Ashland Shooting: Sunday Updates

I wonder why they are withholding the name of the 37 year old

The names of each of the survivors (13 yo boy, woman in Michael's parking lot) have been withheld, presumably to protect them and their families--particularly from the press.

Calling cards and prepaid cell phones are routinely traced in criminal cases. The calling card company keeps track of who dialed who from where. Other than adding a step to the process of tracing a call, calling cards do not add anonymity. You are better off using a pocketful of coins, since most chain drugstores have good security cams and your calling card probably had to be activated at the register, tying your purchase to a particular location. You would have to be careful to buy a calling card where tracing the purchase is difficult, and to use it in a way that makes it hard to trace through use patterns - i.e. use it once only. Cell phones are tracable from the moment they are turned on, prepaid or not, and are harder to buy at locations that don't have security cams.

Also, even the most 3113t H@xorz can't fool the telephone network anymore. Switches talk to each other using a signaling system that is impervious to "blue boxes" and other exploits that relied on tone signaling. Like I said earlier, you might find a few islands of antique equipment in the U.S. network, but, in general, the telephone network is now pretty hard to crack. The best the shooter can do is make it tedious to find where he called from, to give himself a little time to get away. But even that carries risks: Let's day he routes a call through several hacked corporate PBXs, and let's say operations at those companies are slovenly enough that the PBX usage records are useless or non-existent. The telco billing info will still be enough to follow the call back to the source. And even then, the caller might get tagged by a fraud-detection system.

Most successful cracks these days involve social engineering (and I'm certainly not ruling out the possibility!). That is the only plausible way the shooter could truly disappear into the U.S. telephone network. Hoewever, all that said, the shooter is driving around shooting people. He clearly KNOWS there is no way to do what he is doing and not have just a limited time to get away. I expect he sees telephone communictaion the same way.

I DO respect the shooter's ability to evade capture. I'm suprised at how little information the LEAs evidently have. They COULD be playing it close to the vest, but the cost of additional victims is so high, and the track record so far is that they have been clutching at straws.

Lastly, if he manages to talk on the phone to the police without getting caught, would you call it the work of a brilliant psycho, or good tradecraft?

Free Republic is swamped this morning. Hopefully, some of our prayers are being answered. They must have staked out a ton of phone booths. I don't believe that they knew for sure which phone booth to stake out. Plus, we have two people so there's the possibility that half of the pair ratted the other half out.

I think Linda Franklin is having her funeral today. We should prayer for her husband and family today so they can get through the services. It's very difficult.

"I composed a big answer, but deleted it. Obviously it would have done no good. I get the impression you were the kid sucking the bully's ass in highscholl, and old habits are hard to break. "

I would rather read your "big" answer than an insult. Others on this forum might like to see what your argument is for themselves. Protect your integrity by posting arguments rather than personal attacks. The only harm you've done is to your own credibility and to the seriousness of your opinions. Let's have that "big" answer and see if we can mend your image.

"But I think foreign policy has become a moot point here, with respect to terrorism. "

If indeed short-sighted policies were part of the problem, long-sighted policies might be a part of the solution. Just make sure that OUR interest are at the top of the wish list. This should include our security interest and how any policy in particular might effect it.

Creating enemies that we are unable to eradicate or properly defend ourselves from is NOT in our national security interest.