5 ms·

Pictures are worth way more than 1k words. The photos are disturbing and a crime by definition is an attack on our social structure and shouldn’t be ignored.

by awb 5y ago

Pictures are worth way more than 1k words. The photos are disturbing and a crime by definition is an attack on our social structure and shouldn’t be ignored. But to put it in context, the rail company is reporting $5M in losses from theft last year, on $5.56B in revenue, or 0.1% of revenue. Not ideal but not massive either. However, we don’t have pictures of white collar crime, just stats: https://techjury.net/blog/white-collar-crime-statistics/ https://techjury.net/blog/white-collar-crime-statistics/ In 2021: > $56 billion were lost to white-collar crimes. > Only 3% of federal prosecutions annually are for white-collar crimes. > California lost $400.9 million to fraud. > Cybercrime damage cost is said to reach $6 trillion annually in 2021. Add to that the government corruption or wasteful spending of your choice. Imagine if these white collar criminals broke a window or littered packages during their crimes. While it’s easy to have a visceral reaction to photos of crimes, let’s not forget the unseen crimes that also affect us. And for those that are worried these crimes are going unpunished, 100 people have been arrested to date per the article.

credit_guy 5y ago
[flagged]
tempnow987 5y ago
It's interesting watching to DOJ chase facebook and basically ignore cybercrime. I include all the tech support and other scams that hit the elderly etc. Money mules, no enforcement there either.
- ywain 5y ago
  A lot of these scams originate from outside the US though, so presumably it's a lot more difficult for the DOJ to go after them.
  - MertsA 5y ago
    And yet tons of them involve shipping packages of money to US addresses and having a mule pick it up. So many times these scams will involve trying to convince their victims that the IRS only accepts payment via iTunes gift cards. Apple doesn't settle purchases with third parties instantly and yet if you were to call up Apple minutes after giving a scammer the gift card code you'll be greeted with the following response. https://youtu.be/-DT7bX-B1Mg?t=20 https://youtu.be/-DT7bX-B1Mg?t=20 They still have every cent, they know the intermediary vendor who is laundering the money, and they'll still tell you to pound sand. All they've done is move the money from their right hand to their left and take their hefty cut in fees yet they pretend that clearly the scammers wanted those 500 limited edition seeds in some shitty Farmville ripoff and play dumb about the App developer who's very clearly in on the scam. They lose 30% to Apple and trying to convince victims that they can only accept payment in iTunes gift cards has to absolutely tank their conversion rate yet they still favor iTunes and Google Play because at the end of the day even after the huge fees they're still more likely to get more money than trying to transfer money through more traditional means. DOJ still lets them get away with it. If they started charging entities facilitating fraud triple the fees they gained from it I'd bet Apple would start caring about it real quick.
  - tempnow987 5y ago
    This is largely false. Almost all these scams involve various forms of money laundering to/from US institutions and through US persons. Plenty of routes for enforcement here. Many / most including fraud carried out within the US against US persons using US infrastructure (including phones etc). Plenty of opportunities to go after the "bulletproof" hosts and those who accept terminations from them (SIP -> T-Mobile etc). Plenty of opportunities to put MUCH MUCH more pressure on countries like India which tolerate this scamming of US persons. Beyond that, new rules, for example, if you want to terminate overseas SIP calls into the US, you have to post a bond relative to your call volume. Folks can file claims against that bond. If the bond was not posted (or not checked), then the upstream provider is on the hook. Upstream providers can deny service to entrants who will not post bond and who originate call volumes internationally.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  It's mostly the FTC chasing Facebook.
- johnx5c 5y ago
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  DOJ doesn't have jurisdiction outside of the US, but scammers are routinely extradited to the US to face criminal prosecution for their cybercrimes, and the US works in tandem with foreign governments to catch those criminals.
flyinglizard 5y ago
There's no violence to be seen in white collar crime. There's no single image that says "this is a society in decay, next they're coming for you" like those images from the train tracks. Obviously the problem is not an objective one (I'm sure USPS loses more mail a day than lost to train robbery in a year), it's one of trust in law and order.
gfdgfdgfdgf 5y ago
The losses may not be a lot to the company but theft in general is having an effect on inflation which affects all of us.
tomohawk 5y ago
[flagged]
gruez 5y ago
>But to put it in context, the rail company is reporting $5M in losses from theft last year, on $5.56B in revenue, or 0.1% of revenue. Not ideal but not massive either. No, that's what they said. The exact quote was "the increase in crime cost the company at least $5 million last year" (emphasis mine) >> Cybercrime damage cost is said to reach $6 trillion annually in 2021. But US GDP is only 20.94 trillion. You're saying that the US is losing more than a quarter of its GDP to "Cybercrime damage"? I feel like the numbers you presented might be a bit inflated.
- awb 5y ago
  $6T is globally I believe
  - Lamad123 5y ago
    That's still a huge number! That's more than twice the GDP of Africa and 4 times the gdp of Russia.
- scarab92 5y ago
  Often carriers aren't responsible for lost goods. It's the shippers responsibility to purchase insurance for the items they send. It's a massive conflict if interest because the carrier has little incentive to improve security because they are not directly bearing the cost of lost or damages goods.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Largest type of theft in the US is wage theft[1]. Workers lose billions every year to wage theft[2]. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3916088 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3916088 [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/ https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Civil asset forfeiture also ranks quite high, and above most property theft. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/s... (I'm trying to recall / find a story which showed both the increase in seizures and a comparison with larceny / theft / burglary / robbery, which I recall being dwarfe by CAF.)
  - gremlinsinc 5y ago
dredmorbius 5y ago
Pictures show. Words explain. Both are useful for those purposes. Note that the railroad may have insurance on losses. If that $5m is post-insurance payouts, then it would understate property losses. There's also the losses due to missed deliveries, disrupted schedules, etc. (UP notes this itself in the letter shared here: https://nitter.kavin.rocks/CBSLAKristine/status/1482115852216385538 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/CBSLAKristine/status/148211585221...) Your points on white collar crime are well made. That's activity that performs poorly on camera.
azinman2 5y ago
Why the whataboutism?
- awb 5y ago
  All crime is bad, just commenting on how the imagery gets our attention more than the dollar amount does.
- dev360 5y ago
  I would venture to term it apologism
dallashoxton 5y ago
This seems like whataboutism to me. It's possible to enforce the law against more than one type of crime, actually.
asdff 5y ago
They really are going unpunished though even if they are being arrested: "Union Pacific said last month in a letter to the Los Angeles District Attorney that it saw a 160% year-over-year increase in theft in LA county. The company claims that a December 2020 special directive issued by District Attorney George Gascón that changed how low-level offenses are prosecuted has contributed to the uptick. Union Pacific said in its letter that in the last three months of the year it made over 100 arrests of "active criminals vandalizing our trains" in partnership with the LA police department and Los Angeles Sherriff department. But Union Pacific, which has its own police department with jurisdiction over the 32,000 miles of tracks it owns, said that even as it has expanded its security resources and partnered more closely with local law enforcement, the problem isn't going away. After being arrested individuals are released from custody within 24 hours, it said." https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/economy/la-freight-railroad-theft/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/economy/la-freight-railroad-t...

by awb 5y ago

credit_guy 5y ago

[flagged]

tempnow987 5y ago

It's interesting watching to DOJ chase facebook and basically ignore cybercrime. I include all the tech support and other scams that hit the elderly etc. Money mules, no enforcement there either.

ywain 5y ago
A lot of these scams originate from outside the US though, so presumably it's a lot more difficult for the DOJ to go after them.
- MertsA 5y ago
  And yet tons of them involve shipping packages of money to US addresses and having a mule pick it up. So many times these scams will involve trying to convince their victims that the IRS only accepts payment via iTunes gift cards. Apple doesn't settle purchases with third parties instantly and yet if you were to call up Apple minutes after giving a scammer the gift card code you'll be greeted with the following response. https://youtu.be/-DT7bX-B1Mg?t=20 https://youtu.be/-DT7bX-B1Mg?t=20 They still have every cent, they know the intermediary vendor who is laundering the money, and they'll still tell you to pound sand. All they've done is move the money from their right hand to their left and take their hefty cut in fees yet they pretend that clearly the scammers wanted those 500 limited edition seeds in some shitty Farmville ripoff and play dumb about the App developer who's very clearly in on the scam. They lose 30% to Apple and trying to convince victims that they can only accept payment in iTunes gift cards has to absolutely tank their conversion rate yet they still favor iTunes and Google Play because at the end of the day even after the huge fees they're still more likely to get more money than trying to transfer money through more traditional means. DOJ still lets them get away with it. If they started charging entities facilitating fraud triple the fees they gained from it I'd bet Apple would start caring about it real quick.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  This is largely false. Almost all these scams involve various forms of money laundering to/from US institutions and through US persons. Plenty of routes for enforcement here. Many / most including fraud carried out within the US against US persons using US infrastructure (including phones etc). Plenty of opportunities to go after the "bulletproof" hosts and those who accept terminations from them (SIP -> T-Mobile etc). Plenty of opportunities to put MUCH MUCH more pressure on countries like India which tolerate this scamming of US persons. Beyond that, new rules, for example, if you want to terminate overseas SIP calls into the US, you have to post a bond relative to your call volume. Folks can file claims against that bond. If the bond was not posted (or not checked), then the upstream provider is on the hook. Upstream providers can deny service to entrants who will not post bond and who originate call volumes internationally.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
It's mostly the FTC chasing Facebook.
johnx5c 5y ago
heavyset_go 5y ago
DOJ doesn't have jurisdiction outside of the US, but scammers are routinely extradited to the US to face criminal prosecution for their cybercrimes, and the US works in tandem with foreign governments to catch those criminals.

flyinglizard 5y ago

There's no violence to be seen in white collar crime. There's no single image that says "this is a society in decay, next they're coming for you" like those images from the train tracks. Obviously the problem is not an objective one (I'm sure USPS loses more mail a day than lost to train robbery in a year), it's one of trust in law and order.

gfdgfdgfdgf 5y ago

The losses may not be a lot to the company but theft in general is having an effect on inflation which affects all of us.

tomohawk 5y ago

[flagged]

gruez 5y ago

>But to put it in context, the rail company is reporting $5M in losses from theft last year, on $5.56B in revenue, or 0.1% of revenue. Not ideal but not massive either. No, that's what they said. The exact quote was "the increase in crime cost the company at least $5 million last year" (emphasis mine) >> Cybercrime damage cost is said to reach $6 trillion annually in 2021. But US GDP is only 20.94 trillion. You're saying that the US is losing more than a quarter of its GDP to "Cybercrime damage"? I feel like the numbers you presented might be a bit inflated.

awb 5y ago
$6T is globally I believe
- Lamad123 5y ago
  That's still a huge number! That's more than twice the GDP of Africa and 4 times the gdp of Russia.
scarab92 5y ago
Often carriers aren't responsible for lost goods. It's the shippers responsibility to purchase insurance for the items they send. It's a massive conflict if interest because the carrier has little incentive to improve security because they are not directly bearing the cost of lost or damages goods.

heavyset_go 5y ago

Largest type of theft in the US is wage theft[1]. Workers lose billions every year to wage theft[2]. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3916088 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3916088 [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/ https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...

dredmorbius 5y ago
Civil asset forfeiture also ranks quite high, and above most property theft. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/s... (I'm trying to recall / find a story which showed both the increase in seizures and a comparison with larceny / theft / burglary / robbery, which I recall being dwarfe by CAF.)
- gremlinsinc 5y ago

dredmorbius 5y ago

Pictures show. Words explain. Both are useful for those purposes. Note that the railroad may have insurance on losses. If that $5m is post-insurance payouts, then it would understate property losses. There's also the losses due to missed deliveries, disrupted schedules, etc. (UP notes this itself in the letter shared here: https://nitter.kavin.rocks/CBSLAKristine/status/1482115852216385538 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/CBSLAKristine/status/148211585221...) Your points on white collar crime are well made. That's activity that performs poorly on camera.

azinman2 5y ago

Why the whataboutism?

awb 5y ago
All crime is bad, just commenting on how the imagery gets our attention more than the dollar amount does.
dev360 5y ago
I would venture to term it apologism

dallashoxton 5y ago

This seems like whataboutism to me. It's possible to enforce the law against more than one type of crime, actually.

asdff 5y ago

They really are going unpunished though even if they are being arrested: "Union Pacific said last month in a letter to the Los Angeles District Attorney that it saw a 160% year-over-year increase in theft in LA county. The company claims that a December 2020 special directive issued by District Attorney George Gascón that changed how low-level offenses are prosecuted has contributed to the uptick. Union Pacific said in its letter that in the last three months of the year it made over 100 arrests of "active criminals vandalizing our trains" in partnership with the LA police department and Los Angeles Sherriff department. But Union Pacific, which has its own police department with jurisdiction over the 32,000 miles of tracks it owns, said that even as it has expanded its security resources and partnered more closely with local law enforcement, the problem isn't going away. After being arrested individuals are released from custody within 24 hours, it said." https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/economy/la-freight-railroad-theft/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/economy/la-freight-railroad-t...