Continuation Part 2 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[LondonJohn]

Wrong.
There is no different base station selection for SMS. No talk channel is established, as you said, the SMS traffic is transferred through the signalling channels, but that does not mean that the paging and base station selection is different.
Tha handset always has a list (and only one list) of base stations with a best station among them and it is selected by the handset for both voice and SMS.

That's not correct though. The handshake protocol for incoming voice can be (and is, on many networks) different from the handshake protocol for incoming (or outgoing) SMS/MMS. Sending simplex low-bandwidth asynchronous transmissions down the signal channel is an operation which requires only marginal signal strength. Many operators therefore choose to route SMS/MMS on a "first come, first served" basis as regards the chosen base station. In other words, if there's an incoming SMS, all the base stations in the location area page the handset; the handset then responds with a handshake with the first base station that it has heard which has sufficient signal strength for SMS transmission. And this need not be the base station with the highest signal strength - as it would almost always be with voice (unless all the voice channels were already occupied for that particular base station).

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Under Pressure

Well, this is then an answer for Rose, too, from the horse's mouth for the authenticity of the phrase "sack of crap".

Quote more stuff like that.

I still don't see, though, how a treatment like that makes someone state that Amanda went out at 9 and came home at 1PM.

Was he stoned again?

bolint,

I am not certain that I am seeing your point. It sounds as if the police used the s-word and then wrote it down as if he had said it.

Raffaele had (I seem to recall reading) smoke a joint on the evening of 5 November. Then he faces several police who are presumably treating him as they treated Amanda (yelling, calling him a liar, etc.). I think such treatment persuaded him to say that he had previously confused 1 November and 31 October (I am uncertain whether or not he totally believed it). People often start agreeing with the interrogator under sufficiently intense pressure.

 

[LondonJohn]

The Massei report may be at odds with Mignini's memory of the sequence of events (it is also somewhat at odds with itself -- no surprise there). According to the report, Luca Lalli, the medical examiner, arrived at the scene hours before Patrizia Stefanoni:

Early in the report, these facts are given:

Later in the report,

According to Mignini's recollection, he arrived at the scene, spoke to Patrizia Stefanoni, asked her if she had taken the temperature of the body, and agreed with her that it could wait. That means Mignini got there after 5:00 or 7:00 p.m. (depending on which part of the report you believe).

So who gave Luca Lalli the order at 2:00 not to touch the body? Did Patrizia Stefanoni phone it in en route from Rome? If so, why does Mignini call it "the very first decision that he made?"

Did Mignini really did not get to the scene until the evening of November 2nd?

Well, what's pretty unarguable is that the individual with the responsibility to check Meredith's internal temperature would categorically not have been Stefanoni. It would have been the pathologist (Lalli), or if he hadn't been available, another qualified medical examiner. However, we know that Lalli was there from 2-2.30pm on the 2nd. In his testimony quoted in the Massei Report, he clearly states that he was directed not to start any investigation of the body until the forensics team had finished certain parts of their work in Meredith's room. He implies that this is why Meredith's internal temperature was not taken until around 12.50am on the 3rd (i.e. over 10 hours after Lalli arrived at the scene).

So the only conclusion is that either Rolling Stone has misquoted Mignini as saying Stefanoni was the one responsible for taking the body temperature, or that Mignini is misrepresenting the situation. Since I would strongly suggest that Rolling Stone has a recording of the interview with Mignini, I would also therefore strongly suggest that it is Mignini who is misremembering (or dissembling) about the situation.

The next question is why this decision to delay taking the body temperature was made in any case. The normal protocol when a body is found is to begin by carefully examining a path to access the body (ensuring that all potential forensic evidence along this path is collected), then making sure that everyone uses only this path to access the body, while the rest of the area around the body is examined. This first step could and should have been done within 30 minutes of the forensics teams arriving on the scene (and can often be done virtually immediately, if first responders have already compromised a certain path to the body). Therefore, access to Meredith's body should not have been an issue for Lalli.

The only other reason for not taking the internal temperature of the body is that the use of a rectal thermometer might compromise evidence of sexual activity. While this is a valid concern - particularly in this case, where Meredith was undressed below the waist and had very likely been subjected to some form of sexual assault - any decent pathologist should have quickly been able to determine whether there had been any penetration to the rectum (bruising, dilation, bleeding, discharge, etc). Furthermore, a sterile rectal thermometer would not have compromised any potential forensic evidence inside the rectum, and in any case the thermometer could have been swabbed for DNA after use.

In short, then, Meredith's body temperature could and should have been first taken by 3-4pm on the 2nd at the very latest. And Mignini is almost certainly incorrect in his recall of the division of responsibilities around the taking of the body temperature. Mignini does seem to be getting rather.....errmmm.......muddled in his interviews recently. Perhaps the poor chap needs some time off..........

 

[RoseMontague]

The fact, that Raffaele's usage of the previous month was overwhelmingly through the best server measured by the police outside shows that the internal situation is not so different.



Base stations, antennas, could have changed significantly even by aging, let alone replacement.
But I agree, it should have been done at that time and with similar handsets.
But the revision of Maxwell's equations is hardly expected even from the Supreme Court.

The police expert took the measurements outside but the defense expert did not. That information was presented to the court:

9.3 The telephone traffic of Raffaele Sollecito’s cell phone
Rather than focus attention on the objective data just reported, the evaluations of the judgment concentrated on the late receipt of the SMS sent from Raffaele’s father at 23:14 on 1.11.07 and received only at 06:02:59, deducing from this a piece of evidence against Sollecito: that he turned off his phone on the evening of 1.11.07 and then turned it back on again at 6 on the morning of the day after.
These evaluations were based on the following two elements:
1. the cellular network coverage at Raffaele’s home, that is to say the capacity of the cell phone, positioned anywhere inside the building on Corso Garibaldi 30, to receive the SMS message of 23:14 on 1.11.07;
2. Raffaele’s alleged telephone habits.
As regards the presence of an effective cell phone coverage inside the building on Corso Garibaldi 30, the same considerations already outlined are valid in relation to the methods of the investigations carried out by the scientific police as compared to those of the defence consultant.
To this it must be added that the walls of Raffaele Sollecito’s building constitute a very significant obstacle to the transmission of radio waves, an obstacle not taken into account by the scientific police.
The judgment, although defining Dr. Pellero’s work as ‘valuable’, did not assess the results of his analysis: in ideal measurement conditions, the field strength measured inside Raffaele’s building is a little higher (5dB) than the minimum reception threshold indicated by the same experts of the scientific police. This minimum margin of reception is much less than the attenuation introduced by frequent arbitrary phenomena, such as holding the telephone in hand, placing it close to metal objects or otherwise shielding it, the movement or position of people, objects (or vehicles) along the path of the radio signal that enters the apartment mainly through just two small windows.
The result is that reception from the Vodafone cell phone network inside Raffaele’s building is poor and this represents an objective cause for the lack of receipt of the SMS sent by his father at 23:14 on 1.11.07 and which arrived only at 06:02:59.

The Court held it could support its opinion by formulating a hypothesis on Raffaele’s telephone habits: “which reveals the intensity of the exchange of calls to/from the cell phone even in the middle of the night – thus supporting the idea that the student used his cell phone even while lying in bed, and therefore far away from the front door or the kitchen window where the reception of the signal would not have been a problem” (p. 344, judgment).
In reality, the judgment failed to consider the important difference, in behavioural terms, between the nights when Raffaele was home alone and, therefore, certainly concerned about ensuring cell phone reception (to communicate with his friends and with Amanda), as compared to the nights in which he was in the company of his girlfriend, who surely attracted his attention much more than his cell phone. This behaviour found confirmation in Amanda’s statements recalled also by the judgment: “no [other information] results from the day of 1.11.07, remembering that Amanda stated during the trial that she had turned off her cell phone after returning to Raffaele’s house, being more than happy not to have to go to work and being able to spend the evening together with her boyfriend” (p. 345 judgment).
In any case, one cannot ignore the contradiction into which the Court fell in holding the switching off of Sollecito’s cell phone on the evening of 1 November to be an element against him, considering that the deactivation of the cell phone is itself in serious contrast with the hypothesis put forward in the judgment, according to which the two young people decided to leave the house. It is certainly much more logical to think that the cell phone would have been switched off after the decision had been made to stay at home and go to bed.

 

[bolint]

...if there's an incoming SMS, all the base stations in the location area page the handset; the handset then responds with a handshake with the first base station that it has heard which has sufficient signal strength for SMS transmission. And this need not be the base station with the highest signal strength ...

Wait a minute.
What other base stations?
The handset listens to the paging channel of only one station.
And it is the current base station selected as discussed earlier.

Again from the same book:

4.5.1 Channel measurement
The task of radio subsystem link control in the MS includes identification of the reachable
base stations and measurement of their respective received signal level and channel quality
(quality monitoring task). In idle mode, these measurements serve to select the current base station, whose PCH is then periodically examined and on whose RACH desired connections
can be requested.
During a connection, i.e. on a TCH or SDCCH with respective SACCH/FACCH, this
measurement data are transmitted on the SACCH to the base station as a measurement
report/measurement info. These reports serve as inputs for the handover and power control
algorithms.

 

[LondonJohn]

Seems obvious, from the page



or did you think there was another reason.....

You obviously don't realise that 4oD is Channel 4. 4oD is the online on-demand service for Channel 4 programmes, and it's a division of Channel 4 (4oD = 4 on Demand). Therefore it is essentially Channel 4 that is blocking the ability to view this programme by UK internet users. This is despite the fact that the programme in question was a joint production involving Channel 4 itself, and that Channel 4 is a public service broadcaster in the UK (albeit one which garners some of its revenues through advertising). So I can't see a valid reason why Channel 4 is preventing UK internet users from being able to watch this programme.

 

[bolint]

Amanda stated during the trial that she had turned off her cell phone after returning to Raffaele’s house, being more than happy not to have to go to work

You see the new problem, don't you.

Is it just a flip of Massei?
Or did she really say that?


Edited: It's a flip of Massei

LG: Passing to another topic, but still in the evening of the 1st, there is a
clarification about your cell phone. Did you turn off your cell phone on that
evening?

AK: Yes.

LG: And why?

AK: Because I didn't want to be called back, to go to work. I didn't want to
be disturbed.

LG: This was the cell phone on which you received the message of Patrick that
we heard about, and from which you answered. The same cell phone?

AK: Yes, yes. I received the call --er--I received the text message, and I
was so happy, I wanted to spend the whole night just with Raffaele, so
I turned it off so as not to be called or called back.

LG: Do you usually turn it off at night?

AK: Not usually, because I use it as a clock, an alarm clock, so usually
I don't, but on that night I did.

 

[RoseMontague]

You see the new problem, don't you.

Is it just a flip of Massei?
Or did she really say that?

They are quoting Massei, yes. And after could be 5 minutes after or quite possibly even probably after she got the message from Patrick and replied she would meet him at the court see you later.

 

[komponisto]

9.3 The telephone traffic of Raffaele Sollecito’s cell phone
Rather than focus attention on the objective data just reported, the evaluations of the judgment concentrated on the late receipt of the SMS sent from Raffaele’s father at 23:14 on 1.11.07 and received only at 06:02:59, deducing from this a piece of evidence against Sollecito: that he turned off his phone on the evening of 1.11.07 and then turned it back on again at 6 on the morning of the day after.
[etc...]

Rose, is there a translation of this document out there that I haven't heard about? The excerpt you quoted sounds better than what you would get out of Google -- in fact it sounds like the PMF-Massei excerpts that people often quote here. Have they done translations of the appeals?

 

[bolint]

I am not certain that I am seeing your point. It sounds as if the police used the s-word and then wrote it down as if he had said it.

It's two different things.

Rose challenged the authencity of the "sack of crap" phrase suspecting press invention beacuse Raffaele probably wouldn't have signed it.
Now we have seen that it was indeed there.
For some reason Rose now speaks of "myth", though.


Another new turn is: OK, it is there, but did Raffaele really say it?

From this it is not known, it is not a straight denial, but he seems to have signed it.

 

[LondonJohn]

Wait a minute.
What other base stations?
The handset listens to the paging channel of only one station.
And it is the current base station selected as discussed earlier.

Again from the same book:

Yes, the handset (MS) maintains a preferred base station for the purposes of two specific things: 1) listening to the PCH (the paging channel, on which the network broadcasts to the handset that it has an incoming voice or data traffic request); 2) where to send a RACH request (RACH is an acronym for "Random Access CHannel", and it's used by the handset to send a request to the network for outgoing voice or data traffic, and to request a dedicated traffic channel for this traffic.

So, for the sake of the discussion, let's assume that the handset performs a search for base stations from which it can receive a signal, and that it identifies five different base stations (A, B, C, D, E). Let's then assume that the handset selects base station A as the station whose PCH it will listen for, and whose RACH it will page if it wants to make an outgoing voice/message transmission.

But when the handset receives an incoming voice or message alert via the PCH from base station A, it does not then have to use that particular base station for the voice/data transmission. And in the case of SMS or MMS, many GSM networks instruct the handset to use one of the other base stations which are also within signal range, if the traffic channels on the base station from which the PCH alert was reached are almost full.

So in this example, if the traffic channels on base station A were fairly congested, the network would instruct the handset to perform an RACH handshake with, say, base station D, which might have light transmission traffic at the time. In this way, the network can balance traffic and ease network congestion.

Similarly, if the handset sends an RACH page to request a channel for voice or data (i.e. the mobile user wants to make an outgoing call or send a message), it would send it to base station A. But base station A can respond to say that its traffic channels are getting full up, and that the handset should therefore try sending an RACH request to (say) base station C.

For both the situations outlined above, the network is far more likely to redistribute SMS/MMS traffic than voice traffic. This is because SMS/MMS traffic is relatively very short in duration, but occupies an entire traffic channel* for the period of transmission. It therefore makes sense to "fit in" SMS/MMS traffic around small gaps of inactivity on the traffic channels, in between voice calls (which use the full channel for the entire duration of the call). Therefore, it's far from unusual for a handset to receive (and send) SMS messages from a base station which is not the one with which it has established a PCH/RACH connection.

When I was writing about the handset listening to multiple base stations, I was being colloquial, since I didn't want to get involved in describing the full handshake procedure over the various channels. The more detailed picture is that the handset retains an ongoing communication with just one base station, but that as soon as an incoming alert is received over that base station's PCH (or an outgoing request is sent over the RACH), the other base stations within signal range also potentially come back into play.

Sorry to get complicated and a bit technical, but it seemed necessary in order to explain more fully how it all works in practice.


* although most networks can now squeeze SMS onto half a channel through a further CDMA algorithm.

 

[bolint]

The police expert took the measurements outside but the defense expert did not. That information was presented to the court:

Well, that defence seems to undermine other defences.

How is it that Raffaele was unable to receive the SMS between 23:00 and 6:00 because of weak internal signal, while they could easily make more than a dozen connections that night and the following morning allegedly from inside the same house?

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, that defence seems to undermine other defences.

How is it that Raffaele was unable to receive the SMS between 23:00 and 6:00 because of weak internal signal, while they could easily make more than a dozen connections that night and the following morning allegedly from inside the same house?

Because the bedroom area of Sollecito's apartment has different reception characteristics from the kitchen/living area?

ETA: I live in central London, in an apartment which has been converted from a Georgian town house with thick brick and stucco exterior walls. I often can get no mobile signal in my bedroom (which is on one side of the flat), but can always get a 4- or 5-bar signal in the living room, kitchen, study or hallway - all of which are adjacent to the other side of the flat.

 

[RoseMontague]

It's two different things.

Rose challenged the authencity of the "sack of crap" phrase suspecting press invention beacuse Raffaele probably wouldn't have signed it.
Now we have seen that it was indeed there.
For some reason Rose now speaks of "myth", though.


Another new turn is: OK, it is there, but did Raffaele really say it?

From this it is not known, it is not a straight denial, but he seems to have signed it.

It is a myth, police or press or a combination of the two, in my opinion. I don't see Matteini arguing for guilt and preventive detention and ignoring a statement from a suspect that their alibi was crap. Instead she talks about lost in translations and not understandings. It doesn't make sense.

 

[odeed]

You obviously don't realise that 4oD is Channel 4. 4oD is the online on-demand service for Channel 4 programmes, and it's a division of Channel 4 (4oD = 4 on Demand). Therefore it is essentially Channel 4 that is blocking the ability to view this programme by UK internet users. This is despite the fact that the programme in question was a joint production involving Channel 4 itself, and that Channel 4 is a public service broadcaster in the UK (albeit one which garners some of its revenues through advertising). So I can't see a valid reason why Channel 4 is preventing UK internet users from being able to watch this programme.

I know what 4oD is, but what you seem to be oblivious of is that Channel 4 most likely owns the UK broadcasting rights to the video in question and not youtube or some anonymous user, if you want to watch the video, go to the 4oD website and watch it so Channel 4 can justify the funding they get, and maybe they will make some money from the advertising on their site.

 

[bolint]

It is a myth, police or press or a combination of the two, in my opinion. I don't see Matteini arguing for guilt and preventive detention and ignoring a statement from a suspect that their alibi was crap. Instead she talks about lost in translations and not understandings. It doesn't make sense.

If it is not there then what Raffaele is talking about?

(The translation business is about the invented coaching of Raffaele by Amanda Knox through listening to her nonexistent conversation with the Postals.)

 

[LondonJohn]

I know what 4oD is, but what you seem to be oblivious of is that Channel 4 most likely owns the UK broadcasting rights to the video in question and not youtube or some anonymous user, if you want to watch the video, go to the 4oD website and watch it so Channel 4 can justify the funding they get, and maybe they will make some money from the advertising on their site.

No, it's not available on 4oD either, even though it's listed there.

 

[RoseMontague]

If it is not there then what Raffaele is talking about?

(The translation business is about the invented coaching of Raffaele by Amanda Knox through listening to her nonexistent conversation with the Postals.)

One way to evaluate this would be to compare the news stories immediately after of Amanda's statements to her actual statements. Most likely a discussion of Raffaele's statement would be in the same article. Do the articles report accurately what Amanda said in her statements of 1:45 and 5:45AM. I would think the same source (cops) probably gave the press the information on both statements. I will see what I can find on this.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Maxwell's silver hammer

But the revision of Maxwell's equations is hardly expected even from the Supreme Court.

bolint,

In effect Massei ignored Newtonian physics in his thought experiment of how the window was broken. His hypothesis does not explain how the glass traveled so far into Filomena's room. Sgt. Pasquali was the better physicist, and he tested his hypothesis. In the first Knox continuation thread I expanded upon Raffaele's appeal to argue that Massei ignored a fundamental principle of forensic genetics. So if Massei ignored Maxwell's equations, it is entirely in character.

 

[bolint]

One way to evaluate this would be to compare the news stories immediately after of Amanda's statements to her actual statements. Most likely a discussion of Raffaele's statement would be in the same article. Do the articles report accurately what Amanda said in her statements of 1:45 and 5:45AM. I would think the same source (cops) probably gave the press the information on both statements. I will see what I can find on this.

Hey, it is Raffaele who says that it is written, so the newspapers are clean,
and I don't dare to imagine that Candace invented it in her book.