Citi Bikes leave ‘digital exhaust’ that could help track a killer
An electric Citi Bike like the one reportedly used as a getaway vehicle after the murder of United HealthCare C.E.O. Brian Thompson creates “digital exhaust,” streams of data that can be used to track the rider, said David Shmoys, a computer scientist at Cornell University who helped design the system.
Between the creation of a Citi Bike account, connecting it to a credit card, undocking it, riding it around the city and docking it at a new location, every user creates many “streams of digital breadcrumbs” that can help Lyft, the company that operates Citi Bike, track the user’s location, and possibly their identity, Mr. Shmoys said.
Combined with the user’s phone data and location shared with cell towers, “It is amazing how much information is conveyed,” Mr. Shmoys said.
Never ride one of these.