17 ms·
“You Have Zero Privacy” Says Internal Royal Canadian Mounted Police Presentation
- kleiba 6y agohttps://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-it/ https://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-it/
- nix23 6y agoStingray's mounted on horses...i love that picture ;)
- bawolff 6y agoWell stingrays (or similar devices) weren't mentioned in the article, and mounties don't ride horses anymore.
- antonyh 6y agoSurprising that they don't - the London Met still use mounted officers.
- Raphmedia 6y agoCanada is very big and most RCMP will work along trans-canadian highways. This makes horses unsuited for the job. AFAIK, they use Dodge Charger Enforcers. They do have mounted units and RCMP horse carrier trailers.
- bawolff 6y agoKeep in mind the RCMP is not responsible for policing major cities. They are mostly the canadian equivalent of the FBI and also are the provincial police in some (not all) provinces. They also are the local police in small towns. I've seen mounted policemen in canada, but never a mounted mountie (outside of ceremonial things)
- bregma 6y agoMost mounties don't ride horses. Some do as part of their job. There's only so many places a patrol car can drive or a desk jockey can ride.
- nix23 6y ago>and mounties don't ride horses anymore. What are they mounting then?
- bawolff 6y agoThis article has a lot of words without saying very much. The tl;dr: Mounties purchased some sort of intelligence gathering software, and kept it secret for "national security" (i thought that was CSE or CSIS's job?) Mounties have some sort of darknet search engine. Article implies the term "darknet" is being used liberally, possibly to include spying on protestors, but is very unclear on the details. Mounties have some sort of vuln in facebook that allows them to see your fb friends even if set to private (this is probably the most significant revelation in the article imo) Mounties use proxy software when working undercover (no kidding, never would have guessed that one) Mounties have software to do sentiment analysis on intercepted or publicly available messages It is implied that the mounties have a caviler attitude towards privacy violations. -------- The article is a little light on details and high on unstated implications. I'm not exactly happy about all this but this is hardly a bombshell of privacy violation. Maybe there is bad things there, but the article just doesn't have the technical detail to judge.
- zrth 6y agoThank you for taking the time to write the tl;dr!
- hackerfromthefu 6y agoTheres important things missing from this summary - such as hiding that they have these capabilities, lying about parts of it, going against privacy expectations set by other parts of their government. That's a very blatant double standard - privacy for them, but not for us. Their culture as indicated by their actions (plus wording in training materials) is that they don't care about the rights of the people which the people believe they have, and are willing to lie to abuse the public's privacy. Its familiar, maybe from the plot of a bad action movie where the spy agency has gone rogue?
- bawolff 6y ago> That's a very blatant double standard - privacy for them, but not for us. Other than the fb hack, these all seem to be consumer available technologies (albeit probably better versions). I've used proxies before. I've used search engines before. Hardly the most rouge thing the rcmp has ever done.
- tareqak 6y agoSomeone needs to always immediately follow up with questions asking people who want others to give up their privacy to give theirs up first in turn. “Could I please get all of your phone records, browsing history, Internet account credentials, details of your friends and family, and anything else that you wouldn’t want me to have but legal for me to have so long as you provide it to me willingly? If the answer is no, then why ask me to give up my privacy when you refuse to give up yours?”
- uCantCauseUCant 6y agoI would- the reason being, that technical progress can not continue before a panopticon is instated. 9/11 proofed that humanity can not be entrusted with a flying car. Problem is, humanity and/or a state can not be entrusted to act reasonable with that data. I have no solution to that dilemma.
- Folcon 6y agoI'm not sure that's always a good start to a line of questioning? Don't get me wrong, I like the reasoning, but perhaps, "what expectations of privacy do you have for yourself or your family?". Their answer to that might be a better starting point? If they don't have any, then at least they would be consistent =)... You can also then discuss what kind of a society comes from that position and whether that's a good one to live in? Alternatively another question is, "do you and your colleagues want to be stewards of this data you collect?" What's an appropriate / reasonable punishment for failing to be good stewards? Jail time? Fines? Personal or organisational? Paying money into charities designed to act as public oversight? Starting off combative feels nice, but just gets people's hackles up in my experience =)...
- feanaro 6y ago> Don't get me wrong, I like the reasoning, but perhaps, "what expectations of privacy do you have for yourself or your family?". I feel like some people flippantly respond "none" to this, which they can afford because they are not expecting to really be compelled to give away their personal information on the spot. The response suggested by the OP would give them an opportunity to prove their position immediately.
- ThePreacherMan 6y agoDefund, defund, defund. The police shouldn't be more that nights watchmen, neighborhood patrols and detectives to investigate big crimes.
- axguscbklp 6y ago>Took the names for Project Wide Awake and other internet surveillance programs from the X-Men comic book series, in which illegal government programs hunt human “mutants.” This sort of "geeky but psychopathic" type of humor seems to be not uncommon in surveillance agencies. I suppose it makes sense that amoral intelligent people would be drawn towards intelligence agencies, as I suppose sadists were probably drawn towards organizations like the Gestapo, KGB, and Stasi. There's something I find galling about it - not only is one's privacy violated, but what's more is that the violators go about their business with corporate bureaucratic banality and "joking around the office" sort of humor.
- cutitout 6y ago> It doesn't matter whether you hate the spies and believe they are corroding democracy, or if you think they are the noble guardians of the state. In both cases the assumption is that the secret agents know more than we do. > But the strange fact is that often when you look into the history of spies what you discover is something very different. > It is not the story of men and women who have a better and deeper understanding of the world than we do. In fact in many cases it is the story of weirdos who have created a completely mad version of the world that they then impose on the rest of us. -- Adam Curtis
- d3nj4l 6y ago> This sort of "geeky but psychopathic" type of humor seems to be not uncommon in surveillance agencies. Relevant article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/07/the-fake-nerd-boys-of-silicon-valley https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/07/the-fake-nerd-boys-of...
- _trampeltier 6y agoA bit off topic, but recently, when I downloaded software under export restriction from Siemens (for industry automation) I saw in the license text, it is not just allowed for military applications but also not allowed to use it for police applications. I think more and more companys think they just don't want to be involved in bad press, because not all, but a lot of police things have a such bad image now.
- moonbug 6y agohorses are terrible snitches
- friendlybus 6y agoSo goddamn creepy. Why can't an innocent individual have private communications with other innocent individuals if so desired? Most private stuff is banal and not worth a government budget to look at. The level of assumed self-sacrifice for the collective is getting high enough to breed rebellion.
- 1_player 6y agoWhat rebellion? Anybody I've talked to about privacy has told me "so what, I don't have anything to hide."
- not_really 6y agoSo I take it you would be fine with sharing all of your credit card and location history for the past 10 years with at least 5000 people you've never met?
- p410n3 6y agoThis is comparing apples with oranges. When I do give out my CC data I do this voluntarily and make an active decision each time to do so. I'm NOT giving it out to random people, some of which might be fraudsters
- redsparrow 6y agoIt seems common for people to assume that privacy is about hiding something. Most people close the door when they're using a toilet in a public place. Is it because they have something to hide? Or is it that they want some privacy? Privacy can be about hiding things, but it's also about space and boundaries. I want to have some control over who gets to know me, and how intimately.
- chokeartist 6y agoExactly right. So much of the "I have nothing to hide" retort misses the fact that it isn't about big secrets, but rather a collection of little secrets (if you want to call them that - they are just facts that are sensitive). Less about are you planning to violently overthrow the United States Government. More about what genre of porn do you like to entertain yourself with. These little things can be used against you. We all have them.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 692389400111 6y agoWhat I really don't like about these kinds of tools is that they are generally pretty bad at intercepting new threats, but are really, really good at pursuing known actors, like journalists, activists or political rivals.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoThe purpose of a system is what it does.
- surajs 6y agoI've given up all privacy and never felt more liberated.
- StanislavPetrov 6y agoIf ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
- uniqueid 6y agoI've stopped paying my credit card bills and never felt more liberated.
- arpa 6y agoAnd yet, the majority of the people do not care at all. I am actually over preaching the need for privacy, I just try to practice opsec daily and identify my failures and weak spots. I tried to be a privacy purist: a smartphone without internet on a prepaid card running opensource software (likely with a backdoored baseband chip, but). Internet through rotating VPNs only on incognito browsers with anti-fingerprinting plugins, no sms'es, personal email on a self-hosted server with at-rest encryption... All while gaining absolutely nothing out of it, but inconveniences like filling out captchas and needing to go extra steps to open up wikipedia. That behaviour itself was a failure in opsec - I am sure that it put me on a watchlist somewhere. I'm a "normie" now, trying to emulate the "noise" that is around me. I believe that's much more a viable approach than being a hardcore privacy-ist(?)
- _red 6y agoBeing a zebra in the middle of the pack is probably the most practical solution. However as things move forward with the great reset its going to become increasingly more difficult for that to maintain its effectiveness. Its obvious now that "vaccine passports" and "contact tracing" are going to become defacto required. Therefore, the level of data they will be collecting will be so granular that 'blending in' won't really matter. A simple SQL query 5 years in the future will establish your every movement and health history for any given point. >50% of average people are going to go along with this (or outright support it) and anyone who speaks against it will be called "anti-science" and selfish. It's literally mind-boggling we are at this stage, but we must open our eyes and accept it.
- mjparrott 6y agoOne of us will wake up in a gooey casket attached to some sort of harvesting machine in the future. We will have to fight an army of men in black suits as we try to save the human race from the robots.
- andai 6y agoAs far as I can tell, China's just ahead of the curve with this stuff, because rather than serving as a warning, they're being emulated.
- thinkingemote 6y agoIf the question was: give up your privacy to help stop covid killing people, it would be more accepted on Hacker News. I'm half surprised that our governments have not pulled this trick and half relieved that the world isn't going down the toilet as much as others would like to tell us it is!
- Nasrudith 6y agoThat bluff was already long called with the phone contact tracing protocols specifically designed to get privacy. They gave it a cold shoulder and attempted to roll their own slowly and terribly until it was far too late which should tell us everything about their concern for our lives and overall trustworthiness with data. That their response was to start railing on "Big Tech" as the well of all sorrows and responsible for kidnapping the Lindenburg Baby tells us that not only are they not trustworthy but we shouldn't even piss on them if they were on fire.
- thinkingemote 6y agoAgreed. It's a testament that the big tech cos have some interest in privacy and also that what some call The Big State is actually very horribly inefficient and disfunctional. Hence the relief; the dysfunction of these govts is a guard against dystopia!
- sleepysysadmin 6y agoNot really any new information. This came out during the New Zealand shootings where the RCMP were showing up at Canadian's houses talking to them about 'supporting trump' or 'having viewed the shooting video'. Admittedly our police were less problematic compared to the police in the NZ. The more interesting thing if you google 'Brenda Lucki' in the news. TONS of groups are calling for her dismissal. They call her racist, but don't worry our blackface prime minister supports her.
- tinus_hn 6y agoJust say the magic word and all those pesky civil rights disappear. ‘Corona’
- solinent 6y agoThe RCMP is a complete joke.
- ExcavateGrandMa 6y agoCanadian mounted trojan horse :Ð
- dredmorbius 6y agoA few weeks back, an HN reader asked "Can you name some of the authors who were publishing panopticon concerns [in the 1980s or earlier], or the media they were publishing in?" As there didn't seem to be a useful compilation, I created one. This seems useful in answering persistent questions, tropes, and dismissals concerning privacy and surveillance. A formatted version lives at: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bf4f5f10f6120138799c002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bf4f5f10f6120138799c002590d8e... (Additions welcomed.) On authors who were publishing information technology panopticon concerns in the 1980s, or earlier Paul Baran / RAND - “On the Engineer’s Responsibility in Protecting Privacy” - “On the Future Computer Era: Modification of the American Character and the Role of the Engineer, or, A Little Caution in the Haste to Number” - “The Coming Computer Utility – Laissez-Faire, Licensing, or Regulation?” - “Remarks on the Question of Privacy Raised by the Automation of Mental Health Records” - “Some Caveats on the Contribution of Technology to Law Enforcement” Largely written/published 1967–1969. https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/b/baran_paul.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/b/baran_paul.html Willis Ware / RAND Too numerous to list fully, 1960s --1990s. Highlights: - “Security and Privacy in Computer Systems” (1967) - “Computers in Society’s Future” (1971) - “Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens” (1973 - “Privacy and Security Issues in Information Systems” (1976) - “Information Systems, Security, and Privacy” (1983) - “The new faces of privacy” (1993) https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/w/ware_willis_h.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/w/ware_willis_h.html Misc - Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (1988) Notably reviewed in the Whole Earth Catalog’s Signal: Communication Tools for the Information Age (1988). https://www.worldcat.org/title/in-the-age-of-the-smart-machine-the-future-of-work-and-power/oclc/60966402 https://www.worldcat.org/title/in-the-age-of-the-smart-machi... https://archive.org/details/inageofsmartmach00zubo/page/n7/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/inageofsmartmach00zubo/page/n7/m... - “Danger to Civil Rights?”, 80 Microcomputing (1982) https://archive.org/stream/80_Microcomputing_Issue_26_1982-02_1001001_US#page/n295/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/80_Microcomputing_Issue_26_1982-0... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14329877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14329877) - “Computer-Based National Information Systems: Technology and Public Policy”, NTIS (September 1981) http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ota/Ota_5/DATA/1981/8109.PDF http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ota/Ota_5/DATA/1981/8109.PDF - “23 to Study Computer ‘Threat’” (1970) https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/12/archives/23-to-study-computer-threat.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/12/archives/23-to-study-comp... The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy “Privacy and Information Technology” bibliography is largely 1990–present, but contains some earlier references. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/it-privacy/#Bib https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/it-privacy/#Bib Similarly “Privacy” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/ Credit Reporting / Legislation US Privacy Act of 1974 https://www.justice.gov/opcl/privacy-act-1974 https://www.justice.gov/opcl/privacy-act-1974 Invasion of Privacy Act 1971 - Queensland Government, Australia https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/pdf/inforce/current/act-1971-050 https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/pdf/inforce/current/... Arthur R. Miller, The assault on privacy: computers, data banks, and dossiers https://archive.org/details/assaultonprivacy00mill/page/n7/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/assaultonprivacy00mill/page/n7/m... “The Computer, the Consumer and Privacy” (1984) https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/04/weekinreview/the-computer-the-consumer-and-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/04/weekinreview/the-computer... Richard Boeth / Newsweek The specific item I’d had in mind: Richard Boeth, “Is Privacy Dead”, Newsweek, July 27, 1970 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/11/is-privacy-dead.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/11/is-privacy-... Direct PDF: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/712228/1970-newsweek-coverstory-privacy.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/712228/1970-newsw... Based on an HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24851736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24851736
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- paulus_magnus2 6y agoLiberal democracy is incompatible with a police state but it will get worse before it gets better. There needs to be a digital version of "privilege against self-incrimination" [1] [2] but it seams like the governments won't legislate this without a push from the public. The laws of our society are so complex that at each moment we are breaking at least a few. This also means we could be arrested at any point, by a corrupt official trying to earn extra money for letting us go. Imagine living your whole life under the regime of airport border control section where anything you say / do can be misinterpreted by a border guard who had a bad day and needs to arrest someone.
- d33lio 6y agoYet another reason why I do not want to live in the great white north. Although, in time depending on how politics slants in the US there actually may be positive tax advantages for upper middle class earners ($150k-290k).
- johlindenbaum 6y ago$150k+ household income is not considered middle class in Canada. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-votes-2019-middle-class-trudeau-scheer-definition-1.5317206 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-votes-2019-middle-cl...
- ska 6y agoNot really in the US either, e.g. Pew research cutoff is 145k for family of 3. You can handwave around the 150k end, but he 300k end is laughable.
- novok 6y agoPeople think of the kinds of income that makes the same money as doctors, lawyers, etc as upper middle, and the kind of people who can afford 10k sqft mansions, private jets and lambos as upper class, even if the numbers shake out to something else.
- ficklepickle 6y agoThe RCMP needs to die in a fire. The only silver lining is that they are so fucking inept that they won't actually accomplish anything. Surrey, BC, kicked out the RCMP. Hopefully the rest of Canada will follow suit. If you pseudo-spooks are reading this, you are cordially invited to lick the muscle that cuts my shit.
- core-questions 6y ago> Surrey, BC Wow, what a beautiful and safe city you chose as an example. Not.
- monkeybutton 6y agoThe thing that always got me about the RCMP is how board their role is. Depending on where you are in the country, they're the local police, the equivalent to state troopers, the FBI, are the prime minister's security, and more. It's ridiculous!
- OJFord 6y agoI don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that being one organisation; the UK is pretty similar: - local police forces (backed by national groups for serious organised crime, terror, financial, etc.); - that have within them CID (Criminal Investigation Department, plain-clothes detectives) [0] with a shared (as in uniform and non-uniform branches from a common point, AIUI) org chart, which is about the closest we have to the FBI in the US; - and the PM's visible security comes from the 'Protection Command' (also royals, diplomats, other ministers) [1] which is just a part of the Met, London's 'local police force'. I don't think that means there's some automatic abuse of power, or whatever it is (?) that you're concerned about, just from it all being 'the police'. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Investigation_Department https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Investigation_Departm... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_Command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_Command
- vkou 6y agoIt's not that ridiculous. Canada has no county-level organizations, and for various historic reasons, the provinces are not really in the business of policing. So, cities either need to run their own police forces, or contract out to the RCMP.
- mabbo 6y agoFeels like laws are needed around this. Explicit, unambiguous laws. If you go above and beyond the law in terms of invasion of privacy, while acting as a law enforcement officer or on their behalf, you serve time in prison. Provide a handbook to all law enforcement members explaining these rules. Give them access to whistleblower hotlines. Make an agency whose job it is to look into such complaints and file charges. The problems would vanish in a very short time. But naturally, such a change would have to come from the top- and the government does not want to give up this power it has over its citizens.
- fistfucker3000 6y agoMaybe we can have this for cops murdering people too
- martimarkov 6y agoI think it's not only the power over citizens but also the support of the police, otherwise they will start to protest and say the govt is blocking them from doing their job. The police wants these tools to satisfy their ego and complexes as much as the govt wants power over citizens.
- totalZero 6y agoOr we could set up specific members of the legal system who are responsible for deciding which invasions of privacy are permitted and which ones are prohibited. Maybe we could give them a special title, such as 'judge' or 'your honor'.
- nielsbot 6y agoSo why was the presentation secret?
- whoomp12342 6y agotell me something I don't know... I know you know what I know.
- walrus01 6y agoI actually came here specifically to comment that based on my personal experiences with the RCMP, their ineptitude and moribund bureaucratic nature makes me surprised they're able to actually do anything useful with the tools alleged in this report. And then I saw that a number of other people have already commented essentially the same thing.
- fudged71 6y agoAs a Canadian I find this article pretty funny since there’s no news in it whatsoever. It’s not a particularly reputable news source up here. “There’s little privacy anymore” is a reality not a joke. Citizens chose to engage in social media and to buy technologies which expose their private lives. The RCMP bought some script kiddie toys to explore Facebook and the dark web... because they have things like child exploitation units meant to look in places like that. Not news. If anything it’s funny that the RCMP is so much worse at hiding this stuff from the public than the FBI. I feel no threat to my privacy based on what’s written here... at all.
- jlgaddis 6y agoWith Canada being a part of FVEY, I'm curious if any Canadians are surprised or shocked at this? I would assume that their surveillance goes much. much further than this, considering they're basically watching and learning from the U.S.A.