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FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

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Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#541

This is one of the reasons it's crucial that the next set of secure messaging systems does away with tying real phone numbers to accounts. One phone gets compromised and the whole network is identified with their phone numbers.

Hiding your phone number is a setting now. Has been for well over a year.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#542
post #367

It's not illegal to track law enforcement, but if any of their still visible chats show intent it will hurt them. They'll also want to find out how many people in the group chat are outside of the US, if any money was being exchanged, etc. Hopefully they can unwind these groups, because it's just pitting people against law enforcement who have no idea what they're up against. They don't seem to have a sense for when…

[flagged]

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#543
post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So are you saying that the first amendment should protect government insiders leaking personal employee info to the public for the purposes of endangering those government employees, and to cause harm to their families? based on subjective opinions on whether the people think the actions of said employees are just or unjust? That's wild if so. That's quite the precedent to set. Note: I don't support ice or their acti…

Government employee names are public information. What it sounds like is you want to keep that information secret, and maintain a literal secret police.

It is not surprising that people don't agree with you.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#544
post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So are you saying that the first amendment should protect government insiders leaking personal employee info to the public for the purposes of endangering those government employees, and to cause harm to their families? based on subjective opinions on whether the people think the actions of said employees are just or unjust? That's wild if so. That's quite the precedent to set. Note: I don't support ice or their acti…

Not sure what you are talking about. License plate information that is plainly visible is not “personal employee info”.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#545
Yeah Cam Higby & friends have "infiltrated" the Signal groups. It's not that hard frankly, and most of the chats emphasize that 1) they're unvetted, 2) don't do anything illegal, anywhere, including taking a right on red if the sign is there saying not to 3) don't write anything you don't want read back to you in a court of law. Higby and friends do have "How do you do, Fellow Kids?" energy in those chats.

Here's what I'm interested in: anyone know what Penlink's tools' capabilities actually are? Tangles and WebLoc. Are they as useful as advertised?

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them mocked for years. Turns out they were right.

I talked to Moxie about this 20 years ago at DefCon and he shrugged his shoulders and said "well... it's better than the alternative." He has a point. Signal is probably better than Facebook Messenger or SMS. Maybe there's a market for something better.

Is there any reason they didn't use email? It seems like something that would have been easier to keep some anonymity., while still allowing the person to authenticate.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#547
post #523

There seems to be wild speculation about freedom of speech rights or hacking Signal. The FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff.

Seems like there are hundreds of people in those groups.

Can't be hard to get into for some skilled undercover cops. TV shows have shown me they do these things all the time!

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's noteworthy at this point in time that there is a contradiction. The government is currently ramping up Palantir and they are using "precise targeting" of illegal aliens using "advanced data/algorithms". And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using an…

> And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using any intelligence whatsoever. If the end goal is that the broad, general public are intimidated, then they're not necessarily "finding the wrong people." With the current "semi random" enforcement with many fa…

That's exactly what I'm saying though. I agree that their intent is manufacturing fear and uncertainty.

What I'm saying is that congress and the public should be holding them to their word and asking where all this Palantir money is going if the stated intent of "targeted operations/individuals" is completely misaligned with operational reality.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's noteworthy at this point in time that there is a contradiction. The government is currently ramping up Palantir and they are using "precise targeting" of illegal aliens using "advanced data/algorithms". And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using an…

> we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people There is a difference between what you are seeing and what is actually happening. 99.9% of the time they are finding the right people, but "illegal alien was deported" is as interesting a news story as "water is wet".

They are going door to door in the neighborhood I grew up in.

They're bringing in a lot of US citizens here in Minneapolis/St Paul, including a bunch of Native folks.

The sex offender they'd been looking for at ChongLy Thao's house had already been in jail for a year.

The Dept of Corrections is annoyed enough about the slander of their work that they now have a whole page with stats and details about their transfers to ICE, including some video of them transferring criminals into ICE custody https://mn.gov/doc/about/news/combatting-dhs-misinformation/

I am pretty nervous about the possibilities for trampling peoples' Constitutional rights in ever more sophisticated ways, but the current iteration can't even merge a database and then get accurate names & addresses out to field agents. (That doesn't stop the kidnappings, it just makes it a big waste of money as adult US citizens with no criminal record do by & large get released.)

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#550

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 resi…

Except you don't need to solve any remotely hard technical problems for the capabilities to be terrifying here.
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