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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

#41

Post by waterlesscloud »

jakevoytko wrote: post #10
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #3

I'm guessing ride bikes to the bridge and leave cell phones at home? That's the only thing I can figure. They had to carry quite a bit of gear.

The Brooklyn Bridge has a few features that make it comparatively easy to pull off. Here's a street view link that should give you an idea: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.705226,-73.995817,3a,90y,130... - The bike+pedestrian path is suspended over the roadway. - There are some suspension cables leading from the suspended pedestrian path, and trusses leading to the other cables. - The cables are pretty thick and have…

Behind the scenes video of a movie shooting a walk up the cables.

Even with permits and DOT assistance, the SWAT team came out after them and halted traffic on the bridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b4gVfJpUKU

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

#42

Post by kazinator »

igravious wrote: post #34
sys32768 wrote: post #18

I wish there were more discussion about why they did this rather than how.

This is that discussion. Let's hear your thoughts. Mine is that the pranksters want to expose the fear-mindset in general for what it is, and relatedly show that the freedoms we've given up in the name of security was a bad idea, and finally that security is an illusion because you can't secure all places at all times unless you want to live in something that resembles a prison.

Bingo. The white flags denote surrender: surrendering your rights to the state. I got that too!

In short, they say: "America: you're pwned, like this bridge, and, like the cops here, you don't even know how it happened".

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

#43

Post by megablast »

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…

> Unknown individuals infiltrated a heavily guarded and highly visible piece of crucial infrastructure undetected.

100,000s of people do that every single day. It is a bridge. That is what bridges do. They carry largely unknown people across a highly visible structure.

I think you are blowing this out of proportion. Or maybe I shouldn't use the word blowing.

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

#44

Post by dzhiurgis »

Aaaaand it's gone from the frontpage. The very symbol of hacking is gone from the Hacker News in less than 5 hours.

In regards the topic the flag turned into a symbol of surrendering of ones freedoms to the state.

Now let's spend hundreds of thousands to catch them, put them to the jail and budget for consultants who will help closing such threats in future.

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

#45

Post by deciplex »

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.

If they don't say it's terrorism, how are they going to justify the 30-year maximum-security prison sentence they hand out to whatever group of kids carried out this totally harmless prank?

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

#46

Post by [deleted] »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #44

Aaaaand it's gone from the frontpage. The very symbol of hacking is gone from the Hacker News in less than 5 hours. In regards the topic the flag turned into a symbol of surrendering of ones freedoms to the state. Now let's spend hundreds of thousands to catch them, put them to the jail and budget for consultants who will help closing such threats in future.

[deleted]

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

#47

Post by deciplex »

harshreality wrote: post #27
Dylan16807 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. B…

>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.

Go talk to some ordinary people sometime and behold how easily swayed they are by cable news soundbites and shit they heard from whatever trusted idiot in their social circle they happen to take seriously for no reason at all. Be sure to have some drugs at the ready for after you're done - you'll need them.

No, it isn't just bureaucrats claiming they could have blown up the bridge. If it were, the FBI wouldn't be gearing up for a nationwide manhunt to track these people down.

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

#48

Post by DigitalSea »

Given just how bad the economy still is, it pains me to see the NYPD wasting potentially tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, trying to find a bunch of kids who replaced a couple of flags. They should be rewarding these kids for finding a glaring security hole (if they find them) in supposedly one of the states heavily guarded monuments before someone with ill-intentions found it and caused havoc...

If they're calling this an act of terrorism, are they going to throw these kids into a jail cell for 20 years for a harmless prank? Whatever happened to being able to have a good old prank. Kind of reminds me of the MIT pranks: completely harmless.

How about they spend the money securing the bridge instead of combing through cell-phone towers and involving innocent civilians in a draconian dragnet operation? This kind of behaviour from the NYPD is just going to encourage more pranks like this.

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

#49

Post by lotsofmangos »

oh_sigh wrote: post #23

They should spend the money on fixing the security holes, not finding the perps. If it really was a terror act, the terrorists wouldn't care if you found out who they were after the fact, so this isn't any kind of deterrence.

'Perps' in this context reminds me of the Dredd story "Un-American Graffiti".

If this all ends with someone trying to paint a smiley face on the Statue of Liberty, then I would not be in the least bit surprised.

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

#50

Post by suprgeek »

Rig up a couple of motion triggered IR camera's at critical points not commonly accessed, disguised and tamper proof. Check it once every so often just to make sure it works.

Next time some jokester tries a stunt like this go check, find their pic, locate & throw his/her dumbass in jail (if so desired).

And please stop with this "terrorist" scare mongering! We as a society (or the media portrayal) are becoming a bunch of paranoid jerks parroting this nonsense and wasting taxpayer funds when the NY cops have many more important issues to deal with.

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