Folks those of you who may not be following the comments on this, here is a summary.
On 12th October Offstumped carried this post on the? phone records in a CD presented by the JSM to the Nanavathi Commission in which it claimed to be able to pin point the location of the callers to establish a criminal nexus on the 2002 riots. Offstumped had in this post challenged the sceintific basis for that claim based on how GSM/GPRS works.
In response to this post a Mr. Harsh Varadhan representing JSM posted 2 comments on 27th Nov?claiming a sound scientific basis. On the same day Offstumped challenged Mr. Varadhan to make public his data so it can be scrutinized and debated in public.
Today Mr. Varadhan responded with this comment. In response Offstumped has told and e-mailed Mr. Varadhan
The specific point of debate here is the Phone records and the scientific basis for your claim. I am passing no judgement on other evidence you may posssess or have presented. I havent seen any public record of the contents of the CDs that you claim can pin point the location. Make the phone records data available over the Internet and I will debate in person without the cloak of anonymity. That is a challenge accepted
So the ball is in the court of JSM to make the contents of the CD available in public over the Internet.
Offstumped expects the following to make this debate scientific and meaningful
- What data is available on the CDs ?
- How is the authenticity of the source of the data established ?
- How is the integrity of the data guaranteed ?
- What corroborating reference data from 2002 was the basis for the scientific analysis ?
- What algorithm, method or tool was the basis for pinpointing the location – Was it merely Cell-ID based or was Time of Arrival, Enhanced-Observed Time Difference or Assisted GPS used ?
- What were the results ?
JSM needs to make all of the above available for a serious scientific debate.
Is it up to the challenge ?
Filed under: Gujarat Polls 2007, Uncategorized
thanks for clarifying that jsm stood for jan sangharsh manch. i once read this report where this jsm said that godhra train passengers were killed in an accident and surmised that it must be jihad supporting munch.
Offstumped: Let tell you one thing candidly.
You are a very smart guy and your posts raise probing questions. Most of us never thought of this “day-light robbery” which JSM is doing.
Hats off for exposing them.
This blatant jehadi pampering is bringing a very bad day for India.
Psuedos will be first casualty.
Truth about godhra and riots
http://truecongresspolitics.wordpress.com/2007/11/26/facts-speak-for-themselves/
GODHRA INCIDENT
BURNING ALIVE OF 58 INDIAN CITIZENS TRAVELLING IN
COACH S-6 OF SABARMATI EXPRESS
yes under sonia rule…
http://truecongresspolitics.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/are-we-heading-towards-a-christian-india/
I can hear the crickets chirping.
What Mr. Sinha and Mr. Harsha Varadhan, no response yet?
Why this veil of secrecy surrounding the CDs, and why is SJM afraid of putting them in the public domain?
“JSM does not apologize to anyone for its actions and for your information ” By Mr. H Varadhan….
” JSM, as the name suggests, is a Civil Liberties Organisation” By Mr. H Varadhan
Well…we are having some shameless individuals or a group or individuals wearing the mask of Civil Liberties…..
If you look at the track records of these so called Civil Liberties org’s….they look abysmally dismal…
These groups in Gujarat are paid by Congress and will vanish after Narendra Modi wins the elections…
This all Liberties Organisation is a big gimmick…
I wonder where these organizations were when 8,000 sikhs were killed in New delhi …or when more then a Million Pandits were drove from Kashmir..there homes were burnt down…there livilihood was taken away from them…
Down with such kind of groups which only want to have publicity ..rather than do some good work for people of gujarat or elsewhere in india…
JSM or whatever…please go out of gujarat…we don’t need you…..
[...] Offstumped had challenged Mr. Mukul Sinha and his Jan Sangharsh Manch to make public the phone records in their possesion and [...]
[...] Offstumped had challenged Mr. Mukul Sinha and his Jan Sangharsh Manch to make public the phone records in their possesion and [...]
[...] ever challenged, until of course Offstumped came along with this post and subsequently this challenge and these scientific [...]
Offstumped seems to be bent upon punching some of the conclusions of Jansangharsh Manch as presented by Dr. Mukul Sinha in front of Nanavati Commission. While it is a good trend to question anybody’s conclusion, it is rather far-fetched declare all by yourself that Jansangharsh Manch or Mukul Sinha has not taken up the challenge. Such a declaration has an underlying assumption that it is mandatory on part of Dr. Mukul Sinha and Jansagharsh Manch to know about the existence of Offstumped and be a regular reader of the column. Offstumped has not admittedly contacted Dr Mukul Sinha or Jansangharsh Manch which they could have done since they appeared to have all information about them. The criticism of the conclusion therefore has no meaning since it is quite clear that the other side doesn’t even know about the criticism being made. As readers we will trust that Offstumped make all efforts to first contact Jansangharsh Manch, make efforts to get their response to the criticism, instead of denigrating the conclusions of Jansangharsh Manch which have evidently not been challenged by the Government of Gujarat which is directly affected. After feigning neutrality, it appears that Offstumped is in reality holding the candle for the Government of Gujarat and those people who are allegedly involved in the killings of hundreds of innocent.
Mr Pratik Sinha
Fact#1 – this challenge followed from a comment by Mr Harsh Varadhan claiming to represent JSM and asking for an in person debate without the cloak of anonymity
Fact#2 – post this Offstumped has traffic logs on when Mr. Harsh Varadhan has viewed the posts on Offstumped and where
Fact#3 – you can denigrate opinions but you cannot denigrate laws of physics. Either the analysis holds up to the laws of physics or it doesn’t. There is no middle ground to beat around the bush.
So the
So in conclusions let us debate the science here rather than take refuge in silly arguments of who is holding a candle for whom and why the gujarat govt did not challenge the analysis.
I know my response is a bit late to this thread, but here is my 2c worth (just debating the science, not the politics)…
1. Being a consultant and a Telco networks designer myself for a leading Telco vendor and even though am based overseas, I have been involved as a network consultant for a couple of operators in India. Leaving the politics aside for a while, I have to say I disagree with you on the technical front. It is by all means possible to pinpoint the location of a mobile phone with a accuracy of 500-1000m (and not 2.5 as you have suggested in one of your posts) with the Cell Global Identity + Timing advance functionality. This is without the use of any special end user hardware (no GPS). Please refer to 3GPP standards : 03.71, 09.31, 22.071, 24.030, 23.171, 23.271.
Quoting you “Lastly, this is most important. There is no way in GSM today for the Cell ID to be updated during a call. So if you are in a moving car or jeep and you started a call in Cell location X, and while you were driving if you traversed locations Y and Z, there is no way to establish that from the call records.”
This is completely incorrect, with Raw Data I infer we are talking about CDRs. Different vendors follow different CDR formats and handovers (along with cell IDs) can be traced in a CDR (not a live trace). If one operator does not choose to do it does not mean it cannot be done.
“Naroda MLA Maya Kodnani leaves for Gandhinagar, returns from Gandhinagar, heads to Sola Civil Hospital, leaves the hospital, heads for Naroda, reaches Naroda, leaves Naroda, heads for Shahibaug”
Information like this could even have come from multiple CDR records rather than a single one.
You have provided no sources or proof of the technical information you have scattered all along your blog, this is misleading. I would like you to quote your source on this one, the 3GPP standard or something similar and have a proper technical discussion.
Lets us agree at least on the fact that technically it is possible and it is also possible to pinpoint the movement of a MS. If you disagree on this, I am open for further discussion.
2. How much and how long for the raw data is maintained is completely at the whim of the operator. You have stated in your other posts about EU operators not maintaining these records and have thus implied that this would mean none of the Indian operators maintain them as well. This may not necessarily be true. I have signed a Non Disclosure Agreement with a couple of operators in India and thus cannot disclose their policies about data collection and retention. I am sure you cannot refute the possibility completely of them retaining raw data as you I assume would have signed a NDA as well (you keep speaking about Idea so I assume you work for them, I might be wrong). I think we have to agree here that the possibility of the raw data being not present is as much as the possibility of it being present.
A point to note though is that EU is a completely different political and commercial environment and some of the things (Legal Intercept for eg) that TRAI enforces on authorities in India is not necessarily being enforced in EU. Thus it is unfair to compare apples with oranges.
3. “you can denigrate opinions but you cannot denigrate laws of physics”. True, but sometimes we voice our opinions without understanding the science completely. Seems to me you are a classic case. Am sure all of us have been victims to this sometime or the other, I for sure have been.
4. I am not sure if this has happened yet, but if the court admits the CD as evidence, my objectivity would force me to believe that the records hold some information, one way or another and are thus invaluable to the prosecution. This would also establish the authenticity and the integrity of the records. Also, not that this evidence was obtained by the cops and not JSM or Indian Express.
Am not sure if these records can be made public cos I am not a legal expert, but if they can be, sure there is nothing stopping you from obtaining them under the RTI act and enlightening us.
5. For all we know, Mukul Sinha might not even be aware that we are having this discussion. Some random person coming along claiming that he represents JSM does not make him represent them. But also, this person has issued you a challenge to take up this discussion directly with Mukul Sinha, now that is something I would like to see, unless that happens I think we should reserve our opinion about either JSM or Mukul Sinha. Why don’t you send a email to Mukul Sinha and get a proper response.
6. Can you please quote your sources about the operators denying they accumulated any raw data. Maybe you are right but I cant seem to find anything even after extensive googling. I cannot find a source which says that the data obtained was Raw data. The information might as well have come from processed CDRs.
7. I have no intention of starting a flaming war or getting into mud slinging but I had to point out the facts. If you dispute any of them, I am more than happy to have a open discussion, either here or face to face (I’ll be in India next month). I see that you have moderation enabled, but for the sake of free discussion, can I please ask you to post this unmodified, after all I don’t see anything in here as offensive or partial.
Jhquest – welcome to the debate belatedly though. We can spar on the technical nuances here but both of us would agree that the public debate is best served by making everything public so independent experts such as yourself could determine if it stands up to scientific scrutiny rather than us speculate. Nuances apart there are enough open ended questions here to conclude that this is not a slam dunk and must be put to a scientific test in the open.
Btw the carriers reply to nanavati commission that they don’t maintain old records is public domain just google news between oct and nov and u shud find the relevant news stories. The source on open cdrs not maintaining multiple cell ids during a call as hand offs occur is etsi I can pull up relevant specs but it is moot if a vendor has enabled great but questionable if that was the case here. Wud like to be proven wrong on that with facts. The data on IDEA is public record check out gsma website
Lastly you seem to have mistaken that I have implied that a-gps was required here. Even if e-otd was to be used, u need base stations that measured tdoa or aoa, no evidence that the networks were doing that also no evidence that such accurate timing data was collected for all mobiles in the network all the time
foreseeing that riots wud occur and someone wud want to know location of some numbers. There is no way in hell they cud have obtained accurate timing measurements for tdoa after the fact 
In all likelihood these guys have tried to use cellid and rssi to guestimate location with old coverage maps as the basis, the accuracy of that is highly debatable refer the osmania univ paper.
Let us then agree that it is impossible for either you or me to say that this could not have been done. We can talk about probabilities but cant have a black or white answer.
Also, something I did 4get to point out is the fact that these records were collected by the cops and were sitting with them since ages. There is thus a possibility that they might have been collected soon after the riots rather than 3 years later as we speculated.
Lastly, I would still like you to take up that challenge to meet Mukul Sinha either face to face or send him an email and get a proper response.