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FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

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171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#171

I’d be curious to know what they plan to charge people with.

I heard a totally unsubstantiated rumor that the participants were sending (ICE agent) plate numbers to people with NCIC access to run the plates. If that's the case it would be a pretty easy felony charge for all involved. I have no reason to believe that's true, just what word on the street was they might be charged with.

If you have no reason to believe it's true, and understand the rumor to be unsubstantiated, why bother to spread it?

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#172
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

While we’re getting rid of the first amendment maybe we should also get rid of the fourth and fifth amendment too since they make law enforcement harder? I’m sure cops in North Korea have a much easier and safer job.

Can't argue with their 110% conviction rate, North Korean tactics work.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard a totally unsubstantiated rumor that the participants were sending (ICE agent) plate numbers to people with NCIC access to run the plates. If that's the case it would be a pretty easy felony charge for all involved. I have no reason to believe that's true, just what word on the street was they might be charged with.

If you have no reason to believe it's true, and understand the rumor to be unsubstantiated, why bother to spread it?

Because the question was what they might be charged with, not what they did.

Did you expect the government to charge people in good faith? It doesn't matter it if it's true or not, even putting them in the slammer for a long time while awaiting trial and forcing them to hire expensive attorneys is a win.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#174
Couple of minor nits:

1. Some rando on X saying "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" doesn't mean said rando actually did infiltrate a signal group.

2. Signal was not the app Hegseth, et al. used. They used TM SGNL, which is a fork of Signal. But that's a minor nit.

3. Encryption is not the same thing as authentication. And authentication is somewhat meaningless if you let everyone into your encrypted group chat.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ Are you pro or against this?

18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer Freedom of expression does not include freedom from prosecution for real crimes.

You keep commenting to cite this statute when you clearly have not actually read what it says. Peaceful protest is explicitly protected by the first amendment.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that there would be people on a "side" that think there was a conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime?

18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer

This refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal information is not an impediment, it is free speech. If all info could be interpreted as impediments to federal officers then phones, the internet, the human voice, etc would be illegal

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#177
post #3

i suppose what he means is that the phones of protestors which have signal chat will be investigated. Assuming they dont have disappearing messages activated, and assuming any protestors willingly unlock their phones.

> willingly unlock their phones Or they are running any mainstream iPhone or Android phone, they've unlocked the phone at least once since their last reboot, and the police have access to graykey. Not sure what the current state of things is, since we rely on leaked documents, but my take-away from the 2024 leaks was GrapheneOS Before First Unlock (BFU) is the only defense.

Isn't latest iPhones also have similar security profile on BFU. The latest support table I saw from one of the vendors was also confirming this.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#178

With all the predatory tech Palantir has produced, it won't take more than a few minutes for FBI to start taking actions, IF they had anything tangible. This is just an intimidation tactic to stop people talking (chatting)

I'm never sure why people assume that Palantir is magically unlike the overwhelming majority of tech startups/companies I've worked at: vastly over promising what is possible to create hype and value while offering things engineering knows will never really quite work like they're advertised.

To your point, but on a larger scale, over hyping Palantir has the added benefit of providing a chilling effect on public resistance.

As a former government employee I had the same reaction to the Snowden leaks: sure the government might be collecting all of this (which I don't support), but I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.

Incompetence might be the greatest safety we have against a true dystopia.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#179
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s only for targeting. From what I understand ELITE does not include device compromise or eavesdropping. If feds want to compromise a device that has Signal, they would use something like Pegasus that uses exploits to deliver a spyware package, likely through SMS, Whatsapp, or spear phishing URL. (I don’t actually know which software is currently in use but it would be similar to Pegasus.)

As mentioned by someone else, they just need to take the phone of a demonstrator to access their signal groups. https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/new-leaks-on-police-phone...

True, physical interception is probably the easiest method, at least for short term access. Once the captured user is identified and removed from the group they will lose access though.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#180

With all the predatory tech Palantir has produced, it won't take more than a few minutes for FBI to start taking actions, IF they had anything tangible. This is just an intimidation tactic to stop people talking (chatting)

Meh. Palintir is optimized to sell data to the government. Said governments usually don't care about the quality of data about any one individual. Wear sunglasses when you go out and stay off facebook and it's amazing how little palintir signal you send up. Bonus points if you created an LLC to pay your utility bills. But... Palintir is not as good as you seem to be implying.
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