[evilduck]

Phones off during the day and on during evening hours would describe the behaviors of NSA employees who aren't allowed to carrying phones into their office, are less likely to share or participate with their personal details on social media and is a workforce comprised disproportionately of people with unique quirks like odd sleeping habits.

I'm sure that's not lost on them either, but their signals they seek could be finding other intelligence agents and not criminals.

[AlwaysRock]

Wouldnt NSA/any government employees be exactly the type of person Spies are interested in keeping tabs on?

Intelligence agents/spies from other countries, or opposing countries, are criminals to us.

[dhosek]

I’m sure that this is merely a first-pass filter and not a case of arrest warrants being automatically issued based on usage (although I’m sure that will come soon enough).

[ethbr1]

Exactly. The value of simply windowing your search set by a few orders of magnitude, with low false negatives, is underappreciated.

Getting from 100,000,000 to 10,000 (0.01%) makes other subsequent methods viable, including "have a person follow them," that wouldn't be on the full set.

[wil421]

Not true. I know folks who worked at an aircraft manufacturer with similar requirements and classifications. They had a locker they would put it in somewhere. Some people would grab them at lunch, leave, and put them back. They said it was because of the camera on phones.

[bee_rider]

Err, it isn’t totally obvious which part of their anecdote your anecdote contradicts.

[wil421]

You don’t have to turn off your phone 9-5 if you’re working on in a government facility. You aren’t going to be flagged as a terrorist because you turn your phone off.

[more_corn]

It doesn’t have to be off, but you can’t have it in secure areas. I think the dividing line is secret (ok) top secret (no cameras)

[neuralRiot]

> finding other intelligence agents and not criminals.

Who I’m pretty sure have somebody who can tell them how to easily spoof this signal.

[RetpolineDrama]

> Phones off during the day and on during evening hours would describe the behaviors of NSA employees

He did say they were looking for criminals, no?