It’s been hot and heavy here in Albany these last weeks. The escalation runs the gamut of mobbing tactics: sleep deprivation with forced wakings every two hours or so; driveway and drive-by hazings from contractor trucks; the screeching transmissions and blinding LEDs of EVs rushing past; unfriendly men walking by the house wearing earpieces and leaving the ubiquitous “GET HER OUT” in their wake; and the early morning chatter they might intend me to hear about how they will blackmail me out of my childhood home with tall tales and revelations intended to shame.
The latest escalation came after an interesting find last weekend. I was trying to offload unnecessary apps from my iPhone and noticed the identifier of a connected vehicle in the Apple CarPlay application. The vehicle wasn’t mine. I clicked through CarPlay screens to see how much information was there.
“She can see you on her phone,” said a male voice, presumably to the owner of the vehicle who lives close enough to have line-of-sight to some of the windows of the Albany house. “She’s looking at it right now.”
The voice wasn’t on the phone; rather, it came from some radio transmitting from close range—another clip of the mobbing chatter and crosstalk I overhear on a daily basis. This is the result of mobbers’ use of antennas and radios on every side of the house, from vehicles parked in driveways and on the street, and from mobbing passersby on foot and in car.
There was no time to think about how they knew I was looking at the phone or staring at the CarPlay app. I moved to screenshot the application pages that showed the vehicle. Pivoting to the laptop, I did a quick search to remember how to do one. But it didn’t solve the problem. The camera couldn’t complete the capture; there wasn’t enough storage left on the phone. I jettisoned old attachments and checked again. After I got the screenshots, I opened up the built-in adapter on my Mac laptop. I started an Airtool capture for wireless frames, then I opened Wireshark and started an Ethernet capture. I shut down the phone and started to look for a forensic analyst to image the phone and confirm the data.
With the right training, AI could be a game-changer in predatory crimes like mobbing. The rollout of AI services made a positive impact on my ability to respond to this finding and resulted in useful information that might help others in similar situations. I used DuckAI to confirm the kinds of behavior that might result from an illicit connection between a vehicle belonging to one person and an iPhone belonging to another.
DuckAI responded as follows:
- The realistic risks come from related channels:
- Bluetooth pairing (HFP/A2DP/PBAP): allows audio routing, phone‑call microphone use during a connected session, and access to contacts/call metadata while paired.
- USB connection: gives physical session access while plugged in (CarPlay UI, media/audio routing). No remote range.
- Companion apps for dash cams/head units: if installed and granted permissions (location, microphone, camera, storage, background refresh), these apps can capture or transmit data remotely.
- Wi‑Fi APs exposed by accessories: phone joining an accessory Wi‑Fi can allow local transfers or configuration; range equals Wi‑Fi (~tens of meters).
- Exploits: rare iOS vulnerabilities could be used over Bluetooth/Wi‑Fi to escalate access; these are uncommon and typically require specific conditions.
DuckAI added the following. Note that a primary component of the mobbing harassment is verbal abuse injected into any media stream that enables it.
What this can (and usually cannot) enable
- Possible while connected/paired or if a malicious app is installed: play or route audio; microphone access during active audio session or call; access to contacts or call metadata if Bluetooth profiles are used; upload dashcam footage via a companion app.
- Generally not possible without consent or an exploit: continuous background microphone/location tracking, remote installation of apps, silent copying of photos/files via CarPlay alone.
I followed up with ChatGPT later on, for a comparison of the data in the screenshots to the 802.11 data in the capture.
I’ll go into more detail at a later date. Given the ongoing melee here in Albany and the fact that mobbing—both in Seattle, Washington and in Albany, California—includes heavy use of tech deployed from the dashboards, dash-cams, security systems, charging systems and phones of vehicles, this should be useful information. I hope airing it will help to protect me as I continue to be forced to live in this situation to maintain my liberty and civil rights due to the lack of interest on the part of the City of Albany, California and the City of Seattle, Washington.
For an earlier piece written on mobbing and the Blue&Me infotainment system, see Blue, the mobbers & me (part 1).
