How can you locate a suspect that way if you don't have a name or phone number? F&F suggesting they picked up the trace from just his presence at the FedEx office. If he didn't use his phone there how can they trace him? Do cell phones leave a digital trace everywhere you go? If I go to McDonalds at 4 pm for a burger, can the Feds hours later get all cell phone data from everyone who was there at that time even if they didn't use their phone?? Scary!!
“Do cell phones leave a digital trace everywhere you go?”
They constantly ping the nearest cels towers.
So, yes.
Once they get the cell phone number they can track your movements since you owned it. He would have been to all the bombing locations and then track where he would be now.
digital phones ping the cell towers even if not in use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking
Probably got his phone’s unique IMEI at the FedEx office from a roaming signal and were then able to track based on subsequent roaming signals. Since they had the suspect, his phone, and video confirmation in one place, they could then look for where that IMEI showed up (cell tower roam logs).
As detailed by Business Insider, the feature is quite easy to access if you know where to look furthermore, its equally easy to turn this particular kind of location tracking off if youre not comfortable with it.
What you have to do is go to Settings, then Privacy, then Location Services. Once there, tap the System Services menu and look for the Frequent Locations menu at the end.
If you then tap on that option, youll get a list of the recent places you have been, as tracked by the iPhone. Pressing on any of the listed cities will get you access to a map that will show you exactly where you have been tracked by your smartphone in that city.
From the same Settings page, you can choose to erase your location history and even turn the feature off so that your phone no longer saves your location data.
A step-by-step guide for accessing this hidden iPhone menu is available at the source link, complete with relevant screenshots.
https://bgr.com/2015/04/01/iphone-location-tracking-map/
“How can you locate a suspect that way if you don’t have a name or phone number?”
Simple: Gather all the pings for each bombing location. Is there a single number that was at each one? Yes? Then there is your suspect.
I believe that even if your phone is “off” - it is still sending out a signal. Unless you remove the battery and/or simm card. But definitely if it is still on.
It would take some computer time - but probably not a huge amount to look at an X hour window prior to each blast and see if any of the same phones were in proximity to the various sites.