Can mobile phone pings help investigators in the Madeleine McCann case?

[Brietta]

ALL mobile traffic PDL mast to PDL mast (voice and txt) for the period of the Smith Sighting.
Produced by the May/June 2007 Amaral/Met team. Absolutely no targeting of the T9 here.
I traced a few of the numbers, they are other tourists, local residents, and MW employees, but no T9 numbers.

Yes?

I hate to labour the point and at the risk of going in circles ...

The data was collected ... and in my opinion the important data transmitted was immediately during and immediately after the period in which Madeleine went missing, and only the phones which activated the transmitters at that requisite time are of interest. 

Where is the evidence of the collation and processing of the active phone data you indicate which falls within that time scale and which covers PDL in its entirety?

The McCann friends were sitting at a given location at that time and had no need to communicate using phones.

There is however plenty of evidence that all calls from Madeleine's parents and their friends were subject to intensive scrutiny.

The investigation neglected the obvious investigative route ... that would be the people who were in active phone communication with each other over the period when Madeleine vanished.
That omission has now been rectified.

[jassi]

Yes?

I hate to labour the point and at the risk of going in circles ...

The data was collected ... and in my opinion the important data transmitted was immediately during and immediately after the period in which Madeleine went missing, and only the phones which activated the transmitters at that requisite time are of interest. 

Where is the evidence of the collation and processing of the active phone data you indicate which falls within that time scale and which covers PDL in its entirety?

The McCann friends were sitting at a given location at that time and had no need to communicate using phones.

There is however plenty of evidence that all calls from Madeleine's parents and their friends were subject to intensive scrutiny.

The investigation neglected the obvious investigative route ... that would be the people who were in active phone communication with each other over the period when Madeleine vanished.
That omission has now been rectified.

Clearly you have a problem with this. Do you think they shouldn't have been checked?

[Brietta]

Clearly you have a problem with this. Do you think they shouldn't have been checked?

Not my problem if you affect to misunderstand what I am saying ... but nothing new under the sun is there?

I am at ease with all relevant information being checked and where necessary followed ... can you show me a cite for that taking place with all the phone traffic for the relevant period as outlined in pegasus' post?

I think my concerns lie not so much with phone traffic investigated (remember Robert Murat and his associates were investigated and they had actually used their phones at the time in question) but with the failure to investigate an obvious and elementary line of inquiry which concerns the phone calls actually made by a wider populace.

[pegasus]

Does anyone realise that if more than one person was involved, and if they communicated with mobiles, their communication would probably be on the comms list I posted above, which shows all PDL mobile to PDL mobile traffic around the time of the Smith sighting.
Another thing - if the newspaper report is correct that a brit female tourist saw a man walking talking on mobile carrying a child -it would probably be on that list.
That is the sort of work SY have been doing, courtesy of the excellent data gathering from the 3 networks by Amaral/Met in mid 2007.
Its mainly portuguese SIM cards, and a few UK.
Only two long calls there, a six minute call at 21:52, and an eight and a half minute call at 22:14.

[VIXTE]

Does anyone realise that if more than one person was involved, and if they communicated with mobiles, their communication would probably be on the comms list I posted above, which shows all PDL mobile to PDL mobile traffic around the time of the Smith sighting.
Another thing - if the newspaper report is correct that a brit female tourist saw a man walking talking on mobile carrying a child -it would probably be on that list.
That is the sort of work SY have been doing, courtesy of the excellent data gathering from the 3 networks by Amaral/Met in mid 2007.
Its mainly portuguese SIM cards, and a few UK.
Only two long calls there, a six minute call at 21:52, and an eight and a half minute call at 22:14.

Are you sure this was the whole list?

SY has something else I believe and this is the mast(s) logging too.. the masts log all phones that connect to the towers. This is not only the mobile phones that were making calls but also the mobile phones that were in the area but were not making calls..

[VIXTE]

This has been done to death before probably but: I would have thought any seriously "bent geezers" would be using unregistered phones on PAYG paid for and topped up with cash rather that buy and use a contracted "sign post" pointing straight at them.

This doesn't matter. These people's phones can identify them. They call some other numbers that are registered, they connect to masts in the area and show their movements, their connecting to mast near CCTV cameras at certain times can lead to identifying them too..

[pegasus]

Are you sure this was the whole list?

SY has something else I believe and this is the mast(s) logging too.. the masts log all phones that connect to the towers. This is not only the mobile phones that were making calls but also the mobile phones that were in the area but were not making calls..

There is another similar list for around the time of JT sighting.
In mid 2007 a huge amount of data was collected from the three mobile networks completely covering several days. Then (very sensibly) attention was focussed especially on these two sighting periods and where both mobiles used PDL masts.

In the large ping data lists in the files, every ping listed matches an actual call or txt sent or recieved. There are no "passive" pings in that data.

JIMO SY are working from the same data collected mid 2007 and IMO they have no "passive" ping data.

[slartibartfast]

This doesn't matter. These people's phones can identify them. They call some other numbers that are registered, they connect to masts in the area and show their movements, their connecting to mast near CCTV cameras at certain times can lead to identifying them too..

I think the key phrase was "unregistered phones on PAYG paid for and topped up with cash". You may identify a phone number but not a person.

[Alice Purjorick]

I think the key phrase was "unregistered phones on PAYG paid for and topped up with cash". You may identify a phone number but not a person.

I am glad some one is awake ; mercy!

[VIXTE]

I think the key phrase was "unregistered phones on PAYG paid for and topped up with cash". You may identify a phone number but not a person.

You can identify this person by other means. They still contact some people using this phone and they still appear near the CCTV cameras. Some use internet and social media on the phone too.. A bit more work but they can be identified.

[VIXTE]

There is another similar list for around the time of JT sighting.
In mid 2007 a huge amount of data was collected from the three mobile networks completely covering several days. Then (very sensibly) attention was focussed especially on these two sighting periods and where both mobiles used PDL masts.

In the large ping data lists in the files, every ping listed matches an actual call or txt sent or recieved. There are no "passive" pings in that data.

JIMO SY are working from the same data collected mid 2007 and IMO they have no "passive" ping data.

I think you are wrong. There is an EU regulation in place where the phone companies have a duty to hold the data for several years. I followed several crime cases within the EU where the data you call ping was collected afterwards. It takes time and it takes several phone companies to provide the data but this has been done in much less serious cases than this one.

[Anna]

I didn't know that, Vixte.

Some very clever, detective work involved in the tracing of some phones, by the sounds of it.

[jassi]

I think you are wrong. There is an EU regulation in place where the phone companies have a duty to hold the data for several years. I followed several crime cases within the EU where the data you call ping was collected afterwards. It takes time and it takes several phone companies to provide the data but this has been done in much less serious cases than this one.

I'm sure it has, but that doesn't mean that it will always be the case. It might prove useful, it might not.

[pegasus]

I think the key phrase was "unregistered phones on PAYG paid for and topped up with cash". You may identify a phone number but not a person.

Here are two ways to identify such users:
(1) Obtain from phone manufacturer/distributor the store location and date/time of purchase of phone/SIM. Then recover CCTV from the shop, and you have a visual of the user.
(2) Trace all numbers communicating to/from the target phone, then analyse the records of those other phones, to trace the user of the covert phone.
 

[jassi]

Don't think your option 1 is going to work after 7 years.

Option 2 might work, unless phone is just identifiable by a number, rather than someone's name.