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Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

arstechnica.com

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Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

#21

Post by [deleted] »

s_q_b wrote: post #14
wyager wrote: post #4

Really? Analyzing cell tower data over a harmless prank? They're probably mad that some pranksters conclusively demonstrated that, for all the security theater in NYC, the police can't even stop people from planting stuff on a major bridge.

It's highly symbolic from a police perspective. We may see it as some kids who watched too many documentaries playing a harmless prank. But let me rephrase that to put that in the frame of mind of the investigators. "Unknown individuals infiltrated a heavily guarded and highly visible piece of crucial infrastructure undetected. Once present, they defaced the public property by removing two American flags, and replaci…

[deleted]

Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

#24

Post by oh_sigh »

Someone1234 wrote: post #12

> while sparking terror fears in the process That's just pathetic. You have to have a pretty addled mind in order to find an obvious prank such as this "terrifying." But that's what our society is now, everything is measured by the lowest-common-denominator, and fear is a commodity sold to you every evening on the news.

I think the implication was that people were afraid of a terrorist attack during the act, not in retrospect when they saw it was just a white flag

Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

#25

Post by pyre »

oh_sigh wrote: post #24
Someone1234 wrote: post #12

> while sparking terror fears in the process That's just pathetic. You have to have a pretty addled mind in order to find an obvious prank such as this "terrifying." But that's what our society is now, everything is measured by the lowest-common-denominator, and fear is a commodity sold to you every evening on the news.

I think the implication was that people were afraid of a terrorist attack during the act, not in retrospect when they saw it was just a white flag

That was my read as well. That 'people' were afraid it was a terrorist attack because the lights on a landmark went dark. On the other hand, why didn't people just assume it was a black-out, or technical issues?

Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

#26

Post by superbaconman »

Someone1234 wrote: post #12

> while sparking terror fears in the process That's just pathetic. You have to have a pretty addled mind in order to find an obvious prank such as this "terrifying." But that's what our society is now, everything is measured by the lowest-common-denominator, and fear is a commodity sold to you every evening on the news.

But was it a prank? That's the question that has everyone nervous. Because if not, it was art. Given the context of modern politics, officials don't want it to be art. Imagine this happened on 4 or 5 different land marks on the same day. Officials would be shitting themselves.

Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

#27

Post by harshreality »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #19
harshreality wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So imagine the police response is this: "Silly prank, we could certainly identify them if we tried, but it's not worth taxpayer money." All it takes is one person to then point out that if security had been good enough to catch actual terrorists, the suspects would have been caught before or during the act. Then not only is a chunk of the post-9/11 security apparatus exposed for the security theater it is, but the co…

But that's true no matter what they say. Overreaction can't negate the original foolishness.

At least the current response indicates that the NYPD understands the rough operational equivalence in being able to catch terrorists vs being able to catch people who switch out flags on bridges. IOW, they recognize this as a problem (even though it's unsolvable, hence the reason for security theater rather than actual measures that would prevent terrorism).

The majority of people are probably indifferent to this. But for some reason those people who wouldn't mind NYPD not wasting money on this investigation are less vocal or less influential or something compared to the pro-security-state advocates whose position is "OMG could have been terrorists!" The latter may be mostly bureaucrats in power (perhaps the reason for the overriding influence of this paradigm) worried about it for job security reasons, but the motive doesn't matter.

Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

#28

Post by pyre »

opendais wrote: post #11
wyager wrote: post #4

Really? Analyzing cell tower data over a harmless prank? They're probably mad that some pranksters conclusively demonstrated that, for all the security theater in NYC, the police can't even stop people from planting stuff on a major bridge.

If you embarrass powerful people, they will bring all of their power down on you like a ton of bricks if they can. I just hope the pranksters don't end up in jail.

Well, the police could also "accidentally" think that they have weapons on them when they go to apprehend them... That would probably be worse.

Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper

#30

Post by lotsofmangos »

superbaconman wrote: post #26
Someone1234 wrote: post #12

> while sparking terror fears in the process That's just pathetic. You have to have a pretty addled mind in order to find an obvious prank such as this "terrifying." But that's what our society is now, everything is measured by the lowest-common-denominator, and fear is a commodity sold to you every evening on the news.

But was it a prank? That's the question that has everyone nervous. Because if not, it was art. Given the context of modern politics, officials don't want it to be art. Imagine this happened on 4 or 5 different land marks on the same day. Officials would be shitting themselves.

In Glasgow, this kind of thing does happen every day. At least to the Duke of Wellington.
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