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The article is interesting and informative, it also points to why we are seeing the death of the open internet, and of the anonymous internet. > Over the past

The article is interesting and informative, it also points to why we are seeing the death of the open internet, and of the anonymous internet. > Over the past year, more than 500 schools in the United States have been subjected to a coordinated campaign of fear that exploits the all-too-real American danger of school shootings, according to a review of media reports and dozens of public records requests. The Washington Post examined police reports, emergency call recordings, body-camera footage or call logs in connection with incidents in 24 states. It also puts a hole in the fact that any of this surveillance is "to protect the children" as I'm sure the NSA has enough info to track this guy down but just don't.

Swizec 3y ago
> American danger of school shootings “nothing we can do says only nation where this regularly happens”. sigh.
woodruffw 3y ago
The NSA doesn’t perform domestic intelligence. Even in a conspiratorial world where they do: operating outside of their legal mandate would mean that they wouldn't involve themselves with things like this.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Replace NSA with US government.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    That’s an entirely different sentence: specifying the NSA puts the claim into the territory of conspiracy, while specifying domestic federal LEO is essentially a question of capacity, reach, and competency. (Moreover, I don’t think anybody wants to live in a world where the FBI is 100% accurate in detecting school shooting hoaxes. That would imply other abilities that we’d consider unacceptable.)
- jameshart 3y ago
  The article talks about calls tracing to Ethiopian IP addresses. A man was recently arrested in Peru for calling in bomb threats to US schools[1]. This is not a domestic intelligence problem. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/28/peruvian-bomb-threats-arrested-us-schools https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/28/peruvian-bomb-...
runjake 3y ago
The NSA's mission is dictated by the government, and NSA is not authorized for domestic surveillance, as far as we know publicly. That duty falls on agencies like DHS and FBI, depending on the specific case. And while the NSA technically could, and maybe even does so, on the down low (Google "parallel construction"), they aren't going to reveal, and thus burn, their TTPs in a domestic civil/criminal trial, when they could be using them to save large numbers of lives globally.
pvaldes 3y ago
If there is a coordinated campaign of fear, then there must be somebody that benefits of it. Criminals, like those that started a wildfire again in Tenerife (Spain) this week, casually in the same week of the Meeting of the European Political Community in Spain, can't avoid to reverberate the same patterns of behavior, and left traces. Traces that could be feed to train an AI system and propose a list. We live in the age of full surveillance so here is a situation where AI could earn some pride, waiting for the correct team.
- hedora 3y ago
  There are multiple actors in play. The Russians are punching above their weight these days. If you'd like to read about how they're so successful (based on real-world case studies) consider reading the executive of "The Kremlin Playbook", from CSIS in Washington DC: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/1601017_Conley_KremlinPlaybook_Web.pdf https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publi... tl;dr (from page ix): Our work has determined that Russia has cultivated an opaque network of patronage across the region that it uses to influence and direct decision-making. This web resembles a network-flow model, which we describe as an "unvirtuous circle" of Russian influence. The circuitous flow can either begin with Russian political or economic penetration and from there expand and evolve, in some instances leading to "state capture." Russia seeks to gain influence over (if not control of) critical state institutions, bodies, and the economy and uses this influence to shape national policies and decisions. Corruption is the lubricant on which this system operates, concentrating on the exploitation of state resources to further Russia's networks of influence. Other tactics (usually in earlier phases of the plan) involve getting control over portions of the media, or (failing that) undermining news outlets' credibility. This conditions the population to put up with the stuff mentioned in the text I quoted. "Well, they're all corrupt, so it's not surprising that (insert any recent federal scandal here)."
- giantg2 3y ago
  Years ago the bomb threats and stuff were just kids wanting to get out of school and stuff. I wonder what the benefit could be for organized groups - stock manipulation, political reasons, foreign actors (but for what end goal), something else?

Swizec 3y ago

> American danger of school shootings “nothing we can do says only nation where this regularly happens”. sigh.

woodruffw 3y ago

The NSA doesn’t perform domestic intelligence. Even in a conspiratorial world where they do: operating outside of their legal mandate would mean that they wouldn't involve themselves with things like this.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
Replace NSA with US government.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  That’s an entirely different sentence: specifying the NSA puts the claim into the territory of conspiracy, while specifying domestic federal LEO is essentially a question of capacity, reach, and competency. (Moreover, I don’t think anybody wants to live in a world where the FBI is 100% accurate in detecting school shooting hoaxes. That would imply other abilities that we’d consider unacceptable.)
jameshart 3y ago
The article talks about calls tracing to Ethiopian IP addresses. A man was recently arrested in Peru for calling in bomb threats to US schools[1]. This is not a domestic intelligence problem. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/28/peruvian-bomb-threats-arrested-us-schools https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/28/peruvian-bomb-...

runjake 3y ago

The NSA's mission is dictated by the government, and NSA is not authorized for domestic surveillance, as far as we know publicly. That duty falls on agencies like DHS and FBI, depending on the specific case. And while the NSA technically could, and maybe even does so, on the down low (Google "parallel construction"), they aren't going to reveal, and thus burn, their TTPs in a domestic civil/criminal trial, when they could be using them to save large numbers of lives globally.

pvaldes 3y ago

If there is a coordinated campaign of fear, then there must be somebody that benefits of it. Criminals, like those that started a wildfire again in Tenerife (Spain) this week, casually in the same week of the Meeting of the European Political Community in Spain, can't avoid to reverberate the same patterns of behavior, and left traces. Traces that could be feed to train an AI system and propose a list. We live in the age of full surveillance so here is a situation where AI could earn some pride, waiting for the correct team.

hedora 3y ago
There are multiple actors in play. The Russians are punching above their weight these days. If you'd like to read about how they're so successful (based on real-world case studies) consider reading the executive of "The Kremlin Playbook", from CSIS in Washington DC: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/1601017_Conley_KremlinPlaybook_Web.pdf https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publi... tl;dr (from page ix): Our work has determined that Russia has cultivated an opaque network of patronage across the region that it uses to influence and direct decision-making. This web resembles a network-flow model, which we describe as an "unvirtuous circle" of Russian influence. The circuitous flow can either begin with Russian political or economic penetration and from there expand and evolve, in some instances leading to "state capture." Russia seeks to gain influence over (if not control of) critical state institutions, bodies, and the economy and uses this influence to shape national policies and decisions. Corruption is the lubricant on which this system operates, concentrating on the exploitation of state resources to further Russia's networks of influence. Other tactics (usually in earlier phases of the plan) involve getting control over portions of the media, or (failing that) undermining news outlets' credibility. This conditions the population to put up with the stuff mentioned in the text I quoted. "Well, they're all corrupt, so it's not surprising that (insert any recent federal scandal here)."
giantg2 3y ago
Years ago the bomb threats and stuff were just kids wanting to get out of school and stuff. I wonder what the benefit could be for organized groups - stock manipulation, political reasons, foreign actors (but for what end goal), something else?