CSA Location Determination Investigations - The continuing mission

Recalling that I have posted here at trewmte.blogspot and cellsiteanalysis.blospot over the years was to assist interpretation of data and testing for cell site anslysis and elements that can be used when conducting investigations, I have posted below a few of the weblinks to help this discussion along.

https://trewmte.blogspot.com/2014/07/csa-site-survey-method3mobility-models.html

http://trewmte.blogspot.com/2009/08/cell-site-analysis-csa-images-part-2.html

http://trewmte.blogspot.com/2008/11/mobile-phones-and-fringe-coverage.html

http://cellsiteanalysis.blogspot.com/

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g912o5dji9wkxfk/3G%20Networks%20position%20techniques.pdf

It is noteworthy the ITU in 2017 published a series of documents regarding call details record (CDR) and specified network data that could be captured in CDRs to assist a wide range of tasks to comprehend mobile phone movement caused by migration to determining trip travel and destination. These studies were conduct in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Republic of Guinea:

Liberia CDR reallocation D012A0000C93301PDFE.pdf

CDR Sierra Leone D012A0000CA3301PDFE.pdf

CDR Republic of Guinea D012A0000D03301PDFE.pdf

The reports identify how to obtain, collate, display overlay geodata/mapping and interpolation of the format specification that I rather think is highly useful to CSA investigations. The ITU source highlights CDRs capturing association with PoI, Trip Segmentation, Trajectory and Stay Points etc. I am simplifying in my summary what is undoubtedly more detailed discussion in these reports to show that 'time' and ‘location’ will be highly relevant. 

CSA has not been without the knowledge regarding peak-time call traffic, density of call traffic, tracking etc and these are used in call analysis and CSA. In these reports though the defining stay points captured in the call records add useful evidence such as travel, location, co-location (if relevant), association (if relevant), landmarks, so on and so forth.

Consideration of trip segmentation in the report states ""Trip segmentation: Extract stay points from anonymized CDR data, and divide move/stay segments. Figure 7.4 explains how stay points are extracted by applying parameters and thresholds to CDR data." In this regard the threshold parameters for stay points are specified as 'Minimum Time Duration 15 Minutes' and 'Maximum Distance 300 Meter'. To assist further here is a useful image with data from the ITU Liberia report:

To extrapolate such detail require Trip segmentation, Stay point reallocation, Route interpolation, Grid-based aggregation and Visualization and so on. To dig into the detail to assist interpretation:

"Stay point reallocation: Reallocate stay points (Trip OD) to surrounding points of interest (POIs) with a certain probability and fil gap between stay/move segments. POIs are regarded as surrounding a certain cell tower if they are closer to the cell tower location than to the others (Voronoi tessellation). The reallocation is necessary because CDR location data is based on cell tower location, which means that all users in the same area have the same location. Reallocation can make the distributing of people more realistic or likely because POIs can be considered places where people are likely to stay or visit, such as shopping areas, residential houses, villages, and to which people are reassigned rather than concentrating on cell tower locations. A new dataset of POIs was constructed for this process by collecting data from the distribution of buildings from open access Internet data (see Appendix 2). Figure 7.5 shows how POIs are distributed in a city. Areas in blue indicate building POIs with extracted stay points, where location information originally based on antenna location, are reallocated."

Lastly, the reports published in 2017 discussed relevance to 2G, 3G and 4G.

British business back to work Monday morning

British business back to work Monday morning

Have a look at this excellent example of learning from poster (above) showing a sector of business that involves global market players. Can Brexit stop this happening? Of course not. All the players including British players will continue because there is absolutely no reason to end the relationship.

Look at some other aspects in the financial sector that never get as much promotion relating to British achievement within global markets. Great Britain is and has been for many, many years an essential contributor to the secure transactions industry. From an array of new concepts, such as transport cards, electronic purse, open OS, open loop etc. these originated and are efficiently developed by British companies. Globally, including EU member states, developers collaborated with British companies and recognised this by setting up a presence in Britain including investing in offices, plant and machinery, laboratories, etc. to ensure that the collaboration works. This won’t change either because of Brexit as these markets are global and feed into EU. To dismantle this area (which has absolutely nothing to do with a British sovereignty decision) might turn the tables and adversely affect EU member’s states unnecessarily scrambling to reform something that is already works perfectly well.

London is acknowledged as probably the leading financial place in Europe, which I believe is still undisputed. This has enabled traditional financial institutions and the FinTech sector to be the most advanced in Europe through adopting British innovation and new technologies.  Britain has the highest level of penetration and usage of contactless banking cards and POS terminals which is also acknowledged globally and in Europe.

Moreover, and unsurprisingly, Britain is at the forefront for developments and innovation concerning mWallets adoption:

- Paym,
- Pingit,
- bPay
- Zapp

Global players have also launched FIN-product in the UK too such as Apple Pay and Android Pay and now Samsung Pay will soon join the British marketplace, too. These are great global players who understand that choices at the domestic level shouldn't throttle business. And these players didn't settle here simply for our wonderful British charm (although I suspect maybe this gives them a warm feeling also) but due to their acumen, professionalism, maturity, awareness and, equally, astute nature they know Britain is not frightened by FinTech. Transports for London (TfL) is a glowing international success story demonstrating how Britain introduced the first large-scale transport network to have successfully adopted open loop payments for customers.

Lastly, all the new developments in the secure transactions industry that have been happening over the last years have been happening in Britain and which Britain is happy to work with and share the knowledge, skillsets, experience and successes with our European neighbours and friends. That position was not brought about nor has it anything to with Britain wanting to retain its own sovereignty.

What is important which Britain does acknowledge very sincerely is participating in standardisation and working closely with European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Britain's adoption of mobile ecommerce again aided by Britain being one of the most advance countries globally for mobile communications and using advanced evolved mobile networks, platforms and applications assist keeping ETSI informed. This association and work is complemented by Britain's involvement and work globally with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Apologies for repeating myself but, here again, this close and successful involvement has not and has nothing to with Britain retaining its own sovereignty, but everything to do with technology advancements and success that can benefit all.

ITU 150th Anniversary (1865-2015)

 

The 150 ITU 1865 2015 logo is copyright to the International Telecommunications Union

and reproduced with kind permission

This May 2015 the International Telecommunications Union reaches its 150 Anniversary,   http://itu150.org/home/ .

So what has happened in the world between 1865-2015? I thought I would highlight some events that usually go under the radar:

- football clubs established at that time : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_football_clubs
- some cyclists have been pedalling for a really long time : https://velocipedists.wordpress.com/
- as well as a bygone era in railway : http://talyllyn.co.uk/150-1865-2015Gala
- Nokia started out as a wood pulp mill : http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia

For more well known events just search the world wide web (www).

The ITU plays an important global role producing technical reports, recommendations and guidance on telecommunications, cellular and satellite, to name just a few technology sectors. That influence should never be underestimated. Indeed, the work of the ITU impacts on mobile forensics and cybercrime too. I have recorded a few trewmte blogs as examples.

International Telecommunications Union and CSA
http://trewmte.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/international-telecommunications-union.html

CSA - Site Survey Method 2
http://trewmte.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/csa-site-survey-method-2.html

CSA - Site Survey Method 2/ITU
http://trewmte.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/csa-site-survey-method-2itu.html


Cybercrime: procedures, deterrent and investigation
http://trewmte.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/cybercrime-procedures-deterrent-and.html

It seems to me fitting that since I have gained so much knowledge and understanding from the work of the ITU that to pay tribute to them is to invite readers to visit their website celebrating the 150 anniversary of this phenomenal and great institution known as the International Telecommunications Union:

http://itu150.org/about/