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I hope this will encourage the lawmaker to ask more of law enforcement. It's their job to track this down. I'm sure Instagram would comply with whatever warrant

I hope this will encourage the lawmaker to ask more of law enforcement. It's their job to track this down. I'm sure Instagram would comply with whatever warrants were issued to them, even ones I'd personally prefer they not. It's unfortunate that it took this happening to a congresscritter, in their privilege of perfect law enforcement preference, otherwise blind to how LEOs aren't doing their job, to do something. Unfortunately, they're not asking LEOs to do their job, but rather suing the communication medium, even though the same scam could be run through a different communication medium.

gnfargbl 3y ago
[flagged]
arp242 3y ago
So they track this down to some guy in Russia. Then what? Tracking down these types of criminals is probably the least effective things law enforcement could be doing because it's quite time-consuming and a lot of the time it gives you no concrete result.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  I am not confident that 100% of these instances are "some guy in russia". Is it true that these scammers in question were? Or that LEO tracked them down at all? Or did anything meaningful? I agree that we ask LEOs to enforce the law, and doing so is a lot of work. There is, though, quite a large discrepancy between what we ask them to do, and what they do, so it remains to be seen if they are doing a lot of work, and it remains to be seen if they work they do do, is the work we want them to do, versus the work they want to do (for example, what sort of speed limit enforcement operations do they run? How much do they prosecute simple drug possession?) I believe opening themselves up freely and willingly to non-LEO oversight and control would do a lot to answer those questions.
  - arp242 3y ago
    It's not 100%, no, that's why I used "a lot" and not "all". And even if they are in the US, it's not that hard to be reasonable untrackable with minimal skills. People make mistakes, and maybe every now and then you might catch one person. Whoop-die-doo. It's just not effective or reasonable to track down every single case in depth.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      I agree that the job isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. You speak of tracking down "every single case" as if they get close to that metric, but do they? How many do they actually track down? Is it greater than even 1%? I just don't think they're doing the best they could be doing, is all, but that goes back to my suggestion about them being receptive to civilian oversight and control: we can run the numbers and determine objectively whether they're doing as good as we'd like them to be doing.
      - arp242 3y ago
        Even if you can catch half of the 1% that you track down (hugely optimistic!), what's the point? The impact is barely perceptible, these types of changes to get caught does nothing to deter anything. And now criminals will be more careful so it will be even harder to track them down (and/or everything will shift to areas outside the US). Any wins will be temporary at best. All of this would be a colossal waste of time and effort. The best thing that can be done is changing the system so these types of scams/extortions are much harder to pull off in the first place.
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        Any such system changes can be gamed, it's inevitable, what's the point? Rather than adding more and more layers of technology that will be bypassed anyways, we should step back and ask: what exactly is the problem here? The problem is that we've already made it illegal, but I don't see law enforcement doing as much enforcing as I'd like them to be doing. I didn't give them permission to throw their hands in the air and cross their arms in frustration and give up yet, and I don't think that any marginal effort would be wasted. I don't think they're at their capacity either, so from my perspective, the difference is between 0 benefit and >0 benefit for the same annual expenditure on salary. If they needed more capacity after actually exhausting their existing capacity, they could reduce work in things we don't want them to work on. They could convince folks otherwise, but it would require what I mentioned before: being receptive to non-LEO oversight and control. Then, we would have more accurate information for our judgement of whether they're doing as much as we'd like them to be doing, and what we'd like them to be doing.

gnfargbl 3y ago

[flagged]

arp242 3y ago

So they track this down to some guy in Russia. Then what? Tracking down these types of criminals is probably the least effective things law enforcement could be doing because it's quite time-consuming and a lot of the time it gives you no concrete result.

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
I am not confident that 100% of these instances are "some guy in russia". Is it true that these scammers in question were? Or that LEO tracked them down at all? Or did anything meaningful? I agree that we ask LEOs to enforce the law, and doing so is a lot of work. There is, though, quite a large discrepancy between what we ask them to do, and what they do, so it remains to be seen if they are doing a lot of work, and it remains to be seen if they work they do do, is the work we want them to do, versus the work they want to do (for example, what sort of speed limit enforcement operations do they run? How much do they prosecute simple drug possession?) I believe opening themselves up freely and willingly to non-LEO oversight and control would do a lot to answer those questions.
- arp242 3y ago
  It's not 100%, no, that's why I used "a lot" and not "all". And even if they are in the US, it's not that hard to be reasonable untrackable with minimal skills. People make mistakes, and maybe every now and then you might catch one person. Whoop-die-doo. It's just not effective or reasonable to track down every single case in depth.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    I agree that the job isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. You speak of tracking down "every single case" as if they get close to that metric, but do they? How many do they actually track down? Is it greater than even 1%? I just don't think they're doing the best they could be doing, is all, but that goes back to my suggestion about them being receptive to civilian oversight and control: we can run the numbers and determine objectively whether they're doing as good as we'd like them to be doing.
    - arp242 3y ago
      Even if you can catch half of the 1% that you track down (hugely optimistic!), what's the point? The impact is barely perceptible, these types of changes to get caught does nothing to deter anything. And now criminals will be more careful so it will be even harder to track them down (and/or everything will shift to areas outside the US). Any wins will be temporary at best. All of this would be a colossal waste of time and effort. The best thing that can be done is changing the system so these types of scams/extortions are much harder to pull off in the first place.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        Any such system changes can be gamed, it's inevitable, what's the point? Rather than adding more and more layers of technology that will be bypassed anyways, we should step back and ask: what exactly is the problem here? The problem is that we've already made it illegal, but I don't see law enforcement doing as much enforcing as I'd like them to be doing. I didn't give them permission to throw their hands in the air and cross their arms in frustration and give up yet, and I don't think that any marginal effort would be wasted. I don't think they're at their capacity either, so from my perspective, the difference is between 0 benefit and >0 benefit for the same annual expenditure on salary. If they needed more capacity after actually exhausting their existing capacity, they could reduce work in things we don't want them to work on. They could convince folks otherwise, but it would require what I mentioned before: being receptive to non-LEO oversight and control. Then, we would have more accurate information for our judgement of whether they're doing as much as we'd like them to be doing, and what we'd like them to be doing.