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

He was a terrorist

[Daemonik]

Nice to see the main stream still won't call a white guy a terrorist.

Re: He was a terrorist

[Daemonik]

I think you've proved my point rather succinctly actually.

Re:He was a terrorist

[Known Nutter]

I realize that "terrorist" is the new trendy label, but while hate crimes are often related to terrorism they are not the same thing. This despite the fact that hate crimes are often intended to generate terror.

In it's simplest form, "terrorist" can be defined as "a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

While we may not have seen the video associated with this case and we do not fully understand this individual's motivations, it is not unreasonable to theorize that those motivations were political on some level, and therefore not unreasonable to refer to this jackass as a domestic terrorist (or simply terrorist) until such time as evidence of his true motives is presented.

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.

Re:lame

[BlazeMiskulin]

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.

I know this may be a surprise to you, but we're not all Millennials. My grandparents died in 1967, 1982, 1986, and 1998. The last of those was in a nursing home for 10 years with severe Alzheimer's. 30 years ago, I was in university. The Berlin Wall was still standing, the Cold War was in full swing, the "World Wide Web" was several years from being born, "Car phones" were something only the rich could afford, and "cell phones" were a brick connected to a briefcase--something only affordable by the wealthy.

"Google search history", "cell tower data", and "cell phone GPS data" (listed in TFS) most certainly did NOT exist 30 years ago.

If you think 30 years ago is "your grandparent's time", you're obviously young. It might surprise you to know that "the government can track you everywhere you go" is something that your grandparents almost certainly considered "unAmerican"--if not outright "evil". That's what the Nazis and the Commies did, not America.

Re:lame

[93 Escort Wagon]

It might surprise you to know that "the government can track you everywhere you go" is something that your grandparents almost certainly considered "unAmerican"--if not outright "evil". That's what the Nazis and the Commies did, not America.

Yup. I was in college when Reagan was elected the first time. I remember one of the most popular memes* among my Reaganite friends was a joke about Soviet internal passports (which were really a thing).

Fast-forward to the past decade - we have on more than one occasion had American bureaucrats propose the same thing for us, for the same reason the Soviets had been doing it way back in the day.

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....

its true!

[bobmajdakjr]

what is the first thing they always do in movies about heists and other crazy illegal doings? the newbie always pulls a phone out then jason statham grabs it and and chucks it out the window.

Re:There were plenty of red flags

[guruevi]

He wasn't a radicalized terrorist, he was a serial killer. There is a difference. He had no ideological causes, no politicla target, whether or not he was white, home schooled, Christian or anti-LGBT, it had nothing to do with it.

What he did was because he was intelligent, psychopathic and his skills were most likely undervalued by his family and/or community. He probably had recently gone through some psychological trauma (girlfriend breaking up, fight with his dad, fired from his job) culminating into the thoughts that he was going to "show the world" with the hubris that he could get away with the cat-and-mouse game with agents he perceives to be less intelligent. He started low-end with someone disposable like a transient or a prostitute and worked his way up, probably to the perceived "target" but primarily to show that he can get away with it.

Especially towards the end, they virtually all end up in a killing spree where they either commit suicide or get caught (and then commit suicide). Some choose guns, some choose hands, some knives, there are a number of currently active serial killers, they are not terrorists, they aren't profiled as terrorists, they typically work alone instead of in a cell although rarely a team of 2 will happen.

Re:There were plenty of red flags

[PopeRatzo]

He wasn't a radicalized terrorist, he was a serial killer.

They are not mutually exclusive, as the Austin bomber shows. Anyway, serial killers seldom commit suicide, as Mark Anthony Conditt did. However, radicalized terrorists very often commit suicide.

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.