51 ms·

‘BlueLeaks’ Exposes Files from Hundreds of Police Departments

501 points by itcrowd 6y ago

coding_lobster 6y ago
I kind of share the sentiment expressed in the final quote of the article. From the way the dataset is described this could be really helpful to criminals and really harmful and dangerous for other folks - police and civilian alike.
- sschueller 6y ago
  I would rather have an extra criminal on the streets than risk ruining someones live that is innocent because some cop planted evidence. Just this week a bodycam from NYC officer shows him planting drugs over 2 years ago. The person who's involved took a plea deal because they didn't want to risk going to jail for many years. The cop still has his job and this wasn't the first time. Try getting a job in the US with a criminal record.
  - alharith 6y ago
    It's always the big liberal cities, with majority democratic councils, and a legacy of democratic mayors and govenors with the worse police departments: Chicago, Atlanta, D.C., NYC, Baltimore, LA, etc. But somehow the "redneck trumpers in flyover states" get blamed for everything. It's really hilarious at this point. In my city of Charlotte, with the Keith Scott shooting, it was: 9 democratic council members to 1 republican, democratic mayor, democratic governor, black police chief, and a black police officer that did the shooting, but somehow it was institutional racism. There is a policing problem in this country. Period. Color of your skin be damned. If people started from there, things might have been a little different at this point. I am sure this will get flagged, but it really needs to be said at this point. Hopefully some of you see the truth. I sure see it, and I am a middle eastern immigrant.
    - non-entity 6y ago
      This is just political flamebait. If you think this is some phenomena purely constrained to cities you're being lazy at best or wilfully ignorant and driven by ideology, which is probably more accurate.
      - alharith 6y ago
        Throwing generalized insults is easy. Projection is a hell of a drug. I don't think it's constrained to cities. I hold to no ideology. I said the _worse_ of them are usually big blue cities.
        knowaveragejoe 6y ago
        As someone else so eloquently explained, this is a form of(perhaps inadvertent) bias given the comparative scale of what we're talking about.
    - danharaj 6y ago
      Let me try to clear something up for you. The people protesting on the streets right now don't give a shit what color the boot on their neck is. Systemic racism doesn't just mean the system is full of racist individuals. It means that processes that make up the system lead to racist outcomes. And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. Stop treating politics as a game of football and look at how power is distributed and who benefits from that distribution. Material analysis, not color coded appearances.
      - LycheeKing 6y ago
        >And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. You should try to broadcast this on your personal social media accounts and see how long you will keep your job. The BLM mob and their "cancel culture"-enablers unbfortunately lack your nuance. In their rhetoric "police" is just a stand-in for "white" and laws are "white" too and therefore by defintion racist. If the whole affair actually were about justice, the fact that "martyr" George Floyd had a Fentanyl overdose and died from a heart-attack (not asphyxation) inside the hospital several hours(!) after the police encounter would be quite relevant to measure the involved officer's actual guilt, don't you think? Instead the mob is out for blood and payback, demanding to defund the police, so they can loot, defraud, rob, sell crack and murder unhindered, The movement is about revenge not justice, lionizing habitual criminals like George Floyd.
  - peterwwillis 6y ago
    This won't expose cops planting evidence, it's more like 10,000 criminals going free, and your direct example isn't related to this story.
  - zrth 6y ago
    holy fuck. do you have a url for me?
    - __alexs 6y ago
      https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cameras-marijuana/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cam...
      - blunte 6y ago
        Do the cops not comprehend that they were recording themselves while committing crimes against the people they are sworn to protect?
        freeone3000 6y ago
        He's still on the job, and the person he wanted in prison is still in prison, so it's more that it doesn't matter he was on video, because not even video evidence is enough to get him fired, let alone arrested.
        ta17711771 6y ago
        > against the people they are sworn to protect? This is a misnomer. Cops are not actually "to protect and serve", and this has been proven in court. Their function is to uphold the law. That's it.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        Cops are sworn to the law, not the people, but, in any case oaths, absent effective accountability to them, only matter to the people that didn't need to take them in the first place.
        wonderwonder 6y ago
        Based on history, why would they care? Cameras or no, it appears that there are almost no consequences for their breaking of the law. Generally worst case scenario is that the residents of the city they work in pay a large fine to the victims. QI means the cops suffer no harm. Most of the time the department and prosecution conspires to ensure the video and crime never sees the light of day. And if they do end up going to court: " the court held that California police who stand accused of stealing $225,000 cannot be sued because they never were told specifically that stealing money from people’s homes violates the Constitution" https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-if-police-can-enter-your-home-and-steal-from-you/ https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-i...
  - readarticle 6y ago
    I don’t think that’s the bargain here. Fusion centers seem to be shared databases of threats that federal, state, and local agencies all contribute to. Given the scale, it’s likely more of the focus is on organizations, not individuals. Given the nature of internal misconduct, I think it’s safe to assume that wouldn’t be shared period, let alone in venues such as these. In cases where it does need to be shared, e.g. covered up NYPD misconduct affects FBI case, I’d assume they have alternative means to this sort of spreadsheet-broadcast impression I’m getting of the centers. Could be totally off, either way I suppose we’ll find out now.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    Not if you are in a witness protection program against a drug mafia. They will take their opportunity to send a message. Overall I agree though. This is the same baseless defense used against leaking of info on war crimes. I doubt planting evidence is common, but it will nevertheless be interesting to dig through that. If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. These practices need to be stomped out immediately.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. Who cares if it’s a huge scandal? I remember reading about the “scandal” years ago. The cop is still has his job and was never charged with a crime. The cop broke the law multiple times on video, an innocent person suffered physical and mental harm. The cop caused harm to all of society by reducing the trust between members of society. Yet he has a job, one with power over others where his word matters more than others. Hence the protests.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal One of the reasons that the protests in the US are so widespread right now is that, fundamentally, this is the issue: that cop still serving isn't a scandal at all. The police look out for their own, and internal accountability for violating procedure is an absolute farce.
- tom_ 6y ago
  The police are civilians.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    True. But when you hear cops talk about non cops, they will call non cops civilians.
    - goliatone 6y ago
      This [1] gave me an idea of how some police might see their role. [1] http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
        That is definitely an interesting perspective. It seems somewhat idealized, but if we accept the premise of the author, then sheepdogs that hurt lambs are not removed in US making sheep go 'Baa'. Still, a worthwhile read.
    - MrZongle2 6y ago
      As a veteran, my blood boils when I hear that. As I am no longer a member of the military, I am a civilian. My neighbors are civilians. And regardless of a badge or uniform or firearm or SWAT teams or Pentagon-surplus armored vehicles, cops are civilians. Feeling otherwise merely reinforces the "us-versus-them" mentality that leads to the current crisis.
  - SigmundA 6y ago
    The common definition of civilian is "a person who is not a member of the police, the armed forces, or a fire department". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian So sworn police officers are not normally considered civilians, while non-sworn personel are: https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-sworn-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-... https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-... https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/police-employee-browse-by/status-sworn-civilian https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
walrus01 6y ago
tweet with the bittorrent magnet URL and trackers: https://twitter.com/eldstal1/status/1274660276508545025 https://twitter.com/eldstal1/status/1274660276508545025
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  I got meta parser error for the torrent. Did anyone else had issues?
  - walrus01 6y ago
    try with transmission, a number of less capable bittorrent clients don't like single-file 290GB torrents.
ourya 6y ago
Years ago a fusion center in Missouri listed Ron Paul supporters as potential domestic terrorists. There were so many controversial aspect to these fusion centers. https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-09-12/ron-paul-a-domestic-terrorist/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-09-12/ron-pa...
- newacct583 6y ago
  This is the kind of pseudofact that tends to trigger my BS detector (tl;dr: it's BS), so I followed your link. It mentions Ron Paul in only one sentence beyond the headline: where it appears in one clause, a semicolon-separated member of a list of "disturbing incidents": "a Missouri-based center's report that support for Ron Paul's presidential bid was a sign of membership in a domestic terrorist group". But if you did, there's a link at the bottom to the report they're citing, so let's check that: http://www.austinchronicle.com/documents/fusioncenterreport.pdf http://www.austinchronicle.com/documents/fusioncenterreport.... This one isn't original reporting either. It's a 38-page think tank whitepaper from "The Constitution Project" on the subject of Fusion Centers in general. And IT only mentions Ron Paul in one sentence too, where it mixes it in with two other items in the same bullet point: "A Missouri-based fusion center issued a February 2009 report describing support for the presidential campaigns of Ron Paul or third party candidates, possession of the iconic “Don’t Tread on Me” "ag and anti-abortion activism as signs of membership in domestic terrorist groups" So now we've gone from your 8 year old link to a point three years farther in the past. And the source for that attention grabbing headling is still nowhere to be found. But that bullet point was footnoted, so let's check that. It's... another news story! Actually the URL in the footnote is stale and broken, but I found the story by headline using Google: https://www.columbiatribune.com/article/20090314/News/303149835 https://www.columbiatribune.com/article/20090314/News/303149... So this tells us all about the Ron Paul thing, right? Nope. It, too, mentions Ron Paul in only one sentence: "Red flags outlined in the document include political bumper stickers such as those for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, talk of conspiracy theories such as the plan for a mega-highway from Canada to Mexico and possession of subversive literature.". So that's dilluted STILL FURTHER in a bunch of other items, most of which sound... not too terribly off to me. And the source for this report? They have a link, but not to the report: https://www.infowars.com/secret-state-police-report-ron-paul-bob-barr-chuck-baldwin-libertarians-are-terrorists/ https://www.infowars.com/secret-state-police-report-ron-paul... Yup, four hops and we're at Infowars. And the report they cite? Not public. They're apparently the only one who have seen it. You got fooled by "media laundering" into regurgitating partisan agitprop. I can't prove your "fact" is wrong, but the support for it is VERY thin.
rmrfstar 6y ago
The only remarkable fact about this leak is that us plebes get to see the other side of the one-way mirror.
- iamstupidsimple 6y ago
  Hedge funds and investment banks are comparable to cartels?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Some are. HSBC laundered billions of dollars for the cartels and no one went to jail over it. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-230696/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/outrageo...
    - walrus01 6y ago
      I can already see some people thinking "but rolling stone isn't real journalism", so here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hsbc-s-1-9b-money-laundering-settlement-approved-by-judge-1.1377272 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hsbc-s-1-9b-money-launderin... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-18880269 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-18880269 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hsbc-holdings-plc-and-hsbc-bank-usa-na-admit-anti-money-laundering-and-sanctions-violations https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hsbc-holdings-plc-and-hsbc-ba...
      - quickthrowman 6y ago
        Why would they think that? Matt Taibbi is well-known around here. Edit: Rolling Stone did take a credibility hit after Sabrina Rubin Erdley came clean about manufacturing parts of her college campus rape story, but that’s the only thing that comes to mind when I think about RS and journalistic credibility.
CiPHPerCoder 6y ago
> Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington, D.C. office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP and a former assistant secretary of policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said the BlueLeaks data is unlikely to shed much light on police misconduct, but could expose sensitive law enforcement investigations and even endanger lives. But then there was this: https://twitter.com/NatSecGeek/status/1273329710576152581 https://twitter.com/NatSecGeek/status/1273329710576152581
- walrus01 6y ago
  far-right extremist terrorism greatly outranked radical wahabbi/salafists and similar in 2018/2019, domestically, in the USA: https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-unite... https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2019/03/07/467022/confronting-domestic-right-wing-terrorist-threat/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/201... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-e... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-terrorists-2018-were-almost-all-right-wing/581284/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-...
  - gadders 6y ago
    I see that first link kind of buried the lede in footnote 2: " The number of casualties from attacks by Islamic extremists has been greater than by right-wing extremists, largely because of a few cases like Omar Mateen’s Pulse nightclub attack that killed 49 people and wounded 53 others." So right wing terrorism is a greater threat, unless you are worried about being killed.
    - some_furry 6y ago
      My read of what you quoted: White supremacists may be eager to hurt people, but that doesn't translate to lethality. (Nobody ever gave them credit for competence.)
    - 6y ago
voiper1 6y ago
>“Netsential confirmed that this compromise was likely the result of a threat actor who leveraged a compromised Netsential customer user account and the web platform’s upload feature to introduce malicious content, allowing for the exfiltration of other Netsential customer data.” So they are spinning it as a user's fault? Not the fault of Netsential for allowing malicious content to be a problem...
- joekrill 6y ago
  That's the first thing I thought, too - sounds like they are trying to spin it as some malicious user "broke in". If a "customer user account" is able to upload a malicious payload and exfiltrate huge amounts of other customers' data, there's a much larger, underlying problem here. Hard to see how Netsential could get through this fiasco and still have any business.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    Big companies don't hire properly for sysadmin/security - you don't think law enforcement knows what they're talking about here, do you?
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Legally speaking, if you find a bug and abuse it (to e.g. extract data), you're breaking the law; I know people don't want to hear it and want to protect whistleblowers, but it's factually illegal to steal data like this. That's what whistleblowing is all about though; purposefully breaking the law or a contract (like an NDA) to expose shit. Some countries will protect whistleblowers, others have to flee and seek asylum abroad. So don't deny whether or not law and/or contract was broken, instead focus on whether the action was justified. Yes the system was broken and open for exploitation, but the attack was not accidental: they intentionally uploaded a malicious payload, intentionally extracted data, and intentionally uploaded it to the internets.
    - tridentlead 6y ago
      Actually this is not whistleblowing. Technically, you need to have legal access to the data to whistleblow. If you have to acquire access to the data illegally to then release it its just illegal.
mtgx 6y ago
So who is going to be accountable for all of this data that was collected and then allowed to be hacked and stolen? The more law enforcement/spy agencies are allowed to collect more of our data, it stands to reason that they should at the very least be held accountable more for when that data is inevitably stolen. We are supposed to trust them with this data collection, and they prove to be quite incompetent.
deadalus 6y ago
Unlike https://antifawatch.us https://antifawatch.us, the files on this leak is not individually backed my MSM links
- esperent 6y ago
  What are MSM links?
  - lugorrr 6y ago
    probably links to main stream media outlets?!
    - knowaveragejoe 6y ago
      And the problem with that is - let me guess, they're fake news?
- gspr 6y ago
  Holy shit, that's disgusting. It's essentially a collaborative project to doxx protestors, assisted by face recognition. Vile. You should feel bad for linking to it.
  - catsdanxe 6y ago
    I wouldn't call them protestors. All the profiles I saw on there had an associated arrest/charge for violence or inciting a riot. Obviously I don't have the time to go through all 1000+ profiles. All the information is public knowledge. You name, age, photo, and what you did in public is not a doxx. If their social security numbers, addresses, phonenumbers, or family members were listed it would be totally different. If it was against people that weren't violent and didn't have convictions, I would feel different.
    - teraflop 6y ago
      Well, it's comforting to know that only violent people are listed on that site, because non-violent protestors don't need to worry about being falsely arrested.
larrydag 6y ago
If what the article says is true and PPI is indeed in these documents than these documents are ripe for fraud, criminal use and identity theft. This is worse than a password leak.
- aj3 6y ago
  If previous incidents have taught us anything, it's that taxpayers should buy free credit monitoring to everyone affected by the leak and be done with it. Maybe throw in $10 to anyone that can prove they suffered losses as a direct result of the leak.
  - specialist 6y ago
    IIRC, in some places the govt is the collections recording and credit rating agency.
  - aerostable_slug 6y ago
    Monitoring sucks. Freeze your credit (don't just lock it) until it's absolutely needed, then refreeze it. This will choke off much of the business of credit bureaus, but too bad so sad. There are a number of interesting approaches to solving the same problems as credit bureaus (risk assessment, identity verification, etc.) that don't carry as much consumer risk as the big three bureaus do every single day.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure your parent comment was oozing sarcasm.
- Nexxxeh 6y ago
  Is there a risk of undercover agents and CIs being outed? If so, does that potentially endangers lives?
hypewatch 6y ago
I’m disappointed that U.S. police departments would use such low a quality service with no focus on security. Looking at Netsential’s website, their services look very basic and inexpensive. There’s not even a mention of security on its site. It was only a matter of time before they were hacked. https://netsential.com/default.aspx?menuitemid=280 https://netsential.com/default.aspx?menuitemid=280
- walrus01 6y ago
  I feel like I just took a short trip in a time machine to the year 2001.
- onion2k 6y ago
  That website is ancient. The layout is done with tables and there are bits of code in there specifically for IE7. That means it'll work on anything. The old desktop PCs that sit around in public offices for decades will display it with no problems. Compare that to a beautiful, modern website from a rival that plain won't load let alone render on that ancient computer. The one with the working website wins the contract.
  - yread 6y ago
    What's wrong with making your landing page render for everyone? Mine also sort of works in ie7
    - onion2k 6y ago
      Nothing, and you really should, but companies don't because they want to make all modern shiny stuff without putting the effort in to make something that does progressive enhancement properly. That's why contracts for police websites go to companies whose websites look like crap.
    - Raidion 6y ago
      There is a difference between using CSS/HTML from 2005 and using server and network security from 2005.
jml7c5 6y ago
This is quite wild. Is there any finer-grained summary of the sort of data leaked, and how extensive it is? Even a million documents could be anything from mundane to incredibly sensitive, depending on the sort of content.
- thephyber 6y ago
  The leak is still too new and too large for a very detailed analysis, but BleepingComputer has an article[1] on it. [1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/blueleaks-data-dump-exposes-over-24-years-of-police-records/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/blueleaks-dat...
bluedays 6y ago
Stop messing with people, and this won't happen. I don't feel bad for the police.
- steve76 6y ago
  I live in a rather hard hit area. It won't show up on any blighted or opportunity zones because attorneys or land owners connected to politicians can't make money off it. Here are some highlights: A good month is one without gun shots. I've been mugged coming out my front door by kids with knives. An elderly woman was tortured to death during a home invasion. A fight breaks out, police break it up and leave without arresting anyone, only for the fight to occur again 10 minutes later this time with gunshots. Police show up the next morning and pick up casings and then leave. Little kids were right in the middle of that 30 person brawl too. Non-stop fireworks to cover up gun shots. Mom moves into her new boyfriend's place, then break up and leave the kid. So you have kids growing up in a home with zero parents. Garbage everywhere. The attitude of always wanting to fight even when they mess up big time. Hitting a car, going through the garbage. Good things stay hidden. Vulgar violent things stare you down because they like getting grounded up. When something really bad happens, like a home fire, they turn into panicked cowards. All that thug life goes right away on the slightest adversity. Attorneys and corporate leaders have abandoned the people who got them here just to win at all costs. A vet who fought so they don't have to kills themselves every day. That's not going to last. WTC going down in a fireball should have taught them all something. Can't escape it, no matter how rich you are. The leaders really are out of touch. They see the violence as like how mechanical bolts preload. People are killing each other. I don't feel it. That's good! It means I'm that far removed. How can you help people when they don't help themselves. Police just keep a cap on it all so it doesn't take us all down.
  - relaxing 6y ago
    How do you point out (quite accurately!) all the systemic problems and external bad actors at work, then end up at the conclusion that those people need to “help themselves”?
    - 6y ago
zionic 6y ago
Wow, so many [flagged] and [dead] comments!
- r1508982927 6y ago
  that's the culture war playing out, with bad agents all around. somebody posts a tweet linking outlaw motorcycle gangs to riots, gets flagged, i post a rebuttal in the same thread, also get flagged. it's a site full of narcissist "oh no, somebody has a different opinion from mine!"
  - grzm 6y ago
    There might be some of that, but there’s likely also “please be civil here regardless of what point of view.”
  - austincheney 6y ago
    It seems more the result of people looking for agreement than discussion. HN is not Twitter.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Does it feel like things have really gone downhill since you joined?
    - r1508982927 6y ago
      you know what's nice about sock puppets and throwaways? brigading leaders like yourself can't dox me, but the fact that you're scum will follow you forever.
- y-c-o-m-b 6y ago
  This place has really changed for the worse recently. Only a few months ago I was talking about how HN still serves better content and higher quality discussions then places like Reddit, but it appears that's no longer the case. The same inflammatory crap (along with the abuse of the platform's voting and flagging features) have made their way here and I don't think it's going away. It's less "I disagree, here's why" and more of the "fuck you, you're wrong and an idiot!" type mentality becoming prominent.
jdright 6y ago
Source: https://twitter.com/DDoSecrets https://twitter.com/DDoSecrets Their server seems to be dead right now.
siruncledrew 6y ago
Are there data descriptors somewhere or a sample of what’s in these files?
williesleg 6y ago
Meh. Black Lives Matter. Chaz is gonna spread. Thanks China and Russia! Oh and Soros too! Bravo!
Havoc 6y ago
So how many watchlists do I get put on if I download this?

501 points by itcrowd 6y ago

I kind of share the sentiment expressed in the final quote of the article. From the way the dataset is described this could be really helpful to criminals and really harmful and dangerous for other folks - police and civilian alike.

sschueller 6y ago
I would rather have an extra criminal on the streets than risk ruining someones live that is innocent because some cop planted evidence. Just this week a bodycam from NYC officer shows him planting drugs over 2 years ago. The person who's involved took a plea deal because they didn't want to risk going to jail for many years. The cop still has his job and this wasn't the first time. Try getting a job in the US with a criminal record.
- alharith 6y ago
  It's always the big liberal cities, with majority democratic councils, and a legacy of democratic mayors and govenors with the worse police departments: Chicago, Atlanta, D.C., NYC, Baltimore, LA, etc. But somehow the "redneck trumpers in flyover states" get blamed for everything. It's really hilarious at this point. In my city of Charlotte, with the Keith Scott shooting, it was: 9 democratic council members to 1 republican, democratic mayor, democratic governor, black police chief, and a black police officer that did the shooting, but somehow it was institutional racism. There is a policing problem in this country. Period. Color of your skin be damned. If people started from there, things might have been a little different at this point. I am sure this will get flagged, but it really needs to be said at this point. Hopefully some of you see the truth. I sure see it, and I am a middle eastern immigrant.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    This is just political flamebait. If you think this is some phenomena purely constrained to cities you're being lazy at best or wilfully ignorant and driven by ideology, which is probably more accurate.
    - alharith 6y ago
      Throwing generalized insults is easy. Projection is a hell of a drug. I don't think it's constrained to cities. I hold to no ideology. I said the _worse_ of them are usually big blue cities.
      - knowaveragejoe 6y ago
        As someone else so eloquently explained, this is a form of(perhaps inadvertent) bias given the comparative scale of what we're talking about.
  - danharaj 6y ago
    Let me try to clear something up for you. The people protesting on the streets right now don't give a shit what color the boot on their neck is. Systemic racism doesn't just mean the system is full of racist individuals. It means that processes that make up the system lead to racist outcomes. And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. Stop treating politics as a game of football and look at how power is distributed and who benefits from that distribution. Material analysis, not color coded appearances.
    - LycheeKing 6y ago
      >And, yes, Black individuals can participate in racist power structures that hurt Black populations, and of course racism doesn't have a particular political party. You should try to broadcast this on your personal social media accounts and see how long you will keep your job. The BLM mob and their "cancel culture"-enablers unbfortunately lack your nuance. In their rhetoric "police" is just a stand-in for "white" and laws are "white" too and therefore by defintion racist. If the whole affair actually were about justice, the fact that "martyr" George Floyd had a Fentanyl overdose and died from a heart-attack (not asphyxation) inside the hospital several hours(!) after the police encounter would be quite relevant to measure the involved officer's actual guilt, don't you think? Instead the mob is out for blood and payback, demanding to defund the police, so they can loot, defraud, rob, sell crack and murder unhindered, The movement is about revenge not justice, lionizing habitual criminals like George Floyd.
- peterwwillis 6y ago
  This won't expose cops planting evidence, it's more like 10,000 criminals going free, and your direct example isn't related to this story.
- zrth 6y ago
  holy fuck. do you have a url for me?
  - __alexs 6y ago
    https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cameras-marijuana/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cam...
    - blunte 6y ago
      Do the cops not comprehend that they were recording themselves while committing crimes against the people they are sworn to protect?
      - freeone3000 6y ago
        He's still on the job, and the person he wanted in prison is still in prison, so it's more that it doesn't matter he was on video, because not even video evidence is enough to get him fired, let alone arrested.
      - ta17711771 6y ago
        > against the people they are sworn to protect? This is a misnomer. Cops are not actually "to protect and serve", and this has been proven in court. Their function is to uphold the law. That's it.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        Cops are sworn to the law, not the people, but, in any case oaths, absent effective accountability to them, only matter to the people that didn't need to take them in the first place.
      - wonderwonder 6y ago
        Based on history, why would they care? Cameras or no, it appears that there are almost no consequences for their breaking of the law. Generally worst case scenario is that the residents of the city they work in pay a large fine to the victims. QI means the cops suffer no harm. Most of the time the department and prosecution conspires to ensure the video and crime never sees the light of day. And if they do end up going to court: " the court held that California police who stand accused of stealing $225,000 cannot be sued because they never were told specifically that stealing money from people’s homes violates the Constitution" https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-if-police-can-enter-your-home-and-steal-from-you/ https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/14/high-court-to-decide-i...
- readarticle 6y ago
  I don’t think that’s the bargain here. Fusion centers seem to be shared databases of threats that federal, state, and local agencies all contribute to. Given the scale, it’s likely more of the focus is on organizations, not individuals. Given the nature of internal misconduct, I think it’s safe to assume that wouldn’t be shared period, let alone in venues such as these. In cases where it does need to be shared, e.g. covered up NYPD misconduct affects FBI case, I’d assume they have alternative means to this sort of spreadsheet-broadcast impression I’m getting of the centers. Could be totally off, either way I suppose we’ll find out now.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Not if you are in a witness protection program against a drug mafia. They will take their opportunity to send a message. Overall I agree though. This is the same baseless defense used against leaking of info on war crimes. I doubt planting evidence is common, but it will nevertheless be interesting to dig through that. If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. These practices need to be stomped out immediately.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal. Who cares if it’s a huge scandal? I remember reading about the “scandal” years ago. The cop is still has his job and was never charged with a crime. The cop broke the law multiple times on video, an innocent person suffered physical and mental harm. The cop caused harm to all of society by reducing the trust between members of society. Yet he has a job, one with power over others where his word matters more than others. Hence the protests.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    > If it is true the cop is still serving, it should be a huge scandal One of the reasons that the protests in the US are so widespread right now is that, fundamentally, this is the issue: that cop still serving isn't a scandal at all. The police look out for their own, and internal accountability for violating procedure is an absolute farce.
tom_ 6y ago
The police are civilians.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  True. But when you hear cops talk about non cops, they will call non cops civilians.
  - goliatone 6y ago
    This [1] gave me an idea of how some police might see their role. [1] http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      That is definitely an interesting perspective. It seems somewhat idealized, but if we accept the premise of the author, then sheepdogs that hurt lambs are not removed in US making sheep go 'Baa'. Still, a worthwhile read.
  - MrZongle2 6y ago
    As a veteran, my blood boils when I hear that. As I am no longer a member of the military, I am a civilian. My neighbors are civilians. And regardless of a badge or uniform or firearm or SWAT teams or Pentagon-surplus armored vehicles, cops are civilians. Feeling otherwise merely reinforces the "us-versus-them" mentality that leads to the current crisis.
- SigmundA 6y ago
  The common definition of civilian is "a person who is not a member of the police, the armed forces, or a fire department". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian So sworn police officers are not normally considered civilians, while non-sworn personel are: https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-sworn-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/types-of-... https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-law-enforcement/ https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-... https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/police-employee-browse-by/status-sworn-civilian https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

walrus01 6y ago

tweet with the bittorrent magnet URL and trackers: https://twitter.com/eldstal1/status/1274660276508545025 https://twitter.com/eldstal1/status/1274660276508545025

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
I got meta parser error for the torrent. Did anyone else had issues?
- walrus01 6y ago
  try with transmission, a number of less capable bittorrent clients don't like single-file 290GB torrents.

ourya 6y ago

Years ago a fusion center in Missouri listed Ron Paul supporters as potential domestic terrorists. There were so many controversial aspect to these fusion centers. https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-09-12/ron-paul-a-domestic-terrorist/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-09-12/ron-pa...

newacct583 6y ago
This is the kind of pseudofact that tends to trigger my BS detector (tl;dr: it's BS), so I followed your link. It mentions Ron Paul in only one sentence beyond the headline: where it appears in one clause, a semicolon-separated member of a list of "disturbing incidents": "a Missouri-based center's report that support for Ron Paul's presidential bid was a sign of membership in a domestic terrorist group". But if you did, there's a link at the bottom to the report they're citing, so let's check that: http://www.austinchronicle.com/documents/fusioncenterreport.pdf http://www.austinchronicle.com/documents/fusioncenterreport.... This one isn't original reporting either. It's a 38-page think tank whitepaper from "The Constitution Project" on the subject of Fusion Centers in general. And IT only mentions Ron Paul in one sentence too, where it mixes it in with two other items in the same bullet point: "A Missouri-based fusion center issued a February 2009 report describing support for the presidential campaigns of Ron Paul or third party candidates, possession of the iconic “Don’t Tread on Me” "ag and anti-abortion activism as signs of membership in domestic terrorist groups" So now we've gone from your 8 year old link to a point three years farther in the past. And the source for that attention grabbing headling is still nowhere to be found. But that bullet point was footnoted, so let's check that. It's... another news story! Actually the URL in the footnote is stale and broken, but I found the story by headline using Google: https://www.columbiatribune.com/article/20090314/News/303149835 https://www.columbiatribune.com/article/20090314/News/303149... So this tells us all about the Ron Paul thing, right? Nope. It, too, mentions Ron Paul in only one sentence: "Red flags outlined in the document include political bumper stickers such as those for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, talk of conspiracy theories such as the plan for a mega-highway from Canada to Mexico and possession of subversive literature.". So that's dilluted STILL FURTHER in a bunch of other items, most of which sound... not too terribly off to me. And the source for this report? They have a link, but not to the report: https://www.infowars.com/secret-state-police-report-ron-paul-bob-barr-chuck-baldwin-libertarians-are-terrorists/ https://www.infowars.com/secret-state-police-report-ron-paul... Yup, four hops and we're at Infowars. And the report they cite? Not public. They're apparently the only one who have seen it. You got fooled by "media laundering" into regurgitating partisan agitprop. I can't prove your "fact" is wrong, but the support for it is VERY thin.

rmrfstar 6y ago

The only remarkable fact about this leak is that us plebes get to see the other side of the one-way mirror.

iamstupidsimple 6y ago
Hedge funds and investment banks are comparable to cartels?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- monocasa 6y ago
  Some are. HSBC laundered billions of dollars for the cartels and no one went to jail over it. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-230696/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/outrageo...
  - walrus01 6y ago
    I can already see some people thinking "but rolling stone isn't real journalism", so here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hsbc-s-1-9b-money-laundering-settlement-approved-by-judge-1.1377272 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hsbc-s-1-9b-money-launderin... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-18880269 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-18880269 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hsbc-holdings-plc-and-hsbc-bank-usa-na-admit-anti-money-laundering-and-sanctions-violations https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hsbc-holdings-plc-and-hsbc-ba...
    - quickthrowman 6y ago
      Why would they think that? Matt Taibbi is well-known around here. Edit: Rolling Stone did take a credibility hit after Sabrina Rubin Erdley came clean about manufacturing parts of her college campus rape story, but that’s the only thing that comes to mind when I think about RS and journalistic credibility.

CiPHPerCoder 6y ago

> Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington, D.C. office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP and a former assistant secretary of policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said the BlueLeaks data is unlikely to shed much light on police misconduct, but could expose sensitive law enforcement investigations and even endanger lives. But then there was this: https://twitter.com/NatSecGeek/status/1273329710576152581 https://twitter.com/NatSecGeek/status/1273329710576152581

walrus01 6y ago
far-right extremist terrorism greatly outranked radical wahabbi/salafists and similar in 2018/2019, domestically, in the USA: https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-unite... https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2019/03/07/467022/confronting-domestic-right-wing-terrorist-threat/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/201... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-e... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-terrorists-2018-were-almost-all-right-wing/581284/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-...
- gadders 6y ago
  I see that first link kind of buried the lede in footnote 2: " The number of casualties from attacks by Islamic extremists has been greater than by right-wing extremists, largely because of a few cases like Omar Mateen’s Pulse nightclub attack that killed 49 people and wounded 53 others." So right wing terrorism is a greater threat, unless you are worried about being killed.
  - some_furry 6y ago
    My read of what you quoted: White supremacists may be eager to hurt people, but that doesn't translate to lethality. (Nobody ever gave them credit for competence.)
  - 6y ago

voiper1 6y ago

>“Netsential confirmed that this compromise was likely the result of a threat actor who leveraged a compromised Netsential customer user account and the web platform’s upload feature to introduce malicious content, allowing for the exfiltration of other Netsential customer data.” So they are spinning it as a user's fault? Not the fault of Netsential for allowing malicious content to be a problem...

joekrill 6y ago
That's the first thing I thought, too - sounds like they are trying to spin it as some malicious user "broke in". If a "customer user account" is able to upload a malicious payload and exfiltrate huge amounts of other customers' data, there's a much larger, underlying problem here. Hard to see how Netsential could get through this fiasco and still have any business.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  Big companies don't hire properly for sysadmin/security - you don't think law enforcement knows what they're talking about here, do you?
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Legally speaking, if you find a bug and abuse it (to e.g. extract data), you're breaking the law; I know people don't want to hear it and want to protect whistleblowers, but it's factually illegal to steal data like this. That's what whistleblowing is all about though; purposefully breaking the law or a contract (like an NDA) to expose shit. Some countries will protect whistleblowers, others have to flee and seek asylum abroad. So don't deny whether or not law and/or contract was broken, instead focus on whether the action was justified. Yes the system was broken and open for exploitation, but the attack was not accidental: they intentionally uploaded a malicious payload, intentionally extracted data, and intentionally uploaded it to the internets.
  - tridentlead 6y ago
    Actually this is not whistleblowing. Technically, you need to have legal access to the data to whistleblow. If you have to acquire access to the data illegally to then release it its just illegal.

mtgx 6y ago

So who is going to be accountable for all of this data that was collected and then allowed to be hacked and stolen? The more law enforcement/spy agencies are allowed to collect more of our data, it stands to reason that they should at the very least be held accountable more for when that data is inevitably stolen. We are supposed to trust them with this data collection, and they prove to be quite incompetent.

deadalus 6y ago

Unlike https://antifawatch.us https://antifawatch.us, the files on this leak is not individually backed my MSM links

esperent 6y ago
What are MSM links?
- lugorrr 6y ago
  probably links to main stream media outlets?!
  - knowaveragejoe 6y ago
    And the problem with that is - let me guess, they're fake news?
gspr 6y ago
Holy shit, that's disgusting. It's essentially a collaborative project to doxx protestors, assisted by face recognition. Vile. You should feel bad for linking to it.
- catsdanxe 6y ago
  I wouldn't call them protestors. All the profiles I saw on there had an associated arrest/charge for violence or inciting a riot. Obviously I don't have the time to go through all 1000+ profiles. All the information is public knowledge. You name, age, photo, and what you did in public is not a doxx. If their social security numbers, addresses, phonenumbers, or family members were listed it would be totally different. If it was against people that weren't violent and didn't have convictions, I would feel different.
  - teraflop 6y ago
    Well, it's comforting to know that only violent people are listed on that site, because non-violent protestors don't need to worry about being falsely arrested.

larrydag 6y ago

If what the article says is true and PPI is indeed in these documents than these documents are ripe for fraud, criminal use and identity theft. This is worse than a password leak.

aj3 6y ago
If previous incidents have taught us anything, it's that taxpayers should buy free credit monitoring to everyone affected by the leak and be done with it. Maybe throw in $10 to anyone that can prove they suffered losses as a direct result of the leak.
- specialist 6y ago
  IIRC, in some places the govt is the collections recording and credit rating agency.
- aerostable_slug 6y ago
  Monitoring sucks. Freeze your credit (don't just lock it) until it's absolutely needed, then refreeze it. This will choke off much of the business of credit bureaus, but too bad so sad. There are a number of interesting approaches to solving the same problems as credit bureaus (risk assessment, identity verification, etc.) that don't carry as much consumer risk as the big three bureaus do every single day.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure your parent comment was oozing sarcasm.
Nexxxeh 6y ago
Is there a risk of undercover agents and CIs being outed? If so, does that potentially endangers lives?

hypewatch 6y ago

I’m disappointed that U.S. police departments would use such low a quality service with no focus on security. Looking at Netsential’s website, their services look very basic and inexpensive. There’s not even a mention of security on its site. It was only a matter of time before they were hacked. https://netsential.com/default.aspx?menuitemid=280 https://netsential.com/default.aspx?menuitemid=280

walrus01 6y ago
I feel like I just took a short trip in a time machine to the year 2001.
onion2k 6y ago
That website is ancient. The layout is done with tables and there are bits of code in there specifically for IE7. That means it'll work on anything. The old desktop PCs that sit around in public offices for decades will display it with no problems. Compare that to a beautiful, modern website from a rival that plain won't load let alone render on that ancient computer. The one with the working website wins the contract.
- yread 6y ago
  What's wrong with making your landing page render for everyone? Mine also sort of works in ie7
  - onion2k 6y ago
    Nothing, and you really should, but companies don't because they want to make all modern shiny stuff without putting the effort in to make something that does progressive enhancement properly. That's why contracts for police websites go to companies whose websites look like crap.
  - Raidion 6y ago
    There is a difference between using CSS/HTML from 2005 and using server and network security from 2005.

jml7c5 6y ago

This is quite wild. Is there any finer-grained summary of the sort of data leaked, and how extensive it is? Even a million documents could be anything from mundane to incredibly sensitive, depending on the sort of content.

thephyber 6y ago
The leak is still too new and too large for a very detailed analysis, but BleepingComputer has an article[1] on it. [1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/blueleaks-data-dump-exposes-over-24-years-of-police-records/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/blueleaks-dat...

bluedays 6y ago

Stop messing with people, and this won't happen. I don't feel bad for the police.

steve76 6y ago
I live in a rather hard hit area. It won't show up on any blighted or opportunity zones because attorneys or land owners connected to politicians can't make money off it. Here are some highlights: A good month is one without gun shots. I've been mugged coming out my front door by kids with knives. An elderly woman was tortured to death during a home invasion. A fight breaks out, police break it up and leave without arresting anyone, only for the fight to occur again 10 minutes later this time with gunshots. Police show up the next morning and pick up casings and then leave. Little kids were right in the middle of that 30 person brawl too. Non-stop fireworks to cover up gun shots. Mom moves into her new boyfriend's place, then break up and leave the kid. So you have kids growing up in a home with zero parents. Garbage everywhere. The attitude of always wanting to fight even when they mess up big time. Hitting a car, going through the garbage. Good things stay hidden. Vulgar violent things stare you down because they like getting grounded up. When something really bad happens, like a home fire, they turn into panicked cowards. All that thug life goes right away on the slightest adversity. Attorneys and corporate leaders have abandoned the people who got them here just to win at all costs. A vet who fought so they don't have to kills themselves every day. That's not going to last. WTC going down in a fireball should have taught them all something. Can't escape it, no matter how rich you are. The leaders really are out of touch. They see the violence as like how mechanical bolts preload. People are killing each other. I don't feel it. That's good! It means I'm that far removed. How can you help people when they don't help themselves. Police just keep a cap on it all so it doesn't take us all down.
- relaxing 6y ago
  How do you point out (quite accurately!) all the systemic problems and external bad actors at work, then end up at the conclusion that those people need to “help themselves”?
  - 6y ago

zionic 6y ago

Wow, so many [flagged] and [dead] comments!

r1508982927 6y ago
that's the culture war playing out, with bad agents all around. somebody posts a tweet linking outlaw motorcycle gangs to riots, gets flagged, i post a rebuttal in the same thread, also get flagged. it's a site full of narcissist "oh no, somebody has a different opinion from mine!"
- grzm 6y ago
  There might be some of that, but there’s likely also “please be civil here regardless of what point of view.”
- austincheney 6y ago
  It seems more the result of people looking for agreement than discussion. HN is not Twitter.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Does it feel like things have really gone downhill since you joined?
  - r1508982927 6y ago
    you know what's nice about sock puppets and throwaways? brigading leaders like yourself can't dox me, but the fact that you're scum will follow you forever.
y-c-o-m-b 6y ago
This place has really changed for the worse recently. Only a few months ago I was talking about how HN still serves better content and higher quality discussions then places like Reddit, but it appears that's no longer the case. The same inflammatory crap (along with the abuse of the platform's voting and flagging features) have made their way here and I don't think it's going away. It's less "I disagree, here's why" and more of the "fuck you, you're wrong and an idiot!" type mentality becoming prominent.

jdright 6y ago

Source: https://twitter.com/DDoSecrets https://twitter.com/DDoSecrets Their server seems to be dead right now.

siruncledrew 6y ago

Are there data descriptors somewhere or a sample of what’s in these files?

williesleg 6y ago

Meh. Black Lives Matter. Chaz is gonna spread. Thanks China and Russia! Oh and Soros too! Bravo!

Havoc 6y ago

So how many watchlists do I get put on if I download this?