8 ms·

Do you like online privacy? You may be a terrorist

135 points by bootload 15y ago

VonLipwig 15y ago
This is golden. I think I might be a terrorist. I... 1) Shield my screen in public places ( I don't want snoopers reading my emails....) 2) I pay cash most of the time (Helps me save money as the change goes into a change jar never to be spent again) 3) I have multiple cell phones. (One for business, one for personal) 4) I use a proxy to shield my IP address 5) I encrypt my computer and files, I send password protected compressed files. 6) I communicate with people I have never met in video games 7) I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and infrastructures Seriously though I am not keen on the flier. I think terrorism and extremists work best in fragmented societies. If you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone then the oddball or outcast will naturally be viewed with curiosity and suspicion. However, in towns and cities where you sometimes don't know your neighbor.. this is where a suspicious person can thrive. Fliers like this encourage you not to trust to your neighbor. It screams. "The guy next to you might be a terrorist!" and encourages you to be distrustful. Its not healthy. It helps propagate the climate of fear. You expect messages like this in a police state not in a supposedly free country.
- muyuu 15y ago
  I do easily 80% of that list on a regular basis. Feeling terroristy this morning.
  - mikegirouard 15y ago
    To that point, I'd venture so far to say that 80% of the points on this list are sound security practices that good businesses and freelancers should be doing.
- srl 15y ago
  > I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and infrastructures You're on a website called "Hacker News", for starters. Am I the only one who's had to deal with related idiocy when on a public computer? (Also, using PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of places for "hacking".)
  - pmiller2 15y ago
    >(Also, using PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of places for "hacking".) Has this happened to you or anyone you know?
    - rohansingh 15y ago
      A long time ago, in a public school, the librarian reported me for using a "hacking program" called "FTP".
    - srl 15y ago
      It's happened to me as stated. Back in public school, I had a friend who got banned from using the computers for several months for VNC'ing into his home computer. Because it was "hacking" - no other rationale, no complicating factors. To use the car analogy: it's like getting arrested for using a remote to unlock your car instead of a physical key. (Or, more accurately, like getting your license taken away for several months. Which may make even less sense.)
    - noonespecial 15y ago
      Me. I actually have an apple script to turn all of my terminal sessions black on white for public spaces because it looks more "friendly(1)" that way. A bunch of terminals tailing logs in color looks like hacker scenes in movies to the uninitiated. People have asked me, most impolitely, what the hell I was doing. 1) Like Microsoft Word.
- AJ007 15y ago
  I'm going to put together a brochure, its called "You might be a fucking idiot if don't do these things when accessing the internet from a public terminal."
- prodigal_erik 15y ago
  Anonymous cities are also wellsprings of progress because of their tolerance of eccentrics who were stifled by the judgmental conformity of villages and tribes.
- spindritf 15y ago
  I carry a bulletproof pendrive with Tails (0.10.1 is out BTW https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html) on it. I guess I should at least stop bragging. Never had a problem though, same with a screen full of terminals -- it's usually met with curious interest rather than suspicion or hostility, if noticed at all. > If you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone then the oddball or outcast will naturally be viewed with curiosity and suspicion. On the other hand, they're a known oddball which seems to put people at ease most of the time.
twelvechairs 15y ago
"What should I consider Suspicious?" "People Who:" "Act nervous or suspicious behaviour inconsistent with activities" Whoever wrote this should go back to both English class (grammar!) and circular logic class (I should consider someone 'suspicious' because they have 'suspicious behaviour'?)
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  It's not circular logic. It's an appeal to intuition. When they say a suspect is someone who act suspect, they really mean "act in ways you feel is suspect". There, you know that if someone is glancing sideways, then your feeling suspicious is enough to mark that person as suspect (or so the flyer says). Anyway, that's just as bad: it teaches you to be paranoid.
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    >Anyway, that's just as bad: it teaches you to be paranoid. What taught me to be paranoid weren't retarded fliers like these. That honor goes to the people who caused me to pick up the practices described on this flier in the first place - organizations like the FBI, government increasingly evolving towards police states a and, last but not least, corporations like Google or Facebook, whose practices can at best be described as amoral.
- mikegirouard 15y ago
  Your second point struck me as well. Not only does the grammar seem completely odd at times, but the whole thing seems a bit dodgy. Is there any official download to this file on the FBI's website?
loup-vaillant 15y ago
That gives me the urge to display suspicious behaviour just to make them lose time. As I live in France, it shouldn't be so risky yet. Seriously, if more people where actively protecting their privacy, it would no longer be suspicious to encrypt one's email. But some people need to do it first.
- shrikant 15y ago
  > That gives me the urge to display suspicious behaviour just to make them lose time. I suspect that if you deliberately acted suspicious enough to make them lose time, you'd lose a not insignificant amount of time as well. And this is the sort of thinking that the "suspicion detection" powers-that-be quite possibly want to encourage - where personal convenience trumps a [imho, perfectly natural] desire for privacy.
- yread 15y ago
  yeah just setup couple hundred emails and have them send random files to each other. That should keep them busy :)
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  France used to ban crypto back in 95/96 I remember we had to make huge changes to BT's Intranet to disable certain parts of it from collegues in France as we where not allowed to uses encyption to acess via a dialup service.
- stfu 15y ago
  Seriously, if more people where actively protecting their privacy, it would no longer be suspicious to encrypt one's email. This is an excellent point! At least open source OS systems should make encryption the standard option. But even Ubuntu seems unable to pull this off and more or less in stagnation on this - despite EFF's efforts ( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/help-bring-disk-encryption-ubuntu-live-cd https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/help-bring-disk-encryp... ).
  - spindritf 15y ago
    Firstly, Ubuntu Alternate CD has an excellent installer, it's not text-based as in you have to type in commands, or compile anything, it's just like the Windows XP installer, except for all the sideloading of drivers. You can set up an encrypted LVM, or whatever partitioning scheme you like, the default settings also seemed very sensible so you don't even have to touch anything. Secondly, regular Ubuntu installer offers to encrypt your home dir.
jgrahamc 15y ago
Switching SIM cards is perhaps not common in the US, but in Europe it's very common. If you take the Eurostar from Paris to London the people changing SIM cards as they come out of the Channel tunnel are not terrorists, they are people who don't want to pay high roaming charges. Also, paying cash in an Internet café doesn't seem like unusual behavior at all. Many people who use them will be students and people traveling who may not want to hand over a credit card in a foreign country.
- johncoltrane 15y ago
  Here in France it's often hard to pay for anything under 15 or sometimes 30 € with a payment card. Big chains and supermarkets often have a very low minimum (think 0.50 €) but smaller shops have no problem indicating you the closest ATM. To the point where the second phrase you say in a shop is often "C'est quoi le minimum pour la carte ?". And yes for Internet cafés. Absurdity.
  - mikeash 15y ago
    I believe that credit card merchant agreements in the US prohibit any minimum amount for card purchases. You can occasionally find places that do it, but they're breaking their agreement and risk punishment for doing so, so it's rare.
    - apu 15y ago
      In big cities in the US it's very common for many businesses to either have a minimum for card purchases, or charge extra for small purchases, or offer "cash discounts" -- regardless of what the actual law is.
      - cdr 15y ago
        It's not law (though there may be state/local laws also), it's the merchants' agreements with Visa/MC/Amex/etc. Cash discounts are allowed - you see them with gas stations quite frequently - but minimums and surcharges are disallowed and the merchant will almost certainly get into trouble with the credit issuers if it's reported. It's almost entirely small businesses that try to flout their agreements - you'll rarely see any major business try because of the consequences.
kmfrk 15y ago
I find this to be way more hilarious than disturbing in all their cluelessness.
- stray 15y ago
  After all, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...
maeon3 15y ago
Terrorism is a military tactic, saying "you are a terrorist" is about as meaningless as saying: "You are a right flank", "You are a military operation" and "You are a deployed F16 bomber". It's this double speak and new-think that is damaging our country, not the demand for basic human rights.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- JadeNB 15y ago
  > Terrorism is a military tactic, saying "you are a terrorist" is about as meaningless as saying: "You are a right flank", "You are a military operation" and "You are a deployed F16 bomber". While I agree that the main post is ridiculous, I'm not sure that grammatical issues are the real reason why. We've long since accepted calling someone a guerilla who engages in guerilla warfare; why should calling some a terrorist who engages in terrorism be any less valid? (Or perhaps the term 'guerilla' isn't valid either?) Or perhaps the point you're making is a more subtle one, that being a terrorist is not a label that is permanently affixed: i.e., that it's reasonable to say to someone "you are a terrorist" precisely to mean "you are engaging in terrorism at this moment", just as you might say "you are a flanker" (or whatever) precisely to mean "you are on the right flank at this moment"?
- adrianN 15y ago
  A terrorist is someone who employs the military tactic of terrorism, just like a guerilla is a practitioner of guerilla tactics. I don't see the problem here.
  - maeon3 15y ago
    The problem is that terrorism is a strategy that America also uses in war. Calling the terrorists evil because they blow up civilians in another country is calling war evil. Its the double-think and hypocritical nature of the word I don't like. What makes the planes into the world trade center more evil than the hundreds of thousands of bombs used to blow up suspected enemy hideouts in iraq, Iran and Afghanistan?
rasur 15y ago
Would it not just be simpler and cheaper for the FBI and DOJ to print a flyer that says: "You are all under arrest, on suspicion of Terrorism. Report to your local Police station for processing." I mean, really - what kind of insanity is being entertained in the US at the moment?
DefineClass 15y ago
OH MY GOD, I'm in a coffee shop and there's this guy that keeps "apparently using tradecraft"! He won't stop! Do cross words constitute a "coded work sheet"? That old lady really looks intent on figuring it out. And those fourth graders keep sending suspicious messages on that PC game! Like "PWND" and "teafrag"... Well, I'm fucked, but it could be worse: http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/britons-denied-entry-to-us-after-homeland-security-doesnt-find-destroy-america-twitter-joke-funny/ http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/britons-denied-entry-to...
manish_gill 15y ago
What do they expect? That a terrorist is going to hide some top secret weapon information in a steganographic photo? This is just ridiculous.
- chakalakasp 15y ago
  No, that's not crazy, it's just crazy to think that anyone is going to notice someone doing stego in an internet cafe, since anyone doing stego is already going through huge efforts to hide what they are doing. The idea behind good stego is that you encrypt something important, stego it into an image, then post that image (i.e., dead drop it) somewhere where the recipient knows to look. But when this is done (on either end), of course, all that appears is happening is that the person is either upload or downloading an image. When you consider some of the Usenet groups out there with bajillions of images posted a day to them, this would probably be a pretty effective system, assuming your stego program is good enough to embed the data into the image itself and is not just encapsulating it into the metadata or something. The one interesting thing to come out of this sheet is that apparently terrorists are heavy stego users.
Chrono 15y ago
This reminds me of the "Du bist Terrorist" campagin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24 (German with English subs) Most of these terrorist indicators seems like common sense to me. Paranoia over reason once again?
shareme 15y ago
funny thing is if you read Obama's wife comments on privacy she could be label a terrorist.. Why are both democracies and non-democracies so damn afraid of having choosy and thinking citizens? What are the World governments hiding?!
ajuc 15y ago
Apparently indirect democracy isn't working as well, as we would like it to work. Anyone knows somebody that would vote directly for such paranoic measures (what happens on airports, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, all that propaganda for restricting freedom)? This security and copyright madness reminds me of middle ages witch hunts, and fighting heretic. Most people didn't cared about witches, nor heretics, as long as nobody said them they should. Governments and religions created that paranoia, and then it just lived on. I like this http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261344/Henrician-Articles http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261344/Henrician-A... solution to the problem of government instilled paranoia. It was possible in 1573 to demand of king, that he would keep the promises, he made before people elected him. People just made him sign a treaty, that if he started religious persecution, he will not be a king anymore accordingto law. Why now, in the age of democracy, we can't hold our representatives responsible, and can't demand that they will keep their promises? I would gladly vote for someone, that signed such documents before elections, that says he won't be fighting terrorists by restricting freedom. But in our system such contracts are void, if I understand correctly.
drcube 15y ago
Most of this stuff applies to the Military and FBI. Guess they're all terrorists. Or maybe you're only supposed to care about encryption and privacy when you work for the government?
davidwparker 15y ago
I think a lot of people are missing the point. The document clearly states "Related to Internet Cafe". Now, I agree that I would still want my privacy in an Internet cafe, as well as paying cash, and using multiple phones. But some of the other stuff doesn't make much sense in an Internet cafe.
- muyuu 15y ago
  They even say it's suspicious that someone shields the screen from view of others. WTF? I consider most of my communications essentially private and I don't want anyone to be eavesdropping.
aroberge 15y ago
This appears to be some sort of phishing site. I first look at it using an iPad with the built-in Safari. Since the font size was too small (can't help it, I'm old!), I tried to pinch and enlarge and the text transformed into a blurry image with my email address (iPad/Safari security issue?) displayed and a button inviting me to have it sent to me by email. Using Chrome on my laptop, I get a warning that there are too many redirects.
bdg 15y ago
Can one of you American citizens submit a FOIA request so they release the supporting documentation and research for such claims? I would if I were an American.
elb0w 15y ago
So Obama signed the National Defense Authorization act which allows the indefinite detention of citizen and non-citizens declared as terrorists of the united states. Lamar Smith is pushing a bill that will require ISP's to store all information on U.S. Citizens that tie to an IP address. Now the FBI is saying you are a terrorist if you try to hide your ip. So now if you don't allow the government to capture all information about you from the internet you can declared a terrorist which in-turn will cause you to be held in jail indefinitely..... or im just paranoid.
- jrockway 15y ago
  you can declared a terrorist which in-turn will cause you to be held in jail indefinitely It probably won't be you. By the time they'd come looking for you, these laws will have been laughed out of the Supreme Court and a few political careers will be dead forever.
  - srl 15y ago
    > these laws will have been laughed out of the Supreme Court It makes me mighty uncomfortable how often we have to fall back on "because the supreme court" (or more generally, "because courts" - there are a lot of lower-level justices doing their jobs admirably, and they don't get nearly enough credit) to convince ourselves that we're not heading for a closed society. Eventually, someone will grab enough political capital to pull an Andrew Jackson and decide to just ignore and possibly arrest them - at which point we're absolutely screwed. We're at the point now where viable presidential candidates can openly admit that they don't believe the courts are worth obeying. It's time to start worrying.
- mrschwabe 15y ago
  No, you're not paranoid - this is the new reality; the new America. And to clarify, you will have no trial and the jail you would be held at is at an undisclosed location.
freehunter 15y ago
I'd like to see this in official context. While I have no serious doubt that our government would issue something like this, anyone can make an official looking PDF.
lignuist 15y ago
One more sign that the western world (not only the US and maybe not only the western world) is facing serious signals of McCarthyism 2.0.
basseq 15y ago
It's a correlation-causation problem. I'm sure terrorists ARE all about online privacy, so if you're all about online privacy, you MAY be a terrorist. But when you break it down, maybe 80% of terrorists (a small group) favor online privacy, but only 0.0001% of those who favor online privacy (a large group) are terrorists. The same reason I have to take my shoes off at the airport: because one asshole tried to hide plastic explosives in his over a decade ago.
ttt_ 15y ago
From: Ten Steps to Close Down an Open Society: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html?view=print http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-... 4 Set up an internal surveillance system In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched. In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny. In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about "national security"; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.
cycojesus 15y ago
The word 'online' isn't even necessary anymore. "Do you like privacy? You may be a terrorist" still pretty much describe the world surrounding me right now. For context I live in France and this is what's happening here: http://bugbrother.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/02/01/claude-gueant-va-ficher-les-honnetes-gens/ http://bugbrother.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/02/01/claude-gueant-v... (sorry it's in French and I have work to do.)
kenrik 15y ago
You may call me Achmed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go Seriously though did they lower the requirements to become a government employee even further? Who comes up with the stuff? I would laugh but it's actually kind of disturbing that these are the people who we rely on to prevent actual "Terrorists" from doing "Evil".
thebigshane 15y ago
An interesting snippet from the "General Public" version (as opposed to the parent "Internet Cafe" version) It is important to remember that just because someone’s speech, actions, beliefs, appearance, or way of life is different, it does not mean that he or she is suspicious. Instead, focus on behavior and activities that are unusual or out of place for the situation and that appear to be suspicious. The activities outlined on this handout are by no means all-inclusive but have been compiled from a review of terrorist events over several years. Some of the activities, taken individually, could be innocent and must be examined by law enforcement professionals in a larger context to determine whether there is a basis to investigate. [source: http://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-SuspiciousActivity/General_Public.pdf http://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-SuspiciousActivity/Ge...] It looks like they acknowledge the same individual complaints as noted in the comments here but I think they miss the overall point that people are innocent until proven guilty. It sounds like they are saying only law enforcement professionals are qualified to determine whether someone displaying some of these behaviors is really innocent. I'm not saying someone needs to have charges pressed against before being investigated. Instead, I'm saying this is a dramatic shift to our social obligations and interactions: the person next to you is now no longer innocent by default, he is a potential terrorist and it is your responsibility to monitor his activities and if they show any unusual behavior to bring in the police/feds.
- Terretta 15y ago
  Agreed. Note "some of the activities could be innocent" ... really? ... "and must be examined by law enforcement" ... ok then ... "to determine whether there is a basis to investigate". Sure smells like an end run on "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..." Here the "could be innocent" implies default of not being innocent, and the law enforcement gets involved before determination of basis to investigate. It's "If you've got nothing to hide, why are you hiding it?" in flyer form.
  - xorbyte 15y ago
orbitingpluto 15y ago
This is of course ridiculous. I can be found in a cafe almost more often than not. I... 1) regularly use encryption for all traffic while in a cafe. Would you yell out your credit card in a cafe over the phone? It's easier to encrypt everything than handpick. 2) regularly have multiple phones out on the table. I'm usually doing Android dev. 3) travel up to six kilometers to get my good coffee. Apparently unwillingness to drink McD coffee is a sign of a terrorist? 4) love coffee and drink way too much of it. So if I'm a little twitchy from that third Americano I may be a terrorist? 5) prefer to pay cash to limit my spending so I don't get that fourth Americano. 6) Like to get out. Just because I have Internet at home and I'm using it somewhere else doesn't make me suspicious. That being said, I have been suspicious of people using Internet at coffee shops before. But usually it's that guy who has parked right in front of the coffee house for the third consecutive day and has his laptop out. (I noticed his car when going to the cafe one day and realized he was just getting porn. The cafe owner and I had a good laugh about it.) I have also called police about a young man who had made a giant map of downtown and making sniper signs and lines of sight across it. He also really wanted to talk about a recent mass murder. The creepiness and attention seeking was enough to set off internal alarms. The police followed up with me after and were very professional. The only people I ever terrorised in a coffee house are the Mactards who think it is fine to bittorrent and bring even simple email checking for everyone else to a screaming halt. So far, it is the only useful thing I've ever made in Python.
brudgers 15y ago
<channeling Jeff Foxworthy> You might be a terrorist if...
tertius 15y ago
Time to turn myself in I guess!
kgosser 15y ago
When do you think 4Chan, Reddit, or ... GASP ... even HackerNews start to become considered honeypots for terrorists?
stfu 15y ago
Let's guess what else is going to make the list 10 years in the future. Suggestions: - saves files on a local storage system and not on a cloud service. - is not caring a smart phone - owns a variety of "wires" to connect different devices
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

135 points by bootload 15y ago

This is golden. I think I might be a terrorist. I... 1) Shield my screen in public places ( I don't want snoopers reading my emails....) 2) I pay cash most of the time (Helps me save money as the change goes into a change jar never to be spent again) 3) I have multiple cell phones. (One for business, one for personal) 4) I use a proxy to shield my IP address 5) I encrypt my computer and files, I send password protected compressed files. 6) I communicate with people I have never met in video games 7) I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and infrastructures Seriously though I am not keen on the flier. I think terrorism and extremists work best in fragmented societies. If you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone then the oddball or outcast will naturally be viewed with curiosity and suspicion. However, in towns and cities where you sometimes don't know your neighbor.. this is where a suspicious person can thrive. Fliers like this encourage you not to trust to your neighbor. It screams. "The guy next to you might be a terrorist!" and encourages you to be distrustful. Its not healthy. It helps propagate the climate of fear. You expect messages like this in a police state not in a supposedly free country.

muyuu 15y ago
I do easily 80% of that list on a regular basis. Feeling terroristy this morning.
- mikegirouard 15y ago
  To that point, I'd venture so far to say that 80% of the points on this list are sound security practices that good businesses and freelancers should be doing.
srl 15y ago
> I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and infrastructures You're on a website called "Hacker News", for starters. Am I the only one who's had to deal with related idiocy when on a public computer? (Also, using PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of places for "hacking".)
- pmiller2 15y ago
  >(Also, using PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of places for "hacking".) Has this happened to you or anyone you know?
  - rohansingh 15y ago
    A long time ago, in a public school, the librarian reported me for using a "hacking program" called "FTP".
  - srl 15y ago
    It's happened to me as stated. Back in public school, I had a friend who got banned from using the computers for several months for VNC'ing into his home computer. Because it was "hacking" - no other rationale, no complicating factors. To use the car analogy: it's like getting arrested for using a remote to unlock your car instead of a physical key. (Or, more accurately, like getting your license taken away for several months. Which may make even less sense.)
  - noonespecial 15y ago
    Me. I actually have an apple script to turn all of my terminal sessions black on white for public spaces because it looks more "friendly(1)" that way. A bunch of terminals tailing logs in color looks like hacker scenes in movies to the uninitiated. People have asked me, most impolitely, what the hell I was doing. 1) Like Microsoft Word.
AJ007 15y ago
I'm going to put together a brochure, its called "You might be a fucking idiot if don't do these things when accessing the internet from a public terminal."
prodigal_erik 15y ago
Anonymous cities are also wellsprings of progress because of their tolerance of eccentrics who were stifled by the judgmental conformity of villages and tribes.
spindritf 15y ago
I carry a bulletproof pendrive with Tails (0.10.1 is out BTW https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html) on it. I guess I should at least stop bragging. Never had a problem though, same with a screen full of terminals -- it's usually met with curious interest rather than suspicion or hostility, if noticed at all. > If you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone then the oddball or outcast will naturally be viewed with curiosity and suspicion. On the other hand, they're a known oddball which seems to put people at ease most of the time.

twelvechairs 15y ago

"What should I consider Suspicious?" "People Who:" "Act nervous or suspicious behaviour inconsistent with activities" Whoever wrote this should go back to both English class (grammar!) and circular logic class (I should consider someone 'suspicious' because they have 'suspicious behaviour'?)

loup-vaillant 15y ago
It's not circular logic. It's an appeal to intuition. When they say a suspect is someone who act suspect, they really mean "act in ways you feel is suspect". There, you know that if someone is glancing sideways, then your feeling suspicious is enough to mark that person as suspect (or so the flyer says). Anyway, that's just as bad: it teaches you to be paranoid.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >Anyway, that's just as bad: it teaches you to be paranoid. What taught me to be paranoid weren't retarded fliers like these. That honor goes to the people who caused me to pick up the practices described on this flier in the first place - organizations like the FBI, government increasingly evolving towards police states a and, last but not least, corporations like Google or Facebook, whose practices can at best be described as amoral.
mikegirouard 15y ago
Your second point struck me as well. Not only does the grammar seem completely odd at times, but the whole thing seems a bit dodgy. Is there any official download to this file on the FBI's website?

loup-vaillant 15y ago

That gives me the urge to display suspicious behaviour just to make them lose time. As I live in France, it shouldn't be so risky yet. Seriously, if more people where actively protecting their privacy, it would no longer be suspicious to encrypt one's email. But some people need to do it first.

shrikant 15y ago
> That gives me the urge to display suspicious behaviour just to make them lose time. I suspect that if you deliberately acted suspicious enough to make them lose time, you'd lose a not insignificant amount of time as well. And this is the sort of thinking that the "suspicion detection" powers-that-be quite possibly want to encourage - where personal convenience trumps a [imho, perfectly natural] desire for privacy.
yread 15y ago
yeah just setup couple hundred emails and have them send random files to each other. That should keep them busy :)
mjwalshe 15y ago
France used to ban crypto back in 95/96 I remember we had to make huge changes to BT's Intranet to disable certain parts of it from collegues in France as we where not allowed to uses encyption to acess via a dialup service.
stfu 15y ago
Seriously, if more people where actively protecting their privacy, it would no longer be suspicious to encrypt one's email. This is an excellent point! At least open source OS systems should make encryption the standard option. But even Ubuntu seems unable to pull this off and more or less in stagnation on this - despite EFF's efforts ( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/help-bring-disk-encryption-ubuntu-live-cd https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/help-bring-disk-encryp... ).
- spindritf 15y ago
  Firstly, Ubuntu Alternate CD has an excellent installer, it's not text-based as in you have to type in commands, or compile anything, it's just like the Windows XP installer, except for all the sideloading of drivers. You can set up an encrypted LVM, or whatever partitioning scheme you like, the default settings also seemed very sensible so you don't even have to touch anything. Secondly, regular Ubuntu installer offers to encrypt your home dir.

jgrahamc 15y ago

Switching SIM cards is perhaps not common in the US, but in Europe it's very common. If you take the Eurostar from Paris to London the people changing SIM cards as they come out of the Channel tunnel are not terrorists, they are people who don't want to pay high roaming charges. Also, paying cash in an Internet café doesn't seem like unusual behavior at all. Many people who use them will be students and people traveling who may not want to hand over a credit card in a foreign country.

johncoltrane 15y ago
Here in France it's often hard to pay for anything under 15 or sometimes 30 € with a payment card. Big chains and supermarkets often have a very low minimum (think 0.50 €) but smaller shops have no problem indicating you the closest ATM. To the point where the second phrase you say in a shop is often "C'est quoi le minimum pour la carte ?". And yes for Internet cafés. Absurdity.
- mikeash 15y ago
  I believe that credit card merchant agreements in the US prohibit any minimum amount for card purchases. You can occasionally find places that do it, but they're breaking their agreement and risk punishment for doing so, so it's rare.
  - apu 15y ago
    In big cities in the US it's very common for many businesses to either have a minimum for card purchases, or charge extra for small purchases, or offer "cash discounts" -- regardless of what the actual law is.
    - cdr 15y ago
      It's not law (though there may be state/local laws also), it's the merchants' agreements with Visa/MC/Amex/etc. Cash discounts are allowed - you see them with gas stations quite frequently - but minimums and surcharges are disallowed and the merchant will almost certainly get into trouble with the credit issuers if it's reported. It's almost entirely small businesses that try to flout their agreements - you'll rarely see any major business try because of the consequences.

kmfrk 15y ago

I find this to be way more hilarious than disturbing in all their cluelessness.

stray 15y ago
After all, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...

maeon3 15y ago

Terrorism is a military tactic, saying "you are a terrorist" is about as meaningless as saying: "You are a right flank", "You are a military operation" and "You are a deployed F16 bomber". It's this double speak and new-think that is damaging our country, not the demand for basic human rights.

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JadeNB 15y ago
> Terrorism is a military tactic, saying "you are a terrorist" is about as meaningless as saying: "You are a right flank", "You are a military operation" and "You are a deployed F16 bomber". While I agree that the main post is ridiculous, I'm not sure that grammatical issues are the real reason why. We've long since accepted calling someone a guerilla who engages in guerilla warfare; why should calling some a terrorist who engages in terrorism be any less valid? (Or perhaps the term 'guerilla' isn't valid either?) Or perhaps the point you're making is a more subtle one, that being a terrorist is not a label that is permanently affixed: i.e., that it's reasonable to say to someone "you are a terrorist" precisely to mean "you are engaging in terrorism at this moment", just as you might say "you are a flanker" (or whatever) precisely to mean "you are on the right flank at this moment"?
adrianN 15y ago
A terrorist is someone who employs the military tactic of terrorism, just like a guerilla is a practitioner of guerilla tactics. I don't see the problem here.
- maeon3 15y ago
  The problem is that terrorism is a strategy that America also uses in war. Calling the terrorists evil because they blow up civilians in another country is calling war evil. Its the double-think and hypocritical nature of the word I don't like. What makes the planes into the world trade center more evil than the hundreds of thousands of bombs used to blow up suspected enemy hideouts in iraq, Iran and Afghanistan?

rasur 15y ago

Would it not just be simpler and cheaper for the FBI and DOJ to print a flyer that says: "You are all under arrest, on suspicion of Terrorism. Report to your local Police station for processing." I mean, really - what kind of insanity is being entertained in the US at the moment?

DefineClass 15y ago

OH MY GOD, I'm in a coffee shop and there's this guy that keeps "apparently using tradecraft"! He won't stop! Do cross words constitute a "coded work sheet"? That old lady really looks intent on figuring it out. And those fourth graders keep sending suspicious messages on that PC game! Like "PWND" and "teafrag"... Well, I'm fucked, but it could be worse: http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/britons-denied-entry-to-us-after-homeland-security-doesnt-find-destroy-america-twitter-joke-funny/ http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/britons-denied-entry-to...

manish_gill 15y ago

What do they expect? That a terrorist is going to hide some top secret weapon information in a steganographic photo? This is just ridiculous.

chakalakasp 15y ago
No, that's not crazy, it's just crazy to think that anyone is going to notice someone doing stego in an internet cafe, since anyone doing stego is already going through huge efforts to hide what they are doing. The idea behind good stego is that you encrypt something important, stego it into an image, then post that image (i.e., dead drop it) somewhere where the recipient knows to look. But when this is done (on either end), of course, all that appears is happening is that the person is either upload or downloading an image. When you consider some of the Usenet groups out there with bajillions of images posted a day to them, this would probably be a pretty effective system, assuming your stego program is good enough to embed the data into the image itself and is not just encapsulating it into the metadata or something. The one interesting thing to come out of this sheet is that apparently terrorists are heavy stego users.

Chrono 15y ago

This reminds me of the "Du bist Terrorist" campagin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24 (German with English subs) Most of these terrorist indicators seems like common sense to me. Paranoia over reason once again?

shareme 15y ago

funny thing is if you read Obama's wife comments on privacy she could be label a terrorist.. Why are both democracies and non-democracies so damn afraid of having choosy and thinking citizens? What are the World governments hiding?!

ajuc 15y ago

Apparently indirect democracy isn't working as well, as we would like it to work. Anyone knows somebody that would vote directly for such paranoic measures (what happens on airports, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, all that propaganda for restricting freedom)? This security and copyright madness reminds me of middle ages witch hunts, and fighting heretic. Most people didn't cared about witches, nor heretics, as long as nobody said them they should. Governments and religions created that paranoia, and then it just lived on. I like this http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261344/Henrician-Articles http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261344/Henrician-A... solution to the problem of government instilled paranoia. It was possible in 1573 to demand of king, that he would keep the promises, he made before people elected him. People just made him sign a treaty, that if he started religious persecution, he will not be a king anymore accordingto law. Why now, in the age of democracy, we can't hold our representatives responsible, and can't demand that they will keep their promises? I would gladly vote for someone, that signed such documents before elections, that says he won't be fighting terrorists by restricting freedom. But in our system such contracts are void, if I understand correctly.

drcube 15y ago

Most of this stuff applies to the Military and FBI. Guess they're all terrorists. Or maybe you're only supposed to care about encryption and privacy when you work for the government?

davidwparker 15y ago

I think a lot of people are missing the point. The document clearly states "Related to Internet Cafe". Now, I agree that I would still want my privacy in an Internet cafe, as well as paying cash, and using multiple phones. But some of the other stuff doesn't make much sense in an Internet cafe.

muyuu 15y ago
They even say it's suspicious that someone shields the screen from view of others. WTF? I consider most of my communications essentially private and I don't want anyone to be eavesdropping.

aroberge 15y ago

This appears to be some sort of phishing site. I first look at it using an iPad with the built-in Safari. Since the font size was too small (can't help it, I'm old!), I tried to pinch and enlarge and the text transformed into a blurry image with my email address (iPad/Safari security issue?) displayed and a button inviting me to have it sent to me by email. Using Chrome on my laptop, I get a warning that there are too many redirects.

bdg 15y ago

Can one of you American citizens submit a FOIA request so they release the supporting documentation and research for such claims? I would if I were an American.

elb0w 15y ago

So Obama signed the National Defense Authorization act which allows the indefinite detention of citizen and non-citizens declared as terrorists of the united states. Lamar Smith is pushing a bill that will require ISP's to store all information on U.S. Citizens that tie to an IP address. Now the FBI is saying you are a terrorist if you try to hide your ip. So now if you don't allow the government to capture all information about you from the internet you can declared a terrorist which in-turn will cause you to be held in jail indefinitely..... or im just paranoid.

jrockway 15y ago
you can declared a terrorist which in-turn will cause you to be held in jail indefinitely It probably won't be you. By the time they'd come looking for you, these laws will have been laughed out of the Supreme Court and a few political careers will be dead forever.
- srl 15y ago
  > these laws will have been laughed out of the Supreme Court It makes me mighty uncomfortable how often we have to fall back on "because the supreme court" (or more generally, "because courts" - there are a lot of lower-level justices doing their jobs admirably, and they don't get nearly enough credit) to convince ourselves that we're not heading for a closed society. Eventually, someone will grab enough political capital to pull an Andrew Jackson and decide to just ignore and possibly arrest them - at which point we're absolutely screwed. We're at the point now where viable presidential candidates can openly admit that they don't believe the courts are worth obeying. It's time to start worrying.
mrschwabe 15y ago
No, you're not paranoid - this is the new reality; the new America. And to clarify, you will have no trial and the jail you would be held at is at an undisclosed location.

freehunter 15y ago

I'd like to see this in official context. While I have no serious doubt that our government would issue something like this, anyone can make an official looking PDF.

lignuist 15y ago

One more sign that the western world (not only the US and maybe not only the western world) is facing serious signals of McCarthyism 2.0.

basseq 15y ago

It's a correlation-causation problem. I'm sure terrorists ARE all about online privacy, so if you're all about online privacy, you MAY be a terrorist. But when you break it down, maybe 80% of terrorists (a small group) favor online privacy, but only 0.0001% of those who favor online privacy (a large group) are terrorists. The same reason I have to take my shoes off at the airport: because one asshole tried to hide plastic explosives in his over a decade ago.

ttt_ 15y ago

From: Ten Steps to Close Down an Open Society: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html?view=print http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-... 4 Set up an internal surveillance system In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched. In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny. In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about "national security"; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.

cycojesus 15y ago

The word 'online' isn't even necessary anymore. "Do you like privacy? You may be a terrorist" still pretty much describe the world surrounding me right now. For context I live in France and this is what's happening here: http://bugbrother.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/02/01/claude-gueant-va-ficher-les-honnetes-gens/ http://bugbrother.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/02/01/claude-gueant-v... (sorry it's in French and I have work to do.)

kenrik 15y ago

You may call me Achmed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go Seriously though did they lower the requirements to become a government employee even further? Who comes up with the stuff? I would laugh but it's actually kind of disturbing that these are the people who we rely on to prevent actual "Terrorists" from doing "Evil".

thebigshane 15y ago

An interesting snippet from the "General Public" version (as opposed to the parent "Internet Cafe" version) It is important to remember that just because someone’s speech, actions, beliefs, appearance, or way of life is different, it does not mean that he or she is suspicious. Instead, focus on behavior and activities that are unusual or out of place for the situation and that appear to be suspicious. The activities outlined on this handout are by no means all-inclusive but have been compiled from a review of terrorist events over several years. Some of the activities, taken individually, could be innocent and must be examined by law enforcement professionals in a larger context to determine whether there is a basis to investigate. [source: http://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-SuspiciousActivity/General_Public.pdf http://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-SuspiciousActivity/Ge...] It looks like they acknowledge the same individual complaints as noted in the comments here but I think they miss the overall point that people are innocent until proven guilty. It sounds like they are saying only law enforcement professionals are qualified to determine whether someone displaying some of these behaviors is really innocent. I'm not saying someone needs to have charges pressed against before being investigated. Instead, I'm saying this is a dramatic shift to our social obligations and interactions: the person next to you is now no longer innocent by default, he is a potential terrorist and it is your responsibility to monitor his activities and if they show any unusual behavior to bring in the police/feds.

Terretta 15y ago
Agreed. Note "some of the activities could be innocent" ... really? ... "and must be examined by law enforcement" ... ok then ... "to determine whether there is a basis to investigate". Sure smells like an end run on "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..." Here the "could be innocent" implies default of not being innocent, and the law enforcement gets involved before determination of basis to investigate. It's "If you've got nothing to hide, why are you hiding it?" in flyer form.
- xorbyte 15y ago

orbitingpluto 15y ago

This is of course ridiculous. I can be found in a cafe almost more often than not. I... 1) regularly use encryption for all traffic while in a cafe. Would you yell out your credit card in a cafe over the phone? It's easier to encrypt everything than handpick. 2) regularly have multiple phones out on the table. I'm usually doing Android dev. 3) travel up to six kilometers to get my good coffee. Apparently unwillingness to drink McD coffee is a sign of a terrorist? 4) love coffee and drink way too much of it. So if I'm a little twitchy from that third Americano I may be a terrorist? 5) prefer to pay cash to limit my spending so I don't get that fourth Americano. 6) Like to get out. Just because I have Internet at home and I'm using it somewhere else doesn't make me suspicious. That being said, I have been suspicious of people using Internet at coffee shops before. But usually it's that guy who has parked right in front of the coffee house for the third consecutive day and has his laptop out. (I noticed his car when going to the cafe one day and realized he was just getting porn. The cafe owner and I had a good laugh about it.) I have also called police about a young man who had made a giant map of downtown and making sniper signs and lines of sight across it. He also really wanted to talk about a recent mass murder. The creepiness and attention seeking was enough to set off internal alarms. The police followed up with me after and were very professional. The only people I ever terrorised in a coffee house are the Mactards who think it is fine to bittorrent and bring even simple email checking for everyone else to a screaming halt. So far, it is the only useful thing I've ever made in Python.

brudgers 15y ago

<channeling Jeff Foxworthy> You might be a terrorist if...

tertius 15y ago

Time to turn myself in I guess!

kgosser 15y ago

When do you think 4Chan, Reddit, or ... GASP ... even HackerNews start to become considered honeypots for terrorists?

stfu 15y ago

Let's guess what else is going to make the list 10 years in the future. Suggestions: - saves files on a local storage system and not on a cloud service. - is not caring a smart phone - owns a variety of "wires" to connect different devices

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