Press Release: Hawk Analytics Helps Crack Murder-for-Hire Case: Guilty Verdicts Rendered

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Fort Myers, FL – Four years after Dr. Teresa Sievers was found deceased in her home, her family has found closure in a multi-trial case. Lee County Sheriff’s Office painted a picture of an inter-state murder-for-hire conspiracy by using Hawk Analytics proprietary software, CellHawk’s ability to quickly analyze tower dump returns. CellHawk exhibits presented during the trials of Mark Sievers and Jimmy Ray Rodgers were key because they provided clear and easy-to-read maps of call detail records.

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Police used Google location data to find an accused bank robber. He says that’s illegal.

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By Jon Schuppe | Nov. 20, 2019

Just before 5 p.m. on May 20, a gunman walked into a bank in Midlothian, Virginia, forced a worker to open a safe and fled with $195,000. Security footage showed the man holding a cellphone to his ear just before the robbery, a detail that led police to attempt a surveillance technique that is growing in popularity among American law enforcement agencies.

When authorities had not identified the suspect a few weeks after the robbery, an officer got a warrant for Google’s location data from all the cellphones that had been in the area of the Call Federal Credit Union bank during the heist. Starting from a list of 19 accounts, investigators narrowed their search to a 24-year-old Richmond man named Okello Chatrie, whom they eventually charged with armed robbery.

The demand for Google data, known as a geofence warrant, is a way for law enforcement authorities to take advantage of the company’s collection of massive amounts of information on its customers. The orders allow police to track just about anyone using an Android device or a company app — such as Google maps or Gmail — to a particular place over a particular time period. As more police use such warrants, the method is raising concerns among privacy advocates, who say the government is gathering information from people in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches.

That is what Chatrie’s lawyers are now arguing, in what may be the first case in which a defendant is fighting the use of a geofence warrant to charge him with a crime.

“It is the digital equivalent of searching every home in the neighborhood of a reported burglary, or searching the bags of every person walking along Broadway because of a theft in Times Square,” Chatrie’s lawyers said in an October court filing. “Without the name or number of a single suspect, and without ever demonstrating any likelihood that Google even has data connected to a crime, law enforcement invades the privacy of tens or hundreds or thousands of individuals, just because they were in the area.”

Prosecutors say that the search was legal because Chatrie had opted into Google’s location services, allowing his Android phone and the company’s apps to track his movements. And they say police avoided collecting personal information from people unconnected to the robbery.

“The geofence warrant allowed them to solve the crime and protect the public by examining a remarkably limited and focused set of records from Google,” prosecutors wrote in a response, filed Tuesday.

Chatrie has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The use of geofence warrants seems to be increasing, according to defense lawyers and privacy advocates. There is no easy way to track them, but they have been documented in cases in North Carolina, Minnesota, Virginia, Arizona and elsewhere. Contractors now offer to help police looking to use the warrants.

Google said it only produces location-history data if served with a geofence warrant, and has fought attempts to get such information without one. The company did not provide information on how often it received those requests. Its transparency reports show that the number of search warrants sent to the company more than doubled in the past two years, to 19,046 from July 2018 to June 2019.

Continue reading at nbcnews.com HERE.

What is the difference between 3G, 4G and 5G?

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11/18/2019

With Verizon’s 5G network currently rolling out across a number of cities, you may wonder what the difference is between 4G and 5G.

The “G” associated with cellular networks stands for generation. 5G is the fifth and newest generation of cellular network technology and it should expand the capacity for mobile networks, allowing more devices to use the network than ever before.

The history and differences of 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G cellular networks
The 1980s brought the first generation—or 1G—of networks with voice-only, analog service. The top speed of data transmission on a 1G network reached around 2.4kbps.

2G Networks
The 2G network began in Finland in 1991, allowing cell phones to move into the digital world. 2G allowed for call and text encryption as well as SMS, picture messaging and MMS. The maximum speed for 2G was about 50kbps.

3G Networks
The advent of a 3G network with more data, video calling and mobile internet began in 1998. What we may now consider a “slow” network in many large municipalities was the height of technology until 4G came along. 3G networks reach 2mbps on stationary or non-moving devices and 384kbps on devices in moving vehicles.

4G Networks
4G, or the current standard of cellular networks, was released in the late 2000s and is 500 times faster than 3G. It has been able to support high-definition mobile TV, video conferencing and much more. When a device is moving, as when you are walking with your phone or are in a car, the top speed can be 10s of mbps, and when the device is stationary, it can be 100s of mbps. The 20MHz bandwidth sector has peak capacity of 400Mbps. However, since users are sharing available sector capacity among others, observable speed experiences by users are typically in 10s -100s of mbps.

As more people get access to mobile devices and the Internet of Things expands, as many as 24 billion devices are expected to need cellular network support by 2024. That’s where 5G comes in.

Key differences between 4G and 5G
One of the biggest differences between 4G and 5G will be peak capacity and latency. For example, peak capacity of 5G UWB sector is in gbps compared to 4G in mbps. Also, the latency, or the time that passes from the moment information is sent from a device until it is used by a receiver, will be greatly reduced on 5G networks, allowing for faster upload and download speeds. Another big difference between 4G and 5G is bandwidth size. 5G should be able to support many more devices of the future, in addition to the network demands of connected vehicles and other devices in the Internet of Things.

What does all of this mean for you as a user and consumer? Greater amounts of information can transfer between devices faster than ever before, so high-density areas like airports and urban areas should experience fast speeds. Thanks to reduced latency and wider bandwidth, you should be able to stream a 4K video in seconds. 5G should be the network that will provide the speed and efficiency that everyone needs.

See the original article at Verizon.com HERE.

People just received text messages originally sent on Valentine’s Day

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Posted: Nov 07, 2019  By: CNN Newsource

Text messages received overnight on Wednesday caused confusion, misunderstandings and even alarm for some recipients.

The messages appear to have originally been sent on February 14, Valentine’s Day, but were received more than eight months later with Wednesday’s time stamp.

The issue occurred across all four major carriers in the United States and affected both Apple and Android devices.

People shared their experiences about receiving delayed messages on social media and Reddit. Some said they received text messages from ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends that led to awkward conversations. Others said the messages came from relatives or friends who had since passed away. One person complained to Sprint’s Twitter account that her phone had sent a text to her boss in the middle of the night.

The person who originally sent the text should have a record of the message in their archives.

The issue seems to have multiple causes, according to carriers that have responded. But it’s unclear why most of the messages seem to have been from Valentine’s Day.

Sprint said a “maintenance update” caused the incident.

“Last evening, a maintenance update occurred to part of the messaging platforms of multiple carriers in the US, including Sprint, which caused some customers to have older text messages sent to their devices,” a Sprint spokesperson told CNN Business. “The issue was resolved not long after it occurred. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”

T-Mobile said it wasn’t an internal issue but rather a problem stemming from a third-party vendor that also affected its networks. A spokesperson said T-Mobile was aware of the issue and it has since been resolved.

Verizon and AT&T, which is CNN’s parent company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apple and Google also did not immediately respond.

Read the original article HERE.

Cellular Technology Reunites Loved Ones After Devastating California Camp Fire

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BARTONVILLE, TX, October 25, 2019— It’s been nearly a year since one of the deadliest and most destructive fires in modern history hit the United States. The California Camp Fire raged on for 17 days and covered almost 240 sq miles, causing people to flee their homes, and over 1,000 people went missing in the first week. Knowing traditional missing persons investigative techniques would take too long, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office partnered with Hawk Analytics to pull cellular tower records from four major companies, resulting in over 1 million records that needed processing. This unconventional method would prove to beneficial in reuniting victims with their families.

CEO & Founder of Hawk Analytics, Mike Melson, was personally connected to the disaster. His parents, who lived in Paradise, CA, the hardest-hit community, called to tell him they got out of the fire’s path and were safe. Shocked about the news of the fire and grateful for this family’s safety, he knew others were not so lucky, so he immediately got involved in helping. Mike said, “Hawk Analytics has always been about ‘doing the right thing,’ and we’re always willing to help and make a difference.”

Investigators from Butte County Sheriff’s Office and Hawk Analytics wasted no time getting started finding missing people. Their goal was to find cellular phone numbers of the missing people, find anyone they had communicated with during the fire, and confirm they had gotten out of the fire area safely. Getting this information was a monumental task in coordination with various cellphone companies, and little by little, the information started to pay off.

Using CellHawk, software designed by Hawk Analytics to interpret cellular records, and utilizing special techniques used by both partners, over 3,000 missing people were located and reunited with their loved ones thanks to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and a little help from Hawk Analytics.