from the every-step-you-take-I'll-be-watching-you dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The New South Wales Crime Commission commenced Project Hakea to investigate the use of tracking and other surveillance devices as an enabler of serious and organized crime in the southeastern Australian state.
The study looked at 5,163 trackers, purchased by 3,147 customers in 4,176 transactions. Using an extensive data matching process, it was discovered that 37% of customers were known to NSW police for criminal behavior. Moreover, 25% of customers had a recorded history of domestic and family violence, 15% were known for involvement in serious and organized crime activity, and 6% had a different criminal background.
It was also found that 126 customers were Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) defendants at the time they purchased a tracking device. An AVO is a court order issued to protect an individual who has a reasonable fear of violence or harassment from a specified person. Some customers bought the trackers days after the AVO was enforced.
The findings state that tracking and other surveillance devices are increasingly used to facilitate organized crime, including murder, kidnapping, and drug trafficking.
[...] The study recommends a change in the law to restrict the sale of tracking devices.
In May, Apple and Google announced that their previously confirmed industry specification for Bluetooth tracking devices was being rolled out to iOS and Android platforms, which should help prevent stalking by alerting users of suspicious Bluetooth trackers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 02 2024, @06:02PM
Just let the mafia have guns so they can just shoot people instead of engaging in these gross invasions of privacy.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 02 2024, @06:34PM (3 children)
All we need are a few more laws that incorporate "with a computer" into the text. That will scare those criminals away from high tech gadgets!
Ooooh! That's an even better solution! Since criminals like these things, we'll just make sure no one can buy one! How stoopid can they get? Criminals are criminals - they're going to gain access to whatever they want, even if they have to steal a big truck, break into a warehouse, and haul the stuff off. That's the state of gun laws in much of the world. "Because bad guys misuse guns, no one can have guns."
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 02 2024, @06:47PM (2 children)
>Since criminals like these things, we'll just make sure no one can buy one!
If I were in law enforcement, I would be actively marketing tracking devices like these - backdoored with a stack of pre-signed probable cause warrants ready to dragnet in all the "sooper smaht gangsta types" that buy the devices.
Really, in the old days wiretaps were barely needed to catch organized criminals, at least the lower level ones, because most of them were so full of pride they couldn't stop yammering on to anyone who would listen about all the tough guy shit they did.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 03 2024, @02:10AM (1 child)
As opposed to now, where organized criminals yammer on to anyone who would listen into a microphone, in front of a large audience and a bunch of TV cameras. And still the cops don't seem to notice.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 03 2024, @11:53AM
There's no fixin' Stoopid.
We can just hope that truly deeply Stoopid remains a minority.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Tuesday July 02 2024, @09:57PM (1 child)
"which should help prevent stalking by alerting users of suspicious Bluetooth trackers."
You allow that garbage to function on your devices, it is the first thing I disable and the wifi if not needed. I am not into any drive by hacking of mine by using that trash. This not only saves the problems with these devices but also the power lost to a "feature" I have no need of. Bad enough you can be tracked by the cell towers let alone the individual routers giving them a more accurate fix on the location.
Those people are not attacking Tesla dealerships. They are tourists showing love. I learned that on Jan. 6, 2021.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday July 03 2024, @06:39AM
The problem is, you can be tracked by others who have Bluetooth enabled and come close enough to you. See the stalking stories we had here on SN. Sure enough, I disable Bluetooth/WLAN whenever I do not need it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Tuesday July 02 2024, @10:11PM
Amazing how when you allow individuals to track things and other people, they're all criminals.
If the same thinking was applied to large corporations starting with FAANG, they'd be up in arms. They'd spend a billion dollars to tell you and congress why it is unfair, against the first amendment, how things would cost you more, and why the stock market would collapse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2024, @09:44AM
Yeah but to quote a very smart man: "Not remotely. Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by namefags_are_jerks on Wednesday July 03 2024, @10:18AM
...is a bad man who is dumb as bricks with a tracker..
(you thought I was about to quote the NRA? :)
Something I've noticed with illegal users of surveillance tech... is their OPSEC is non-existent.
For example, the Bikies/Bikers in Oz are big fans of those Baofeng handhelds .. they have SECRET CHANNELS .. and they'll pay big dollars for them. But I could tell when the Comanchero were riding through my town because my SDR tracking the UHF frequencies spotted the unencrypted FM freebanders. Most good scanners can find random nearby tx frequencies as well.
There was also the massive win for the Feds compromising AN0M, Enchrochat, et al., because the users had magical thinking about what they were doing.
Now.. this report is interesting for having quantified the amount of abuse. ...and that they were able too... hmm..