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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

#721

Post by zahlman »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #644
BurningFrog wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

They had already been outed by internet sleuths possibly, but not necessarily, informed by leaks from the police. The FBI is making a press release about an investigation only to save face because the criminal conspiracy is already common knowledge among those interested. In the universe of a competent FBI, which I think is ours, they already know who is in the network. They have well-publicized, patently unlawful dr…

> In the universe of a competent FBI, which I think is ours, they already know who is in the network.

Certainly they know the handles of those people, and what they've said and what documents they've exchanged.

Connecting Signal accounts to real-world identity... well, that's definitely the FBI's wheelhouse, but some might make it easier or harder than others.

But there are a few cases where even the Internet sleuths are pretty confident about identity.

> So why does (if the press is to be believed) an authoritarian, fascist, ultra-right-wing regime allow them to operate?

Rationality requires treating behaviour inconsistent with a quality as evidence against that quality.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#722

Post by OhMeadhbh »

subscribed wrote: post #211
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, you don't need to have Facebook account to have a very comprehensive and accurate profile: https://www.howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-pr...

cell phone cameras work both ways.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#723

Post by thaumaturgy »

amarant wrote: post #632

What is it like in the US these days? I'm on the outside (occasionally) looking in, and it looks like something out of European history class! The ice seem to have roughly the same priorities and roughly the same methodology as the SA had in the beginning. Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is say…

People are experiencing wildly different Americas depending on their circumstances and level of political involvement.

If you're a tech worker and you still have a job and you think AI is pretty cool and you don't follow news very closely, things seem okay...ish. You are maybe dimly aware of some social problems, but they're all somebody else's problems.

If you're one of the many many thousands of people who have been abducted by federalized lunatics, or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps, things seem urgently and unimaginably bad.

If you're politically involved, things seem tenuous, at best. You likely know someone who either feels justifiably terrified by what's going on, or someone whose life has been seriously impacted by it.

I've spent several months successfully combating one of YC's contributions to all this mess. Tonight, federal law enforcement fired pepper rounds, flashbangs, and tear gas into a crowd of protestors who were noisy -- not violent, not even causing property damage, just noisy. One of the officers aimed the tear gas weapon directly at a protestor's head and caused a serious head injury (the kind that causes convulsions and foaming at the mouth after impact). And, they'll get away with that.

The local police department was flying half a dozen drones directly over this, but they are only there to surveil and look for an excuse to put on riot gear.

There were an assortment of reporters there, but most of them have editors or owners that won't run much of a story about any of it. A few politicians showed up, but they made a short speech and then left immediately. The building where this all happened is in a city center, so, just a block away, life and traffic continues as normal and most people are entirely unaware.

So that's also why nobody's really been making an organized 2A effort either. For most people, this isn't "real", in the sense that it isn't something they're experiencing, and for those that are experiencing it, they're trying to walk a tightrope that resists the current administration without spiraling into a widespread civil war.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#724

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

heavyset_go wrote: post #663
amarant wrote: post #632

What is it like in the US these days? I'm on the outside (occasionally) looking in, and it looks like something out of European history class! The ice seem to have roughly the same priorities and roughly the same methodology as the SA had in the beginning. Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is say…

> Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? If you think what you've seen is bad, consider how bad the stuff you don't see is, and then consider how bad it is for those who aren't the type to post on HN.

Also consider that there are 340 million people in the US. With that sort of population size, you can construct whatever narrative you want out of daily video clips of 1-in-a-million events.

>the type to post on HN.

When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site? The userbase here is considerably further left than a very left-wing state such as California. That will very much be reflected in what gets posted here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791909

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#725

Post by lukan »

RobRivera wrote: post #605
mw888 wrote: 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.

Yea, I just assume any easily joinable movement like this is a honeypot of sorts.

Most people are not professional conspiracists and know how to handle secret meetings, communication etc.

But the more the whole thing shifts towards that, the closer civil war is.

In other words, if you think any easily joinable movement is a honeypot you already seem to think along the lines of resistance movement in a dictatorship. (If it is .. I will not judge, I am not in the US)

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#726

Post by AngryData »

amarant wrote: post #632

What is it like in the US these days? I'm on the outside (occasionally) looking in, and it looks like something out of European history class! The ice seem to have roughly the same priorities and roughly the same methodology as the SA had in the beginning. Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is say…

People aren't shooting yet because they know it will turn into a blood bath and should only be used as a last resort. Also as bad as it is in some areas, vast swaths of the US are still only really seeing this in the news. I think the outcome of whats going on in Minnesota will be a sign of whats to come so we won't be waiting long. If citizens start shooting at government employees though, it will be chaos, the US population has had a VERY negative attitude about the government for a long time now.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#727

Post by AngryData »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #664
pseudohadamard wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a footnote, it was also written at a time when a bunch of guys with muskets could face down another bunch of guys with muskets. When one side has tanks and attack helicopters and training and outnumbers you a hundred to one it doesn't really work any more.

That would explain why it was so easy for the US to suppress insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan... It's actually rather difficult to think of tyrannical regimes which persisted against an armed citizenry in the long term.

Especially when you consider the US citizenry have direct access to logistics and infrastructure. You can't bomb a city or factory into producing more fuel or bombs or any of the million other things that are required to keep the US economy working well enough to fund any military operations. It would be hell on earth to be in the US, but the US military/ICE/cops/courts don't work if the citizenry aren't being productive and playing along nicely.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#728

Post by seanmcdirmid »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #724
heavyset_go wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? If you think what you've seen is bad, consider how bad the stuff you don't see is, and then consider how bad it is for those who aren't the type to post on HN.

Also consider that there are 340 million people in the US. With that sort of population size, you can construct whatever narrative you want out of daily video clips of 1-in-a-million events. >the type to post on HN. When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site? The userbase here is considerably further left than a very left-wing state such as California. That will very much be reflected in what gets po…

Most techies are libertarians and/or moderates. They definitely live in liberal hot spots, but they aren’t going out of their way to address social wrongs and protest. Heck, most Californians are moderate, mostly concerned about making money and living the good life, the only reason they are called liberal at all is because Pete Wilson alienated most of the states Hispanics from the Republican Party in an ill planned illegal immigration witch hunt. It didn’t just go from Reagan to Newsom overnight, the change was mostly for anti-racism reasons.

California is also hardly a far left state, it still has more trump voters than Texas.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#729

Post by [deleted] »

Epa095 wrote: post #687
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

FYI, as a center left from a European perspective that is a beautiful picture of just how right-leaning American politics is. The Democrats is such a big tent it contains pretty much the complete political spectrum in Europe, but for the actuall politics they have been doing, at least regarding economics (excluding identity politics) they are pretty solid right / center right from a European perspective.

[deleted]

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#730

Post by RobRivera »

lukan wrote: post #725
RobRivera wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I just assume any easily joinable movement like this is a honeypot of sorts.

Most people are not professional conspiracists and know how to handle secret meetings, communication etc. But the more the whole thing shifts towards that, the closer civil war is. In other words, if you think any easily joinable movement is a honeypot you already seem to think along the lines of resistance movement in a dictatorship. (If it is .. I will not judge, I am not in the US)

That seems like quite a stretch from reality. I just know the glowies enjoy lurking websites where people openly post how to use Tor.
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