Fascinating stuff. By coincidence I co-organised a seminar in London  
yesterday on 'radical data' for research (http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/ 
methods/events/RadicalData/Programme.htm). It didn't really discuss  
forensic applications. Perhaps it should have done. Come to think of  
it why didn't I announce it to this list. Sorry about that.

Anyway we had a couple of presentations on the use of mobile (cell,  
GSM, bluetooth) logging & spatial tracking as part of mixed-method  
studies of mobility. So the traces were presented back to  
participants during in-depth interviews in a sort of 'sense-making'  
session. These highlighted issues which make this forensics story  
disturbing, for e.g.:

- the prevalence of calls being made by others on one's mobile - esp.  
for some social groups
- the fact that it is the device not the person that is being  
tracked... Younger siblings swap/share cell phones.
- the awareness of traceability and the response = to switch phones  
off /leave them on but at home/or give them to someone else  
beforehand - the perfect alibi

(perhaps Anderson had previously given his cell phone to a friend  
under instructions to drive very fast across town for 10 minutes)

Ben

On 10 May 2007, at 14:48, Barry Wellman wrote:

>
> http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/05/cellphone_forensics
>
> Courts Cast Wary Eye on Evidence Gleaned From Cell Phones
> Annalee Newitz Email 05.10.07 | 2:00 AM
>
> The afternoon of Sept. 18, 1993, someone set fire to a notorious Los
> Angeles drug house near the University of Southern California,  
> killing an
> addict. Four years later, R&B singer Waymond Anderson was convicted  
> of the
> murder, based on the shaky testimony of two eyewitnesses, and on a  
> third,
> silent witness whose implacable digital testimony the defense  
> didn't dare
> challenge: Anderson's cell phone.

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