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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday March 29 2020, @08:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the data-doesn't-lie dept.

About a year ago, Zachary McCoy took a bike ride around his neighborhood in Gainesville, Florida. It may have been forgettable to him, but not to history. Because McCoy used an app to track his mileage, the route was forever etched in the Google-verse and attached to his name.

On the day of this ill-fated bike ride, McCoy passed a certain neighbor's house three times. While this normally wouldn't raise alarm, the neighbor happened to be the victim of a burglary that day, and had thousands of dollars worth of jewelry stolen. The Gainesville police had zero leads after a four-day investigation, so they went to the county to get a geofence warrant. Thanks to all the location data McCoy had willingly generated, he became the prime suspect.

From hackaday:
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/25/geofence-warrant-sends-mans-privacy-over-the-handlebars/

Oblig. xkcd.


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  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 29 2020, @09:02PM

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday March 29 2020, @09:02PM (#977025) Journal

    I went out to get food, due to the anti covid measures we have to self-declare our destination. To make things possibly easier I decided to record a gpx trace (open format of your location in time) of my travel, so if I were stopped I could exactly tell the cops where I had been going so far. No stopping, got back home, put down the phone, put food in refrigerator and stuff.

    After 3 hours or so, I picked up the phone, still recording as I didn't turn it off. The gpx trace was weird. It contained my earlier travel, but when I took it home the gps signal must have reduced considerably, so it showed some imperfection on the arrival point and a COMPLETELY MADE UP circuit, with speed and all, that would have me flying over the neighbourhood for some 100 meters and then returned more or less following the streets. A pity that my neighborhood comprises an ex army barrack which is now home for immigrants and the red cross. Given that there are theoretical ways to penetrate the place (no more barbed wire) if it had happened something I might have had some explaining to do.

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