Post by Techie007 on Jan 24, 2016 21:09:24 GMT -6
In February 2015, Christina Lee and Michael Saba moved to a suburban home in Atlanta to start their life together. Within their first month, they were surprised to receive a knock on their door coming from an enraged family looking for a stolen iPhone.
After two months, the couple was confronted by a group of friends with the same problem. The situation persisted, with four incidences happening within just one month. Angry iPhone users have appeared outside of the couple's house, be it in the day, afternoon or night time.
In June 2015, police officers went to the mystified house to look for a missing teenage girl. The police asked the couple to step out of the house for more than an hour as they decide whether to issue a warrant so they could search the house for the phone and the girl.
Security analyst Ken Westin, who used to work for a device-tracking app firm, says this type of technology initially uses the phone's satellite-supplied GPS data. The technology then proceeds to look at cell towers where it last connected, then to WiFi fingerprints and finally to the IP address. For Westin, Saba and Lee's problem looks like a case of cell tower triangulation flaw.
Lee and Saba are left helpless because no third party is obviously at fault. The couple has already filed a complaint at the local police department but are yet to receive a feedback. In the hopes of finally ending their agony, they plan to contact the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and then the senate.
Welcome to the future! Theft prevention technology is great stuff until it creates uncomfortable (and non-helpful) situations like these. Ultimately, with the wrong location information provided, the phones remain lost and the wrong people are harassed. Now, the 1 million dollar question: Which company should be held accountable for this?