[HN Gopher] Ex Police Officer Used Law Enforcement Tech to Hack ...
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Ex Police Officer Used Law Enforcement Tech to Hack Women's
Explicit Photos
Author : SamoyedFurFluff
Score : 325 points
Date : 2022-10-14 14:00 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.leoweekly.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.leoweekly.com)
| jimcavel888 wrote:
| theknocker wrote:
| Magi604 wrote:
| "In June, the DOJ announced that Wilson, 36 at the time, had
| pleaded guilty to a cyberstalking charge as well as to a charge
| related to what LMPD has called "Slushygate," a series of
| incidents in which Wilson and other officers assaulted
| pedestrians by throwing beverages out of unmarked patrol
| vehicles, sometimes filming their exploits."
|
| Me thinks there are other problems within that particular police
| department.
| drooby wrote:
| What the fff...
|
| This sounds like McLovin was involved.
| shove wrote:
| rossmohax wrote:
| Never used Snapchat, but isn't it main feature that messages get
| deleted automatically and have very short TTL?
| kornhole wrote:
| I thought so too, but someone needs to set that in the message
| which perhaps they forget. The problem with Snapchat is that it
| is not E2EE (End to end encrypted). Snapchat seems to sit in a
| strange place of being a little more private than Facebook and
| other big tech messengers but not as private as E2EE messengers
| such as Matrix, XMPP, Briar, Signal.. I suppose it is because
| they revenue is ad based and they need some data for ad
| targeting. Their future seems very tenuous to me.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I have to say this is one area that I actually support the defund
| the police narrative. Privacy and security should be a sort of
| digital human right, and rather than have a perverse incentive to
| not disclose holes (even if it's simply weak handling of an
| indviduals own data), police should "Serve and protect" by
| suggesting or even helping secure an individual's privacy and
| security.
|
| What might that look like? Perhaps every time Accurint is used
| against a target they should be emailed/mailed/delivered a report
| that details all the findings? That would help someone be better
| protected from malicious actors.
| testfoobar wrote:
| Instead every year, we pass laws moving further and further
| away from this: "Privacy and security should be a sort of
| digital human right".
|
| The government does not want you to maintain any privacy.
|
| Last year the Biden White House and the Democratic Congress
| passed laws lowering reporting requirements of digital
| transactions to $600 - down from $20,000. So now if you receive
| >$600 of payments in Paypal/Venmo/etc., they will report it to
| the IRS. Also, they will demand your SSN because they need it
| to report to the IRS.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/venmo-paypal-zelle-must-report-...
|
| https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2021-11-04-New-US-Tax-Repor...
| myko wrote:
| > I have to say this is one area that I actually support the
| defund the police narrative
|
| "Defund the Police" makes a lot of sense when one actually
| looks beyond the tagline. It means taking the money from the
| police state to empower other social services to do their jobs.
| This helps police, too-most officers are ill equipped to work
| with the mentally ill, and this sometimes leads to shootings
| that should've never happened. Nobody wants that.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| In a lot of the cases I think defund the police is only the
| right answer when treated as a zero sum scenario, and there
| may actually be a bunch of cases where it makes economic
| sense to do _both_ . (ie the outputs are of greater value
| than the inputs and progressively increase the pie over time)
| .
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| defund the police typically just means reduce their
| funding. Not abolish it entirely.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Yes, but what I'm pointing out is that with a fiat
| currency there is always the choice to fund *both* . I
| actually believe that in some places there will be a net
| benefit to funding both Social services and policing well
| because of the increase in asset prices (homes and
| businesses) . Cities should study this effect and
| consider increasing taxes to create a communal positive
| win:win:win (for city, residents, asset holders)
| bbarnett wrote:
| The law just needs to catch up with meat-space laws.
|
| An example, I don't know of a Western style democracy, where it
| is legal for a cop to walk by your house, notice an open
| window, and crawl through it...
|
| And then start searching your house, afterwards claiming "It
| wasn't breaking and entering! And all this stuff was just
| laying around!"
|
| The law should be 100% the same for digital "stuff", in that,
| there needs to always, always, always be a justifiable reason,
| a warrant as well, before even the thought of a search can
| occur.
|
| No back door usage, no "cyber tools", even if the phone is
| unlocked, on desk, nope! An open port(al), eg a window, doesn't
| give any reason for the search to be valid.
|
| In terms of legalized back doors, and in encryption, that is
| 100% counter to all of the above. Case in point, if you want to
| know the content of someone's phone?
|
| You can lock them up until they provide access -- after a court
| order requiring them to. EG, contempt of court, or some such.
|
| (Even if the above doesn't jive in your legal locale, _there
| are ways to enable the same_. New tech, new laws, to enable the
| same concepts, and freedoms, and security, and privacy, our
| societies have known for centuries...)
| okwubodu wrote:
| > An example, I don't know of a Western style democracy,
| where it is legal for a cop to walk by your house, notice an
| open window, and crawl through it...
|
| Police can generally use open doors (and windows?) as
| "probable cause" to enter in the US.
| valenterry wrote:
| Just spotting an open window allows a cop to immediately
| enter a house? To do what?
|
| Sometimes the US has strange laws, but if you are right (I
| somehow doubt it or maybe just hope it) then I would find
| it particulary strange.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| It's not correct, see my response to the above post.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| No they can't, they're allowed to look THROUGH open doors
| and windows and use what they SEE as probable cause.
|
| That's a FAR cry from being able to use the EXISTENCE of an
| open door or window as probable cause ITSELF.
| krapp wrote:
| Police can literally bust down any door they want in the US
| without warning and just start shooting anything that
| moves.
| nugget wrote:
| I've been exposed to the world of law enforcement a few times
| in my career. They're mostly good people, with a few bad
| apples. They're granted extraordinary authority by society and
| should be subjected to scrutiny from outside agencies and third
| parties. Defunding the police seems more likely to hurt than
| help the most at-risk communities. If anything, they should get
| more funding, and it should be used to raise hiring standards
| and increase in-service training time particularly around
| mental health awareness, civil rights (first and fourth
| amendment law), appropriate use of force, and de-escalation
| tactics. They're subjected to a lot of job related PTSD but
| receive almost no mental health counseling or support.
|
| I'd also separate privacy and security (especially privacy)
| from the debate over funding or defunding the police. The
| solution to abuses like the Accurint breach is to dramatically
| reverse the proliferation of sensitive personal data held in
| the digital ecosystem. If it's not there, it can't be found and
| exploited.
| drewbeck wrote:
| Two issues I see with your line: 1. we've been increasing
| funding consistently for ... forever. It hasn't resulted in
| improved outcomes. 2. cops don't want better hiring standards
| (sounds like you want to fire some cops? they don't want
| that), better use of force standards (sounds like you want to
| give non-cops more ways to prosecute cops if they break a
| couple too many noses? nope) 3. de-escalation?? sounds like
| you want to put cops in the line of fire without proper
| tools. Nope.
|
| Cops will always and forever defend their right to fuck shit
| up and not suffer the consequences. Cops will NEVER go for
| the ideas you suggest, and any money you send them for
| "training" will only turn into luxe contracts for ex-cops and
| extra overtime for everyone.
|
| Cops love being cops because of what the institution is now,
| today. The toxicity, the freedom to do shit without
| consequences, the lucrative overtime, all of it. And cops are
| incredibly good at agitating when they are threatened - oh
| you want to make it so we can't shoot people? Okay we're not
| going to do any work at all for months. Or maybe we send
| someone's cousin around the way to scare you - you think
| that's a problem ... call the cops!
|
| The problem imo with the "mostly good people" line is that it
| ignores the fact that in a harmful institution most "good
| people" will just go along with whatever is happening. Any
| "good cop" who speaks up against a fellow cop gets their face
| bashed in (see the current case in SF where they straight up
| killed another cop in a training exercise ...). Good people
| in shitty situations can make harmful choices and generally
| don't do the (very difficult and dangerous) work of speaking
| up to change things.
|
| Defund. We need something new.
| 93po wrote:
| > Defunding the police is more likely to hurt than help the
| most at-risk communities.
|
| Citation needed. Policing has been tremendous, irreparable
| harm to disadvantaged groups. You're completely missing the
| point of defunding - you're almost there when you say there
| should be more funding. There needs to be funding around
| _non-police_ community work.
|
| Also the "few bad apples" phrase doesn't work as you're using
| it. The point is that a few bad apples spoils the bunch - it
| makes them all rotten. Which is very true even though you
| weren't intending it that way. Even if _most_ cops wouldn 't
| directly do something awful, _most_ cops will stand aside and
| say nothing when they see a fellow cop do something awful.
| Which is literally how George Floyd died.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > Which is literally how George Floyd died.
|
| We also could have learned the lesson years earlier such as
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tony_Timpa
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tony_Timpa
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| to be fair I believe you're also missing a citation showing
| better than isolated data of defunding creating better long
| term outcomes for sufficient stakeholders without
| unacceptable negative outcomes for others.
| [deleted]
| raldi wrote:
| Remember when people used to say, "If you aren't doing anything
| wrong, what do you have to hide?" on the topic of whether there
| should be backdoors for law enforcement?
| wslh wrote:
| Also: once your data leaves your own custody assume it is
| public.
| randomdata wrote:
| I suppose it still holds true. Explicit photos are only
| something to keep hidden because there is a perception that
| they are wrong.
|
| If the photos were of a pet dog playing the park instead,
| nobody would be concerned except maybe around realizing that
| the tech could also be used to expose wrongful material in the
| same way.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > I suppose it still holds true. Explicit photos are only
| something to keep hidden because there is a perception that
| they are wrong.
|
| Is that why? We all shower and change clothes on a regular
| basis(I assume), there's nothing wrong with it. Yet, I'm sure
| most of us do that in private perhaps only in front of a
| romantic partner. Something doesn't have to be taboo to be
| personal or private.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> We all shower and change clothes on a regular basis(I
| assume), there 's nothing wrong with it._
|
| Au contraire. Step outside to let the world see you doing
| those things and see how well you fare. You are going to
| realize quickly just how wrong those things are. Humans
| aren't rational. Just because we all do it doesn't mean it
| isn't deemed wrong.
|
| Of course, as with any wrongful act, you can get away with
| it as long as you aren't caught.
| devmop wrote:
| If you've got nothing to hide then you should just let law
| enforcement install CCTV in your bathrooms and bedrooms.
| nobleach wrote:
| Who among us has never complained about a manager or some
| company C-suite. While there's NOTHING wrong with that, could
| you imagine those comments being shown to them? Could you
| imagine what might happen after that?
|
| Just because I'm not building a bomb in my basement doesn't
| mean I want all my dirty laundry trotted out in front of the
| world.
| mrgalaxy wrote:
| My mother is an employment attorney. When a company gets sued
| over an employee matter those kinds of messages are surfaced
| in pretty much every case because people tend to send those
| kind of things over company owned tools. Kind of hilarious
| the things people say thinking their boss will never see it.
| SN76477 wrote:
| My personal favorite is "if you do not know what you are
| looking for why are you looking."
|
| If they know what they are looking for, have a warrant. It is
| that simple to me.
| dylan604 wrote:
| eye roll...of course they "know" what they are looking for.
| they just can't tell you until they find it.
|
| /s
| yardstick wrote:
| IMO there's two solutions, both can be done at the same time:
|
| - Technological solution. Implement end to end encryption, and
| encrypt data at rest. Use techniques to prevent third parties
| from gaining access to decryption keys.
|
| - Human solution. Strengthen, and critically, enforce laws that
| protect the privacy of individuals. Severely punish and hold to
| account misuse of data & PII.
|
| It's not dumb luck that the first and second amendments of the
| US constitution both provide protections against an unjust
| government. I'm not a gun fan by any means, I just see the
| similarity between the soft and hard approaches to addressing
| an issue.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| Clearly, the framers of the constitution could not have
| imagined the smart devices of today, but based on how they
| wrote the constitution on what they could imagine, I believe
| that data/privacy protection would have been it's own
| amendment. We try to lump everything into the 4th amendment,
| but their biggest concerns were invasion of one's domicile.
|
| We should come together as a group to write a new amendment
| that protects one's digital life to propose to congress via a
| lobby group.
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| The US definitely needs iron clad data privacy laws.
|
| The authors of the Constitution absolutely understood how
| critical privacy was with respect to personal information.
| "Papers" is the keyword here, the OG Americans were 100%
| harassed by the British Gov.
|
| 4th Amendment:
|
| "The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
| houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
| and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall
| issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
| affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
| searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
| ubermonkey wrote:
| No one capable of critical thinking ever said this.
|
| No one who studied history ever said this.
| thewebcount wrote:
| I think Eric Schmidt is capable of critical thinking[0]. He's
| also, apparently, a jerk.
|
| [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-
| schmid...
| scottyah wrote:
| I mean, it's a valid point and also Warren Buffet's model
| for ethics. The overall answer to "is google a trusted
| friend" was no, and advice to be cautious. The article
| didn't contain much context so I assume it's clickbaity hit
| piece.
| roenxi wrote:
| I'll take any wins, but the stakes here are so high that it is
| a little depressing if things like this change people's minds.
|
| Speaking English doesn't confer magic powers. The same people
| who made up the the communist/nazi secret police are in every
| government, the only question is if they are in the ascendant.
| The stakes are very high, and we've seen in the 20th century
| that the situation can turn sharply and without warning that
| most people will accept to the point where some violent idiot
| is running the show.
|
| In some senses, a constant string of leaked nudes out of police
| departments is the best case. At least that will keep people
| asking how to preserve privacy. I'd rather have this Wilson
| bloke looking at people rather than the return of Lavrentiy
| Beria. Mr. Wilson is on the heroic end of the spectrum compared
| to what will happen with these spy networks, which are most
| effective when wielded politically.
| [deleted]
| woodruffw wrote:
| I'm sure there _are_ people who say this, but there seem to be
| _infinitely many_ more people who will smugly repeat this quote
| instead. It 's getting a little tired and, in the context of
| HN, is _definitely_ preaching to the choir. We 're almost all
| on the same page about the importance of privacy.
| kodah wrote:
| Personally, as someone who is very passionate about privacy
| HN is not a safe-harbor for pro-privacy talks.
|
| Anti-privacy people come in a lot of shades.
|
| Some of them like to think of themselves as "good people" who
| never need to be protected from the law because they believe
| they always follow the law, therefore, the law is always on
| their side.
|
| Some of them are holdouts of a bygone age where people
| championed an open internet coupled with an open society and
| open government.
|
| There's probably more categories than that, but those are the
| two I encounter most often on this website. Unfortubately, if
| you read into what they're sayinf, they hold moral positions
| on the issue so it's next to impossible to have discourse
| with them.
| woodruffw wrote:
| What does a "safe harbor" mean to you? If you're looking
| for uncritical acceptance, you aren't going to find that
| anywhere (well, you will, but those places are not going to
| be interesting, conversationally).
|
| I'm pro-privacy: I think we have a fundamental (natural)
| right to privacy, and I support legislation that
| practically strengthens that right. But that doesn't mean
| that I agree with you on everything, and it's unreasonable
| to expect that.
| kodah wrote:
| Solid question and thanks for the callout. I'm never
| looking for uncritical acceptance. I am looking for a
| non-hostile environment though; ideologies which would be
| willing to explore the nuance and reasonings of the
| privacy movements and debate them with me are more than
| welcome.
|
| Safe harbor was probably not the right word; I'm talking
| about people you can't even have basic privacy
| conversations with because their worldview is just so
| baseline different. It's next to impossible to have
| conversations about privacy with a person who believes
| you should be able to view all sensitive information
| about a person because of their belief that a transparent
| society is analogous to bleach. The people who believe
| they and their friends are the last bastion of good
| people on Earth and that they have nothing to hide cannot
| be reasoned with either.
|
| These are people who won't even say, "privacy is
| important".
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| You're going to keep hearing it as long as those back doors
| exist. You know what I'm a little tired of? Politicians using
| the same old "won't someone think of the children!" arguments
| every time they erode our privacy even further.
| andsoitis wrote:
| The issue is that I don't think it is the most effective
| argument for influencing others to change their mind.
|
| Why? Because people assume that it is highly unlikely that
| they will be the target of such a search, assume that a
| warrant would be needed, and in the bigger scheme of
| things, a backdoor is worth having in case someone who
| _has_ committed a crime or is _reasonably suspected_ of
| having committed a crime can be pursued.
|
| So there's a principles / practicality tradeoff that I
| think people are making.
|
| Further, telling people that the government _might_ spy on
| you with the purpose of locking you up or fining you comes
| across as overly paranoid. Again, not saying this hasn 't
| happened in the past or in other regimes, but this just
| isn't a sizable number of people's experience (in the US or
| Canada for example).
| robotguy wrote:
| >people assume that it is highly unlikely that they will
| be the target of such a search
|
| Rather than directly handing someone an unlocked phone, I
| like to think of it more like the residents of high-rise
| buildings who leave their curtains open no matter WHAT
| they're doing in the apartment. They figure the chances
| that someone is looking in THEIR window is miniscule even
| though the technology to do so is cheap and easy to
| obtain. The thing is, I bet a LOT of high rise residents,
| especially on higher floors, do leave curtains open all
| the time.
| hbn wrote:
| Politicians can implement whatever draconian policy they
| want and with zero resistance by simply telling right-wing
| people that it's stopping the bajillion pedophiles that are
| around every corner in society, and telling left-wing
| people that it's stopping the bajillion neo-nazis that are
| around every corner in society.
|
| Meanwhile your nudes are getting stolen by cops.
| djbusby wrote:
| Ensuring privacy IS THINKING OF THE CHILDREN
| candiodari wrote:
| Well no. You need to THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Take the case
| of primary school teacher Gladys. She beats children when
| she's drunk to much at school. If a kid makes trouble on
| the playground sometimes she even kicks them until they
| stop asking for her attention. She doesn't have any
| children of her own and you can actually _see_ her skin
| crawl when yet another parent makes the suggestion she
| might want one. What a headache. Well, the headache might
| be yesterday 's booze, but you get the point.
|
| You see, every year there's one or two toddlers in her
| class that realize that either they can hit back, or take
| revenge by stealing those plastic cards in her purse she
| finds so important. And the other gets the idea they
| might get some support from their parents if they steal
| her emergency Jack Daniels bottle and take it to their
| parents.
|
| With privacy HOW WILL THE POLICE FIND REASONS TO THROW
| THOSE CHILDREN INTO RE-EDUCATION CENTERS? Without
| constant surveillance of yet more aspects of those
| children's lives (OUTSIDE of school or anything perfect,
| I mean government related, of course). I mean unless
| every hairdresser tells Youth Services that these are bad
| parents.
|
| With privacy how will youth services find reasons to
| throw children of parents who've committed heinous crimes
| into youth services? Heinous crimes such as abortions or
| same sex marriages or even ... gone to a protest for
| those unmentionable _rights_ , or legalizing Satan-juice
| and Belzebub-smoke? Those parents could even be Jesus-
| killers, sorry, Jews is the PC term isn't it? Or
| terro...Muslims. We can't use that as a reason, but
| _obviously_ children can 't be trusted to those parents,
| so we'll trust them to youth services, you know, where
| half the girls grow up to be prostitutes, and most boys
| have more drugrunning arrests than points on their final
| exams. I mean the ones that actually _do_ their final
| exams at all. Ahhhhh ... God bless good old American
| government style child upbringing!
|
| Think of the children! Think of Gladys! Think of the
| heinous crimes some children might be confronted with! DO
| YOU WANT BABY JESUS TO DIE?
|
| In other words privacy is bad if and only if the
| government is near-perfect. If the government is no
| better (and in fact significantly worse) than the society
| it serves ... then privacy protects you.
| revolutukr wrote:
| The most famous person to say this was a billionaire who made
| his wealth selling peoples' personal data.[1] He's famous for
| having given a $90m golden parachute to a person as his
| punishment for accusations of sexually harassing Google
| employees.[2]
|
| 1. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2468308/google-ceo--
| if...
|
| 2.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin#Sexual_harassment_a...
| mc32 wrote:
| Also Eric the Schmidt had some "interesting" thoughts around
| privacy: https://www.pcworld.com/article/515472/googles_schmi
| dt_roast...
| game_the0ry wrote:
| When I would get that response, I would ask for the person's
| unlocked phone, and said that I would be going through the
| browsing history, photos, and text messages on their phone.
|
| Some people get it after that. Otherwise, I would see them
| makes some entertaining mental gymnastics to convince
| themselves that they still did not see the problem with
| electronic surveillance.
| glenstein wrote:
| It's fascinating how this whole other brain architecture
| clicks on, especially for how it reveals the arguments people
| are willing to make when all the ideas are just hypothetical.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| This doesn't work with a lot of people. Namely, it doesn't
| work with someone who has never been part of an outgroup and
| lives a completely harmless, mainstream life - or feels they
| do. They truly don't feel like they have anything to hide.
| They may recognize that someone who is, say, into kink or
| LGBTQ might be more hesitant to do so, but they haven't
| _lived_ it.
|
| There are probably millions of Americans who would, without
| hesitation, hand their unlocked phone to their pastor or a
| police officer. Your "hand me your unlocked phone" exercise
| won't really work.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| This matches my experience.
|
| For a uniquely interesting spin on this, you might look at
| the case of Doug Jensen. After participating in the January
| 6th events, he willingly went for an interview with the FBI
| and then gave them his phone and his passwords so they
| could look.
|
| To me, that seems emblematic of a person who has never in
| their life been in a outgroup.
|
| The lack of awareness it would take to do that is
| astounding, but worth paying attention to; there are plenty
| of folks in the US who have never actually been on the
| receiving end of state power.
|
| As such they have no way of discerning what that power
| looks like, much less an appreciation for the real effects
| of it's use on themselves.
| mwint wrote:
| For myself, I'd never been on the receiving end of state
| power until Covid. It does, without a doubt, change how
| you think about politics, government, etc.
| [deleted]
| rnk wrote:
| You never had vaccination requirements in your life? If
| you were in the US, there were endless vaccination
| requirements. If you were wanting to do sports, you had
| to have a physical. You had to take a driver's license
| test to drive.
|
| Since the 1970s in the us most people were not impacted
| by health challenges where they had to do anything, maybe
| with the exception of aids. I never had to think about
| getting a vaccination or a health issue that might affect
| me, I always got my shots for school, never thought about
| it.
|
| I think the covid vaccination was the first time a lot of
| adults had to think about a vaccination and there was a
| lot of pressure to get it (I'm in that category, I never
| gave vaccination a second thought, got a flu shot every
| year for example). People in my family who were
| engineers, always been vaccinated, even in the 50s knew
| some people with polio got influenced by the anti-vaxer
| world on facebook and started talking about the dark
| conspiracy and secret payoffs of us govt health workers.
| That was very sad to see.
| [deleted]
| dijit wrote:
| I tried something like this and they said that I was not an
| impartial trusted third party like a police officer.
|
| To be perfectly fair to her, it is harder to become a police
| officer in the UK (3years of education), otherwise I would
| have applied at the local police station, some places in the
| USA have only 6 weeks of training.
| zzyzxd wrote:
| "some random stranger in a remote datacenter going through
| some spinning disks" is too hard to correlate for average
| people. This is an invisible threat to them. If I give the
| person in the example a name and face, e.g. "Officer John
| Smith living next door and you talk to him everyday", they
| usually immediately become more vigilant.
|
| I imagine that if the covid droplets in the air are
| visible, we would have a much easier time convincing people
| to wear masks in the beginning of the pandemic.
| shakezula wrote:
| > they said that I was not an impartial trusted third party
| like a police officer.
|
| Some people live in an absolute fairytale.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > I tried something like this and they said that I was not
| an impartial trusted third party like a police officer.
|
| Send her a link to this article. Highlight this part:
|
| > "A former Louisville Metro Police Department officer used
| law enforcement technology as part of a scheme that
| involved hacking the Snapchat accounts of young women and
| using sexually explicit photos and videos they had taken to
| extort them, federal prosecutors said in court documents
| filed on Tuesday."
| plasticchris wrote:
| "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most
| honest of men, I will find something in them which will
| hang him."
| yellowapple wrote:
| In this day and age you don't need any lines at all; a
| cop just has to say "stop resisting".
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| They never remember events like these, because it doesn't serve
| their purposes or narrative
| [deleted]
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Oh, don't worry. People still say that.
|
| (Mostly because this sort of story is quite rare. It _should_
| happen zero times, but plenty of people are very happy with the
| status-quo tradeoff. I mean, we 're talking about folks that
| the public trusts to carry lethal weapons openly, in spite of
| the damage they do with them; access to espionage tools are
| _way_ down the security-and-safety-concern ladder from the
| Glock Gen 5s on the officers ' hips).
| superkuh wrote:
| A slight clarification: It's rare that it is caught and
| prosecuted. It's common enough within authority spies and
| enforcers that they have a word for it,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That still makes it rare, since the vast, vast bulk of the
| citizenry isn't married to / dating spies and enforcers.
|
| I'm not implying this should just be a "cost of doing
| business," but I _am_ implying that most of the citizenry
| has implicitly accepted it as such, so we can 't expect
| democracy to fix this issue.
| superkuh wrote:
| Common enough in groups of people regularly exposed to
| (unreliable but scary) polygraph tests and consequences
| for their actions. In local and state police who don't
| face oversight or consequences it is way, way, more
| common.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What I mean is even if each of the US's 600,000 domestic
| law enforcement and law-enforcement-adjacent officers
| were grossly violating the privileges of their authority
| to surveil their spouses and SOs in a way that grossly
| violates their fifth amendment rights... That's a problem
| directly impacting 0.2% of the population.
|
| It's real, _real_ hard to get the polity at the national
| level to care about a 0.2%-of-the-population issue. I don
| 't think we can expect a democratic solution to this
| issue.
| r00fus wrote:
| Grotesquely orwellian.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| The unfortunate thing about backdoors is its hard to really
| know how many times it happened. Kind of like the unreported
| crime thing, but far more believable that a good portion is
| never detected, particularly for read-only access.
|
| I kinda doubt this guy would have got caught if he wasn't
| blackmailing the women.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Though I've heard people say this exactly I want to extend this
| to the wider pool of users of FAANG services as well which
| implies exactly this sentiment.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| But, like, if we weren't such a puritanical society that
| stigmatized sex, we wouldn't have to care about our naked
| photos being leaked.
| raldi wrote:
| The nudity is the least-relevant part of the story. The
| target could've been the victims' private love letters or
| recordings of singing practice and the violation would've
| been the same.
| aliqot wrote:
| hairofadog wrote:
| Puritanism isn't about being wholesome or having integrity,
| it's about punishing other people for their "sins".
| Frequently the sins in question are perfectly moral and
| private activities.
| aliqot wrote:
| Show me a rule of law that enforces being wholesome and
| having integrity.
| hairofadog wrote:
| Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.
| triceratops wrote:
| I don't want my clothed photos leaked either. I'm an ugly MF.
| It's not your business to decide which of my photos are
| leaked.
| brettermeier wrote:
| Dude, did you really say that? Where's the border?
| d3nj4l wrote:
| How does that matter? It's not whether someone get
| stigmatized or not, it's whether they want to share explicit
| pictures or not. Even in a world without stigma, people could
| reasonably want pictures of them to stay private, and the
| choice should be theirs.
| Chernobog wrote:
| I interpreted the post you replied to be directed towards
| the part about extortion, and not contrary to what you are
| writing. I agree with both.
| socialismisok wrote:
| We should always have the ability to consent to naked photos
| of ourselves being available. I'm about as sex positive as it
| gets - it's not about puritanism, it's about consent.
| standardUser wrote:
| We shouldn't be such a puritanical society that stigmatizes
| sex. We also shouldn't be a society that denies people their
| right to privacy. Both of these unrelated statements are
| true.
| [deleted]
| breadchris wrote:
| i came to this thread to see if someone commented this. when
| the apple fbi whole thing was in the news, it was interesting
| hearing normal people saying that phrase. As someone in
| security, I knew that "backdooring" encryption was effectively
| giving everyone in the world a chance to read your message.
| Abuse of power can't be kept in check without cryptographically
| sound encryption, authorization controls protecting your data
| is meaningless if it's data you really care about.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| My strawman is that the backdoor is added by one or more
| engineers, and stored somewhere that is accessible by one or
| more DBAs, transmitted to the cops via infrastructure
| administered by one or more BOFHs, and maintained on the law
| enforcement end, by one or more personnel.
|
| One day, one of these people suddenly quits, moves to Dubai,
| and buys a Bugatti.
|
| The backdoor is now a front door.
| charcircuit wrote:
| That doesn't apply here because they did do something wrong.
| Taking explicit photos of themselves. That's something they
| want to hide. If you doesn't want to hide them who cares.
| feet wrote:
| Is that actually "wrong"?
| TedKroft wrote:
| The police officer who did this probably justified it to
| himself as that.
| aliqot wrote:
| Media and the orgs perpetuating this nonsense say this. Same as
| 'quiet quitting' and 'return to work'. Just wishful navel
| gazing on a slow news day.
| UberFly wrote:
| What? Many people have that attitude, or are at least
| completely apathetic regarding the concept of their own
| privacy.
| biftek wrote:
| Maybe no-one you know, I had multiple people tell me versions
| of this to my face when the Snowden stuff came out
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yet, the US government surely cared quite a lot about
| Snowden publishing the things they were hiding...
| raldi wrote:
| I've heard this, both paraphrased and word-for-word, many
| times.
| kukx wrote:
| In reply I would ask them "so you think hiding passwords is
| wrong?" And also "so no one should share secrets with you
| because you cannot keep them?"
| jaywalk wrote:
| The title is a bit clickbaity and misleading. The tech he used
| gave him information on his targets, which he then provided to a
| hacker. There are no details about what the hacker did, but he
| probably used social engineering and/or guessed passwords to gain
| access to the target Snapchat accounts.
|
| The law enforcement tech in question (Accurint) was not directly
| used in the hacks.
| socialismisok wrote:
| I don't think it's necessary to apply that distinction.
|
| The cop had these women's accounts hacked, he used a number of
| tools and connections to achieve that goal.
|
| One of the tools used was this piece of tech, but it was only a
| single link in the chain.
|
| Ultimately the story is "cop abuses access to tech to exploit
| women".
| luckylion wrote:
| "Ex cop uses oil-refinery to run over woman".
| trgn wrote:
| I would love to see more headlines like this. Tech isn't
| value neutral. Oil and ICE cars inherently, by their very
| nature, create the conditions for a more aggressive and
| dehumanizing society.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Come on, that's reduction to an absurd degree. The cop used
| special access to technology directly to get the
| information on these women.
| luckylion wrote:
| Of course, it's meant to show the problem in that
| argument. It's all part of the chain.
|
| A more accurate headline could be "Ex cop paid hacker to
| hack women", but that doesn't sound quite as good. If
| there's a complete list of passwords for every citizen at
| Accurint and the hacker was just a middle man because the
| "ex cop" doesn't want to touch a computer but he gives
| them the username + password, then yes, he "used law
| enforcement tech to hack them". But it doesn't sound like
| that's what happened.
| strix_varius wrote:
| It's intuitively clear that your rebuttal is a poor one
| made in bad faith, but we might as well get into why:
|
| _I_ could use an "oil-refinery" to run over someone. I
| have equal access to cars and gas stations to the police.
|
| However, I _couldn 't_ use Accurint as part of a chain of
| tools to extract explicit photos of someone. Access to
| Accurint is a privilege of the police.
|
| Without this person's abuse of the elevated societal
| privilege that police get, he wouldn't have been able to
| extort his victims. He'd still be a shitty person, with all
| the same motives and lack of morals, but without the power
| his police network gave him, he would have been impotent to
| achieve his goals.
| luckylion wrote:
| Doubt. You don't need access to Accurint to pay some
| hacker to hack an account. What that access gave him as
| quicker access to information you'd otherwise need more
| time (and money, presumably) to obtain.
|
| From the Accurint website: "Find out why more than
| 400,000 public and private organizations of all sizes
| rely on powerful, industry leading LexisNexis Accurint(r)
| to support their business goals.", mentioning
| Collections, Government, Healthcare, Insurance, Law
| Enforcement, Legal, Private Investigations.
|
| It very much sounds like a generic database that millions
| of Americans have access to. Are they all just one bad
| day away from hacking everything and everyone with all
| that access to this super advanced hacking technology?
| Probably not.
|
| The website continues: "Accurint(r) for Law Enforcement
| is a cutting-edge investigative technology that can
| expedite the identification of people and their assets,
| addresses, relatives and business associates by providing
| instant access to a comprehensive database of public
| records that would ordinarily take days to collect."
| smoldesu wrote:
| All of this is fairly redundant from a "point of failure"
| perspective. It's fun to wax philisophical about the true
| capabilities of the police, but they have dozens of ways
| to get your personal information. If they can get their
| hands on your phone, many police offices own Greykeys
| that will smash it's way through Android and Apple
| security alike. Or maybe you escalate a certain
| "sensitive case" and ask for warrantless iCloud/Google
| Drive snooping permissions. Or maybe you intercept the
| nudes by MITMing their LTE signal. Or maybe you go to
| their ISP for a copy, the list is _endless_.
|
| You're right that Accurint plays a fairly negligible role
| here, but only because the officer didn't even _begin_ to
| tap the tools at their disposal. Whether that was a
| mistake, stupidity, or fear of retribution, the fact
| remains that there are many, _many_ ways to get your
| personal data as a cop. Palantir /Accurint are very much
| the tip of this iceberg.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| superkuh wrote:
| >The law enforcement tech in question (Accurint) was not
| directly used in the hacks.
|
| Ah yes. It was just used to collect "meta-data" not accessible
| through legal means. Totally harmless.
| econonut wrote:
| Did you read the article? Sounds to me like that "meta-data"
| is all accessible and the tool speeds up the process of
| collecting that data. I recall tools being posted to Hacker
| News that help a person find all social media accounts linked
| to a name. Doesn't sound too different.
|
| > Accurint, a product of data brokerage firm LexisNexis Risk
| Solutions, is advertised to law enforcement agencies as a
| tool that can quicken investigations and "discover non-
| obvious connections between people that might not otherwise
| be known." Combining databases of public and non-public
| information, Accurint can provide detailed information about
| a person, including their phone numbers, relatives and
| associates, employers and social media profiles associated
| with their email account.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I have access to Accurint through my work, it is one of the
| most powerful lookup services I have ever seen.
| [deleted]
| socialismisok wrote:
| The cop was trained to use this tool, and likely would not
| have had the technical know how to achieve this on his own.
|
| The existence of similar tools doesn't reduce the abuse the
| officer committed.
| econonut wrote:
| And the comment thread were in is in reference to the
| title being clickbaity and misleading.
|
| And trained to use this tool? It doesn't take training to
| type a person's name into a textfield. Try going to
| Google and typing in a full name and city. Chances are
| you'll find the address, past addresses, phone numbers
| and roommates and family members. Probably not for
| yourself because most people on this site understand
| tech, but try it for some of your less tech/privacy aware
| friends.
| socialismisok wrote:
| "it's no different from Google" seems pretty factually
| wrong to me.
| funynotfunny wrote:
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Not only is this dude a sleazebag, he also sounds pretty stupid.
| He basically announced, to lots of people, that he was committing
| felonies, and did it in a way which leaves a large electronic
| paper trail, and then brags about it to yet more people. Then, he
| did other stuff ("Slushygate") which draws attention to himself
| and his department as a source of trouble, and then presumably is
| surprised when he gets discovered.
| mxuribe wrote:
| But part of me is somewhat happy that the dude in question is
| NOT so intelligent...because i sure don't want smarter
| criminals, and worse yet, don't want smarter criminal cops! I
| want criminals and criminal cops easier to catch! (Of course, i
| also feel, that we as a society need to figure out how to best
| ensure criminals and criminal cops don't get created in the
| first place...or at least minimize such creation as much as
| possible.)
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| You can basically guarantee there are smarter criminal cops
| out there, using the same methods as this guy to steal nudes
| and sell them to other blackmailers rather than doing it
| themselves. This guy is obviously too dumb to be the first
| one to come up with schemes like this.
| DoItToMe81 wrote:
| Very curious as to how this develops. Does Snapchat have a police
| backdoor for account access? Does LexisNexis store password leaks
| and sell them to the police? There are many things not being
| said.
| trasz wrote:
| >Prosecutors recommended that Wilson receive "a sentence at the
| lowest end of the applicable sentencing guidelines"
|
| _slow clap_
| joemazerino wrote:
| This sucks and the cop involved is a man of low moral standing.
| He deserves what he gets.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| He deserves far worse than he gets, trust me.
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| 93po wrote:
| I imagine it's because women are overwhelmingly the victim and
| target of these invasions. Also please don't victim blame.
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| You are moaning about the headline containing accurate
| information (that the victim was a woman) because it
| offends your weird politics.
| 93po wrote:
| Please go back to your incel community and never return.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| You seem to be reacting emotionally when seeing that headline,
| yeah.
| anonlmpd wrote:
| Anon account because I don't want this connected to my real name
| that I use on HN for fear of backlash.
|
| The LMPD is horrible, you can see plenty of their failings
| outlined on the /r/Louisville subreddit.
|
| I live in KY and have worked with the LMPD directly and
| indirectly though a past employer. I have been in the "back room"
| and heard them speak surrounded by people they felt safe around.
| It's pretty much everything you can imagine: sexism, homophobia,
| racism, misogyny, and the list goes on. They way they talked
| about the people they ostensively "serve" was absolutely
| disgusting, literally made me sick to my stomach, they had
| complete distain for citizens. This specific visit happened in
| 2018 IIRC. My eyes should have been opened after 2013/BLM but
| they weren't, what I saw/heard was shocking and completely
| altered my perception of the police, my mind was fertile ground
| for when 2020 rolled around.
|
| At of mid-2020 I was in full support of police reform but
| resisted "ACAB". At this point no sane people could support the
| police and I fervently believe ACAB, the is no reform for this
| horribly broken system. It must be dismantled and rebuilt from
| the ground up (without using the same ~~people~~ bullies).
| bbarn wrote:
| Anyone who wants the job of a cop, for the pay that it offers,
| should immediately be suspect.
|
| I have held this belief my adult life and see it proven time
| and time again. The only motivation to do that job with that
| level of stress is either seeking power/authority or very
| rarely some altruistic motivation. Which of those things do we
| hear about more?
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| > for the pay that it offers
|
| Could you explain your thinking here? Cops are, at least near
| me, paid _quite_ well, have good perks, get paid a ridiculous
| amount of overtime, and have pensions. This, plus the power
| of the position, seems obviously attractive.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Or it's just a job.
|
| I served in the Marines (infantry) and got out about 10 years
| ago. A handful of guys I served with became cops or US
| Marshalls or prison guards. Because that was the best job
| they could get with their skill sets. Lots of police
| departments, at least back then, were actively recruiting
| people leaving the service.
|
| And as a civilian I'm old enough now to have interacted with
| many police officers in many different contexts in many
| different places across the US. One or two of them were power
| tripping psycopaths for sure. But the VAST majority were just
| men and women doing a job like anyone else.
| metadat wrote:
| What is your background though? White male?
|
| You may not have given them a signal or any reason to feel
| safe revealing their true selves to you.
| listenallyall wrote:
| The pay is decent if you get promoted once or twice, however
| the pension is often incredible. Retire at 48-53, receive
| 80-90% of your top-grossing years for the rest of your life,
| with all the overtime/holidays you can accrue factored into
| the calculation, meanwhile as a 25-year veteran you can
| easily get hired as some company's head of security for
| 6-figures all while collecting that pension and gold-plated
| health benefits.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Please tell this old guy what "ACAB" means.
| mxuribe wrote:
| I had to look it up myself...but i think ACAB = All Cops Are
| Bastards
|
| (Source, for what its worth:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAB)
| [deleted]
| m-ee wrote:
| All cops are bastards. A belief that the institution of
| policing as we've built it is completely broken, and can't be
| fixed by better training or weeding out bad apples.
| [deleted]
| shitlord wrote:
| It stands for "All Cops Are Bastards". It was popular among
| left-wing people a couple of years ago during the George
| Floyd protests. The expression has now fallen out of favor
| for mostly everyone, other than the far-left.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAB
| drewbeck wrote:
| A lot of folks who are and have been consistently harmed by
| police still use it, for good reasons.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| There is never a good reason for an `All
| ${large_population_of_people_defined_by_metric} are
| ${some_derogatory_thing}` statement
| aedocw wrote:
| Pretty sure you are wrong. Let's see...
|
| All Nazis are bastards. Yep, that works.
|
| All pedophiles are bastards. Still works.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| Point still stands: there was no good reason to make the
| statements because those are obvious. You said nothing of
| any value: "bad people who do the thing which we as a
| society have deemed bad are bad!"
| seaourfreed wrote:
| I'm sure he was only able to access their data with a WARRANT.
| Just kidding, we all know that the protections for government to
| get access to our private data aren't in place. We must have
| WARRANTs required (with technical confirmation) before they can
| get access to private data.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Maybe it's time to reevaluate the role of police in our society.
| As an institution we've given them too many tools to exploit
| people, steal from people, do violence to people, and lie under
| oath.
|
| When I read stories like this, of which there are many, or see
| studies that say 40% of police _admit_ to commiting domestic
| violence, it sure makes me believe we 've hired exactly the wrong
| set of people to hold power.
| ineptech wrote:
| It might help to start by getting rid of the ranks and other
| military trappings.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| At least the military has rules of engagement, which are
| taken seriously. A friend of mine is a combat veteran. He had
| utmost contempt for Special Forces and contractors because
| they were above the law.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Cops rush to sweep everything under the rug. Military
| leadership make an EXAMPLE out of every rulebreaker.
| lostlogin wrote:
| This is easily verifiable as untrue. Look at reports for
| Afghanistan and Iraq. The situation around Gallagher and
| other special forces soldiers.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're talking about... but I can tell
| you that 99.9% of veterans and active duty have stories
| plural about extreme punishment to themselves or those
| they served with.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Every conflict has publicised atrocities that go
| completely unpunished or barely punished.
|
| The list from just the last few decades is very long.
|
| How do you square that with your view that there are
| consequences for bad behaviour?
|
| I'm sure there are lots of petty power games and actual
| enforcement of rules back at base most of the time, but
| armies have a record of behaviour that is probably worse
| than any other profession.
|
| Even your description of 'extreme punishment' sounds like
| it may be crossing into something that isn't acceptable
| or legal. Hazing and such like isn't discipline or rule
| enforcement.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| >armies have a record of behaviour that is probably worse
| than any other profession
|
| I believe we were talking about current affairs not "war
| bad". Cops on average have significantly worse behavior
| than military personnel and it's not even close. When
| we're talking about the military that also doesn't just
| mean FOB's in the Middle East.
|
| >Even your description of 'extreme punishment' sounds
| like it may be crossing into something that isn't
| acceptable or legal. Hazing and such like isn't
| discipline or rule enforcement.
|
| While I appreciate your altruistic tone, legality is
| different while serving. You are legally not considered a
| citizen or protected by laws that consider citizens. That
| being said this, the punishment I'm talking about is not
| hazing. It's more of what you would consider an overly
| severe sentence by a Judge.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I was going to challenge the idea that any military were
| stipplers for rules of engagement, but you've challenged it
| in your own comment.
|
| Some are more professional than others, but giving young
| guys guns and sending them into challenging situations is
| going to result in people getting shot.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| In the US we need to recognize what the police has become
| first. An unconstitutional Paramilitary organization that has
| grown far far far beyond the remit of a peace keeping
| professional organization charged with keeping an ordered
| society
|
| This is primarily a result of the War on Drugs, and expanded
| with the War on Terror. War's are fought by a military, not a
| police force.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| While I agree that the weapons, armor, and technology
| generally given to police is not appropriate (especially at
| small town levels, vs county sheriff, swat.. etc), trying to
| label them as a paramilitary organization is only going to
| result in eyes rolling. "Recognizing" them as such is
| probably not the right place to start, if you're serious in
| trying to convince a larger swath of the population they need
| to be fixed.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| It is more than just the equipment that makes them
| paramilitary, many dept mirror their organization structure
| after that of a military, down to the ranks, and uniforms
| including Service ribbons...
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| I don't disagree with your premise, but if something like
| half the country doesn't agree that the cops are
| fundamentally flawed, labeling them effectively as an
| extremist group will only further entrench their stance
| that "you're crazy, we're right."
|
| Edit: for example, I think that your other post with the
| five bullet points could hold up to reasonable scrutiny
| when presented to the pro-cop crowd, but would likely
| fall on deaf ears with them if you lead off with the
| paramilitary framing.
| axus wrote:
| The current systems definitely have problems. There are
| parallels with content moderation and government in general.
| How do you attract the right people to do the job, limit the
| damage from the wrong ones, and reform the system to be better
| for everyone?
| krolden wrote:
| Eliminate the job all together and refocus the money and
| effort into actually improving peoples lives instead of
| forcing them to live in fear of incarnation/death by state
| employees.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Assume people will abuse power if given the chance. Build
| system / rules accordingly.
|
| That's why the constitution is all about limiting the role of
| government.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| 1. Demilitarize the police force. Stop with a Ranks, and
| organization structure that mirrors that of a military
|
| 2. Bring back sheriff;s instead of having police forces
| report to a mayor or other executives, the head of the police
| force should be an elected position accountable to the people
|
| 3. Expand open records laws to include policy manuals for
| every police force, and create a Citizen Review Board that
| can have no more than 1 retired or former police officer,
| judge or prosecutor on it. Today many "Citizen" review boards
| are filled with insiders of the force, retired cops, family
| members, prosecutors,etc
|
| 4. Mandatory body camera's for all public interactions with
| at most a 3 strike policy where if the officer fails to
| record an interaction more than 3 times they are terminated
|
| 5. End Qualified immunity
| drewbeck wrote:
| Good list. Any actual accountability or repercussions would
| be a start.
| bell-cot wrote:
| My impression (from a number of sources, over time) is that,
| in American small town police departments, the standard for
| new-officer hires is usually little more than "he's been a
| cop, has no serious criminal convictions on record, and seems
| like our kinda guy". And that serious investigation into
| "problematic" officers often shows a pattern of job-hopping.
|
| A Really Basic police reform step might be to institute
| minimum standards for hiring police. And assign the
| "background checks" job to a carefully monitored central
| specialty office.
| phreack wrote:
| Accountability would be a start. There are very few risks to
| becoming a criminal police officer so it's clear it'll keep
| happening.
| [deleted]
| rolph wrote:
| i think that would require total replacement or abolishment
| of police unions. if youve never been to an LEO union hall,
| its alot like 4chan
| para_parolu wrote:
| But do you hire them?
| socialismisok wrote:
| Our taxes fund them, so in a sense, yes.
|
| We could fund civilian organizations to perform many of the
| functions of police, and do so without weapons and oppressive
| technology. Then reduce our police forces.
| muaytimbo wrote:
| Reduce or eliminate entirely? I'd advocate for the latter.
| socialismisok wrote:
| I would too, but I'd consider the former a win to a
| lesser degree.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The capital class will never allow for the elimination of
| police.
|
| If they do, the result will be worse, because it will
| have been because they realized they could hire private
| security for cheaper than funding public protection.
|
| If you don't like the unaccountability of cops, look
| forward to the accountability of Pinkerton private
| investigators.
| muaytimbo wrote:
| eh, at least with Pinkerton PIs they are not literally on
| the same payroll as prosecutors and judges. There can be
| a little daylight between them.
|
| Maybe I'm part of that "capital class", I'm not sure what
| that means exactly but I know I'd much rather look after
| my own affairs.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The capital class are the folks who will be able to hire
| bodyguards or pay subscriptions to private police forces
| if we do away with public police.
|
| Because the alternative to public policing isn't no
| police; it's rich folk paying the interior-territorial
| arm of PMCs to march around their property with body
| armor and high-powered rifles, while the rest of the
| populace sorts things out themselves. We didn't always
| have public policing, and one can look at history to see
| what the prior alternatives were.
| muaytimbo wrote:
| That's an assumption. I have my concealed carry card. I
| can/ do/ and would continue protect myself. Other people
| can do the same without resorting to hiring. There's also
| a long history of self protection without the use of
| hired goons.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Other people can do the same without resorting to
| hiring
|
| Not nearly as many as are currently protected by public
| police. I'm sure we can find a better alternative to the
| status quo than "Tell grandma she needs a license and
| some monthly range time." Better make sure we gift her a
| firearm with low kickback for Christmas; her wrist bones
| have been so frail these past few years...
| muaytimbo wrote:
| I'm doubtful counting on the police in real time to help
| grandma if she's in trouble, they normally show up well
| after the damage is done. But you're right some people
| are not able to protect themselves but I'm still not
| convinced they would be worse off.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You are probably not part of the capital class, even if
| you have a lot of money. You're invested in doing your
| own security and don't publicly advertise whatever
| financial power you have in a way that might make you a
| target.
|
| But realistically, you could have John Wick levels of
| combat skill and you would still have yawning holes in
| your security. You have to sleep and you can only be in
| one place at once, so there is only so much physical
| property you can fully protect. Wealthy capitalists
| outsource their security and mitigate their paranoia by
| dividing full awareness of their security surface between
| compartmentalized vendors, each of whom has to assume
| they're under surveillance by one of the others. If you
| are personally wealthy, congratulations, but I'm gonna
| guess you live somewhere with high public safety and
| never worry about your lawyers or accountants taking up
| with kidnappers or extortionists.
|
| The capital class is not just about having a lot of
| money, but being able to leverage it in the acquisition
| of political and social power. If you have to conceal
| your power, do you really have it?
| sokoloff wrote:
| One of the main roles of police is enforcing laws. Are
| you proposing to eliminate the enforcement of laws? If
| not, what is the group chartered with enforcing laws
| going to be called and how will it be different from
| police?
| muaytimbo wrote:
| The article this comment is under is about police
| "breaking" the law, not enforcing it, so you can see I'm
| already skeptical of what you posit their role in society
| is. For not so important people like me the "enforcement"
| is non-existant, they show up after a crime has been
| committed, write a report, and do nothing. Not very
| different from no police force. The only time they
| actually do an investigation is when a bank is robbed or
| someone rich and influential is hurt. I'd rather just
| stop paying for the non-service I don't receive.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The article is _also_ about other law enforcement agents
| enforcing the laws against that.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| For the record, the police _are_ a civilian organization,
| the fact that they like to gear up in military equipment
| and pretend they 're in a war is part of the problem
| socialismisok wrote:
| Of course. But it's common enough lingo to use phrases
| like "civilian oversight" to refer to non police
| community members.
|
| The intent is to suggest unarmed, non law enforcement
| organizations.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Portland actually has such an organization:
| https://www.portland.gov/streetresponse
| joemazerino wrote:
| Ah yes Portland. The bastion of civil protection and
| order.
|
| https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2022/10/82-of-portland-
| area...
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Im going to guess we disagree about the state of
| policing, a couple of things you should consider though:
|
| The Oregonian has a pretty obvious slant and bias in
| related reporting.
|
| Another thing worth considering is "who's benefiting"
| from all the reporting about "dirty" "homeless filled"
| "unsafe" Portland, as generally it's conservative and pro
| police organizations that pull it out as a scare tactic
| to all the people in the suburbs or even more rural areas
| of the state.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Denver also https://kdvr.com/news/local/study-denvers-
| star-program-reduc...
| DocTomoe wrote:
| In a non-corrupt civil society, the solution to this problem
| would have to have a much stricter and more punishing criminal
| code for law enforcement officers - if they get special rights
| and protections, they should be held especially accountable, in
| uniform, and out of it.
| socialismisok wrote:
| But prosecutors need cops, so they are very, very reluctant
| to prosecute cops.
| rolph wrote:
| prosecutors should be subject to same scrutiny
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Given adequate pay there should be an infinite supply of
| honest people that want a career in law enforcement. Raise
| the pay until you get what you need. I'm sure it would
| still cost less than the lawsuits & other overheads of
| having to clean up after corrupt cops.
| zo1 wrote:
| Then remove prosecutors. Make it so anyone can prosecute or
| trigger the sequence of events that follow within reason.
| At least remove the ability for prosecutors to take funding
| (wtf? who thought of this as a good idea?) and take away
| their ability to reduce sentences or negotiate which crimes
| are charged. The "crimes" should be part of the trial
| process and agreed by a judge or the jury or whatever
| mechanism you can think of.
|
| Do a bunch of the above and I would argue that would
| satisfy both sides of the spectrum.
| triceratops wrote:
| Give cops bonuses if they catch other cops up to shady
| stuff.
| feet wrote:
| Currently cops who turn in other cops get beaten,
| harassed, and shot
| dawnerd wrote:
| Starting with making it a crime to lie as a police officer
| would go a long way in beginning to hold people accountable.
| feet wrote:
| I think enforcing that would be the tricky part
| UberFly wrote:
| Just for perspective, that 40% statistic that gets repeated is
| from a single small study in the early 90's.
| firasd wrote:
| Snowden said these kinds of pics were passed around at the NSA
| too..
|
| And here's a case of how California Highway Patrol officers used
| to pass around pictures from phones they scanned
| https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Disturbing-texts-in-CHP...
|
| Basically, beyond the general ethics that should restrain
| individuals from non-consensual distribution of intimate imagery,
| and the policies on social networks and other institutional
| environments banning this kind of activity, lies the domain of
| law enforcement... and if they have the ability to access
| people's phones like this then they have an obligation to be
| scrupulous about their behavior
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| Jobs with power attract people who like exploiting such power.
|
| And it's a particular character flaw that makes them think
| they'd get away with it, even though they tell others. That's
| also a reason why police officers like to make inappropriate
| racist or sexist jokes: It's relatively harmless but by the
| reaction they can evaluate which colleagues would back them up.
| mijoharas wrote:
| I seem to recall that law enforcement has a higher rate of
| sociopathy than the average. Let me find a reference/double
| check myself.
|
| I found this[0] which on a cursory reading doesn't seem to
| support the above. There was also a pop-sci book[1] which
| seems to argue the above, but I don't know how much weight I
| put behind it (and I'm not curious enough to get the book and
| look for references.)
|
| Does anyone know of any data or research to support or refute
| the claim "law enforcement has a higher rate of sociopathy
| than the general population"?
|
| [0] https://sci-
| hub.ru/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.08.002
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Psychopaths-Saints-Killers-
| Suc...
| m463 wrote:
| I kind of wonder if any job that has a constant collision
| with "reality" will wear down more mainstream moral values
| and reactions.
|
| For example, doctors meet people all day long with
| unhealthy lifestyles, and how many persist in saying "you
| have to change your diet, lose weight and exercise" to each
| one?
|
| Police officers deal with lawbreakers all. day. long.
|
| lawyers have to represent their client.
|
| etc.
| some_random wrote:
| aliqot wrote:
| shmde wrote:
| So what ? But still he managed to expose the massive levels
| of spearheaded snooping and spying done by the American
| government. I would've still smoked the pipe dream of having
| privacy and security in my country when in reality you can be
| tracked all the time without your consent in the name of
| "National Security"
| acheron wrote:
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| There's no real evidence Snowden was a Russian spy. The
| best people can come up with is that he's in Russia,
| ignoring that he was stopped there en route to Ecuador.
| 93po wrote:
| People making these claims don't rely on evidence or even
| reality. It boggles my mind that people are somehow
| defending mass surveillance.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| I'm sure I'm not alone in this: I didn't know Edward
| Snowden was a Russian spy.
|
| Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?
| dijit wrote:
| Unironically they will point to the fact that he's in
| Russia, not counting the fact that he was travelling to
| Ecuador and had his passport revoked while enroute and
| the US was intercepting planes coming out of Russia (even
| of diplomats).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incid
| ent
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I think the evidence is basically:
|
| 1. He was a spy
|
| 2. He now lives in Russia
| ceejayoz wrote:
| One can be both against Russian aggression _and_ against
| unconstitutional actions by the US government at the same
| time.
| draw_down wrote:
| krolden wrote:
| What did he lie about?
| [deleted]
| 93po wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post unsubstantive or flamebait comments to HN.
|
| You may not owe sharepoint admins better but you owe this
| community better if you're participating in it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mchanson wrote:
| [deleted]
| kornhole wrote:
| Why does Snapchat not have E2EE (End to end encryption)?
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| What a thoroughly despicable human being!
|
| That's also why I'll never keep nude photos of myself or other
| people on my devices. I even refused to accept such material from
| girlfriends. Even if it isn't me who gets hacked, I might get
| blamed... I don't even want to come close to such an allegation.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I wonder how this third party hacker hacked into the Snapchat
| accounts
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| The usual account takeover playbook involves mining socials etc
| for the answers to password reset questions, and given the
| LexisNexis mentions in the article I would guess that's what
| happened.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Thanks, do you know where I can find more info on normal
| methods? This "playbook"
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| There have been a couple episodes of Darknet Diaries that
| have talked about this, I think "The Pizza Problem" and
| "Dirty Comms" maybe? He covers some SIM swapping stuff as
| well, and the arms race between companies security teams
| and the quickly professionalizing account takeover market.
|
| It's a bit annoying to Google for obvious reasons, but
| there was a huge leak of celebrity photos in the early
| aughts that was similar; iCloud passwords reset because
| celebs used their actual pets names as their password
| questions etc.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I'm willing to wager Louisville Metro has a policy for an officer
| surrendering their service weapon upon retirement or discharge.
|
| I wonder if they take locking account access as seriously.
| liminal wrote:
| The officers "resigned" so presumably they can be hired again one
| town over.
| pGuitar wrote:
| I wished someone leaked current NSA projects like Snowden did
| back then... We would probably be very disappointed to see how
| little changed and how worst it is.
| frgtpsswrdlame wrote:
| Sidenote: how come when a police officer does something and gets
| fired for it, the headlines always state 'ex police officer?' The
| headline reads to me as if he was not a police officer at the
| time of the offense but the article reads as if he was. It feels
| confusing on purpose.
| airza wrote:
| Well, as the second sentence of the article says, it seems
| relevant here because he was able to use the application...
| with his law enforcement credentials.
| rolph wrote:
| so hes not a cop anymore, then uses credentials provided by
| previous employment to access an LEO app, and commit a crime.
|
| this is beyond what one individual has done, there are levels
| of involvment.
|
| this crime was enabled by others.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Agreed. If the offense happens while the person was an police
| officer, it should read "Police officer used..." and the
| article should explain that they got fired for it.
| socialismisok wrote:
| The media loves to protect the institution of the police. If
| they can downplay the idea that maybe this is indicative of a
| broader problem with policing by saying "former" police
| officer, they'll jump at the chance.
| khazhoux wrote:
| The media is complicit in making police appear to be passive
| bystanders when whey kill people. The most egregious example
| is "OIS". Instead of "A police officer shot and killed a
| 22-year-old man on Friday," news articles will say:
|
| * "22-year-old man dead after an officer-involved shooting on
| Friday."
|
| * Or even more mangled: "An officer-involved shooting
| involving a 22-year-old man occurred on Friday."
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Personally the ex-officer is what I believe to be the most
| interesting part.
|
| On the face of it, the guy is just a random psychopath hacking
| women Snapchat accounts and using their explicit pictures to
| blackmail them.
|
| It's disgusting but it wouldn't be extraordinary if he didn't
| also manage to become part of the police. You have to wonder
| how someone with this particular psychological profile actually
| got hired.
| 93po wrote:
| > You have to wonder how someone with this particular
| psychological profile actually got hired.
|
| They explicitly look for this type of person to hire.
| _jal wrote:
| This happens because cops have trained the media to do it. Cops
| have an informational advantage over journalists and use it.
|
| A huge chunk, just by volume, of news comes from the local
| crime beat. That means journalists need to be on friendly terms
| with cops, because they usually have a near-monopoly on this
| information and can choose to give it to someone more pliant.
|
| So that's why you get tortured headlines like 'Bystander killed
| by bullet in officer-involved shooting' - maybe the editor is a
| lawn-order authoritarian, maybe not, but they definitely don't
| want their sources to dry up.
| noir_lord wrote:
| The headline is bad but the story is somehow worse, he then used
| them to extort them.
|
| FFS.
|
| > Prosecutors recommended that Wilson receive "a sentence at the
| lowest end of the applicable sentencing guidelines" as a result
| of his guilty plea to both the "Slushygate" charge and the
| cyberstalking charge.
|
| Because of course they did.
| yaur wrote:
| Which, if you made it through TFA is 3 years of probation, no
| jail time.
| usmannk wrote:
| The 3yrs probation was for a different person. Not the one
| involved in the headline.
| [deleted]
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Otoh at least extortion provides evidence against them, which
| might otherwise be hard to come by.
| nofinator wrote:
| Slushygate?
|
| > "a series of incidents in which Wilson and other officers
| assaulted pedestrians by throwing beverages out of unmarked
| patrol vehicles, sometimes filming their exploits"
|
| Double FFS. What a scumbag bully.
| mikerathbun wrote:
| Why put all that time and energy to get naked photos of women
| just to extort them not for money or sex, but for more photos?
| Is the Internet running out of porn? This seems like a high
| risk low reward crime.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| It is, of course, a power thing. Yes, there's an endless
| supply of porn, but the "real thing," especially if gathered
| without consent or explicitly agains their will, is "more
| satisfying." To be clear, not advocating for this.
| drewbeck wrote:
| cops are gonna cop, basically. the control of others is the
| point.
| UberFly wrote:
| "Prosecutors recommended that Wilson receive "a sentence at the
| lowest end of the applicable sentencing guidelines"...
|
| Ugg. Let's actually do the opposite and send a message. This is a
| sexual predator.
| i_love_cookies wrote:
| monksy wrote:
| The LAED bill (https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-
| congress/senate-bill/405...) to break encryption for LEOs is
| still on the table.
|
| Please contact your useless-congress-criter* to rub this in their
| face.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
|
| * I sent a letter to Duckworth stating my concern. She copied and
| pasted a fear mongering response that "but bad people may use it
| and lindsay graham is perfectly capible of sorting through all of
| this".
|
| Also, if you know better than I do.. please follow up with more
| resources of private data being abused by the government. (i.e.
| loveint, etc )
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