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

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: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.