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>As an american, this is one of the most sadistic and reckless ways to raise awareness of a security issue and the researcher should be ashamed. As an American

>As an american, this is one of the most sadistic and reckless ways to raise awareness of a security issue and the researcher should be ashamed. As an American, you are under educated about how the justice system works. You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed. Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. These people are 100% completely safe. With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored. Also the author said he removed PII.

bagels 8y ago
> You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove You certainly can be charged with any crime with or without evidence. And the way they make it stick is to offer a plea deal to avoid trial.
- chillingeffect 8y ago
  charged and held in jail
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    Where do you think people go when they get arrested? And what do you think happens if they don't have money on-hand to pay bail?
- ams6110 8y ago
  No, you cannot be charged literally without evidence. A judge would throw the case out, and likely censure or sanction the prosecutor. Can you be charged on weak evidence, or even in some cases fabricated evidence? Yes, but that's a different matter.
  - elif 8y ago
    You are describing a legal system that is written on paper. we have a real one. It's an easy mistake for programmers to make. We work in a world of provable absolutes that behave exactly as written.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    A judge would throw that case out, if you could afford a decent attorney who would be able to raise that point in a hearing.
  - wl 8y ago
    > No, you cannot be charged literally without evidence. A judge would throw the case out, and likely censure or sanction the prosecutor. Of course you can. All that's required is someone allege there is evidence establishing probable cause. Perhaps that so-called evidence has a perfectly innocent explanation that the person making the allegations is unaware of or choses to ignore. Perhaps the person making the allegations is mistaken. Perhaps they are even lying. And sure, lack of evidence is grounds for getting cases thrown out. However, you need to make that case first. That requires time, representation and usually the services of a private investigator. The judge is not going to make that case for you. Even if you get baseless charges thrown out, prosecutors are very rarely sanctioned.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  This is what happened to my father about thirty years ago. While he was naive about a lot of things and didn't have good legal representation, he knew enough to refuse to plead guilty. The "compromise" that prosecutors arrived at was to threaten him with a massive prison sentence, and mislead him about what an Alford plea is. "We're not asking you to plead guilty, and you wont spend any time in jail! Just sign this!" My father avoided jail time but was branded a felon. Every couple of years since I was little I'd see him spend a few thousand dollars on attorneys trying to rewrite history or fix a new fire resulting from that plea. It took the whole family 30 years, unspeakable amounts of money and a really empathetic journalist but we managed to convince the governor of Missouri to pardon him a few years ago. A regular person who doesn't have the inhuman qualities my father does would have been ground up and destroyed. He managed to work 35 years at the same company even though a population of "vigilantes" wanted to find any reason they could to get him fired or just make him miserable. Every once in a while he'd let a story leak about how someone had rubbed grease on his work steering wheel or we'd have to go to the DMV to get new license plates because someone managed to get past his locking screws. My dad responded to this shit in a dispassionate way that still impresses me to reflect on. Someone might break into his locker and cut up his boots. If he said anything about it, it would be like "I should have known better than to use my locker." Then he'd treat going to the shoe store like going to the post office. It's just part of the chores one deals with. If I were in his shoes I wouldn't have made it.
anothergoogler 8y ago
> you are under educated (sic) about how the justice system works. What an arrogant and ignorant comment. You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. No conviction necessary. Also you're wrong about PII being removed, unless you think that your photo and first name don't constitute PII (in which case, I hope you are never tasked with handling PII at your job).
- djrogers 8y ago
  > You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. Then maybe you shouldn't be PUBLICLY posting about things like this in Venmo. Good grief people - this twitter bot did nothing to expose people that a cop/PO couldn't already do using Venmo.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    The whole point of the bot is that people didn't realize they were posting this information publicly.
    - wruza 8y ago
      The whole problem is people on probation posting “drugs” as payment comment. I’m not american, but cannot imagine a country where this wouldn’t attract “sir are you an idiot” looks. Feels like those who complain want both healthy society and easy crimes at the same time.
      - daveFNbuck 8y ago
        Not all drugs are illegal drugs, not all posts actually contained the word "drugs", and the people doing this likely didn't understand that the posts were public.
- imgabe 8y ago
  > You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. No conviction necessary. If you're already on parole, how about not buying drugs? I agree drug laws are ridiculous and draconian, but maybe let the people who are not on parole poke that particular hornet's nest. Or at least, if you absolutely must buy drugs while on parole, how about not publicly announcing it on social media? You don't have to put anything in the Venmo comment field, let alone a needle emoji.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>As an American, you are under educated about how the justice system works. On paper it works as you described. In reality only celebrities, the well connected and those able to afford good lawyers get the full benefit of the doubt in our legal system. You or I could not do what OJ did and get away with it. >Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. These people are 100% completely safe. That's false equivalence. No, the DEA isn't going to do anything for a minor possession charge. What does happen is that companies bundle and sell this sort of data as "open source intelligence" and it's used all the time (as are many other things) to dig up dirt on low level people in order to make them snitch on higher level people. >With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored. This kind of data is what makes a minor charge sticky and harder to bargain down to something that's actually reasonable (assuming the accursed has a useful lawyer at all). Nobody is getting convicted on this alone but it could be the difference between getting the prosecution to drop all drug charges or not. >Also the author said he removed PII. He did a piss poor job as others have mentioned. It would be easy to de-anonymyze this data set.
- wruza 8y ago
  Much easier to collect one yourself though.
braythwayt 8y ago
As an African-Canadian, it appears to the rest of the world that you have two different justice systems, and the one for people of colour and allegations of “drugs” works completely differently than the one for white Americans. I am skeptical that Americans of color will not be charged for drug crimes that cannot be proven by any reasonable standard, and I am also very much afraid that if someone is brought to the police's attention like this, they will be at risk of a wrongful prosecution, or worse. Just bringing a person of color’s name to the attention of their local law enforcement’s attention can create a risk of death in a traffic stop or no-knock search coupled with an itchy trigger finger. It shouldn’t be like this, but as long as it is, outing drug users to the police in any way contributes to the injustice in the American “justice” system.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  > As an African-Canadian, it appears to the rest of the world that you have two different justice systems, and the one for people of colour and allegations of “drugs” works completely differently than the one for white Americans. As an American, and one who grew up among the poor, and criminal elements of society in the "racist" deep south, I do believe you read a bit too much sensationalized news leading you to a wrong conclusion. However, you're right, there is a dual system. A system for the rich and a system for the poor.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Interesting. That’s a testable hypothesis. If after controlling for income there is a difference in sentencing between races, then that’s evidence to reject the hypothesis that there is no racial disparity. I believe I once read something that makes me believe that we should indeed believe there is racial disparity but I can’t find it now. Pity.
    - mieseratte 8y ago
      > If after controlling for income there is a difference in sentencing between races, then that’s evidence to reject the hypothesis that there is no racial disparity. Well, logically speaking, you can't draw that conclusion.
bbatha 8y ago
> You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. This burden of proof does not apply for parole violations, or civil asset forfeiture as mentioned in the OP.
travmatt 8y ago
There’s an irony in you critiquing someone about being under educated about the justice system, only to turn around and give a naive and starry eyed account of some idealized American justice system. You don’t have to be convicted of a crime to have your life ruined or seriously impaired by the criminal justice system, and prosecutors will routinely charge people with more crimes than they know they can prove in order to pressure plea deals.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. Yes, you can, or no one ever would be acquitted, since that is exactly having been charged with a crime that the prosecutor then tried to, but could not, prove. > It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed. No, the reason why they can do that is a combination of statutes of limitations, decriminalization, and lack of priority for prosecution. > Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. True. > These people are 100% completely safe. Less true. > With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored. Being actively monitored doesn't mean you are screwed, but, yes, something like pre-existing suspicion and this being a connecting piece of evidence and not the whole case is the main legal threat. > Also the author said he removed PII. Unless the author is ab expert in the area, there's generally a pretty big gap between deleting what seems to be PII and effective deidentification.
scarface74 8y ago
You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed. I think you have to much faith in the justice system. They don't have to "prove" anything. Once they arrest you, they can easily intimidate you into taking a plea and the overworked public defender won't be of much help.

bagels 8y ago

> You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove You certainly can be charged with any crime with or without evidence. And the way they make it stick is to offer a plea deal to avoid trial.

chillingeffect 8y ago
charged and held in jail
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  Where do you think people go when they get arrested? And what do you think happens if they don't have money on-hand to pay bail?
ams6110 8y ago
No, you cannot be charged literally without evidence. A judge would throw the case out, and likely censure or sanction the prosecutor. Can you be charged on weak evidence, or even in some cases fabricated evidence? Yes, but that's a different matter.
- elif 8y ago
  You are describing a legal system that is written on paper. we have a real one. It's an easy mistake for programmers to make. We work in a world of provable absolutes that behave exactly as written.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  A judge would throw that case out, if you could afford a decent attorney who would be able to raise that point in a hearing.
- wl 8y ago
  > No, you cannot be charged literally without evidence. A judge would throw the case out, and likely censure or sanction the prosecutor. Of course you can. All that's required is someone allege there is evidence establishing probable cause. Perhaps that so-called evidence has a perfectly innocent explanation that the person making the allegations is unaware of or choses to ignore. Perhaps the person making the allegations is mistaken. Perhaps they are even lying. And sure, lack of evidence is grounds for getting cases thrown out. However, you need to make that case first. That requires time, representation and usually the services of a private investigator. The judge is not going to make that case for you. Even if you get baseless charges thrown out, prosecutors are very rarely sanctioned.
MrLeap 8y ago
This is what happened to my father about thirty years ago. While he was naive about a lot of things and didn't have good legal representation, he knew enough to refuse to plead guilty. The "compromise" that prosecutors arrived at was to threaten him with a massive prison sentence, and mislead him about what an Alford plea is. "We're not asking you to plead guilty, and you wont spend any time in jail! Just sign this!" My father avoided jail time but was branded a felon. Every couple of years since I was little I'd see him spend a few thousand dollars on attorneys trying to rewrite history or fix a new fire resulting from that plea. It took the whole family 30 years, unspeakable amounts of money and a really empathetic journalist but we managed to convince the governor of Missouri to pardon him a few years ago. A regular person who doesn't have the inhuman qualities my father does would have been ground up and destroyed. He managed to work 35 years at the same company even though a population of "vigilantes" wanted to find any reason they could to get him fired or just make him miserable. Every once in a while he'd let a story leak about how someone had rubbed grease on his work steering wheel or we'd have to go to the DMV to get new license plates because someone managed to get past his locking screws. My dad responded to this shit in a dispassionate way that still impresses me to reflect on. Someone might break into his locker and cut up his boots. If he said anything about it, it would be like "I should have known better than to use my locker." Then he'd treat going to the shoe store like going to the post office. It's just part of the chores one deals with. If I were in his shoes I wouldn't have made it.

anothergoogler 8y ago

> you are under educated (sic) about how the justice system works. What an arrogant and ignorant comment. You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. No conviction necessary. Also you're wrong about PII being removed, unless you think that your photo and first name don't constitute PII (in which case, I hope you are never tasked with handling PII at your job).

djrogers 8y ago
> You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. Then maybe you shouldn't be PUBLICLY posting about things like this in Venmo. Good grief people - this twitter bot did nothing to expose people that a cop/PO couldn't already do using Venmo.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  The whole point of the bot is that people didn't realize they were posting this information publicly.
  - wruza 8y ago
    The whole problem is people on probation posting “drugs” as payment comment. I’m not american, but cannot imagine a country where this wouldn’t attract “sir are you an idiot” looks. Feels like those who complain want both healthy society and easy crimes at the same time.
    - daveFNbuck 8y ago
      Not all drugs are illegal drugs, not all posts actually contained the word "drugs", and the people doing this likely didn't understand that the posts were public.
imgabe 8y ago
> You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. No conviction necessary. If you're already on parole, how about not buying drugs? I agree drug laws are ridiculous and draconian, but maybe let the people who are not on parole poke that particular hornet's nest. Or at least, if you absolutely must buy drugs while on parole, how about not publicly announcing it on social media? You don't have to put anything in the Venmo comment field, let alone a needle emoji.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>As an American, you are under educated about how the justice system works. On paper it works as you described. In reality only celebrities, the well connected and those able to afford good lawyers get the full benefit of the doubt in our legal system. You or I could not do what OJ did and get away with it. >Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. These people are 100% completely safe. That's false equivalence. No, the DEA isn't going to do anything for a minor possession charge. What does happen is that companies bundle and sell this sort of data as "open source intelligence" and it's used all the time (as are many other things) to dig up dirt on low level people in order to make them snitch on higher level people. >With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored. This kind of data is what makes a minor charge sticky and harder to bargain down to something that's actually reasonable (assuming the accursed has a useful lawyer at all). Nobody is getting convicted on this alone but it could be the difference between getting the prosecution to drop all drug charges or not. >Also the author said he removed PII. He did a piss poor job as others have mentioned. It would be easy to de-anonymyze this data set.

wruza 8y ago
Much easier to collect one yourself though.

braythwayt 8y ago

As an African-Canadian, it appears to the rest of the world that you have two different justice systems, and the one for people of colour and allegations of “drugs” works completely differently than the one for white Americans. I am skeptical that Americans of color will not be charged for drug crimes that cannot be proven by any reasonable standard, and I am also very much afraid that if someone is brought to the police's attention like this, they will be at risk of a wrongful prosecution, or worse. Just bringing a person of color’s name to the attention of their local law enforcement’s attention can create a risk of death in a traffic stop or no-knock search coupled with an itchy trigger finger. It shouldn’t be like this, but as long as it is, outing drug users to the police in any way contributes to the injustice in the American “justice” system.

mieseratte 8y ago
> As an African-Canadian, it appears to the rest of the world that you have two different justice systems, and the one for people of colour and allegations of “drugs” works completely differently than the one for white Americans. As an American, and one who grew up among the poor, and criminal elements of society in the "racist" deep south, I do believe you read a bit too much sensationalized news leading you to a wrong conclusion. However, you're right, there is a dual system. A system for the rich and a system for the poor.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Interesting. That’s a testable hypothesis. If after controlling for income there is a difference in sentencing between races, then that’s evidence to reject the hypothesis that there is no racial disparity. I believe I once read something that makes me believe that we should indeed believe there is racial disparity but I can’t find it now. Pity.
  - mieseratte 8y ago
    > If after controlling for income there is a difference in sentencing between races, then that’s evidence to reject the hypothesis that there is no racial disparity. Well, logically speaking, you can't draw that conclusion.

bbatha 8y ago

> You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. This burden of proof does not apply for parole violations, or civil asset forfeiture as mentioned in the OP.

travmatt 8y ago

There’s an irony in you critiquing someone about being under educated about the justice system, only to turn around and give a naive and starry eyed account of some idealized American justice system. You don’t have to be convicted of a crime to have your life ruined or seriously impaired by the criminal justice system, and prosecutors will routinely charge people with more crimes than they know they can prove in order to pressure plea deals.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. Yes, you can, or no one ever would be acquitted, since that is exactly having been charged with a crime that the prosecutor then tried to, but could not, prove. > It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed. No, the reason why they can do that is a combination of statutes of limitations, decriminalization, and lack of priority for prosecution. > Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. True. > These people are 100% completely safe. Less true. > With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored. Being actively monitored doesn't mean you are screwed, but, yes, something like pre-existing suspicion and this being a connecting piece of evidence and not the whole case is the main legal threat. > Also the author said he removed PII. Unless the author is ab expert in the area, there's generally a pretty big gap between deleting what seems to be PII and effective deidentification.

scarface74 8y ago

You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed. I think you have to much faith in the justice system. They don't have to "prove" anything. Once they arrest you, they can easily intimidate you into taking a plea and the overworked public defender won't be of much help.