A Quarter Century of Questions: Escaping A Digital Fingerprint
By: Daniel Shedd
Posted: Jun 06, 2017 09:10 PM CDT | Updated: Jun 06, 2017 09:49 PM CDT
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A Quarter Century of Questions...
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SPRINGFIELD, Mo -- It's been 10 years since the first iPhone came out. That
was in 2007.
Facebook and Myspace came on the scene around three years before that,
in 2004.
It's hard to believe, but you would have to venture 12 more years in
times past to get a glimpse of technology in 1992.
Tracking crimes was much different back then. They didn't have what
detectives now call a 'Digital Fingerprint'.
“They left the party at Battlefield, somewhere around 2 a.m., and their
vehicle was found around 12 p.m. at the Delmar address,” said David
Millsap. “We would have been able to get an idea of their route just
based on their cell phone.”
Current Laclede County Sherriff, David Millsap, started with the
Springfield Police Department a year and a half after that fateful day in
1992.
“I really, truly believe that it’s the case that haunts the Springfield
Police Department,” said Millsap.
He led a comprehensive review of the case, including over 25,000
documents just three years ago. The conclusion, is one that still runs cold.
“This is one of those tragic tales where the case just hasn’t been
solved, and you hope for the best because the family certainly deserves that,”
said Millsap.
Millsap is not one to make excuses as to why the case wasn’t solved,
although he cited numerous holes he saw within the investigation. Of course,
hindsight is 20/20.
He said that it’s often a fallacy that a big task force can get the job
done. While sometimes successful, this sometimes opens the door to a botched
crime scene.
There’s too many hands to stir the pot.
He also sited technological restrictions. They didn’t have cell phones
or social media, like Facebook. The technological age was just an infant.
Which begs the question, how would have this case been different if it
would have happened today?
“If the event happened today, the first thing investigators would start
looking for are those digital footprints,” explained David Millsap.
We’ve all heard privacy concerns in recent years. Things like IP
addresses and cell phone towers. They’re traceable by detectives, but Dr.
Shannon McMurtrey with Drury University explains that it’s accessible to
everyone.
“If you post on social media, take a picture and share that on the
internet, or do anything involved with an IP address, we can deduce where
you’ve been,” said Dr. Shannon McMurtrey.
He pointed out a quick search on a free website, www.socialbearing.com.
With a few clicks of the mouse, here’s a view of all the twitter
activity within downtown Springfield over the last 3 days.
Each of those triangles represent a different tweet, and can be
filtered down to individual users.
“When you ask people if they care about privacy, they will tell you
that they really are not, especially younger generations. They really don’t
care," said Dr. McMurtrey.
"It’s only when you start to show them how much of their privacy
that they are giving up, without realizing it, that they start to care."
It's an advantage they didn’t have back in 1992.
“Back then you couldn’t even track local telephone calls,” said
Millsap. “You had to have a trap on the phone. Someone could make that call
locally, but there was no way to trace that call.”
In today’s day and age, it’s nearly impossible to escape a digital
fingerprint.
Have you ever walked out of work, only for your phone to say it will
take 20 minutes to drive home?
Or maybe you were downtown, and your phone beeps, reminding you how to
get to your parked car.
That’s because our smart phones have been following us: Tracking every
step we have taken in our journey together.
It’s not some rogue software that was downloaded in the background, or
a new fancy app that you need to uninstall. It comes standard on most devices.
And the best part?
Most of us accept those terms when we turn on our phones for the first
time.
“It really drove the way we handled major cases, and the way we thought
about things," said Sheriff Millsap.
"I can remember many times with a missing persons case, and
thinking that back I needed to do things right, right from the beginning."
"The ending starts with the beginning of the case. The things we
do at the beginning of case often determine how the case will turn out,” said
Millsap.
Your Digital Fingerprint (iPhone Users)
For iPhone users, there is a simple way to find out where your iPhone
has been following you. This will be available if you accepted and enabled
'location services' when you first received the phone.
1. Click on Settings
2. Scroll down to Privacy
3. Click on Location Services
4. Scroll down to the bottom and tap on System Services
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the first section of services (just
above 'Product Improvement'), and find Frequent Locations
If enabled (green), you will be able to click into your history of
recent locations, (i.e 'Springfield, Missouri' or 'Branson, Missouri') and then
on individual addresses that you have visited.
Each 'location' will tell you when you visited, how many times you
visited, and for how long.
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