marking@tatanka.com
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2018 07:55:30 +0000
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45745366
Fitbit data has been used by US police investigating whether a 90-year-old
murdered his stepdaughter. The victim, Karen Navarra, 67, was found with
a kitchen knife in her hand, suggesting she killed herself. Anthony
Aiello, who denies murder, told police he had visited her for 15 minutes
to drop off pizza. But police say a fitness tracker she was wearing
showed a significant spike in heart rate followed by a rapid slowdown at
the time he was there. [...]
It is not the first time Fitbit data has been used in a murder case. Last
year in the US, Richard Dabate was charged with murdering his wife after
data from her Fitbit discredited his version of events, according to
police. Mr Dabate had said he had seen his wife, Connie, shot by an
intruder more than an hour before her fitness tracker had recorded her
last movements, they said.
I've never seen or used one of these devices, but this makes me wonder: Must
a user authenticate to one before it becomes active? How hard would it be to
"borrow", say, a roommate's or significant other's Fitbit and use it as part
of a scheme to frame him or her for a crime?
I remember a story from some time back about a woman who looked at her boyfriend's Fitbit (or some other similar device) data, and concluded that he had been unfaithful due to it having recorded him "in the act", having sex with someone else. So it may not be difficult to extract data from them. But what about changing the contents of its memory?
So I can imagine a plot for a story: Woman discovers, after examining Fitbit
data, that husband has been cheating. She murders her rival, and uses the
Fitbit to frame him for the crime. (Insert optional surprise ending: maybe
someone framed him in the first place, or a friend had borrowed his Fitbit
to try it out, and it was all a big mistake, but she learns this too late,
or maybe she has to confess to the murder to save him, or ???)
[Monty Solomon noted another source:
Police Use Fitbit Data to Charge 90-Year-Old Man in Stepdaughter's Killing
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/us/fitbit-murder-arrest.html
PGN]