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>Previously, data extraction was primarily used in only certain types of cases—typically child pornography or, sometimes, drug offenses. Now, however, cops’ fir
by owenversteeg 6y ago
>Previously, data extraction was primarily used in only certain types of cases—typically child pornography or, sometimes, drug offenses. Now, however, cops’ first move is typically to find some sort of incriminating evidence on a suspect’s cell phone, he said, regardless of what kind of case it is.
...What? Are cops frequently scanning people’s entire phones as a first move now? I had heard that this occasionally happened at borders or with serious crimes, but I had no idea it was this widespread.
- craftinator 6y agoI know multiple people, unconnected from each other except through me, who've encountered this. Time to live in NZ I guess.
- plantain 6y agoSome light reading: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/new-zealand-police-kim-dotcom-prism-nsa-2013-8 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/new-zealand-police-kim-do... https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/18/gcsb-j18.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/18/gcsb-j18.html
- staticassertion 6y agoNaively, I had always assumed this would be a first move from them.
- thereare5lights 6y agoGiven what we know about how law enforcement really acts, it's not naive.
- pjc50 6y agoA disappointingly large amount of policing is picking a "suspect" and then trying to find a crime.
- junon 6y ago[citation needed]
- berkes 6y agoJust look on a global scale. Nothing new here.
- junon 6y ago"Global scale" is not a citation. Please show data that "a large amount" of policing is done this way, keeping in mind most of these arguments are in the context of the US.
- dtoma 6y agoAre you misquoting them on purpose? They said "A disappointingly large amount" not "a large amount".
- junon 6y agoNope, HN doesn't show parent comments in threaded discussions and I'm on mobile with noprocrast. I'm sorry I missed one word, although it doesn't really affect my point at all.
- alsetmusic 6y ago> Nope, HN doesn't show parent comments in threaded discussions and I'm on mobile with noprocrast. I haven’t used the noprocrast feature. But there is a “parent” link to see further up a thread when checking discussion replies. The description of norpocrast doesn’t seem to describe removing that. TIL about noprocrast being a thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
- tinus_hn 6y ago[citation needed] is not a comment
- thereare5lights 6y ago> Are cops frequently scanning people’s entire phones as a first move now? Cops do whatever they want > I had heard that this occasionally happened at borders or with serious crimes, but I had no idea it was this widespread. See the first point
- techrat 6y ago> ...What? Are cops frequently scanning people’s entire phones as a first move now? Some people I know who were arrested during the series of Portland protests last year, whether or not they were even active participants... (you may have heard of some people being snatched from the streets into vans, for example) ...mentioned that their phones were missing their MicroSD cards when they got their items back. Let that sink in.
- closeparen 6y agoAfter a car crash, the police may search your device for evidence of inattentive driving. Anything else they find on it is fair game.
- superdisk 6y agoMakes me sick to read. 1984 is here.
- cik 6y agoThere's a reason that I rarely carry my tracking device out with me when I leave my house. Only when I head to another city. I don't see the need to, as it doesn't actually provide a lot of benefit, and it's fine to be without it for a few hours at a time. Sure, if I need mapping software it does - but the reality is that I want to have conversation with people at the times I want, not all the time. I also generally try and live notif free nowadays (clearly this ebbs and flows). This works surprisingly effectively even with a family, purely by running a voip client on my desktop, and ensuring my mobile forwards to my voip line, meaning I can still receive calls as necessary from schools, daycares, etc. It's an experiment I intend to only push further and further. Clearly also pull back, but a fun one.
- leokennis 6y agoWell...this is exactly how power corrupts, right? If you have a power, you're bound to use it. Give a general a jet plane, and he will sooner or later bomb some people with it. Give a politician the power to classify information, and sooner or later he will use it to cover up some shady stuff he did. Give a cop the power to scan a phone, and sooner or later he will scan every phone he encounters. This is exactly why the government should not get a "backdoor" into E2E encrypted chat: today it will be used to prevent a terrorist attack, tomorrow to send your mom to a gulag for thoughtcrime.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoIf the cops get their hands on your phone they will search it. No different than a backpack.
- FreshFries 6y agoOh even better: the take custody of your phone, just because they can. A turned off iPhone is completely unusable for most of their intentions, still will be taken and only given back after x months.
- atat7024 6y agoThey can see what traffic stops, and then starts when you pick it back up.
- dylan604 6y agoYou say that as if the person with the confiscated device isn't going to get a replacement device. People can't go 15 minutes without looking at their device let alone x months to get it back. Also, personally, if I did receive a confiscated device back, I would only consider it being useful as a trade in. There's no way in hell I'd ever use it again, especially if it is a laptop.