5 ms·

I wonder what criteria is used to determine "the most operationally optimal seat in the restaurant". If it's a standard formula that most agents use because it

I wonder what criteria is used to determine "the most operationally optimal seat in the restaurant". If it's a standard formula that most agents use because it's tried and true, then it could be viable to bug one or two tables in select restaurants in the DC area. Basically, cast a wide net and see what information you get. Same could apply at restaurants where business deals are discussed in order to perform insider trading, but unless they have a "movers and shakers" booth or room, it would be harder to pick the right table. Probably easier to pay waiters for intel.

someguy101010 7y ago
por que no los dos?
kps 7y ago
Moore's Law says you now bug every restaurant table in DC.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  Crowdsource. Pay people to run an app when they go around DC, that records constantly from their mic, and uploads it to the cloud along with their location. I’m sure someone has already thought of this!
  - krapp 7y ago
    > I’m sure someone has already thought of this! ...probably the CIA.
  - 908087 7y ago
    They call it Alexa.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    > Pay people This seems like an unnecessary step for the intelligence apparatus
    - beamatronic 7y ago
      You could make your own intelligence service, like those repo men who scan license plates.
  - wwweston 7y ago
    "Hey Alexa|Google|Siri, search for 'crowdsourced eavesdropping'."
  - stordoff 7y ago
    La Liga: > The Spanish football league La Liga has admitted that its official smartphone app has been making audio recordings in order to identify pirate broadcasts of football games. > The league said its app detected the location of users, and if they were found to be in a bar, it then recorded audio clips using phone microphones. > The app used an algorithm to identify whether the person was watching a football game from the recording and compared that with their location to see if it the bar owner had paid for a licence to show the game or not. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/06/12/spanish-football-app-spied-users-phone-microphones/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/06/12/spanish-fo...
    - ImprovedSilence 7y ago
      wow, that's crazy. I know big soccer clubs are huge about keeping secrets too. Down to what their players are eating/fed/ .
  - fencepost 7y ago
    Highly variable by state, and probably a problem even in many one-party-consent states since the person doing the recording would generally not be a participant in recorded conversations. Many states and countries have laws on eavesdropping. See also this 2012 item: https://www.rcfp.org/wp-content/uploads/imported/RECORDING.pdf https://www.rcfp.org/wp-content/uploads/imported/RECORDING.p... Edit: "In the District of Columbia, an individual may record or disclose the contents of a wire or oral communication if he or she is a party to the communication, or has received prior consent from one of the parties. The District’s voyeurism law prohibits secretly taking images of people in private settings and distributing them without consent. The District also contains several obscure city rules regulating the activities of commercial street photographers." Both significant criminal and civil penalties might apply.
pjmorris 7y ago
My wife likes to sit in what she calls 'the Mafia seat', the seat in a restaurant that is best-protected by walls, etc, from behind, and that gives the best view of the rest of the room, so you can see what or who is coming. She's not in the mafia or allied professions, AFAIK, but I'd wager that similar metrics are used by the professionals.
- lanius 7y ago
  Also known as "ninja-proof seats"
- jessaustin 7y ago
  This sort of seat is seldom ideal for those who need to leave the premises quickly.
  - macintux 7y ago
    As the article points out, back exits are critical. I imagine it’s not difficult to find a good seat like that near the kitchen.
- OJFord 7y ago
  Sounds like what many people (perhaps your wife is one of them) subconsciously prefer and tend to, which as I've been informed on HN before (I am one of them, I'm aware I have such a preference but it's not consciously deliberate) is Zen's 'command position'. I believe it came up before in the context of office desk arrangements. In office or restaurant, wherever, I find it very uncomfortable to have things going on behind me.
  - theNJR 7y ago
    I love learning a phrase for the obscure preferences that my wife always makes fun of. Of course she also makes fun of my obscure phrases.
  - solidsnack9000 7y ago
    Zen Buddhism’s command position?
ben_jones 7y ago
I'd imagine the priority might be: 1) Microphone all possible tables and have them record/signal when key words are overheard 2) Befriend/seduce/bribe wait staff and train them to roam around in optimal patterns to catch conversation 3) Some kind of subtle hearing amplification/focusing device 4) Record all conversations using a device on your person and process them later
- onion2k 7y ago
  Record all conversations using a device on your person and process them later Processing and extracting multiple conversations at different levels from a single audio source automatically would be a great project to attack with some quite simple sound engineering tools and speech recognition ML.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Cocktail party problem is actually hard in ML. And that's not even getting into speech recognition on imperfectly segmented speech streams. Keywords: multiple talker speech segmentation, computational auditory scene analysis CASA

someguy101010 7y ago

por que no los dos?

kps 7y ago

Moore's Law says you now bug every restaurant table in DC.

beamatronic 7y ago
Crowdsource. Pay people to run an app when they go around DC, that records constantly from their mic, and uploads it to the cloud along with their location. I’m sure someone has already thought of this!
- krapp 7y ago
  > I’m sure someone has already thought of this! ...probably the CIA.
- 908087 7y ago
  They call it Alexa.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  > Pay people This seems like an unnecessary step for the intelligence apparatus
  - beamatronic 7y ago
    You could make your own intelligence service, like those repo men who scan license plates.
- wwweston 7y ago
  "Hey Alexa|Google|Siri, search for 'crowdsourced eavesdropping'."
- stordoff 7y ago
  La Liga: > The Spanish football league La Liga has admitted that its official smartphone app has been making audio recordings in order to identify pirate broadcasts of football games. > The league said its app detected the location of users, and if they were found to be in a bar, it then recorded audio clips using phone microphones. > The app used an algorithm to identify whether the person was watching a football game from the recording and compared that with their location to see if it the bar owner had paid for a licence to show the game or not. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/06/12/spanish-football-app-spied-users-phone-microphones/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/06/12/spanish-fo...
  - ImprovedSilence 7y ago
    wow, that's crazy. I know big soccer clubs are huge about keeping secrets too. Down to what their players are eating/fed/ .
- fencepost 7y ago
  Highly variable by state, and probably a problem even in many one-party-consent states since the person doing the recording would generally not be a participant in recorded conversations. Many states and countries have laws on eavesdropping. See also this 2012 item: https://www.rcfp.org/wp-content/uploads/imported/RECORDING.pdf https://www.rcfp.org/wp-content/uploads/imported/RECORDING.p... Edit: "In the District of Columbia, an individual may record or disclose the contents of a wire or oral communication if he or she is a party to the communication, or has received prior consent from one of the parties. The District’s voyeurism law prohibits secretly taking images of people in private settings and distributing them without consent. The District also contains several obscure city rules regulating the activities of commercial street photographers." Both significant criminal and civil penalties might apply.

pjmorris 7y ago

My wife likes to sit in what she calls 'the Mafia seat', the seat in a restaurant that is best-protected by walls, etc, from behind, and that gives the best view of the rest of the room, so you can see what or who is coming. She's not in the mafia or allied professions, AFAIK, but I'd wager that similar metrics are used by the professionals.

lanius 7y ago
Also known as "ninja-proof seats"
jessaustin 7y ago
This sort of seat is seldom ideal for those who need to leave the premises quickly.
- macintux 7y ago
  As the article points out, back exits are critical. I imagine it’s not difficult to find a good seat like that near the kitchen.
OJFord 7y ago
Sounds like what many people (perhaps your wife is one of them) subconsciously prefer and tend to, which as I've been informed on HN before (I am one of them, I'm aware I have such a preference but it's not consciously deliberate) is Zen's 'command position'. I believe it came up before in the context of office desk arrangements. In office or restaurant, wherever, I find it very uncomfortable to have things going on behind me.
- theNJR 7y ago
  I love learning a phrase for the obscure preferences that my wife always makes fun of. Of course she also makes fun of my obscure phrases.
- solidsnack9000 7y ago
  Zen Buddhism’s command position?

ben_jones 7y ago

I'd imagine the priority might be: 1) Microphone all possible tables and have them record/signal when key words are overheard 2) Befriend/seduce/bribe wait staff and train them to roam around in optimal patterns to catch conversation 3) Some kind of subtle hearing amplification/focusing device 4) Record all conversations using a device on your person and process them later

onion2k 7y ago
Record all conversations using a device on your person and process them later Processing and extracting multiple conversations at different levels from a single audio source automatically would be a great project to attack with some quite simple sound engineering tools and speech recognition ML.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Cocktail party problem is actually hard in ML. And that's not even getting into speech recognition on imperfectly segmented speech streams. Keywords: multiple talker speech segmentation, computational auditory scene analysis CASA