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Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by bhhaskin on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @01:07PM (#16640130)
Just goes to show how all this tech can be used against you. Sure this time it was used to catch a serial bomber, but it could also be just as easily used to catch a serial protester.
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by rwc on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @01:00PM (#16640062)
In no small part with the help of Google:

"Google search history: 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."

Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by mikejb on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @01:17PM (#16640277)
FYI, google has a dashboard that shows all/most/some of the data in your account. Go through it and remember the US government can access it (likely with some form of Warrent or paper required)
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by michaelcampbell on Thursday March 22, 2018 @09:59AM (#16648682)
From TFA:

> In order for Google to produce any data, the request has to be made in writing, signed by an official of the requesting agency and issued under an appropriate law. Google can also look to narrow the request if it believes it is "overly broad."

Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by Simulacra on Thursday March 22, 2018 @04:29AM (#16646824)
What I'm curious about is how they found him through FedEx. The video that has been released is not very good, and he wore a wig. Did they catch a license plate? Unless he was so incompetent he used a credit card.
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by zafka on Thursday March 22, 2018 @12:40PM (#16650247)
My guess is that they searched all cell phone data on local towers for location data. Then once they had a small enough pool of potentials they searched using humint
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by wonthegame on Thursday March 22, 2018 @09:37AM (#16648505)
Witnesses saw the vehicle. I’m not sure about the plate. His purchase of foreign batteries online was the piece of info that gave him away. Combined with cell phone records.
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by influx on Thursday March 22, 2018 @09:39AM (#16648521)
They had a package explode while in the packing center, even if they couldn’t get the tracking number from the package itself, surely it would have gotten scanned at least once going through routing.

Easy enough to stop the whole warehouse, scan all packages that didn’t explode, get the missing tracking number, time stamp that back to where it came in, look at the video at that time.

[dead]
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by dang on Thursday March 22, 2018 @02:42AM (#16646326)
On HN it's a question of article quality, not site quality. Crappy sites occasionally have good articles (not sure if this counts as one, though) and good sites often have crappy ones.
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by ianamartin on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @01:15PM (#16640254)
Meh, I got a good laugh out of the video of Giuliani talking about shit with the title bar calling him a Security Expert.
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by madman2890 on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @01:14PM (#16640217)
simmer down
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by dang on Thursday March 22, 2018 @02:45AM (#16646337)
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?
Re:The tech behind catching the Austin serial bomber by snowpanda on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @01:15PM (#16640245)
It's a tech article, you're overreacting.