&gt; This is actually apples and oranges.<p>You are making a distinction without a difference here.  The ss7 network has been known to be broken forever, and all the carriers sell their customer&#x27;s historical data - so the Italians could have applied the same technique anywhere in the world.<p>&gt; ...automated co-traveler inference...<p>That is exactly what they did, only instead of protecting in real time they ran models after the fact.  Real time would actual be easier, because instead of dealing with the carrier - you just poll the ss7 network.  There is nothing novel about the tracking methods, the inference, or the combination of the two.