I’ve been pointing this out for a while, but it’s nice to see the DOJ make it official. If your cell phone is turned on then towers are triangulating you constantly. If you brought a cell phone to the capitol riot then it’s time to call a lawyer.
DOJ makes clear that if you had a cell phone on inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, you will get caught. pic.twitter.com/nLXaeG1RpE
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 14, 2021
With so many defendants, you have to figure the odds of several breaking omerta and narcing out their handlers higher up the food chain is pretty good.
Amir Khalid
Unconstitutional surveillance! Deep State! Yadda yadda yadda …
ETA: Frist!
MisterForkbeard
…what is PRIOLA?
gene108
Don’t want to do the time, don’t do the crime.
scav
Apple was out to get them! Fake Tweets! The dog filmed, no CGIed that video! Religious Freedom: their Orange God told them to! Geography lies!
gene108
@MisterForkbeard:
I’m guessing someone’s last name
Gin & Tonic
Is “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance” still a rotating tag here? That’s what the Yanukovych government in Ukraine made the cell operators send to every phone in Kyiv during the Maidan uprising. And that was seven years ago.
Lyrebird
@Amir Khalid: Hey Amir, thought of you when my search for my kids’ favorite snack led to mysnekku dot com … I think it’s in your vicinity.
re: OP
sing!
sing!
sing!
burnspbesq
The U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. is going to be busy for a long time. And God help the poor suckers whose cases get randomly assigned to Judge Walton.
The Moar You Know
Dumbfucks. I don’t take my phone near the marijuana store. Everyone should know this by now.
VOR
That’s like Protest 101 in the 21st century: don’t bring your own cell phone. Clearly it never occurred to these people they could get caught or they were doing anything wrong.
Watch for the pros who had burners or non-cell communication devices.
VeniceRiley
Remember Trump screaming “bleachbit” about HRC? Good times.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
It’s a shame that young people nowadays don’t remember the moral code of Baretta’s Theme.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Most likely they already posted that to Facebook along with an org chart of their group of “patriots”
Soprano2
They’re white conservatives, of course they didn’t think there would be any consequences for this. I think for many of them it was a lark more than anything else. My husband said they’re dilettantes.
gene108
That’s only if they can get someone, who’s part of an actual group that did any planning. A lot of random people just wandered into the Capitol building, because they could.
Kent
Plea deals. No defense attorney in their right mind is going to want to try a case of white supremacist sedition and disenfranchisement of black voters in front of a majority-black jury at the US District Court of the District of Columbia. Which is 2 blocks from the Capitol building that they trashed.
These people are all severely fucked and they will grasp at guilty pleas once the gravity of their fuckedness eventually sinks in.
They are also going to squeal like stuck pigs and rat out all the higher ups if it means leniency. These aren’t drug cartel sicarios who live in fear that they will be shived and their entire families will be gutted and tortured if they squeal.
Tom Levenson
I like the line I saw somewhere recently: every day they remember to breathe and stand upright is a testament to dogged hard work.
It takes effort to be so comprehensively self-incriminating..
Chetan Murthy
@Amir Khalid:
Heh, I saw that and thought: “Bill Frist probably -was- deeply involved in getting the Patriot Act passed”. Ha!
Gin & Tonic
The RWNJ clown known as Baked Alaska was doing a live video feed from inside, and the FBI is reportedly using that to ID a bunch of others. Yet he has not been charged with anything himself.
Wonder why that is?
Hoodie
@The Moar You Know: Admittedly, they’re dumber than a bag of hammers, but this does bring out how cable TV and the internet has caused many people to live in what is essentially a virtual reality.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: “Keep your eye-ay-yai-yai on the sparrow
when the go-oh-oh-oh-ing gets narrow”?
West of the Rockies
@scav:
They were all merely going on a walking tour, ten thousand Wordsworthian history buffs. Relax. Show’s over, move along, nothing to see… Oh, and it’s time to heal anyway, you fragile liberal snowflake.
catclub
The tin foil hat brigade – and others as well – also worries that the towers are triangulating your phone when you think it is turned off.
West of the Rockies
@The Moar You Know:
Stoner!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent:
In fairness, they’re really long blocks(I’ve walked it).
catclub
At many klan rallies the FBI plants were doing a lot of the instigating.
I would be impressed to find out there are many FBI informants in that MAGA crowd.
JoyceH
@Soprano2:
Some of them were, but some of them were not. Some of them were dead serious in their plan to overthrow the government and install some sort of Strong Man autocracy in its place.
If it’s true that the panic buttons were removed from Cong Pressley’s office with malign intent, and it wasn’t some misunderstanding/maintenance thing, that shows premeditation. To… what? Kidnap, murder? But what struck me about that is that it indicated that whoever did it didn’t expect to get caught – because they assumed that their attempt to take over the government was going to succeed, and it wouldn’t matter who had colluded before the fact. I’d like to know if any other members of the Squad or other multi-threatened members had panic buttons that were disabled or removed. But I think it’s pretty clear, now that the Uprising has failed, that the perps WILL be identified. Interesting times we live in…
SiubhanDuinne
Is it wrong of me to hope that said handlers include a few LoonyGOP congresscritters?
ETA: Or their staff, of course.
Tim F
@gene108:
I agree that we have to round up a core group, many of whom likely had the brains to leave their phones at the hotel. However the Parler leak could prove to be a goldmine, along with the surprising success of volunteers in tracking down rioters wearing masks and tactical gear.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@catclub: It won’t if you pull the battery(though that’s pretty rare now).
catclub
Change of venue to West Virginia
Tim F
@catclub:
It usetabe that if you got involved in any kind of “serious” activism, someone with experience would train the newbs on how to spot the fed plants. In liberal groups this has generally been pretty easy – look for the guy dressed like a conservative’s idea of what a hippie would look like, 10+ years out of date, who’s rudely interrupting discussions and pushing people towards illegal acts. Supposedly right wing extremists had a much harder time spotting feds since the agents (cough) didn’t have to look up how to dress or act.
Another Scott
Relatedly, … ProPublica:
Too many cops divide everyone into: a) Us and our supporters; b) Them. Even obvious kooks like Chansley were in group a). This attitude must be rooted out, starting with the leadership, but going through the whole ranks.
But the failures on January 6 were not just (and probably not even mainly) the Capitol Police. It’s a systemic problem.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
Very good (short) explainer here (one-minute video).
Doug R
I only have location and bluetooth on because that’s how Canada’s Covid app works.
These maskless dipshits who obviously DGAF about Covid and are supposedly paranoid ALL have location on? Yeah, I know the tower they’re on can roughly locate them but these ain’t the brightest bulbs are they.
Michael Cain
Back in the 1990s, when I was (among other things) a futurist at a large telecom company, I wrote white papers about the demise of personal privacy. Most people would be appalled at how much meta data their wireless provider collects about them. Should it ever come to pass that I’m part of a violent conspiracy, it is going to be much harder for the authorities to find our data bits than just calling the phone companies.
Cameron
@catclub: Unfortunately, it could just as easily be the other way around.
Tim F
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Batteries are welded in these days. You can pull the SIM card for the same benefit.
Ruckus
@VOR:
Us? Do anything wrong? Overthrowing a ligit election just because we lost – is that wrong? How can that be, our savior is as righteous and as racist as we are…….
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SiubhanDuinne: Somebody unlocked a side door that’s always locked. Somebody gave them drawings of the tunnel system. Somebody took the panic buttons out of Ayanna Presley’s office. Somebody led recon tours on Jan. 5 (which kind of puts a damper in the “spontaneous” characterization of the invasion).
There was also a report I heard of a lady with a bullhorn who seemed to be getting real-time intel from some highly-placed insider.
Yeah, there were Congress people involved. I’m certain of it. I just hope there are lots and lots of electronic fingerprints.
Aleta
debbie
@gene108:
Oh please. Everyone was too busy filming everyone else. I wonder if the towers also pick up the videos and texts.
Chris Johnson
@SiubhanDuinne: What do you mean ‘hope’? More like, let’s hope it PROVES that, and that action is taken about it. There is no chance said congresscritters aren’t seditious. Some are not even clever about it, and ate their own propaganda. I’m less interested in those than in the ones who are much smarter.
What are the odds that Mitch McConnell arranged for all this? Because that is the number one guy who would not get caught making noisy mad seditious speeches. That’s the behind the scenes guy, among others. If Paul Ryan was still in Congress I’d be looking side-eye at him, too. I’m also interested in how well Madison Cawthorn is hiding being seditious.
Punchy
Cap Police: I dialed 911 a long time ago….cant you see how late they reactin’?
DoD: they only come and they come when they wanna
CP: so get the morgue truck and embalm the goner
Dod: they dont care cuz they stay paid anyways….if your life is on the line, you be dead today
Chetan Murthy
@Tim F: My understanding is, there’s a thing called an “IMEI ping”. But not really so sure. If I were truly worried, I’d get a Faraday-cage-capable bag. I mean, they’re cheap.
NotMax
Don’t have one of the gadgets, don’t want to have one. Being neither a firefighter nor a surgeon, no reason whatsoever to be immediately phonable.
/curmudgeon
p.a.
Remember the W admin when the Italian gvt at least contemplated arrest warrants for (IIRC) CIA operatives in Italy for kidnapping a Muslim on terrorism charges. They used cellphone data: the (IIRC) CIA agents had their phones off but the batteries weren’t pulled. CIA!!!
debbie
@catclub:
Doubtful. They would have tried to get word to the FBI, police, etc. that shit was about to hit the Capitol.
JanieM
@JoyceH:
Absolutely this.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@NotMax: They’ll track you with the Bill Gates microchip instead.
/tin-foil hat
It’s Microsoft. It doesn’t work.
/Mac devotee
Kent
Good luck arguing to a black or Hispanic judge that black juries can’t be impartial. That’s going to be a heavy lift. If they get a change of venue it is more likely to be some place like Baltimore or Philly, not West Virginia. Federal criminal court isn’t like a lawsuit where you can forum shop.
PaulWartenberg
@MisterForkbeard: it’s like RICOLA except it’s not for the throat it’s for the white privilege stupidity.
Kent
How do you pull the battery on an iPhone?
patrick II
@Doug R:
Most of them probably don’t know how to turn location off.
NotMax
Musical accompaniment?
;)
Ksmiami
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Especially during a family trip in August!
PaulWartenberg
@catclub: the trial has to happen in the jurisdiction where the crime takes place. That’s why there’s a Zone of Death in the corner of Idaho overlapped by Yellowstone National Park: the jurisdiction is technically with Wyoming but there are not enough residents in that part of Idaho to panel a jury.
Kent
For all we know, they did send warnings up the chain of command and their warnings went unheeded or dismissed and countermanded by political folks at the top.
There were FBI agents waving the flashing red warning light before 9-11 too, and they were also ignored.
There is a LOT about this event that we still don’t know.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@NotMax: Come sit six feet from me. We’re likely the last two in this hemisphere who don’t want cellphones.
CaseyL
I wonder how many of the more dangerous, serious insurrectionists were aware of their phones’ surveillance capabilities, and took countermeasures – from not bringing their phones at all to using burner phones that aren’t traceable to them and easily disposed of.
Quite a few, I reckon!
But, hopefully, the more serious and dangerous ones were cheek-by-jowl with their dimmer compadres and can be hunted down with data so thoughtfully provided that way.
Kent
Which only turns it off for aps, not for the phone itself. The 9-11 system is constantly hand-shaking and obtaining GPS data regardless of whether you have location services turned on or off.
Ruckus
@Kent:
I agree that a lot of them will do as you state.
But.
I think many of them will be all righteous and stupid. They proved that by going in the first place. Yes, at some point they might wake up and realize that blinding whiteness is not the only way to go through life. That won’t be until they’ve had to actually pay for their ignorance and for some not even then. They are in a cult. Their cult says that the color of their skin makes them better and righteous. And that whiteness isn’t going to change so the only thing is actual discovery and admission that they are wrong. And as this cult has been going on for centuries non stop, I don’t see it being seen for what it is by all of those involved, ever.
Kent
I expect the most serious and dangerous ones were those who wound up the mob and pointed them in the right direction but were smart enough to never go near the capitol.
bemused senior
@MisterForkbeard: https://extremism.gwu.edu/Capitol-Hill-Cases you will find priola in this database of case documents for cases against rioters so far.
Martin
Ask all of these questions in the context of Frank’s observation:
It’s not about neglecting issues or not being clever. It’s about being true to conservatism – they believed (perhaps rightly) that all of this would be ignored or excused away – certainly that they wouldn’t be held to the same account as anyone who aligns with liberals. You saw this with them ignoring the metal detectors in front of Capitol police, or refusing to wear masks.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
Mr. Max, we’ve been trying to reach you about this large cigar order we have for delivery….
p.a.
@Kent: What was iPhone construction like in the W years? I’m android, so IDK.
Fair Economist
@Lyrebird:
Sing or Sing Sing.
mrmoshpotato
?Jingle bells, go to jail, you seditious shits, fuck yourselves, fuck yourselves, then fuck yourselves some more. Hey!?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ksmiami: I did it in late February, but the high was 85 that day.
germy
I didn’t know Trump had his own personal bust of Lincoln:
I guess it’s fine he’s taking it with him when he moves out
(The photo reminds me of the guy walking out with Pelosi’s podium)
NotMax
@Immanentize
Can’t be for me, I smoke small cigars.
:)
Leto
This was from 2 years ago:
Fitness app Polar exposed locations of spies and military personnel Location data revealed the home addresses of intelligence officers — even when their profiles were set to private.
Fitness app Strava lights up staff at military bases
In today’s world, you are ALWAYS tracked. In some way, shape, or form. I for one can’t wait to hear the wailing/gnashing of teeth of the insurrectionists/traitors as they claim how “innocent” they were, then we point out they were in the middle of the shit and use their own stupidity against them. Fuck’em. Forever.
Kent
@Ruckus: The prospect of facing Federal felony prosecution has a clarifying effect on even the most craven Nazis. Remember the famous “Crying Nazi” from Charlottesville? We are going to see a whole lot more of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Cantwell
cain
@The Moar You Know:
It’s funny all these shitheels consuming all that conspiracy theories but didn’t remotely believe any of the ones around what govt knows while planning an insurrection. smh.
Not even the vets? I guess there was no CIA/FBI Trumpers that didnt alert the mob?
Aleta
RE: @Ceci n est pas mon nym: About the tours, perhaps posted already:
Rep. Sherrill describes how her military training taught her to “look for things that were out of place, look for things that were odd, and look at them with an eye toward security,” and how that led her to raise questions about visitors to the Capitol the day before the attack.
Litlebritdifrnt
The looting begins
What the fuck.
Quote Tweet
Howard Mortman
@HowardMortman
· 26m
Abraham Lincoln bust … White House … 2:09pm
You know for a fact that that Bust doesn’t belong to Trump, he is not that sophisticated.
Leto
@germy: A quadruple checked inventory needs to be done on literally everything. Even if it was nailed/bolted down, check it. Everything needs to be treated the same as nukes (2 person positive control). This isn’t his stuff. It’s our/the nation’s history/legacy/items. The office holder is simply a caretaker. Gah, hate these fucks so much.
Immanentize
Here is an example of how investigations work and why they may take time. The son of a Brooklyn Judge is IDed and arrested. One of the clear pictures of him coming down the stairs shows him next to/with notorious confederate flag dude (he of the murder drop tattoos). So, the FBI questions Judge’s son (Dad wisely tells him to spill it all!). Son tells his new friends in the government about the dude he met and hung out with who was from, let me see, I have his contact info., Maryland. Two days later, flag man and his son are in jail.
It takes time. Plus, for some of the more dangerous, but not smart, the FBI is letting them feel semi-safe so they can find out their contacts.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Surgery over the phone? Now that’s telemedicine!
Also – Obligatory
Martin
@Tim F: No you can’t. A phone without SIM card can still call 9/11. It still handshakes, it doesn’t have a subscriber ID to transmit, but it does transmit the IMEI of the phone for the purpose of WDLS – wireless dispatch location services.
We’re using this at work to keep track of occupancy in buildings during covid. You basically can’t avoid it short of not physically carrying a phone.
Leto
@Immanentize: are there any professional repercussions for Judge Dad? Besides eternal shame/embarrassment.
FlyingToaster
A) Burner Smartphone, bought with cash
B) You can buy $20 prepaid cards for said burner phone, again with cash.
C) At the end of the day, pop the SIM and smash it, leave the SIMless phone in a public place, and walk the fuck away.
Yes, the device IMEI is trackable, which is why you buy a cheap phone for one day of use and then remove/break the SIM and abandon the device.
If you’re lucky, some kid will pick up the device, provide their own pre-paid SIM, and muddy the fucking waters.
***
These insurrectionists are just fucking dumb.
germy
@Leto:
“First they riot… then they loot”
Immanentize
@Leto: probably not. Everyone knows how awful children are. ?
Leto
@Martin: it’s n+1 of the reasons we don’t allow any type of electronic device inside secure intel/military facilities.
Immanentize
@FlyingToaster: I’ve kept all my old Nokia phones from the 90s just for such moments!!!
Leto
@Immanentize: why are you looking at me like? I WAS AN ANGEL, I TELLS YA! /s
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize:
Eight days is taking time? Seditious Trump trash seems to be getting cuffed left and right.
Aleta
@Aleta: So… since she’s talking about “tours” that were led by a member of congress… there would be records of who led and who was on each tour, yes? Even congress members would have to make visitors sign in, even if under covid precautions …. or were these Rs able to skirt that?
karen marie
@catclub: It is – although it’s not necesssarily your cell usage that’s triangulating, it’s your Google account pinging off nearby wifi.
Immanentize
@Leto: As my Dad said — I raised up a stick so he could beat me.
Another Scott
@p.a.: AFAIK, iPhones have never had (easily) removable batteries.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@mrmoshpotato: It’s a quick round up of obvious folks. The cops looked very bad last week and need to fly straight right now. But the deeper stuff, links to Congress, funders, etc. (Ginni Thomas oh please God!) that will be coming in for months.
lee
@Chetan Murthy: Even when ‘off’ some phones will still send ping to towers. That is why with many protestors they don’t carry their personal phone.
Martin
@p.a.: No iPhone has ever had a removable battery. You’ve always had to dismantle the device. Apple was also very fast to support E-911, etc.
iPhones are probably the easiest (relative to Android, etc.) to track via hardware protocols because they tend to implement things quickly, and the hardest to track via software location data leaking because of app store enforcement.
They’re all pretty trivial to track now via hardware.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize:
mrmoshpotato
Terrible cat puns
Thank me or curse me later.
Immanentize
@Aleta: There will be records, if only viddy. But there should be sign ins too if they went to any members’ offices.
ETA. Nancy knows.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Does it still do this if the phone is “off off”, if you shut down the OS?
Ruckus
@Tim F:
With an e-Sim? My phone does not have a removable sim card and I’d bet that most don’t any more, that part is built in as part of the phone. You can try turning it off, but I’m not sure that actually shuts it off. And this is not all that new but is different than a lot of cell phones for the first 15-20 yrs of cell phones. How many new phones are like my 3 yr old phone?
karen marie
@Tim F: I can’t find an article about it but I have a memory of protests against Trump early on (2016/2017) where undercover police were identified because they were all wearing new shoes.
Martin
@Aleta: No. Apparently it’s routine for members of congress to tell capitol police ‘fuck you, I’m an elected official’ and not register guests as they’re supposed to.
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize: True. Still got some big fish to…what do you slap a fish with?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@FlyingToaster: I think Adam has mentioned this in some of his guides for going to a protest.
Another Scott
This “deep fake” technology is really amazing…
(via DevinCow)
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Another Scott: My son had a swift little local business when he was in junior high replacing screens on his friends’ i-phones. Batteries too. Those things are buried deep and glued in.
I had a beloved razor flip phone phone which had a removable/replaceable battery. How I wish I still had that one.
Chetan Murthy
@lee: That’s why I suggested a Faraday-cage-capable bag. A Faraday cage stops all electromagnetic radiation (well, within some frequency range — surely they don’t stop gamma rays). Doesn’t matter if the phone is powered-up: its radio signals ain’t gettin’ out.
bemused senior
The gwu case file database I linked above is a fascinating rathole to go down, if you want to see how the miscreants are being tracked down. Not a convenient UI.
lee
Another tidbit I saw on twitter: There is a map of Parler images and videos with geolocation tags that show the protest moving from Trump’s rally to the Capitol.
Immanentize
@Ruckus: the removable sim is a good reason to go android like one-plus (dual removable sim capable)
Gin & Tonic
@Chetan Murthy: I just wrap my phone in my spare tinfoil hat (everybody has a spare, right?)
Immanentize
@mrmoshpotato: Another, bigger fish?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: I think all phones have removable SIM cards, I’ve seen them in both iPhone and Androids.
JPL
@JoyceH: When Giuliani left a message for Tuberville, I heard that he was basically trying to disrupt the vote until the next day. Maybe they had something else planned for the next day.
randy khan
@VOR:
I’m not sure there were any pros. At least one of the semi-organized groups thought that it was good opsec to use a walkie-talkie app on their phones that recorded their conversations.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: two spare masks and two spare TFHs always in my pocket.
SFBayAreaGal
@Immanentize: I still have my Samsung S5 with removable battery. Samsung does offer a removable battery model the XCover Pro.
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
That there weren’t busses waiting for all of them once they finished.
That those muthaphuckas were allowed to go home afterwards…
If that wasn’t WHITE PRIVILEGE on steroids, I don’t know what is.
H.E.Wolf
Was it Rep. Matt Gaetz who threw a tantrum some while back, crashed a meeting he wasn’t eligible to attend, and brought his phone into a SCIF while so doing?
ETA: Yep. Oct. 23, 2019. With his colleague Steve Scalise, and some of their buddies.
https://www.wired.com/story/republicans-storm-scif-national-security-nightmare/
hueyplong
The freshman congresswoman from CO is one of the few with any personal experience at all in The System.
The others aren’t going to like it. There may be a rat-out competition.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Very prudent.
Another Scott
@JPL: There were also noises that the invaders hoped/planned to stay in the Capitol overnight…
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: iPhone batteries are easy to replace, once you open the phone(that’s not easy, but a little heat and some careful prying gets you in), but getting the battery out of a recent Samsung phone is a real chore(even after you open the case).
randy khan
@Gin & Tonic:
Some of the easy to identify people probably are being allowed to go about their business so the FBI can identify other people who were in the conspiracies. Once you have video like that, it’s easy to get a warrant to wiretap someone and you can monitor social media, etc.
Immanentize
At least the Airforce guy had actual walkie talkies, not phones. And not a bullhorn. I luv bullhorn lady. Has she been wrapped up yet?
@randy khan:
danielx
@catclub:
Actually, if the battery or SIM card isn’t pulled…
I remember reading a story years ago abut how the FBI listened to the conversations of Mafiosi types via cell phones that were powered down, supposedly.
In these parts there was a pretty horrible case a few years ago, when a man fired by the owner of a landscaping company went to the owner’s house and murdered his wife and daughter in a particularly brutal fashion. One of the key pieces of evidence against the murderer was cell phone tracking info indicating his proximity to the crime scene.
Among the smarter criminals at this point it’s pretty well established that these days if you use a cell during the commission of a crime you are very likely to end up in one. Hence the use of burners etc.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: The next day was after they hung Pence and all the Democrats.
danielx
@The Moar You Know:
See, if you live in a state with civilized laws you don’t have to worry about it.
RaflW
Meanwhile, check out this implied threat from Newt.
We’ve only had one Civil War. And of course it was previous to this moment. So … ??
NotMax
@rikyrah
Or buses, either.
;)
randy khan
@catclub:
Maybe North(ern) Virginia. Or how about suburban Maryland, perhaps Prince George’s County?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFBayAreaGal: I have a Note Edge with a removable battery.
Immanentize
@SFBayAreaGal: This old LG blackberry knock off I have seems also to have a replaceable battery
JaySinWA
@Ruckus: the e-SIM is still rare, but as others have pointed out even without a SIM the phone can be tracked. I wouldn’t expect e-SIM adoption all that quickly, a number of carriers (many MNVO cheap phone providers) don’t support it yet.
LevelB
The bar for getting put on the No Fly List is pretty low, but insurrection easily clears it. I will also note that this would go a long way towards kneecapping future events.
NotMax
@randy khan
“It’s all good, we wuz usin’ code names.”
//
FlyingToaster
@?BillinGlendaleCA: He has; I already knew this from [redacted].
Boston PD used to park an “intelligence” van outside of the Occupy zone by South Station. All it was doing was tracking cell phones. I assumed that everyone had learned the “don’t bring your own cell phone to a protest with under 100K people” lesson.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It depends. Phones are never really ‘off’. So it depends on whether they have a low enough power radio to still ping towers for 911 services.
Additionally, we know that nation states have developed software that when installed on your phone (usually through some innocuous app) makes it look like you’ve shut down the phone but leaves it in standby mode still broadcasting. This is why having an app like TikTok tied to the Chinese govt isn’t a great idea.
Understand that most phones are running multiple operating systems. iPhones run at least 3 – one inside the CPU, one for the radios, and iOS. You can shut down iOS to patch it but the radio OS is still going. That’s why it’s hard to say.
Subsole
@gene108: So then why in the thundering purple-headed hell did they tell me “see something, say something”!?
Damned GOP even automated the informant market!!!!
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: I always wondered where that line came from!
SFBayAreaGal
@Immanentize:
I’m still using my S5. Im using it right now. It’s the perfect size to fit in my pockets and in the palm of my hand.
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: So battery pull it is then.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFBayAreaGal: My Note8 is my daily driver now.
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize: Sure. But at some point, you’re dropping whales from a crane wondering what madness you’ve created.
Ksmiami
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But the humidity in DC in August is something to behold!
Ruckus
@Kent:
I don’t disagree that a lot of them are cocooned in their whiteness and stupidity and will cry like infants at their fate from that stupidity but there will be those who are hardened and understanding about the cost of their beliefs and willing to pay that price, they are called martyrs.
Michael Cain
@danielx:
If you ask me to bet, I’d bet that within 18 months it won’t be possible to buy any sort of cell phone without showing a REAL ID or passport or something equivalent.
mrmoshpotato
@randy khan:
Did the app record, or was someone having a listen on the public channel they used?
Serious question – I’d never heard of this app before. But then I just call people if I need to talk.
JPL
Now I know! Only bring a burner phone when staging a coup. Where do you buy burner phones?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ksmiami: I know, I had an interview in August in DC. I was wearing a wool suit.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Supposedly you can simply wrap the phone with aluminum foil.
True? Dunno. Doesn’t always work with tinfoil hats:
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@hueyplong: Yeah, and even she is going to find *federal* prison a rude awakening after the county jail.
I hope so, at least. God, do I hope so.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Michael Cain: Guess I won’t be buying any new cellphones*.
*Decided not to go for a RealID DL when I renewed due to COVID and my passport is long expired.
Roger Moore
@FlyingToaster:
Some of them are dumb. Many of them think the rules don’t apply to them because they’re white conservatives doing what the President asked them to do. The smartest ones are the ones who egged others on but kept their own hands technically clean.
Aleta
copy of letter: https://twitter.com/politico/status/1349729266842402816/photo/1
Another Scott
@Michael Cain: AFAIK, it’s already difficult to get a cellular service account without things like an in-country bank account these days (makes it problematic for legitimate travelers to buy a local SIM).
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I see that people don’t actually understand the basic concept of a mobil phone and how it works to be, mobil. It has to know your basic location to have any function at all, to be able to be connected to cell service from a stationary transmitter. That’s the basic premise of the device in the first place, everything else is how you pay for the voice/text service.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
“Remind me, does the whale get put into the trebuchet head first or tail first?”
:)
hueyplong
@Miss Bianca: You and me both.
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
It seems like it to people who were expecting everyone to be marched out of the Capitol in handcuffs and were pissed they were allowed to walk out.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Tail first. You want the head to hit the target.
Omnes Omnibus
@VOR: They used a walkie-talkie app.
Ruckus
@FlyingToaster:
You forgot finger prints.
Not that anyone might look for them or search for who they belong to, but many, if not most of us have a record of at least one, likely thumb print, on file at say the DMV. I have a set on file with the federal government because I had a clearance in the navy concerning my job. I doubt very seriously those ever go away.
mrmoshpotato
@Roger Moore: That definitely was weird, but nice to see everyone getting a “Surprise, Motherfucker.” visit.
Roger Moore
@karen marie:
The cell towers are also recording all the phones that are pinging them, so it’s often possible to triangulate an approximate location even for a dumb phone that doesn’t have GPS or any other location capability. That’s going to be a big deal. I read that big chunks of the Capitol block reception from external towers, so the whole place has its own internal micro-cell so people can continue to get service*. That means lots of phones would be recorded as connecting to the Capitol’s internal cell, which would conclusively place them in the building.
*This kind of thing is fairly common in big buildings that block reception. They make even smaller cells, even ones small enough for a single house. When I lived in an area that was badly served by my phone company, they provided me with a femto cell that provided signal for a single dwelling.
Michael Cain
@Another Scott:
Burners are prepaid, using cash. Retail outlets — your local grocery, 7-11 — will usually sell them to you without requiring actual id. Buy it well in advance so that your image on the security video has been overwritten.
Steeplejack
Gizmodo: “Parler users breached deep inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS data shows.” Pertinent to this discussion, with an interesting graphic.
Starboard Tack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
There are still some phones that use CDMA instead of GSM that do not have SIMS.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Cursing! :-)
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott: I’ve not yet had a problem buying pre-paid SIMs in the countries I’ve traveled to. Every major city has an area where predominantly immigrants live, that has skeevy-looking phone shops that will be happy to sell you what you need without any intrusive questions.
Roger Moore
@Chetan Murthy:
I think the best strategy is to leave your phone at home. It’s inconvenient if you need to contact someone, but it protects you from your phone leaking information. It also protects you from the police getting quick access to your phone if you get arrested.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: This would be my strategy if I were going to take part in a “mass disturbance.” I’d just be sure to write my lawyer’s phone # on the inside of my arm in case I needed it.
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
Letting the people walk out seemed weird at the time, but it made sense. They simply didn’t have the personnel or time to arrest everyone in the building, and they thought it would make them resist. Letting them walk out let them think they had gotten away with it, which as we now see was not necessarily the case.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: What is the point of a “walkie talkie app” anyway? I mean, I know I’m a bear of very little brain and all, but isn’t a cell phone itself a sort of walkie talkie?
NotMax
@Roger Moore
And while no longer ubiquitous, pay phones aren’t a Herculean task to find.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
I remember people recommending both those things for the Women’s March.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
More of a walkie can-you-hear-me-nowie.
;)
The Moar You Know
@RaflW: dead thread but…we’re having one now. And the best case scenario for the next American decade is one that looks like Northern Ireland in the 1970s and the worst is Sri Lanka. Or perhaps Rwanda.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
Why? It makes no difference in the operation of the phone and does make it far easier if I want to change service providers. I’ve had to do this with my last phone and it was a pain finding the right sim and getting it to work. Functionally this is better.
As well Android – my last phone, become outdated very rapidly, I could not up grade my op sys and the old one became non op on some features. To me Android is just a way to make up for cheaper phones than Apple has, in the long run it’s the same or even more costly.
karen marie
@Another Scott: I’m going with:
karen marie
I don’t know how I got a duplicate.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
In an iPhone, at least all that are current, there is an e sim built in, there is no removable sim card, just as there is no removable battery. I’m not saying they can not be replaced, that might be possible, it’s just that the phone has to be taken apart to replace them if they are. And there is no easy way to take one apart, at least no easy way without the proper methods and tools. At least if you want it to actually work afterwards. As I said above my last phone was an Android and it became outdated in short order even with replaceable sim card slots and replaceable battery. I know of people with iPhone 5s that still are going strong and being used every day. That’s I think 7 generations ago. Apple is still selling phones that are 3 generations old, because they still work and will for some time to come. It’s a bigger investment but it doesn’t seem like they are trying to create a throw away product.
Kattails
@Leto: Ummm…seem to remember rapper buddy of Trump’s..had his cell phone out inside the Oval Office a little while back? Adam
commentedsnarked on it, you apparently could see the number clearly, lots of little foreign google-eyes on it. (Yes I know Kayne West)randy khan
@mrmoshpotato: I don’t know whether it was recorded automatically, but there is a transcript of a conversation out there.
randy khan
@Michael Cain:
Oh, you’ll be able to do it. Maybe not legally, but there will be ways.
And today you can buy what are effectively burner phones at Wal-Mart. You don’t need to go anywhere sketchy.
randy khan
@Another Scott:
Prepaid. You can do all sorts of things with prepaid phones.
Ruckus
@randy khan:
Wally world isn’t sketchy?
First I’ve heard this.
randy khan
@Ruckus:
My wife has a 4S. Of course, she uses it for phone calls and as her morning alarm and nothing else, but nevertheless it still works. We are thinking about getting a replacement this spring, which I think will shock her.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax:
Maybe not in Hawaii, but I can’t even remember the last time I saw a functioning pay phone anywhere in rural CO. It’s been years, at least!
Ruckus
@randy khan:
I bet it would. The world of cell phones has changed just a bit in that time. I’ve had a cell phone for over 20 yrs. The level of what they do and how well they do that is actually pretty amazing. The first really useful ones were just about 20 yrs ago or just over and they had nothing over the current phones.
Michael Cain
@Miss Bianca:
Even in the long-ago days when I worked for the Bell System, pay phones were money losers, kept in service only because there were state laws or regulations that required it.
Captain C
@Gin & Tonic: I’m sure it can’t be because he’s ratting anyone out.
The Moar You Know
For all those wondering: turning off an iPhone – full “power off” – does not, in fact, turn it all the way off. There are still components drawing power in there. What those are, I do not know. But you can pop one open that’s shut off (you should not “pop one open” under any other circumstances, actually) and put a voltmeter across the battery and see for yourself – it’s still pulling power.
Same deal for their newer iPods (the ones that look like their phones) and all iPads.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Pro tip: Look in otherwise wasted space behind staircases or escalators in shopping malls. Or inside any bus station.
Not universal, but here there’s one or two outside any post office.
Another Scott
@NotMax: What is this “shopping mall” you speak of??
I don’t think I’ve seen a payphone since well before the turn of the century.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mart
Trump signed an Executive Order to punish BLM and other groups tearing down monuments celebrating treasonous assholes defending slavery. It included a provision for trespassing on Federal Property (assume Portland Federal Bldg. “Antifa” punishment).
Thanks to the Dear Leader’s EO, all those Trumper criminals ramming past Capitol barricades are subject to up to ten years in prison, and a fine of up to $250,000, or both. Kinda wonderful in its own way.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-american-monuments-memorials-statues-combating-recent-criminal-violence/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/politics/donald-trump-vandals-statues-prison-fact-check/index.html
RSA
@Immanentize:
<beep> “Dude, I just wanted to let you know that the FBI hasn’t stopped by to ask about you-know-what in DC. Your plan worked!”
J R in WV
Our first cell phone was the size of a paving brick, with a wired antenna you could stick on your car’s roof with its magnet base. Another wire to the handset from the big brick holding the radio equipment. The whole set of equipment was in a black nylon bag with Velcro to fasten everything inside.
I don’t think we still have that, it would be an interesting antique in a few more years. Like a Remington typewriter…
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus:
Yes there is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj-EztxMhZs