4 ms·

What did the police do before there was the internet or phones?

by rubyfan 9y ago

olliej 9y ago
Right? Apparently police never solved crime before they were allowed full access to every aspect of your life.
- kobeya 9y ago
  To be fair, it used to be that they didn't really solve most crimes.
  - olliej 9y ago
    there has never been a point where they solved most crimes. The difference is now people just happen to be carrying more information with them in their pocket than they ever had before.
  - mattrices 9y ago
    To be fair, they still don't
thephyber 9y ago
They do just like they do now: lobby to get more laws to either (1) gain more leverage to coerce compliance or (2) criminalize actions which are tangent to the behavior they want to coerce. I realize your question was rhetorical.
AzMoo_ 9y ago
I'm no supporter of insecure cryptography, but before there was internet or phones and access to such, lots of crimes went unsolved.
- wahern 9y ago
  Clearance rates for homicide have _dropped_ over the past 50 years: America’s homicide clearance rate—the percentage of solved crimes that lead to arrest—has fallen considerably in the past 50 years, from around 90% in 1965 to around 64% in 2012, according to federal statistics. (https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21656725-police-fail-make-arrest-more-third-nations-killings-getting-away https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21656725-police...) (See, also, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/police-arent-getting-better-at-solving-murders/531642/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/police-arent-getting-...) IMO, similar to counter-terrorism efforts (most spectacularly, 9/11), technology becomes a crutch. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if mass encryption leads to _improved_ clearance rates, as law enforcement becomes less complacent. Take this latest example: the FBI agent declines Apple's help because he's convinced the geeks at the FBI lab can handle it. He presumably doesn't bother actually confirming with the geeks in the lab, nor does he attempt to put Apple in touch with the lab. Just utter complacency, confident that the machine (computers, bureaucracy) will suffice. This sort of laziness wouldn't have been tolerated in Hoover's FBI. Moreover, Hoover likely would have been more aggressive using the tools available to him--keyloggers, etc--rather than whining.
  - saulrh 9y ago
    Wouldn't that be a change in data collection more than in absolute quality of problem-solving? Japan, for example, I remember reading that their near-perfect homicide rate is actually because they'll classify it as "fell down some stairs" if they can't solve it. Particularly in the US with its history of social issues, I can easily see a ton of homicides in the 50s just never being written down.
    - bradknowles 9y ago
      Or homicides that were attributed to some person that it was convenient to lock away and who were unable to prove their innocence.
    - 0xfeba 9y ago
      A good example of this is sexual assault cases on campus. A lot of times they try to handle them without getting the real police involved, or attempt to downplay everything about it to keep the statistics pointed one way.
gooseus 9y ago
I imagine they spent a lot of time solving crimes, asking questions like: "Where did they keep all their papers and correspondence?" "Can somebody come break into this safe we have a warrant for?" What did the cops do before X was invented? They didn't worry about X being used to commit or cover up criminal activities while continuing to try to do their job of keeping communities either safe or oppressed, depending on how well they related to them. I support strong crypto, but I think implying detectives and the DoJ are just too lazy or dumb or whatever to deal with this problem is a little unfair. Apologies if that wasn't the implication
- yorwba 9y ago
  Except in most circumstances, there wouldn't have been any papers, because nobody was recording all their conversations. Nowadays, everything is happening digitally and is stored indefinitely by default; and law enforcement feels like they deserve access to all that. The attempts at preventing ubiquitous encryption don't seem to be focused on crimes where there would have been a paper trail if people still used paper; they are focusing on reconstructing the last year or so of someone who is either dead or uncooperative, all in hopes of finding something they can use. If they were targeting organizations with a bureaucracy for some crime, I think they could just demand access to all documents and get them? If I remember correctly, in the Levandowski case Google's lawyers got access to a huge trove of Uber's internal emails. If a private company can get that access, it should be possible for law enforcement as well, no?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
belorn 9y ago
In my nation, and as I hear in many other places, the police force was much more decentralized in the past. You had local police handling problems at the local level using local knowledge. As I hear/read it was a bit more costly, had the occasional problem of local corruption, quality had a bit more variance, organized crime was a bigger problem, but the average crime had better results and was done quicker. There was also no mass surveillance.
- dx034 9y ago
  That's also because criminals needed local knowledge. If I wanted to commit a crime today in another city, I can get there easily and quickly and get all the info I need online. In the past, small cities would've noticed strangers but (luckily) you can walk through other cities nowadays without people objecting that. For the police that means that they need to follow criminals and be able to share information nationally and internationally.
bonestamp2 9y ago
They would open letters, tap phones and watch bank accounts. All of those things can be subverted now. That said, they were just lucky back then... it doesn't mean everyone should suddenly give up their right to privacy now.

What did the police do before there was the internet or phones?

olliej 9y ago

Right? Apparently police never solved crime before they were allowed full access to every aspect of your life.

kobeya 9y ago
To be fair, it used to be that they didn't really solve most crimes.
- olliej 9y ago
  there has never been a point where they solved most crimes. The difference is now people just happen to be carrying more information with them in their pocket than they ever had before.
- mattrices 9y ago
  To be fair, they still don't

thephyber 9y ago

They do just like they do now: lobby to get more laws to either (1) gain more leverage to coerce compliance or (2) criminalize actions which are tangent to the behavior they want to coerce. I realize your question was rhetorical.

AzMoo_ 9y ago

I'm no supporter of insecure cryptography, but before there was internet or phones and access to such, lots of crimes went unsolved.

wahern 9y ago
Clearance rates for homicide have _dropped_ over the past 50 years: America’s homicide clearance rate—the percentage of solved crimes that lead to arrest—has fallen considerably in the past 50 years, from around 90% in 1965 to around 64% in 2012, according to federal statistics. (https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21656725-police-fail-make-arrest-more-third-nations-killings-getting-away https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21656725-police...) (See, also, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/police-arent-getting-better-at-solving-murders/531642/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/police-arent-getting-...) IMO, similar to counter-terrorism efforts (most spectacularly, 9/11), technology becomes a crutch. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if mass encryption leads to _improved_ clearance rates, as law enforcement becomes less complacent. Take this latest example: the FBI agent declines Apple's help because he's convinced the geeks at the FBI lab can handle it. He presumably doesn't bother actually confirming with the geeks in the lab, nor does he attempt to put Apple in touch with the lab. Just utter complacency, confident that the machine (computers, bureaucracy) will suffice. This sort of laziness wouldn't have been tolerated in Hoover's FBI. Moreover, Hoover likely would have been more aggressive using the tools available to him--keyloggers, etc--rather than whining.
- saulrh 9y ago
  Wouldn't that be a change in data collection more than in absolute quality of problem-solving? Japan, for example, I remember reading that their near-perfect homicide rate is actually because they'll classify it as "fell down some stairs" if they can't solve it. Particularly in the US with its history of social issues, I can easily see a ton of homicides in the 50s just never being written down.
  - bradknowles 9y ago
    Or homicides that were attributed to some person that it was convenient to lock away and who were unable to prove their innocence.
  - 0xfeba 9y ago
    A good example of this is sexual assault cases on campus. A lot of times they try to handle them without getting the real police involved, or attempt to downplay everything about it to keep the statistics pointed one way.

gooseus 9y ago

I imagine they spent a lot of time solving crimes, asking questions like: "Where did they keep all their papers and correspondence?" "Can somebody come break into this safe we have a warrant for?" What did the cops do before X was invented? They didn't worry about X being used to commit or cover up criminal activities while continuing to try to do their job of keeping communities either safe or oppressed, depending on how well they related to them. I support strong crypto, but I think implying detectives and the DoJ are just too lazy or dumb or whatever to deal with this problem is a little unfair. Apologies if that wasn't the implication

yorwba 9y ago
Except in most circumstances, there wouldn't have been any papers, because nobody was recording all their conversations. Nowadays, everything is happening digitally and is stored indefinitely by default; and law enforcement feels like they deserve access to all that. The attempts at preventing ubiquitous encryption don't seem to be focused on crimes where there would have been a paper trail if people still used paper; they are focusing on reconstructing the last year or so of someone who is either dead or uncooperative, all in hopes of finding something they can use. If they were targeting organizations with a bureaucracy for some crime, I think they could just demand access to all documents and get them? If I remember correctly, in the Levandowski case Google's lawyers got access to a huge trove of Uber's internal emails. If a private company can get that access, it should be possible for law enforcement as well, no?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

belorn 9y ago

In my nation, and as I hear in many other places, the police force was much more decentralized in the past. You had local police handling problems at the local level using local knowledge. As I hear/read it was a bit more costly, had the occasional problem of local corruption, quality had a bit more variance, organized crime was a bigger problem, but the average crime had better results and was done quicker. There was also no mass surveillance.

dx034 9y ago
That's also because criminals needed local knowledge. If I wanted to commit a crime today in another city, I can get there easily and quickly and get all the info I need online. In the past, small cities would've noticed strangers but (luckily) you can walk through other cities nowadays without people objecting that. For the police that means that they need to follow criminals and be able to share information nationally and internationally.

bonestamp2 9y ago

They would open letters, tap phones and watch bank accounts. All of those things can be subverted now. That said, they were just lucky back then... it doesn't mean everyone should suddenly give up their right to privacy now.