5 ms·

And here yet again an example of how the system is rigged against the poor and stacked in favor of the rich. If you have enough (and get stolen enough), then yo

And here yet again an example of how the system is rigged against the poor and stacked in favor of the rich. If you have enough (and get stolen enough), then you get help, otherwise, too bad. I understand that there’s a resources allocation problem here and the current solution is prioritizing bigger crimes. But given the resources of the victims, maybe the priorities should be inverted. Help the people that can’t pay for their own investigations, or just charge for the investigation services in proportion to the “size of the crime”.

toyg 5y ago
Not just allocation, it's a quality problem too. The type of cops you need for street busts is not the type of cops you need when pursuing interstate (or even international) wire fraud. If your organization is historically unbalanced towards the former, changing towards the latter will take generations (and a lot of political capital).
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
It should be a inverse U curve. If the amount is relatively inconsequential or occurs in super high frequency then it should be ignored. But if you lose more than 5 million then it's kind of on you I'd estimate orgs with roughly 100k to 5 million in revenue it is mostly small players and assuming margins of 20% they are really only doing 20k to 1 million in profit/discretionary spending. Add in a few factors like charity vs Inc, and it shouldn't be hard to narrow down who LE should assist. Meanwhile the US oil pipeline gets hacked by a exposed password and the whole Federal Government comes in to fix the mess and agrees to spend more money.
- jtbayly 5y ago
  Perhaps because that affects swaths of the population?
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    Well... the government couldn't even really fix anything besides catch the hackers. At the end of the day it was the limited scope of the attack and some preperation on the companies part that restored functionality as I understand it. Alternitively, these industries are already heavily regulated including extensive safetly regulations - so perhaps a basic level of security practices should also be required. We regulated how high of a ladder an employee can climb without safety equipment but we don't really do anything if a company reuses passwords, runs known vulnerable software, etc. Occasionally there are fines after the fact but that is too late.
toxik 5y ago
What you want is to maximize the utility of the police, but then the policy question is how do you define utility. The people in power will of course tend to define it with a bias towards them and theirs. Perhaps the crime should be looked at in context. Stealing $100 from a homeless person is equivalent to stealing $1,000 from an averagely salaried person.
- xuki 5y ago
  The police doesn't care about you, they want promotions like most people do. Solving cases with big values helps, imagine trying to get promoted by solving petty crimes.
  - kwdc 5y ago
    I think its more a case of the public not being aware of this non-investigation habit and not pressuring enough. At the same time I understand, there are so many issues on the table its a wonder anything gets done at all. Priorities and all that.
  - donkeyd 5y ago
    Man, this shit is depressing to read as someone who just joined LE and sees mostly people who really want to help victims.
    - Fnoord 5y ago
      Better get used to it; the police receive a lot of flak, left and right. Sometimes warranted, sometimes not. The are also people in who's interest it is that the population distrusts the police. Crooks, obviously. But also conspiracy theorists, foreign agents, etc. The trick is to still listen to constructive criticism while listening and empathizing to negative criticism. As you said, limited manpower, expertise, time, and budget are an issue for law enforcement. Not just for US law enforcement. For law enforcement world-wide.
      - skrtskrt 5y ago
lbriner 5y ago
I don;t understand how this proves the system is rigged. Isn't the simple truth that jurisdictions are sacred and just because "somebody did something", doesn't mean that the other authorities are interested for a variety of reasons.
blfr 5y ago
An NGO redeveloping an island and making 650k wires (ok, in three tranches) is not "poor" by any reasonable standard.
- ta1234567890 5y ago
  Exactly, so if they can’t get help, then what’s left for the rest? It means only the top 5-10% are getting help. And probably most of them are not people but companies.

toyg 5y ago

Not just allocation, it's a quality problem too. The type of cops you need for street busts is not the type of cops you need when pursuing interstate (or even international) wire fraud. If your organization is historically unbalanced towards the former, changing towards the latter will take generations (and a lot of political capital).

KingMachiavelli 5y ago

It should be a inverse U curve. If the amount is relatively inconsequential or occurs in super high frequency then it should be ignored. But if you lose more than 5 million then it's kind of on you I'd estimate orgs with roughly 100k to 5 million in revenue it is mostly small players and assuming margins of 20% they are really only doing 20k to 1 million in profit/discretionary spending. Add in a few factors like charity vs Inc, and it shouldn't be hard to narrow down who LE should assist. Meanwhile the US oil pipeline gets hacked by a exposed password and the whole Federal Government comes in to fix the mess and agrees to spend more money.

jtbayly 5y ago
Perhaps because that affects swaths of the population?
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  Well... the government couldn't even really fix anything besides catch the hackers. At the end of the day it was the limited scope of the attack and some preperation on the companies part that restored functionality as I understand it. Alternitively, these industries are already heavily regulated including extensive safetly regulations - so perhaps a basic level of security practices should also be required. We regulated how high of a ladder an employee can climb without safety equipment but we don't really do anything if a company reuses passwords, runs known vulnerable software, etc. Occasionally there are fines after the fact but that is too late.

toxik 5y ago

What you want is to maximize the utility of the police, but then the policy question is how do you define utility. The people in power will of course tend to define it with a bias towards them and theirs. Perhaps the crime should be looked at in context. Stealing $100 from a homeless person is equivalent to stealing $1,000 from an averagely salaried person.

xuki 5y ago
The police doesn't care about you, they want promotions like most people do. Solving cases with big values helps, imagine trying to get promoted by solving petty crimes.
- kwdc 5y ago
  I think its more a case of the public not being aware of this non-investigation habit and not pressuring enough. At the same time I understand, there are so many issues on the table its a wonder anything gets done at all. Priorities and all that.
- donkeyd 5y ago
  Man, this shit is depressing to read as someone who just joined LE and sees mostly people who really want to help victims.
  - Fnoord 5y ago
    Better get used to it; the police receive a lot of flak, left and right. Sometimes warranted, sometimes not. The are also people in who's interest it is that the population distrusts the police. Crooks, obviously. But also conspiracy theorists, foreign agents, etc. The trick is to still listen to constructive criticism while listening and empathizing to negative criticism. As you said, limited manpower, expertise, time, and budget are an issue for law enforcement. Not just for US law enforcement. For law enforcement world-wide.
    - skrtskrt 5y ago

lbriner 5y ago

I don;t understand how this proves the system is rigged. Isn't the simple truth that jurisdictions are sacred and just because "somebody did something", doesn't mean that the other authorities are interested for a variety of reasons.

blfr 5y ago

An NGO redeveloping an island and making 650k wires (ok, in three tranches) is not "poor" by any reasonable standard.

ta1234567890 5y ago
Exactly, so if they can’t get help, then what’s left for the rest? It means only the top 5-10% are getting help. And probably most of them are not people but companies.