I've got some characters that need to run away, but I want them to use their phone to aid them in their escape. This is the year 2085. The cellphone is a self-aware artificial intelligence. What's supposed to happen here is, one of the characters asks the phone if there is any way he can block the FBI to keep them off of their tracks. My question is, how might the AI do that? I was thinking maybe I can have the AI tell her that he's blocked the FBI from tracking their signal, but to me, that doesn't sound authentic enough. Does anyone have any suggestions?
The AI will use a series of encrypted links (similar to VPN) for data only and use VoIP for any calls. It would also randomly change the hardware ID of the phone to avoid packet tracking.
Turning itself completely off between calls would stop it being tracked pretty effectively, as would using voip to bounce the signal around the world through proxy servers etc, or how about it scrambles the number its dialling from each time so the Feds can't even identify it (your plot weakness with any of these is if self aware AI tech is available in a cell phone, it stands to reason that the FBI will also have self aware AI tech to help track fugitives and that would likely be much more powerful... Using a burner and tossing it after one call is still going to be the stand out way of not getting tracked)
Thank you! I have a question regarding the last thing you said. What do you think would happen if they acquired a new phone under a fake identity and were able to download the AI on the new phone somehow? Do you think that could work?
No, the AI could be infected. You need to scramble the physical and virtual identities of the device. If I were on the run, the LAST thing I would have is a phone. Other devices can communicate and be less traceable.
2085 is 66 years from now. 66 years ago, color TV was first standardized for sale in the United States. You can do pretty much whatever you want, as long as you realize that, as mentioned above, it'll be an arms race between the good guys and the bad guys.
Even in 100 years you'll need to hide or confuse identifying the physical and digital identity of the device. Even today, you may also want to hide the voice. Hide and seek is still in play.
In the foreword to the new edition of Necromancer, William Gibson laments that he failed to predict the cell phone revolution. "Somebody get me to a modem!" appears in the book.
Will that do it? I imagine in 66 years if you lose track of your cellphone, police drones will identify you by your gait and flag you for unusual behavior. City cameras or the cameras on other citizens will automatically record you and send your activities to an AI for review, to determine who you are and what you are doing.
As they can today. Hell, in 66 years, tin hats to cover electrons in the brain may be needed. Or maybe not. Maybe we'll be scrounging in ruins to find rats to eat and stuff to burn to keep warm., while waiting for the next attack.
Interesting thought, what if the AI could divert the FBI. Somehow send the FBI to a similar person or the AI becomes attached to the person and they have to say goodbye. What if there is a way to go off the grid. Be completely off line, have no electronic connection. In this world if you are not online, you could move around with no one recognizing that you exist. Hmmmmmm
It could stop pinging cell towers but you get the same effect as turning the phone off. https://www.reference.com/technology/can-track-person-s-cell-phone-turned-off-da59c3c348dcb4b6 Looks like turning off the phone's GPS isn't hard: https://www.wikihow.tech/Turn-Gps-off-on-Android If this is future sci-fi just have the AI misdirect the tower pings or the GPS the same way computer hackers do now to disguise their originating IP address.
In 66 years you gonna be riding your bike to work (to a job you'll still have), paying cash to enter the fertility lottery for your one living descendant, sharing your house with refugees from Florida and Manhattan, and praying the machines don't vote to kill everyone over the age of 35.
Check out a book by Daniel Suarez titled Change Agent. It may give you some ideas. His near future in this book is only the poor use cell phones and tablets. These are essentially burners- printed in a vending machine with os downloaded to run it.
The moral of the story is that writers should not get involved in the details of things they don't understand - the average male writer won't dedicate a chapter to the pain of childbirth. However, today (because I've no clue about technology in 66 years time) a modern phone would detach itself from the telecommunications network. To communicate without being identified it would use bluetooth to connect to devices within range and route communication through that device.
If they've bypassed your Tor layers somehow, you'll have to unlock the bootloader, get root access, get a dynamic process ID to unlock the modem DSP and hack the antenna's signal processing using VLIW machine code to get full access to what you're sending. These steps would be taken in advance, or you'll have to ditch the burner phone. Changing the MAC address and SIM information allow starting a new connection, but radio silence is most effective. If you use any tech jargon from our time however, it will sound stupid in a few years. Jetsons did get some technology predictions right. We do have flying cars, dancing robots and video conferences, but only a few of them are cheap and clean enough to actually use.
You probably don't have a C-casette player in your car, fax machine in your office, betamax video recorder and vinyl LP-player in your stereos? Mobile phone is becoming only a part of mobile communication. It is becoming old fashion relic quite soon. We are going to augmented reality + linked equipment + holistic services +.... 2085 you don't have a mobile phone. You have some kind of card or chip or whatever which can be connected to many visual and audio systems. And it is your ID-card and your wallet with your money + your parking ticket and your car key + your access control system + your translator + your library + your cloud services + your social media + media + internet + your lawyer + your curriculum vitae + ... It might be your watch or under your skin or... Wanna hide from Feds? Put your "mobile" to "lawyer" mode and make it contact another virtual lawyer in Nigeria and it contact third virtual lawyer in Switzerland and... You chain your virtual lawyers so that you have some lead all the time. And you take care that your virtual lawyer disconnects all the services which could help Feds.
meanwhile the feds also have that level of tech and can track the chip under your skin via satellite every time it transmit to link to anything else, so you can only stay on the downlow if you cut it out with a razor and live with not being able to access any services
The AI could inundate the FBI with false positives. Like a cat burglar hiding his own DNA by scattering a bag of hair clippings from a barber shop. With thousands or even millions of copies of the phone simultaneously showing up everywhere, the FBI won't be able to follow any of them.
