How Technology Caught the Austin Serial Bomber (foxnews.com)

Wednesday police in Austin, Texas finally located the "serial bomber" believed to be responsible for six package bombs which killed two people over the last three weeks. "The operation was aided by different uses of technology, including surveillance cameras and cell phone triangulation." An anonymous reader shares this article: The suspect, who has been identified as 24-year-old Mark Anthony Conditt, was killed near the motel he was traced to thanks to surveillance footage from a Federal Express drop-off store, The Austin American-Stateman reported. The authorities were able to gather information after police noticed the subject shipped an explosive device from a Sunset Valley FedEx store, a suburb approximately 25 minutes away from Austin. The evidence included the security footage from the store, as well as store receipts obtained showing suspicious transactions. The authorities were also able to look at the individual's Google search history, the Statesman noted, which gave them further insight into his dealings...

The authorities were also able to use cell phone triangulation technology, which provides a cell phone's location data via information collected from nearby cell towers... The phone's GPS capabilities can track the phone within 5 to 10 feet and can also provide "historical" or "prospective" location information. It can also "ping" the phone, forcing it to reveal its exact location... As cell phone companies store this type of data, law enforcement authorities must request it via the appropriate court processes.
"Authorities in Austin were able to use this technology to trace the suspect to a hotel in Williamson County."

Comments

Well duh

[DNS-and-BIND]

I mean, we live in a surveillance state. This kind of thing is routine now.

Imagine that instead of criminal acts, you instead were trying to organize against a clearly corrupt government. These exact same weapons would be used against you.

It's been five years since former US spy chief James Clapper lied to Congress about the NSA's giant surveillance program, and the statute of limitations for his crime is coming to end, guaranteeing him a peaceful retirement.

On March 12, 2013, James Clapper, then director of national intelligence, knowingly lied to the US Select Committee on Intelligence, when he was asked by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) whether the National Security Agency collected "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans."

"No sir. Not willingly," Clapper said.

The full extent of Clapper's unabashed dishonesty was revealed to the world just three months later, when NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked troves of documents detailing the agency's vast, warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

In 2009, professional baseball player Miguel Tejada pleaded guilty to lying to Congress after giving false testimony about performance-enhancing drug use in Major League Baseball.

"He admitted to lying to Congress and was unremorseful and flippant about it," Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told the Washington Examiner. "The integrity of our federal government is at stake because his behavior sets the standard for the entire intelligence community." Massie was referring to Clapper, not the baseball player. Just to be clear.

BS. FedEx told the police who mailed the package

[DalM]

The guy mailed his package FedEx. The package blew up and FedEx was able to provide miles of paper trails of evidence for the police.

Was he?

[rsilvergun]

Based on this targets (prominent members of the black community) you're right. I can't imagine he wasn't. It's just odd that there's no manifesto? The police have a 25 minute video of him though that they won't release until the investigation's done. So far I don't know of any hard evidence on his choice of targets. Though to be fair I think if we were Muslim the media would call this terrorism without that evidence. You're correct to point out that this sort of caution only exists for whites

It does disturb me he was home schooled. School isn't just about learning, it's about socializing.

lame

[supernova87a]

The "technology" that caught the bomber has been around for >30 years. Stores have been recording video and cops have been using it since your grandparents by this point.

The Google search history on the guys computer was used after he was caught. By triangulation of his cell phone, I think the author kind of means, "the fact that most people now carry cell phones", which can be triangulated.

Nothing about this is implausible to have happened 30 years ago with some moron using the pay phone system periodically instead. Makes me believe that the stupidity of criminals, and old fashioned police work based on our *current* laws are the solution to calls for increasingly invasive privacy monitoring and backdoors specially (ahem) for law enforcement.

There were plenty of red flags

[PopeRatzo]

The bomber was white, Christian, home-schooled, anti-LGBT and conservative. This fits the profile of almost all domestic terrorists in the US. Why wasn't he on the FBI's radar?

Where was he radicalized? Why hasn't the rest of the white, home-schooled, anti-LGBT, conservative community denounced him?

I saw on TV that white folks in South Carolina were celebrating with each bombing. There's video. Why isn't the mainstream media talking about that?

Don't stop fighting for the truth. The reckoning is coming

#QAnon

Re:There were plenty of red flags

[ColdWetDog]

The bomber was white, Christian, home-schooled, anti-LGBT and conservative. This fits the profile of almost all domestic terrorists in the US. Why wasn't he on the FBI's radar?

....

Any how do you know he's wasn't. The FBI follows lots of right wing nuts. But contrary to popular belief, the FBI can't surveil *everybody* (that, apparently, was the CIA's job). There have been dozens of cases that have come to light where people *known* to the FBI and other authorities have slipped under the radar (or cell phone tower) and committed crimes.

The successful MO is coming clear - be white, be socially inept, have some technology background and have an axe to grind.

Oh. Wait....

Triangulation

[uldics]

Cell towers are not triangulating. They can do it, but to a very limited approximation only where directional antennas have narrow coverage. And narrow is 30 degrees, that can not give a practically usable location, unless you plan to napalm him. What they use instead is trilateration, by comparing the signal strength at nearby towers. That can give meters of location precision.