21–30 of 134 posts
The lawyer was correct. If you have reason to suspect the FBI is watching you, they already have what they need. The men-in-black routine is meant to alter your behavior, to cause you to do something rare like empty an account or contact a distant friend. This was federal investigation 101. Walk past the car and photograph the driver. They really love that.
What would be the point of photographing the driver?
The lawyer was correct. If you have reason to suspect the FBI is watching you, they already have what they need. The men-in-black routine is meant to alter your behavior, to cause you to do something rare like empty an account or contact a distant friend. This was federal investigation 101. Walk past the car and photograph the driver. They really love that.
What would be the point of photographing the driver?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to hear more about this. Both you and the lawyer in the story recognize it as true, but is this something you're taught ... or learn officially ... or learn unofficially?
Exact procedures are of of course classified, but talk to enough people under investigation, read enough warrant affidavits, and you learn the patterns. They haven't changed much over the decades. They still dress in 1950ish black suits with sunglasses, at least when they want people to recognze them. This is a culture no different than any other corporation. They all dress to look like the boss/oldest man in the roo…
Why did the silk road want a data visualization app? The "live demo" in the linked github doesn't seem to be very "live", in that it seems to be totally static. The post talks about "drawing correlations" but all it does it make a graph. http://sciview.herokuapp.com/#/data-sets/0
I'm not doubting the story, but it doesn't seem to fit together much the way that it's told here. Exactly who was he really working for, and what was his "friend"s relationship to them? All I can really say is maybe you should be extra skeptical when somebody talks about working for a "big name" company, like SpaceX, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. If you're never reading or writing emails from a company.com email ad…
He was working for "Defcon" or Blake Benthall (his roommate in the story). Defcon was running Silk Road 2.0 after the second "Dread Pirate Roberts" left. Blake had been working for SpaceX, and left to work on Silk Road. This is his HN account: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blakeeb
Why did the silk road want a data visualization app? The "live demo" in the linked github doesn't seem to be very "live", in that it seems to be totally static. The post talks about "drawing correlations" but all it does it make a graph. http://sciview.herokuapp.com/#/data-sets/0
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would be the point of photographing the driver?
I think the idea is. Step 1: FBI agents watch you without you realizing it. They find out what you normally do. Step 2: The FBI agents do something obvious so you know they are watching you. In this case, taking your picture. Step 3: The FBI agents then watch you to see what you do next. Do you go to an unusual bank to take out money? Run out and buy a burner phone and make weird calls? etc.
The point of it is, I suppose, to react in a strange way, and let them know that you know. Most people would do one of the things you listed in Step 3 - not take pictures of the person taking pictures of them.
Not that this will help, or anything.
I'm not doubting the story, but it doesn't seem to fit together much the way that it's told here. Exactly who was he really working for, and what was his "friend"s relationship to them? All I can really say is maybe you should be extra skeptical when somebody talks about working for a "big name" company, like SpaceX, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. If you're never reading or writing emails from a company.com email ad…
He was working for "Defcon" or Blake Benthall (his roommate in the story). Defcon was running Silk Road 2.0 after the second "Dread Pirate Roberts" left. Blake had been working for SpaceX, and left to work on Silk Road. This is his HN account: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blakeeb
I'm not doubting the story, but it doesn't seem to fit together much the way that it's told here. Exactly who was he really working for, and what was his "friend"s relationship to them? All I can really say is maybe you should be extra skeptical when somebody talks about working for a "big name" company, like SpaceX, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. If you're never reading or writing emails from a company.com email ad…
He was working for "Defcon" or Blake Benthall (his roommate in the story). Defcon was running Silk Road 2.0 after the second "Dread Pirate Roberts" left. Blake had been working for SpaceX, and left to work on Silk Road. This is his HN account: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blakeeb
I was contacted by Blake (as a SpaceX employee) when he worked for SpaceX saying how much he appreciated my work (related to reddit.com/r/spacex).