warrant process to ask the cell provider for the information.)
The question here is are they appropriate for ordinary criminals without a warrant?
In other words, are they an unreasonable search under the Constitution.
To sort this out requires a clear understanding of what is happening and what the other options are.
It is likely other options wild be less convenient and provide more oversight.
Judging by what the AG is saying, such a clear understanding is counterproductive to his position.
It may be his job to provide such an argument, but the fact that he does seems telling.
(The problem with analogies: you compare it to physical mail, but it could also be compared to shouting.)
It is reasonable to want it to be private, and reasonable to try to refine the technical operation in order to make it be private. It is extremely unreasonable to believe that it is private.
IMHO the real problem with Stingray is that it isn't passive; it isn't merely collecting the information ("Here I am!") that you choose to broadcast into public. It's an active MitM; the attacker is not merely observing, but they are participating in the fraud ("I am a node on a network that you decided to trust!").
That suggests that either the protocols are poorly designed (phones are authenticating themselves before towers authenticate themselves, and/or the authentication methods are weak), or that the government coerced someone into giving up private credentials. And if someone is going around pointing guns at network operators' faces and saying "give me your signing key," then those people need to go to prison.
The secrecy also suggests they are probably doing something illegal. If Stingray were legal, the government wouldn't be hiding what data it collects and how it does it. People in the government have already concluded that the cops are breaking laws, and the longer they sit by, the more risk they face of conspiracy charges.
It's going to come down to whether or not someone like you and I can legally have and use a Stingray-like thing. If we can (just like it's legal for me to listen to whatever gets shouted on a public street), then cops definitely aren't breaking the law. OTOH if we can't (just like it's illegal for me to rummage though your mailbox by the street) then the cops are breaking the law unless they have warrants.
My guess is that it's going to turn out to be legal. So in addition to cops using Stingrays, ad companies, thieves, private investigators, etc will do it also. If the court legalizes it for cops, they'll be legalizing it for everyone.
Everyone knows that the US Constitution is supposed to be more than just a historic piece of paper. It is supposed to be the basis of our entire country, written specifically to limit government abuses of power. Now that the US government has spun up the levels of fear in the media by creating a new boogeyman called terrorism they are holding their own citizens hostage and ignoring these limitations placed on their abuses, "For your own good" they say. The US has become very much a banana regime run by a military junta and what pisses me off is that 99% of US citizens seem to be okay with this.
Everyone needs to write their representative and DEMAND a return to rule of law, where the police must have enough probable cause to convince a judge that an INDIVIDUAL needs to be TEMPORARILY placed under surveillance (not that the government will ever relinquish these new powers they have granted themselves). Thanks a lot America, you were once a shining beacon of freedom for the world and now you are nothing more than yet another corrupt dictatorship.
Hello, Maryland AG's Mother, and thank you for appearing in front of us today as an expert Mother. Your son has argued that everyone knows cell phones create, store, and broadcast location data all the time so no warrant is needed for tracking them. Did you know that your phone is reporting your location to the phone company 24 hours a day? Did you know your son wants to know where you go every hour of the day, and believes he has the right to do so without a warrant?
Sure everyone knows they generate location data.... but that location data is *NOT* automatically public information unless the public actually has a direct way to receive and analyze it. Obtaining it for another person typically requires the explicit cooperation of a third party. Therefore, it should require a warrant.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Where did this idiot go to law school? As pointed out in the article its like argument is like claiming that because you have house guests now and again police shouldn't need a warrant to search your home and catalog its contents.
"everyone who lives and breathes knows they're being tracked so it's legal. even if we keep it completely secret, hidden from the courts, and defendants so they can't defend themselves."
fucking retarded chomos. williambinney.com
If the continuing argument from the government is going to be "if we can technically do it then we should be able to legally do it"... then the solution is to make it so that you can't technically do it.
happy now?
That's apparently where this has to go.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Let 'em look. I've got nothing to hide.
Right? Since police and law enforcement information is over the airways and the location information is known by the carriers then it is perfectly legal to track, record, and publish the locations and communications of all law enforcement including the judiciary of any district. Seems fair.
Not a police replacement you are tapping everyone in the area phone with no warrant just a run around the the law in the way you are tapping.
You should be hung from the nearest tree.
You are the very definition of police state.
And why people are killing you like dogs you earn it just like this.
So also by that logic, we're also allowed to track all LEO, judges, DAs, and politicians by their phones... right?
OK lawyers, cops, ... you should all have no issue with the EFF or ACLU posting a live updated website of all of your locations, 24/7, using Stingrays or any other technology since you 'all know they are being tracked'.
Watch how fast they'd shut THAT down.. hypocrites.
CAPTCHA: casework
Moron should be fired for knowing nothing about how the US constitution works, how warrants are supposed to work, etc.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Someone should host a publically accessable website that geolocates law enforcement officers in those cities to test their convictions on this issue.
So politicians and government officials can't complain when citizens use Stingrays against them, right?
How can this guy seriously make the argument that something should be legal simply because people knew it was happening (likely illegally) before hand. Taking this line of reasoning, it could be argued that being illegally searched without probable cause is now legal simply because people expect it to happen anyway (even if they don't agree or like it).
While he's at it, why not apply this argument to every clause in the Bill of Rights and have the whole constitution repealed! Law enforcement have been 'getting away' with all sorts of activities that fly in the face of just about every clause in there. If there was a clause that specifically forbad the use of the Constitution to wipe one's ass, you know it'd be covered in shit. Come to think of it, I wonder what was written under that brown stain at the bottom of the document.
I suggest tracking government officials in Baltimore in real time and publishing it to a web page.
:)
Let's just turn over all the cell towers to law enforcement if they don't need warrants to intercept cell communications. At least then we'll know for certain that they are spying on us everywhere, all the time.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
Some local lady investigated why her phone acted funny and the guys listening in were accidentally talking out through her call. She was quoted as asking the other person she meant to be on a call with if they could also hear the male voices talking. Then the phone clicked a bit and the voices were off. The article said she got a phone that is pretty good at detecting and she can see her 4g connection turn to 2g and gets a warning that her phone can no longer switch towers. The device takes your phone over for a bit and people are listening in.
This is not a case of location data being revealed, it is all out spying on random people while trying to find the targeted person. The local PD said they don't own a stingray but borrow the FBI's when they want to use one. They claim that using them helped them catch a guy in a high profile murder case a year ago. The lady interviewed was upset that she keeps being tracked (as we all are being) while the police are looking for whomever it is they are after.
I am most concerned that phones are being turned on as hidden mics in your pocket wherever you happen to be. This is not something people consider normally happening at all.
You can easily get multiple witnesses to deny that your mobile phone is a tracking device. Just walk into any store selling mobile and ask the sales staff if this or that model will track you. Tell that that you want a phone which will not produce evidence to be used against you in court. They will assure you that none of their phones are tracking you or collecting evidence.
How else can a smartphone user know what the product does? The user manual that comes with the phone does not outline this data tracking nor does the contract with the cellular company. The person who sold you the phone will deny it.
I think that is enough evidence to contradict the claim that all mobile users expect to have their data recorded and expect to have it used as evidence.