14 ms·

OPSEC critique of the Michigan Governor kidnap plot

104 points by tsujamin 6y ago

sebmellen 6y ago
It always surprises me how hard it seems for people to take OpSec seriously (whether for terrorist plots or darknet markets). There are really a few basic ground rules that always seem to be violated, even by those with seemingly sufficient experience, like Ross Ulbricht. On the note of OpSec, there's an awesome project called USBKill, which probably would've saved Ross Ulbricht from prison. > USBKill is anti-forensic software distributed via GitHub, written in Python for the BSD, Linux and OS X operating systems. It is designed to serve as a kill switch if the computer on which it is installed should fall under the control of individuals or entities the owner or operator does not wish it to. It is free software, available under the GNU General Public License. [1] [0]: https://github.com/hephaest0s/usbkill https://github.com/hephaest0s/usbkill [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USBKill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USBKill
- hfjtktngnt 6y ago
  I've also thought about this, why most terrorists are so dumb. I think it's because if they were smart, they would realize how hard it is to get away with it. This is literally one of the few criminal acts where no expenses will be spared in catching the perps. Also, smart people tend to do something with their life, so they are less inclined to be attracted by terrorism. Regarding Ross, once they figured out his name, it was over for him, USBKill or not.
  - uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    >I've also thought about this, why most terrorists are so dumb. My theory is that when a terrorist does a stupid thing there are millions of dollars available, and thousands of people trained and ready, to take advantage of that stupidity. When we do something stupid a couple people might point at us and say slightly mean things. Everyone is stupid at least a few times a day.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    On the bright side, an attested (N=1) method for de-radicalising former terrorists has been simply hooking them up. They may be dumb, but they're not stupid: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-you-need-is-love/302351/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-you...
    - tremon 6y ago
      So we must sacrifice one person to save many?
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        Sacrifice? Former elite terrorists probably get bad boy points. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single girl in possession of a beautiful visage, must be in want of a boy ... of whom she may confidently boast "I'll alter him." (not, as I must mistakenly have misheard at my marriage, as "aisle, altar, hymn")
      - yowlingcat 6y ago
        What makes you think it's a sacrifice rather than a reverse proselytization (or de-radicalization as some call it)?
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        For the flagger: quoting the opening line of Pride and Prejudice is simply a more verbose way to say /s. (I have double checked, and all three of google, weibo, and yandex pull Austen up as the top hit for the key phrase.)
  - seleniumBubbles 6y ago
    Public perception about the average intelligence of any type of criminal is likely influenced by survivorship bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
  - thinkingemote 6y ago
    Also note that criminals are the ones who failed. We don't get to see how the successful ones are. Same with terrorists.
    - WJW 6y ago
      Unlike most other crimes, a terrorist act that goes unnoticed is almost by definition unsuccessful.
      - a1369209993 6y ago
        Well, there's a conspicuously unoccupied middle ground between the two, but if the terrorist's goal is only to inflict harm, without necessarily revealing the reason or taking credit, they would presumably prefer their actions to look like a natural disaster, riot, (industrial/medical/etc) accident, forest fire, or other non-deliberate and/or non-planned event.
        goto11 6y ago
        That is not terrorism though. The point of terrorism is to achieve political goals by spreading fear.
        a1369209993 6y ago
        That's true by definition, sure, but that's not how governments actually use the word.
        Teever 6y ago
        How would causing a riot not achieve political goals by spreading fear?
  - fitbitq 6y ago
    "Also, smart people tend to do something with their life," Dunno. The Unabomber had probably a higher IQ than most people on hackernews. And on a side note: who cares about James bond? It is always the villain who makes or breaks a James bond movie. I am actually sad that Jet Lee never played the villain.
  - heimatau 6y ago
    Your comment was extremely insightful. Thank you for this. I rarely favorite (to be fair I only knew about it recently) but...your comment is in my favorites.
  - mercer 6y ago
    I dunno. I believe it's actually pretty easy to get away with lots of crime. It's just that the smart ones don't get caught. > Also, smart people tend to do something with their life, so they are less inclined to be attracted by terrorism. that probably plays a role. And they are perhaps more likely to consider the ethical dimension.
- newsclues 6y ago
  OpSec is HARD. It is a challenge for militaries, brilliant hackers and dumb criminals.
- vmception 6y ago
  > There are really a few basic ground rules that always seem to be violated, even by those with seemingly sufficient experience, like Ross Ulbricht. Well yes, for the people that get caught. and then the DOJ always says "see! this proves you can't hide from us" and everyone else on darknet is like "yeah here's the refined checklist implementation for how not to get caught and here's why" which should be like everyone's first purchase on any darknet market for $.99 and should be any vendor's primary first item for sale to gain reputation I pretty much never see indictments that actually undermine the best practices.... you don't need to pay to understand the best practices, but it does save time to see what the tools are that implement those best practices, or understanding why some secret chat apps should be avoided versus others.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    I mean if you see some dude with nothing for sale but "how to not get busted doing crimes really i promise.txt"... More seriously, there's an element of performative deterrence in the way stuff like this gets handled. Giving people without the experience to know it's nonsense the idea they can't do dark web crimes and get caught probably cuts down on the rate of people dipping a toe into the exciting world of dark web crimes, where they can for example learn how to not get caught and then talk on the open web about how much they know I guess? What kind of opsec is that?
    - vmception 6y ago
      there is different OPSEC for different attack vectors in the universe of dark web activities, most of them are not crimes and of the crimes most of those do not require stonewalling an eventual multi-jurisdictional state actor there are just different OPSEC models, if we aren't talking about crimes its fine to talk on the open web about them, some of those OPSEC models would still accomplish thwarting the aforementioned threat model.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Getting caught is not just about OPSEC, but also visibility. The DOJ has limited time and resources, so will always go after the "big fish" and the cases that give them the best PR. If you had two scenarios: 1. Great OPSEC, high profile 2. OK OPSEC, minimal profile You're still at greater risk for scenario #1. When Ross Ulbricht did his Forbes interview and basically said "I dare the gov't to shut me down", he pretty much guaranteed they'd go to the ends of the earth to shut him down. The only thing worse than committing multiple felonies is making the gov't look stupid or weak.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  USBkill is useful if you want to prevent cops from seeing what you have saved in your porn folder. It wont stop them from tapping your facebook chats. Or bugging your basement prepper shelter. Or tracking your cellphone movements. In cases like this, whether the cops can pull anything from your harddrive doesnt change anything.
- pjc50 6y ago
  The refusal to wear masks, which is a trivial form of "opsec" against infection, shows what happens. It's boring, uncomfortable, unsexy, protects you against an outcome you think is low probability, and you don't find out if you're doing it right - only if you've done it wrong, by which time it's too late. Besides, since these terrorists had no concrete grievance, only internet radicalization, they ended up doing more cosplay than effectiveness.
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    A funny side note with that... there was a recent theft of $3000 worth of Crest Whitestrips in my city that got some news attention. It was 3x 40-50 year old white folks that did the theft; the woman distracted the clerk while the two men loaded up. All caught on camera. AND THEY DIDN’T WEAR MASKS. They had every opportunity to cover up their faces in a completely socially acceptable way and didn’t. C’mon.
    - enkid 6y ago
      I guess the only people who need to whiten their teeth right now are anti-maskers.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  You never hear about the people who do take opsec seriously. Criminals are not dumb, the ones you hear about are.
- ShorsHammer 6y ago
  You pull the tails usb out and it does a far better job, this is shit software aimed at people with shit practices and there's simply no nice or pleasant way to say it. Just fucking use tails if you are a terrorist intent on murdering billions of people.
  - MrMorden 6y ago
    If you're that ambitious of a terrorist you have faceless minions to travel to internet cafes in distant locations and access the internet for you. Using Tails wouldn't do a damn thing for such a high-profile target, though; Osama bin Laden didn't have interwebs at all in Abbottabad, and the US government still dropped in for a visit.
- mercer 6y ago
  I once, just for the fun of the exercise, tried to set up an unused netbook and be as safe as possible. It was incredibly difficult to not mess up, knowing what I know. In practice, I'd say it was usually convenience or rote behavior that caused me to 'compromise' the laptop. It was a humbling experience, and while I had no aspirations to become a spy, it showed me how bad I'd probably be at it.
082349872349872 6y ago
Having recently watched Triumph of the Will[1] I have to admit I'm reassured by the impression that US reactionary extremists, at least the goofier part of them as revealed by indictments, just plain lack teutonic thoroughness. Example: before the Nazis came to power, what would become the brownshirts had disguised themselves as a gymnastics and sport group (Turn- und Sportabteilung), not as a "we carry in tacticool" group. [1] somewhere after 32:00, what I believe to be the sauce for "I'm doing my part!" ~48:16, Hitler stans Sparta, "we will die, but germany will live on in you". Bonus satire: https://local.theonion.com/man-with-20-rifles-can-t-remember-if-his-goal-to-start-1826236224 https://local.theonion.com/man-with-20-rifles-can-t-remember... Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389335 , which I wrote after reading about guys similar to these, neither of whom appear to have considered that any "Hamas" agent who desperately needed a couple of farmboys to machine silencers might just be sus.
- learc83 6y ago
  Post WWI Germany was in a much worse state economically than the US currently is. Consequently, there were far more people who were capable of that kind of planning who also weren’t invested in the status quo.
  - mveety 6y ago
    It's not just economics there. Weimar was a garbage fire from top to bottom, and that made extremist groups that promised to fix the nation actually viable. People are much more willing to vote for loons if everything is broken and no one has really done much of substance about it. In their eyes they have nothing to lose. A common thought then was "Maybe these nazi/communist/anarchist guys can fix things. They seem well organised even if they are a bit wacky. How could they make things worse? We'll just vote them out if they don't deliver the goods like we did the last guys". Little did they know of what was to come.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      For reference, what a german ballot looked like by 1936: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_German_parliamentary_election_and_referendum#/media/File:Wahlzettel-3.-Reich.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_German_parliamentary_elec... November 1933 was already similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1933_German_parliamentary_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1933_German_parliamen... and March 1933 was highly irregular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_elec... > "In a decree issued on 17 February 1933, Göring ordered the Prussian police force to make unrestrained use of firearms in operations against political opponents" and (as mentioned in previous posts) the police were not the only armed paramilitary group in play. One additional item of context is that there were many people (including Ezra Pound and Oswald Spengler) going about saying that WWI+depression had proved that the edwardian vision of progress and social democracy was broken forever, and something new needed to be tried. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24696859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24696859
vmception 6y ago
Can someone explain how they thought taking over a state within the US would do anything? Like even if they got out of Michigan which has its own militia and police force, along side its own line of succession, the feds would be descending on them from every angle either way and both governments would nullify the takeover attempt. Can someone explain the line of reasoning here? I've only read headlines and it sounds too dumb to dedicate more thought on. Any summary about why this wasn't as dumb as it sounds would be helpful thanks.
- qeternity 6y ago
  > Can someone explain how they thought They didn’t.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Yeah, they were planning a kidnap-murder of a judge, not some kind of forcible state house coup. Not that it's any less dumb, or that they're any less dangerous for it.
    - mixologic 6y ago
      They were planning on kidnapping the Governor of Michigan.
      - throwanem 6y ago
        Oh, right, so they were. Thanks - it's hard to keep this stuff straight these days, especially before coffee.
- throwanem 6y ago
  It was as dumb as it sounds. These aren't serious people. Unfortunately, unserious people can still manage to be quite dangerous, if they put their minds to it.
  - m0zg 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nabla9 6y ago
What you see here is people doing serious crime without being fully cognizant. They have to collectively to suppress some lines of thought to be able to get into it. The line between weekend live action role-playing, tough talk, rebellion and reality has blurred with these people. They attended demonstrations, had fantasy plans based on movies they watched, and then started to act on them. These guys are useful fools for those how ignite them.
- Proven 6y ago
  Yep, they shouldn't have joined that BML rally... https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-supremacist-narrative-unravels-whitmer-kidnap-suspect-attended-blm-rally-another https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-supremacist-narrat...
- dfischer 6y ago
  Basically describing the conditions of a majority on social media...
- netsharc 6y ago
  This part about wanting to be conquerors really made it clear to me: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ej09htBVkAADsqu.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ej09htBVkAADsqu.jpg . These are just people who've ended up being "nobodies" in society, probably feeling jealous of successful people, and wanting to be seen as heroes. They are (un-)surprisingly no different to most jihadists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlbirlSA-dc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlbirlSA-dc
RedEdward71 6y ago
This is a local news link from MI. These half-wits were indeed dangerous but were clearly on the fringe and bound to fail. The "leader" of these flunkys was homeless and living in the basement of a vac shop via the benevolence of family friend. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/10/whitmer-kidnap-scheme-planned-vacuum-shop-grand-rapids/5939827002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/10/w...
- microtherion 6y ago
  As domestic terrorist plots go, this was actually one of the more competent ones. In many such cases, the FBI undercover agents took a rather active role in advancing the plot, because the suspects were so clueless. If the criminal complaint here is to be believed, despite the presence of multiple moles, it was primarily the suspects who developed the plot.
stanski 6y ago
This is the sort of planning a 12 year old would come up with while daydreaming. Except these guys are adults so they have an actual chance of trying to put it into action. It's part scary and part embarrassing.
Terretta 6y ago
If anyone prefers this as a readable document: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1314237833276612609.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1314237833276612609.html That’s the link most news sites are using.
wuwuno 6y ago
Dunning-Kruger gets thrown around a lot, but in this case it's spot on. David Dunning - "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is." These are dogs chasing cars with the goal of driving the car, once they catch it. Luckily most people aren't very motivated, self directed or willing to risk everything. Of course these guys don't really understand what they've put at risk. What I want explained to me is why the right, and even the middle of the road right seems like they've lost their minds. They are willing to support and ignore the really crazy far right, like it's normal. Is it just their racism finally bubbling to the surface after being artificially suppressed all these years? I don't just believe that they've been brainwashed by the right-wing media, I think there needs to be something else under the surface that makes the susceptible, and I think it's racism. Am I wrong?
- krapp 6y ago
  You're not wrong. Eight years of Obama was enough for the racist cancer in the heart of American culture to finally metastasize and start to consume the body politic. It doesn't help that Donald Trump basically shares many of those extremists' beliefs, prejudices and conspiratorial mindset (he's the man who made birtherism a thing,) and so does nothing but fan the flames and grant them an air of legitimacy. But he's more of a symptom than a cause IMHO.
Rebelgecko 6y ago
Even though they raise some interesting points, there's also a lot of assumptions that don't seem to be backed up by the actual day-glo text For example the analysis says that they're a bunch of idiots driving around shooting shit because they have no leadership or hierarchy. Then you read the citation, and it's about how one of the terrorists didn't shoot because he asked for permission and was denied
alphachloride 6y ago
I must say, twitter is not the best way to write about things longer than, well, a tweet.

104 points by tsujamin 6y ago

It always surprises me how hard it seems for people to take OpSec seriously (whether for terrorist plots or darknet markets). There are really a few basic ground rules that always seem to be violated, even by those with seemingly sufficient experience, like Ross Ulbricht. On the note of OpSec, there's an awesome project called USBKill, which probably would've saved Ross Ulbricht from prison. > USBKill is anti-forensic software distributed via GitHub, written in Python for the BSD, Linux and OS X operating systems. It is designed to serve as a kill switch if the computer on which it is installed should fall under the control of individuals or entities the owner or operator does not wish it to. It is free software, available under the GNU General Public License. [1] [0]: https://github.com/hephaest0s/usbkill https://github.com/hephaest0s/usbkill [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USBKill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USBKill

hfjtktngnt 6y ago
I've also thought about this, why most terrorists are so dumb. I think it's because if they were smart, they would realize how hard it is to get away with it. This is literally one of the few criminal acts where no expenses will be spared in catching the perps. Also, smart people tend to do something with their life, so they are less inclined to be attracted by terrorism. Regarding Ross, once they figured out his name, it was over for him, USBKill or not.
- uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  >I've also thought about this, why most terrorists are so dumb. My theory is that when a terrorist does a stupid thing there are millions of dollars available, and thousands of people trained and ready, to take advantage of that stupidity. When we do something stupid a couple people might point at us and say slightly mean things. Everyone is stupid at least a few times a day.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  On the bright side, an attested (N=1) method for de-radicalising former terrorists has been simply hooking them up. They may be dumb, but they're not stupid: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-you-need-is-love/302351/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-you...
  - tremon 6y ago
    So we must sacrifice one person to save many?
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      Sacrifice? Former elite terrorists probably get bad boy points. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single girl in possession of a beautiful visage, must be in want of a boy ... of whom she may confidently boast "I'll alter him." (not, as I must mistakenly have misheard at my marriage, as "aisle, altar, hymn")
    - yowlingcat 6y ago
      What makes you think it's a sacrifice rather than a reverse proselytization (or de-radicalization as some call it)?
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      For the flagger: quoting the opening line of Pride and Prejudice is simply a more verbose way to say /s. (I have double checked, and all three of google, weibo, and yandex pull Austen up as the top hit for the key phrase.)
- seleniumBubbles 6y ago
  Public perception about the average intelligence of any type of criminal is likely influenced by survivorship bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Also note that criminals are the ones who failed. We don't get to see how the successful ones are. Same with terrorists.
  - WJW 6y ago
    Unlike most other crimes, a terrorist act that goes unnoticed is almost by definition unsuccessful.
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      Well, there's a conspicuously unoccupied middle ground between the two, but if the terrorist's goal is only to inflict harm, without necessarily revealing the reason or taking credit, they would presumably prefer their actions to look like a natural disaster, riot, (industrial/medical/etc) accident, forest fire, or other non-deliberate and/or non-planned event.
      - goto11 6y ago
        That is not terrorism though. The point of terrorism is to achieve political goals by spreading fear.
        a1369209993 6y ago
        That's true by definition, sure, but that's not how governments actually use the word.
        Teever 6y ago
        How would causing a riot not achieve political goals by spreading fear?
- fitbitq 6y ago
  "Also, smart people tend to do something with their life," Dunno. The Unabomber had probably a higher IQ than most people on hackernews. And on a side note: who cares about James bond? It is always the villain who makes or breaks a James bond movie. I am actually sad that Jet Lee never played the villain.
- heimatau 6y ago
  Your comment was extremely insightful. Thank you for this. I rarely favorite (to be fair I only knew about it recently) but...your comment is in my favorites.
- mercer 6y ago
  I dunno. I believe it's actually pretty easy to get away with lots of crime. It's just that the smart ones don't get caught. > Also, smart people tend to do something with their life, so they are less inclined to be attracted by terrorism. that probably plays a role. And they are perhaps more likely to consider the ethical dimension.
newsclues 6y ago
OpSec is HARD. It is a challenge for militaries, brilliant hackers and dumb criminals.
vmception 6y ago
> There are really a few basic ground rules that always seem to be violated, even by those with seemingly sufficient experience, like Ross Ulbricht. Well yes, for the people that get caught. and then the DOJ always says "see! this proves you can't hide from us" and everyone else on darknet is like "yeah here's the refined checklist implementation for how not to get caught and here's why" which should be like everyone's first purchase on any darknet market for $.99 and should be any vendor's primary first item for sale to gain reputation I pretty much never see indictments that actually undermine the best practices.... you don't need to pay to understand the best practices, but it does save time to see what the tools are that implement those best practices, or understanding why some secret chat apps should be avoided versus others.
- throwanem 6y ago
  I mean if you see some dude with nothing for sale but "how to not get busted doing crimes really i promise.txt"... More seriously, there's an element of performative deterrence in the way stuff like this gets handled. Giving people without the experience to know it's nonsense the idea they can't do dark web crimes and get caught probably cuts down on the rate of people dipping a toe into the exciting world of dark web crimes, where they can for example learn how to not get caught and then talk on the open web about how much they know I guess? What kind of opsec is that?
  - vmception 6y ago
    there is different OPSEC for different attack vectors in the universe of dark web activities, most of them are not crimes and of the crimes most of those do not require stonewalling an eventual multi-jurisdictional state actor there are just different OPSEC models, if we aren't talking about crimes its fine to talk on the open web about them, some of those OPSEC models would still accomplish thwarting the aforementioned threat model.
- refurb 6y ago
  Getting caught is not just about OPSEC, but also visibility. The DOJ has limited time and resources, so will always go after the "big fish" and the cases that give them the best PR. If you had two scenarios: 1. Great OPSEC, high profile 2. OK OPSEC, minimal profile You're still at greater risk for scenario #1. When Ross Ulbricht did his Forbes interview and basically said "I dare the gov't to shut me down", he pretty much guaranteed they'd go to the ends of the earth to shut him down. The only thing worse than committing multiple felonies is making the gov't look stupid or weak.
sandworm101 6y ago
USBkill is useful if you want to prevent cops from seeing what you have saved in your porn folder. It wont stop them from tapping your facebook chats. Or bugging your basement prepper shelter. Or tracking your cellphone movements. In cases like this, whether the cops can pull anything from your harddrive doesnt change anything.
pjc50 6y ago
The refusal to wear masks, which is a trivial form of "opsec" against infection, shows what happens. It's boring, uncomfortable, unsexy, protects you against an outcome you think is low probability, and you don't find out if you're doing it right - only if you've done it wrong, by which time it's too late. Besides, since these terrorists had no concrete grievance, only internet radicalization, they ended up doing more cosplay than effectiveness.
- tonyarkles 6y ago
  A funny side note with that... there was a recent theft of $3000 worth of Crest Whitestrips in my city that got some news attention. It was 3x 40-50 year old white folks that did the theft; the woman distracted the clerk while the two men loaded up. All caught on camera. AND THEY DIDN’T WEAR MASKS. They had every opportunity to cover up their faces in a completely socially acceptable way and didn’t. C’mon.
  - enkid 6y ago
    I guess the only people who need to whiten their teeth right now are anti-maskers.
tomjen3 6y ago
You never hear about the people who do take opsec seriously. Criminals are not dumb, the ones you hear about are.
ShorsHammer 6y ago
You pull the tails usb out and it does a far better job, this is shit software aimed at people with shit practices and there's simply no nice or pleasant way to say it. Just fucking use tails if you are a terrorist intent on murdering billions of people.
- MrMorden 6y ago
  If you're that ambitious of a terrorist you have faceless minions to travel to internet cafes in distant locations and access the internet for you. Using Tails wouldn't do a damn thing for such a high-profile target, though; Osama bin Laden didn't have interwebs at all in Abbottabad, and the US government still dropped in for a visit.
mercer 6y ago
I once, just for the fun of the exercise, tried to set up an unused netbook and be as safe as possible. It was incredibly difficult to not mess up, knowing what I know. In practice, I'd say it was usually convenience or rote behavior that caused me to 'compromise' the laptop. It was a humbling experience, and while I had no aspirations to become a spy, it showed me how bad I'd probably be at it.

082349872349872 6y ago

Having recently watched Triumph of the Will[1] I have to admit I'm reassured by the impression that US reactionary extremists, at least the goofier part of them as revealed by indictments, just plain lack teutonic thoroughness. Example: before the Nazis came to power, what would become the brownshirts had disguised themselves as a gymnastics and sport group (Turn- und Sportabteilung), not as a "we carry in tacticool" group. [1] somewhere after 32:00, what I believe to be the sauce for "I'm doing my part!" ~48:16, Hitler stans Sparta, "we will die, but germany will live on in you". Bonus satire: https://local.theonion.com/man-with-20-rifles-can-t-remember-if-his-goal-to-start-1826236224 https://local.theonion.com/man-with-20-rifles-can-t-remember... Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24389335 , which I wrote after reading about guys similar to these, neither of whom appear to have considered that any "Hamas" agent who desperately needed a couple of farmboys to machine silencers might just be sus.

learc83 6y ago
Post WWI Germany was in a much worse state economically than the US currently is. Consequently, there were far more people who were capable of that kind of planning who also weren’t invested in the status quo.
- mveety 6y ago
  It's not just economics there. Weimar was a garbage fire from top to bottom, and that made extremist groups that promised to fix the nation actually viable. People are much more willing to vote for loons if everything is broken and no one has really done much of substance about it. In their eyes they have nothing to lose. A common thought then was "Maybe these nazi/communist/anarchist guys can fix things. They seem well organised even if they are a bit wacky. How could they make things worse? We'll just vote them out if they don't deliver the goods like we did the last guys". Little did they know of what was to come.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    For reference, what a german ballot looked like by 1936: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_German_parliamentary_election_and_referendum#/media/File:Wahlzettel-3.-Reich.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_German_parliamentary_elec... November 1933 was already similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1933_German_parliamentary_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1933_German_parliamen... and March 1933 was highly irregular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_elec... > "In a decree issued on 17 February 1933, Göring ordered the Prussian police force to make unrestrained use of firearms in operations against political opponents" and (as mentioned in previous posts) the police were not the only armed paramilitary group in play. One additional item of context is that there were many people (including Ezra Pound and Oswald Spengler) going about saying that WWI+depression had proved that the edwardian vision of progress and social democracy was broken forever, and something new needed to be tried. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24696859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24696859

vmception 6y ago

Can someone explain how they thought taking over a state within the US would do anything? Like even if they got out of Michigan which has its own militia and police force, along side its own line of succession, the feds would be descending on them from every angle either way and both governments would nullify the takeover attempt. Can someone explain the line of reasoning here? I've only read headlines and it sounds too dumb to dedicate more thought on. Any summary about why this wasn't as dumb as it sounds would be helpful thanks.

qeternity 6y ago
> Can someone explain how they thought They didn’t.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Yeah, they were planning a kidnap-murder of a judge, not some kind of forcible state house coup. Not that it's any less dumb, or that they're any less dangerous for it.
  - mixologic 6y ago
    They were planning on kidnapping the Governor of Michigan.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      Oh, right, so they were. Thanks - it's hard to keep this stuff straight these days, especially before coffee.
throwanem 6y ago
It was as dumb as it sounds. These aren't serious people. Unfortunately, unserious people can still manage to be quite dangerous, if they put their minds to it.
- m0zg 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nabla9 6y ago

What you see here is people doing serious crime without being fully cognizant. They have to collectively to suppress some lines of thought to be able to get into it. The line between weekend live action role-playing, tough talk, rebellion and reality has blurred with these people. They attended demonstrations, had fantasy plans based on movies they watched, and then started to act on them. These guys are useful fools for those how ignite them.

Proven 6y ago
Yep, they shouldn't have joined that BML rally... https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-supremacist-narrative-unravels-whitmer-kidnap-suspect-attended-blm-rally-another https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-supremacist-narrat...
dfischer 6y ago
Basically describing the conditions of a majority on social media...
netsharc 6y ago
This part about wanting to be conquerors really made it clear to me: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ej09htBVkAADsqu.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ej09htBVkAADsqu.jpg . These are just people who've ended up being "nobodies" in society, probably feeling jealous of successful people, and wanting to be seen as heroes. They are (un-)surprisingly no different to most jihadists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlbirlSA-dc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlbirlSA-dc

RedEdward71 6y ago

This is a local news link from MI. These half-wits were indeed dangerous but were clearly on the fringe and bound to fail. The "leader" of these flunkys was homeless and living in the basement of a vac shop via the benevolence of family friend. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/10/whitmer-kidnap-scheme-planned-vacuum-shop-grand-rapids/5939827002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/10/w...

microtherion 6y ago
As domestic terrorist plots go, this was actually one of the more competent ones. In many such cases, the FBI undercover agents took a rather active role in advancing the plot, because the suspects were so clueless. If the criminal complaint here is to be believed, despite the presence of multiple moles, it was primarily the suspects who developed the plot.

stanski 6y ago

This is the sort of planning a 12 year old would come up with while daydreaming. Except these guys are adults so they have an actual chance of trying to put it into action. It's part scary and part embarrassing.

Terretta 6y ago

If anyone prefers this as a readable document: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1314237833276612609.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1314237833276612609.html That’s the link most news sites are using.

wuwuno 6y ago

Dunning-Kruger gets thrown around a lot, but in this case it's spot on. David Dunning - "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is." These are dogs chasing cars with the goal of driving the car, once they catch it. Luckily most people aren't very motivated, self directed or willing to risk everything. Of course these guys don't really understand what they've put at risk. What I want explained to me is why the right, and even the middle of the road right seems like they've lost their minds. They are willing to support and ignore the really crazy far right, like it's normal. Is it just their racism finally bubbling to the surface after being artificially suppressed all these years? I don't just believe that they've been brainwashed by the right-wing media, I think there needs to be something else under the surface that makes the susceptible, and I think it's racism. Am I wrong?

krapp 6y ago
You're not wrong. Eight years of Obama was enough for the racist cancer in the heart of American culture to finally metastasize and start to consume the body politic. It doesn't help that Donald Trump basically shares many of those extremists' beliefs, prejudices and conspiratorial mindset (he's the man who made birtherism a thing,) and so does nothing but fan the flames and grant them an air of legitimacy. But he's more of a symptom than a cause IMHO.

Rebelgecko 6y ago

Even though they raise some interesting points, there's also a lot of assumptions that don't seem to be backed up by the actual day-glo text For example the analysis says that they're a bunch of idiots driving around shooting shit because they have no leadership or hierarchy. Then you read the citation, and it's about how one of the terrorists didn't shoot because he asked for permission and was denied

alphachloride 6y ago

I must say, twitter is not the best way to write about things longer than, well, a tweet.