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> I frequently hear people talk about how Signal would prevent monitoring of groups like those that stormed the capital Those folks walked over on public roads

> I frequently hear people talk about how Signal would prevent monitoring of groups like those that stormed the capital Those folks walked over on public roads from a Trump rally down the street, live streaming on a hundred cameras as they did it. Of all the things that went wrong on the 6th, surveillance was clearly not one of them. What I think you're remembering is more the point that Signal and Telegram provide harder-to-surveil forums for the people who got radicalized. That having all that chatter be private by default means that we won't see the next extremist faction before its born. And that's a fair enough point. Q communities on Facebook and Twitter made it easy to see where these people were coming from. But even there, the nature of radicalization is that it happens in a big group. There may be surveillance-proof channels on Telegram where modern right wing extremists are assembling to find like minded souls, but finding them isn't a problem at all. The ones that are hard to find die out by definition.

bigiain 6y ago
> Q communities on Facebook and Twitter made it easy to see where these people were coming from. Cynical view. Those made it easy to see what the manipulated fairly public mass of disenfranchised or disgruntled or actively evil Q/Trump supporters were discussing and planning. I’ll bet people like flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy weren’t discussing _their_ plans in such public forums. And I’ll bet there was a _lot_ of planning of the sort that used to take place in underground-public places like 4chan, which has now gone deeper underground and has much more stringent initiation rites for admitting new members. The sort of planning that involves manipulating and convincing “pawns” in their “it’s all about ethics in video game journalism” games to provide cover and take the fall for deeply serious shit...
- newacct583 6y ago
  > I’ll bet people like flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy weren’t discussing _their_ plans in such public forums. I dunno, some of those folks were pretty brazen. Remember they thought all this was, if not "legal" exactly, "sanctioned" by their sitting president. They weren't trying to hide. But even if we grant that the premise (which is clearly true) that serious criminals will always have the ability to hide from surveillance, the presence of an easily found public forum is still a prerequisite for real insurrection. Flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy may have been hardened experts, but they couldn't have sacked the capitol with only their militias behind them. The preventable part of this is the mob violence. And mob violence requires a mob, which requires that the members of the mob (by definition amateurs) be able to find forums to radicalize them.
  - godelski 6y ago
    > And mob violence requires a mob And this is exactly what I mean by >>> As if you can create a secret communication channel that members of the public can join but the FBI is unable to infiltrate. A mob needs to radicalize people and recruit. If you are recruiting and not on the FBI's watch-list I'm going to blame the FBI, especially since you are actively radicalizing people. Any insurrection or major plot will require recruitment of people which it is difficult to vet. This (should) makes for a trivial ability to infiltrate. If it doesn't I'm really disappointed in the Three Letter Agencies as they clearly make themselves out to be more than woefully incompetent. We're spending all that money and people can't click a link? I'm pretty confident they can accomplish this.

bigiain 6y ago

> Q communities on Facebook and Twitter made it easy to see where these people were coming from. Cynical view. Those made it easy to see what the manipulated fairly public mass of disenfranchised or disgruntled or actively evil Q/Trump supporters were discussing and planning. I’ll bet people like flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy weren’t discussing _their_ plans in such public forums. And I’ll bet there was a _lot_ of planning of the sort that used to take place in underground-public places like 4chan, which has now gone deeper underground and has much more stringent initiation rites for admitting new members. The sort of planning that involves manipulating and convincing “pawns” in their “it’s all about ethics in video game journalism” games to provide cover and take the fall for deeply serious shit...

newacct583 6y ago
> I’ll bet people like flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy weren’t discussing _their_ plans in such public forums. I dunno, some of those folks were pretty brazen. Remember they thought all this was, if not "legal" exactly, "sanctioned" by their sitting president. They weren't trying to hide. But even if we grant that the premise (which is clearly true) that serious criminals will always have the ability to hide from surveillance, the presence of an easily found public forum is still a prerequisite for real insurrection. Flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy may have been hardened experts, but they couldn't have sacked the capitol with only their militias behind them. The preventable part of this is the mob violence. And mob violence requires a mob, which requires that the members of the mob (by definition amateurs) be able to find forums to radicalize them.
- godelski 6y ago
  > And mob violence requires a mob And this is exactly what I mean by >>> As if you can create a secret communication channel that members of the public can join but the FBI is unable to infiltrate. A mob needs to radicalize people and recruit. If you are recruiting and not on the FBI's watch-list I'm going to blame the FBI, especially since you are actively radicalizing people. Any insurrection or major plot will require recruitment of people which it is difficult to vet. This (should) makes for a trivial ability to infiltrate. If it doesn't I'm really disappointed in the Three Letter Agencies as they clearly make themselves out to be more than woefully incompetent. We're spending all that money and people can't click a link? I'm pretty confident they can accomplish this.