{"id":1598,"date":"2024-09-12T10:23:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T08:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2024-09-12T11:43:37","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T09:43:37","slug":"find-my-device-or-anything-that-saw-it-recently-and-has-travelled-15km-or-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/archives\/1598","title":{"rendered":"Find my device or anything that saw it recently and has travelled 15km or so"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Google&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/android\/find\/\">Find My Device<\/a>&#8221; function does a pretty good job of finding a device.  It has a few mechanisms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>GPS location seen by the device (pretty accurate)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cell tower location (not very accurate at all)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Wireless access point locations (quite broad)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Quick connections by bluetooth to passing android devices on the &#8220;Find my device&#8221; network (could be accurate, but is not).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That last method, bluetooth snitching, produces some interesting results.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I dropped my phone by accident, and discovered it missing when I got home.  I took the precaution of using the &#8220;secure my device option&#8221;.  The next morning the phone went for an unauthorised walk, presumably because some helpful soul thought he would find the rightful owner as he went about his day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Find my device reported its location in a number of interesting places:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In the actual place where it was found &#x1f44d;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A little way up the road on a nearby highway &#x1f440;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>On the other side of the road from where it was found  &#x1f440;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1km down the road from where it was found &#x1f440;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In a suburb 6km away &#x1f92a;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>All of these locations were reported as 100% accurate &#8211; but they were not the location of the phone (except one), but the location of the snitch phone that had recently seen my phone &#8230; and then moved.  The information about how long it had been since it saw it, and the strength of the signal is discarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s the faulty logic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Bluetooth message: &#8220;Hi, I&#8217;m a lost device: please report my location&#8221;.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gallant helper on find-my-device network: &#8220;Sure, no problem.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gallant helper: Oops, don&#8217;t have network right now.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gallant helper: Hey, I&#8217;ve got network!  Let me report my current location.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>https:\/\/www.google.com\/android\/find\/ : Hey, your phone is on the highway in a car zipping around a corner.   No wait, it&#8217;s in another suburb.  No wait, it&#8217;s in that shed.  No wait, it&#8217;s on the other side of the road.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The moral of the story is: don&#8217;t issue search warrants without complete technical information.  If you suppose that a man is handling stolen goods based on &#8220;find my device&#8221; then the evidence may actually show that he was merely at some time in the vicinity of stolen goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, just this once, it was found! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/police.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/police-576x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1599\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/police-576x1024.jpeg 576w, https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/police-169x300.jpeg 169w, https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/police-768x1365.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/police-864x1536.jpeg 864w, https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/police.jpeg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google&#8217;s &#8220;Find My Device&#8221; function does a pretty good job of finding a device. It has a few mechanisms: That last method, bluetooth snitching, produces some interesting results. I dropped my phone by accident, and discovered it missing when I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/archives\/1598\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":null,"sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[140,88,50,190,11,318],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","tag-android","tag-crime","tag-morality","tag-stuff","tag-stupidity","tag-theft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1603,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions\/1603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcgill.org.za\/stuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}