Comment by leptons
4 hours ago
>This
You're cherry-picking a single word to start a pointless internet argument? Calm down. Nobody claimed this exact event lead to problems for anyone.
This is what OP actually said:
>>This is exactly the sort of thing
Yes, this absolutely is the sort of thing. No, 33 feet isn't "the thing" but GPS glitching is the sort of thing at a different increment.
Okay but the claim is people are being re-arrested because of this "sort of thing". But I read the linked article, and it doesn't mention anyone getting re-arrested. There is only one situation described where the person is arrested and then let go after the cops got proof the alert was faulty.
So yes, it absolutely sucks that this technology is so inconvenient and bad but at the same time, the author and GP claims are not proved or truthful in totality (even in the article they posted).
We can agree GPS tracking sucks but also question claims that are not true. Also telling people to "calm down" over text when they are not even talking to you is very passive aggresive for no reason.
Consider that, from the justice system's point of view, there's no distinction between between someone breaking house arrest for a drug fix versus due to GPS error. They don't have the resource to investigate every single violation, so they always just assume that the device is infallible and that the human is lying.
That's why there's no data for someone getting rearrested due to GPS, and why the few instances where someone do prove an error is concerning.
>Also telling people to "calm down" over text when they are not even talking to you is very passive aggresive for no reason.
Your "This" quote was the least genuine comment I've seen on HN in a very long time. You took a comment and removed all context to complain about how it's wrong, when it wasn't wrong at all. There should be no doubt that GPS glitches can cause people with ankle monitors a lot of needless trouble, and "the system" likely won't believe it, and simply won't care.
If you had an ankle monitor, and someone wanted to fuck with you, it would be trivially easy to block or spoof GPS signals to put you back in jail. All it takes is an SDR and some software you can find on github. Think about that before you quip "This" again.
This time the glitch was 33 feet, who's to say next time it couldn't be 3300 feet?