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I was once on a jury for 6 weeks for the trial of the top members of a large multi-national drug trafficking organization in New York. A lot of that time was de

I was once on a jury for 6 weeks for the trial of the top members of a large multi-national drug trafficking organization in New York. A lot of that time was dedicated to hearing transcripts of the group's communication. These guys use code words and took all sorts of precautions to try to avoid surveillance, but in the end it looked like a joke. The government knew everything they were doing, where they were, where they were going and who they were talking to. They effortlessly followed their conversations across multiple channels, knew all their signals and the secret second apartments they paid cash for and all the other games they were playing. We listened to them plotting and talking about trying to conceal what they were doing and prevent being caught for nearly a year completely unaware the government knew exactly what was going on. They came across like naive children trying to blame their stuffed toy for eating all the cookies.

tonymet 2y ago
You're witnessing a solved case among tens-of-thousands that never see a hearing. That's like saying safe's don't work because you saw a broken one.
- throw__away7391 2y ago
  The context here is protection from government surveillance...but I have had similar experience dealing with immigration and to a lesser degree taxes where less resources could have been spent. The government has the ability to get massive amounts of data about you quite easily. What "protects" you from negative consequences of this is the processes, rules, and procedures baked into the government itself, not copying the communication style of some Hollywood mafia movie gangsters.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    Go ahead and worship the cult of the omniscient government panopticon. Even the Snowden leaks were clownshoes mysql LAMP apps that would never pass the bar at a tech company. Where are the thermals for this system?
- burningChrome 2y ago
  >> You're witnessing a solved case among tens-of-thousands that never see a hearing. Some anecdotal evidence to support this. Back in the early aughts I worked at a cellphone place. We had a Nextel repair shop. Since we were located in the downtown area, we had several government clients. One of those just happened to be the FBI. The FBI agents were some of the most interesting people I spoke to. I got to chatting up one of their agents about surveillance and the new wave of meth dealers using rural areas for their labs. The agent straight up said its been nearly impossible for them to surveil these people because they knew they could only use a burner phone for 3 months before having to ditch it. Somehow, they had figured out the timeframe it takes for the FBI to get a warrant for their phone, send it to the carrier and then the carrier to set up a tap on the phone or get the phone records and send them back to the FBI so they could start tracing the calls. The agent said the dealers would never destroy the phone either, they would just throw them away, or take them to the local landfill and just pitch them over the fence. The agent said they wouldn't break them so then the FBI would continue the process of getting the warrant, effectively buying them time to get a new phone and ahead of them once more. The agent also said the gangs were setting up in rural areas now since they don't have the law enforcement necessary to go after them and rural folk are so spread out, then tend to keep to themselves more. Keep in mind this was 20+ years ago, but even back then, the FBI was having a hard time pinning these people down by trying to leverage the data they were getting from the carriers.
walterbell 2y ago
> naive children Anthropological test subjects. There was an EU/APAC “E2EE” messenger honeypot a few years ago.
voisin 2y ago
Recognize though that this is selection bias. The government wouldn’t have brought the case that you sat for if they didn’t have this information and we have no idea how many investigations are thwarted by similar efforts. There could’ve been a loose thread on this one that unravelled it, like a government source.
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
Al Capone was the most famous person in America, and everyone knew he was a gangster. They had to get him on tax evasion. The problem isn't knowing who the gangsters are, it's bringing an air-tight case through enough incriminating evidence that can be used to convict. That is different than staying under the radar, which is why I put that as a different paragraph. The government knew what they were doing, and were building a case, because you could see something was going on. If you're using encrypted messaging, they can see that something is going on.

tonymet 2y ago

You're witnessing a solved case among tens-of-thousands that never see a hearing. That's like saying safe's don't work because you saw a broken one.

throw__away7391 2y ago
The context here is protection from government surveillance...but I have had similar experience dealing with immigration and to a lesser degree taxes where less resources could have been spent. The government has the ability to get massive amounts of data about you quite easily. What "protects" you from negative consequences of this is the processes, rules, and procedures baked into the government itself, not copying the communication style of some Hollywood mafia movie gangsters.
- tonymet 2y ago
  Go ahead and worship the cult of the omniscient government panopticon. Even the Snowden leaks were clownshoes mysql LAMP apps that would never pass the bar at a tech company. Where are the thermals for this system?
burningChrome 2y ago
>> You're witnessing a solved case among tens-of-thousands that never see a hearing. Some anecdotal evidence to support this. Back in the early aughts I worked at a cellphone place. We had a Nextel repair shop. Since we were located in the downtown area, we had several government clients. One of those just happened to be the FBI. The FBI agents were some of the most interesting people I spoke to. I got to chatting up one of their agents about surveillance and the new wave of meth dealers using rural areas for their labs. The agent straight up said its been nearly impossible for them to surveil these people because they knew they could only use a burner phone for 3 months before having to ditch it. Somehow, they had figured out the timeframe it takes for the FBI to get a warrant for their phone, send it to the carrier and then the carrier to set up a tap on the phone or get the phone records and send them back to the FBI so they could start tracing the calls. The agent said the dealers would never destroy the phone either, they would just throw them away, or take them to the local landfill and just pitch them over the fence. The agent said they wouldn't break them so then the FBI would continue the process of getting the warrant, effectively buying them time to get a new phone and ahead of them once more. The agent also said the gangs were setting up in rural areas now since they don't have the law enforcement necessary to go after them and rural folk are so spread out, then tend to keep to themselves more. Keep in mind this was 20+ years ago, but even back then, the FBI was having a hard time pinning these people down by trying to leverage the data they were getting from the carriers.

walterbell 2y ago

> naive children Anthropological test subjects. There was an EU/APAC “E2EE” messenger honeypot a few years ago.

voisin 2y ago

Recognize though that this is selection bias. The government wouldn’t have brought the case that you sat for if they didn’t have this information and we have no idea how many investigations are thwarted by similar efforts. There could’ve been a loose thread on this one that unravelled it, like a government source.

0xbadcafebee 2y ago

Al Capone was the most famous person in America, and everyone knew he was a gangster. They had to get him on tax evasion. The problem isn't knowing who the gangsters are, it's bringing an air-tight case through enough incriminating evidence that can be used to convict. That is different than staying under the radar, which is why I put that as a different paragraph. The government knew what they were doing, and were building a case, because you could see something was going on. If you're using encrypted messaging, they can see that something is going on.