6 ms·

Find the guys who usually park at expensive family homes, but occasionally visit a known brothel, then blackmail them. We all just let surveillance haplen to u

Find the guys who usually park at expensive family homes, but occasionally visit a known brothel, then blackmail them. We all just let surveillance haplen to us, in fact we paid for most of it

omolobo 2y ago
[dead]
ctippett 2y ago
I once worked for a firm that had access to credit card transaction data and came across almost this exact scenario. Kindergarten transactions one day, escort payments on another. It was — and still is — creepy. An average Joe like me shouldn't be able to pry into someone's private life like that.
- harimau777 2y ago
  My theory is that most people think about data misuse, perhaps unconsciously, from the viewpoint of your average good person. E.g. "if I got a hold of a stranger's bank information, then I'd be tempted to steal from them." Instead they should think from the perspective of an evil person. E.g. "how can I proactively use whatever data that I can get to hurt someone." For example, at a previous job I went to my managers and pointed out that every developer working on our system had access to our user's names and their involvement with racial justice programs our client was running. By guessing someone's ethnicity from their name, a bad actor could target minorities involved in racial justice. The response I got was not to fix the security issue; instead it was horror that I would ever conceive of such a scheme.
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    I hate those management arrogance. Reminds me a teacher that amply mocked me in front of the class to have mentioned Light Pollution [0] (I heard about in a youngster science magazine) during a chapter about... "various pollution type"! Do you have a written record of the conversation? 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution
  - dns_snek 2y ago
    > Instead they should think from the perspective of an evil person From experience, they usually come up with some variation of "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" [1]. And even those who buy the idea that private information could be used against them, most of them don't believe that someone would do this to them. What seems to be missing is understanding of how scalable and automated these attacks can be in the digital world. [1] Amusingly enough, one of those "I have nothing to hide" people was pretty shaken when they asked me to take a look at a scam email that said "Hello <firstname from leaked database>, we have photos of you watching porn. Pay us or we'll post them on Facebook." Has anyone had success with informing people about these types of abstract dangers? I find that people either get it almost immediately, or they never really get it until it happens to them.
- 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
  That's just bad opsec. I would have thought rule number one of soliciting was to be cash only. Ignoring of course that the amount of aggregated surveillance makes it impossible to escape monitoring. Credit cards, license plate scanners, phone GPS, airtags, doorbell cameras, "Eye in the Sky" spy planes, etc
  - ctippett 2y ago
    There are countries where prostitution is legal and commercial brothels accept mainstream payment methods.
  - mjevans 2y ago
    The exact example IS bad opsec... however assume some example fuzzing for good opsec. Trip to McD's with a price of exactly happy meal + tax one day, and a recurring payment for XXX website OnlyFans access the next. Adjust the values to taste/theory. Sometimes a credit card is just a credit card.
    - ctippett 2y ago
      Transaction data comes included with merchant metadata, simply fuzzing the amount doesn't mask anything.
  - RandomBK 2y ago
    "What kind of hooker takes credit cards?" "A rich one!"
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
  > An average Joe like me shouldn't be able to The average joe is merely a side effect of the government collecting all that data. The government is also why your car reports its location.
- fangry 2y ago
  [flagged]

Find the guys who usually park at expensive family homes, but occasionally visit a known brothel, then blackmail them. We all just let surveillance haplen to us, in fact we paid for most of it

omolobo 2y ago

[dead]

ctippett 2y ago

I once worked for a firm that had access to credit card transaction data and came across almost this exact scenario. Kindergarten transactions one day, escort payments on another. It was — and still is — creepy. An average Joe like me shouldn't be able to pry into someone's private life like that.

harimau777 2y ago
My theory is that most people think about data misuse, perhaps unconsciously, from the viewpoint of your average good person. E.g. "if I got a hold of a stranger's bank information, then I'd be tempted to steal from them." Instead they should think from the perspective of an evil person. E.g. "how can I proactively use whatever data that I can get to hurt someone." For example, at a previous job I went to my managers and pointed out that every developer working on our system had access to our user's names and their involvement with racial justice programs our client was running. By guessing someone's ethnicity from their name, a bad actor could target minorities involved in racial justice. The response I got was not to fix the security issue; instead it was horror that I would ever conceive of such a scheme.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  I hate those management arrogance. Reminds me a teacher that amply mocked me in front of the class to have mentioned Light Pollution [0] (I heard about in a youngster science magazine) during a chapter about... "various pollution type"! Do you have a written record of the conversation? 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution
- dns_snek 2y ago
  > Instead they should think from the perspective of an evil person From experience, they usually come up with some variation of "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" [1]. And even those who buy the idea that private information could be used against them, most of them don't believe that someone would do this to them. What seems to be missing is understanding of how scalable and automated these attacks can be in the digital world. [1] Amusingly enough, one of those "I have nothing to hide" people was pretty shaken when they asked me to take a look at a scam email that said "Hello <firstname from leaked database>, we have photos of you watching porn. Pay us or we'll post them on Facebook." Has anyone had success with informing people about these types of abstract dangers? I find that people either get it almost immediately, or they never really get it until it happens to them.
3eb7988a1663 2y ago
That's just bad opsec. I would have thought rule number one of soliciting was to be cash only. Ignoring of course that the amount of aggregated surveillance makes it impossible to escape monitoring. Credit cards, license plate scanners, phone GPS, airtags, doorbell cameras, "Eye in the Sky" spy planes, etc
- ctippett 2y ago
  There are countries where prostitution is legal and commercial brothels accept mainstream payment methods.
- mjevans 2y ago
  The exact example IS bad opsec... however assume some example fuzzing for good opsec. Trip to McD's with a price of exactly happy meal + tax one day, and a recurring payment for XXX website OnlyFans access the next. Adjust the values to taste/theory. Sometimes a credit card is just a credit card.
  - ctippett 2y ago
    Transaction data comes included with merchant metadata, simply fuzzing the amount doesn't mask anything.
- RandomBK 2y ago
  "What kind of hooker takes credit cards?" "A rich one!"
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
> An average Joe like me shouldn't be able to The average joe is merely a side effect of the government collecting all that data. The government is also why your car reports its location.
fangry 2y ago
[flagged]