8 ms·
Seattle Shield, an intelligence-sharing network operated by the Seattle police
- mrobot 5mo agoInteresting they have not contacted me about how they are going to be paying their subscription fee I hope they dont think im doing all of this for free
- ensen 5mo agoarchive that won't hijack your back button https://archive.is/Td9AR https://archive.is/Td9AR
- PcChip 5mo agoWhy do our browsers even allow that?
- sheept 5mo agoFor websites like Gmail when you open an email
- herpdyderp 5mo agoWhen done properly you don't even notice! It is very beneficial when needed. But, as we know, very awful when done improperly.
- nofunsir 5mo ago> When done properly you don't even notice! This lame argument should be added to the List of Fallacies. It's used everywhere as a "wild card" argument. > Makeup > MLB Pitch Framing by catchers > Surveillance States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies?useskin=vect...
- lazyasciiart 5mo agoWhen it’s used properly you don’t even notice it. Like plumbing.
- hkt 5mo agoTo enable JavaScript crapware
- Cider9986 5mo agoHuh, it seems to try to take my back button and it pretends that there is history if I open it in a new tab, but if I click on it from HN it lets me go back. But I can also see it trying to create history. Maybe it's a Brave feature idk.
- andrybak 5mo agoarchive.is is one of the domains of archive.today, which used its end users for a DDOS attack on a blog. This caused English Wikipedia to deprecate it with the end goal of blacklisting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Archive.today_guidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Archive.today_guidan...
- arcanemachiner 5mo agoComplaining about bad people is fun, don't get me wrong... but your post doesn't contain an alternative archive link. You're just siphoning people into your soapbox.
- BeetleB 5mo agoJust like complaining about Amazon (be it as an employer or as a service provider), without providing an alternative, is siphoning people into a soapbox? I, for one, found out about the archive.* situation recently, and am totally glad someone like the commenter pointed it out. My wanting to bypass paywalls to read content doesn't justify supporting the owner's behavior - not even close.
- saghm 5mo agoThe link they did include seems to have a pretty comprehensive list of alternatives. Complaining can be fun, but it doesn't really make sense to penalize them for not being prescriptive about alternatives when the exact point they're trying to make is specific resources for this sort of thing can be prone to abuse.
- ninjagoo 5mo ago> archive.is is one of the domains of archive.today, which used its end users for a DDOS attack on a blog. Please provide evidence for your claim. The wiki rfc [5] that you linked doesn't provide any DDOS evidence at all, which is odd for wikipedia. > This caused English Wikipedia to deprecate it with the end goal of blacklisting This appears to be a concerted effort to blacklist archive.today by unknown actors. There were at least 3 attempts with odd efforts to sway the vote [1][2][3] (the notes in the sidebars at those Wiki RFCs document these actions by bots and others), and a successful attempt to undo the blacklist [4], and then yet another attempt [5]. I'm curious as to why you did not include this very relevant background information in your comment? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Archive.is_RFC_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment...
- markus_zhang 5mo agoAh the new dark pool. Does anyone remember those from the trading? I still remember ARCA (good rebate back in the day), ECN (very fluid and very cheap), and a few dark pools that I used to get out of a trade quickly.
- root-parent 5mo agohttps://globalshieldnetwork.com/team/erin-nicholson/ https://globalshieldnetwork.com/team/erin-nicholson/
- acidhousemcnab 5mo agoWhat in the decomposed-dissident gang-stalked tarnation is this?
- aliasxneo 5mo ago> For instance, the Church of Scientology, U.S. Navy, and the Washington State Military Department told Prism that they are no longer working with the network. That first one took me by surprise. What a random hodgepodge of organizations.
- coliveira 5mo agoScientology is essentially a scheme to get private/incriminating information from very important people. Why the surprise?
- colechristensen 5mo agoScientology is what happens when a science fiction writer acts out a dystopian plot in real life instead of writing a novel. Read Stranger in a Strange Land, read about Hubbard and Heinlein's friendship, and look at the timeline of when Scientology started and Stranger in a Strange Land was published.
- CGMthrowaway 5mo agoThat may be true however today it is 2026 not 1961, LRH fell off the earth in 1980, and it is feasible that after the raids in 1977 and/or upon gaining tax-exempt status in 1993, some sort of deal was cut with the US state/intel apparatus to co-opt the church for another purpose
- colechristensen 5mo agoNo, shady deals and intel capture fits perfectly fine with the original dystopian novel in the real world.
- saghm 5mo agoFrom reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons yesterday after someone posted a link to it in the comments for another thread, I came away with the impression that Hubbard seemed to be into some pretty weird stuff long before scientology.
- bigbuppo 5mo agoSo what you're saying is that everyone that works at Amazon and Facebook are now at grave risk because the bad guys now think they're informants?
- GolfPopper 5mo agoNot any more than the average citizen of East Germany.
- erxam 5mo agoYou've got the good guys and the bad guys mixed up. No Meta "engineer" knows what morals or ethics even are, much less actually apply them in real life.
- kgwxd 5mo agoIt's bad guys all the way down.
- zombot 5mo agoThey are the bad guys.
- shermantanktop 5mo agoLooks like a nothingburger? It's unfunded. An email describes a protest without giving a framing that the site would prefer. Then it turns out that nobody knows what it does, but it might do something bad. I'm all for transparency and accountability but my assumption is that the bad things being done by LEO and intelligence are far worse than this.
- Shalomboy 5mo agoMy take away from the article was that this likely isn't the only public-private intelligence network propped up by local PDs; that was pretty alarming to me.
- erxam 5mo agoI think this is a good point: this is what they're letting us on.
- nikhilpareek13 5mo ago[flagged]
- lacewing 5mo agoWould it shock your conscience to learn that Microsoft security operations probably have contacts with the Redmond PD and that they occasionally discuss concerns? The existence of a mailing list or something of that sort isn't particularly worrying. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a firewall between police departments and local businesses any more that it would be reasonable to expect one between PDs and local residents. I would be alarmed if it turned out that Amazon was giving the Seattle PD direct, warrantless access to data about their consumers, or something like that. But there's no evidence presented here of anything particularly sketchy going on.
- whimsicalism 5mo agoYes, large businesses have contacts with local PD in the area. This is what BIDs basically are as well
- 5mo ago
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- kittikitti 5mo agoAs an American, I genuinely trust my data with China more than I do with the United States.
- organsnyder 5mo agoThat's actually a very logical stance: China is much less interested in what you're doing as an individual citizen—and much less able to act on what they know—than the United States is. For the same reason, Chinese citizens should trust the United States with their data more than China.
- codezero 5mo agoHave a look at your local branch here: https://globalshieldnetwork.com/programs-2/ https://globalshieldnetwork.com/programs-2/
- sidcool 5mo agoI'm convinced Meta is a cult with Total control. It will go to any lengths to make money.
- booleandilemma 5mo agoHaving a coalition of mega corporations all allied with each other isn't any better than having a strong government. Both are dangerous to personal liberties. I think we're due for a break up of these companies. No more Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. We the people need to start taking power back.
- verdverm 5mo agoNo one is going to save us. I've recently been moved to direct action and started participating in a local indivisible.org group. It's had untold positive impacts on my personal mental state being with people trying to make things better, or at least slow the damage for now. Much of that is from going out and talking to random people on the street, handing out information and having conversations. Also quitting social media at the same time, save one exception for HN. https://indivisible.org/get-involved/find-a-group/ https://indivisible.org/get-involved/find-a-group/
- pc86 5mo agoThis just seems like a progressive PAC. Which, okay that's fine, but not exactly giving "weaker government" vibes, just "we want our team in charge for a bit" vibes. Happy to be proven wrong, though.
- verdverm 5mo agoYea, I hear you on that, I hold reservations from the "same thing, other side" vibes. But it is also not a PAC in the sense of being primarily about donations and political funding (in my experience thus far). It's more a grassroots coalition and the IRL vibes are way different than the online ones. Different chapters could have different vibes, I'm hanging with retired ladies who've been protesting since the 60s but also have ai curiosity and excitement (most of them anyhow). The broad labelling goes away when you meet people face2face. My hope is also the more that people show up IRL the more representative the organization will be of us, or we the people will make a new one that can choose right from wrong instead of left vs right. The political middle has been diminished much like the middle class. :/
- rc_kas 5mo agoWhere is the "I did that" sticker with trump pointing at this article. :(
- 1234letshaveatw 5mo agoestablished and operating since 2009- "Why did Trump do this?"
- jp_sc 5mo agoEstablished in 2009. Who started as president that year?
- whimsicalism 5mo agoEdited title to be more sensationalist - this is a Seattle local thing > The Seattle Shield website states that its mission “is to provide a collaborative and information-sharing environment between the Seattle Police Department and public/private partners in the Seattle area. Seattle Shield members assist Seattle Police Department efforts to identify, deter, defeat or mitigate potential acts of terrorism by reporting suspicious activity in a timely manner.”
- shevy-java 5mo ago[flagged]
- whimsicalism 5mo agoInteresting. You should write an article about this and post it on HN. This article is about an unfunded website run by someone at the Seattle PD.
- jedahan 5mo agoThat network is shared with police departments in cities outside Seattle per the article.
- whimsicalism 5mo agoI encourage people imagining this as some high-scale surveillance dragnet to look at the Seattle Shield website and form their opinions https://seattleshield.org/default.aspx?MenuItemID=53&MenuGroup=Public https://seattleshield.org/default.aspx?MenuItemID=53&MenuGro...
- jedahan 5mo agoNot sure if you meant to reply here?
- john_strinlai 5mo agoah, yes, the little 8-line explanation there by the entity in question absolutely clears them of all suspicion, really. i am sure that information obtained by seattle shield is not shared to anyone outside of seattle borders. police departments and the FBI are not known to share information, after all. police are especially cagey about sharing with other agencies when it comes to counter-terrorism.
- shevy-java 5mo agoNot so surprising - we kind of suspected this. Anyone remembers Snowden or Assange? We have to accept the fact that presently all democracies are merely simulation of a democracy. At the least in the USA; other countries may be a bit better, e. g. Switzerland or the scandinavian countries are somewhat better (though also not to be trusted - see how Sweden pursued Assange). Perhaps this is how things always end? Democracies are kind of like an obsolete model when you compare it to authoritarianism (assuming the USA would still be a democracy rather than a tech-corporate-fascist country run by a corrupt elite of superrich).
- pc86 5mo agoAuthoritarianism didn't work in the past because it was too hard to control that many people. You simply didn't have the scale unless you were willing to roll tanks down city streets, and even then all it did was buy you an extra couple years, maybe a decade or two. Eventually, someone always got close enough to end you and then it started falling apart. Technology has made it not only possible, but easy, to control a lot more people. Freedom generally, and democracy specifically, are the exception. Might-makes-right authoritarianism is the default human condition and I think we're seeing a regression to the mean. I don't even mean in the last few years or whatever, I'm not making a comment on any country's government today. But look at the last 30-40 years, and imagine what the next 30-40 might look like, and I think we're going to look back on today fondly as when we had more freedom.
- ethagnawl 5mo agoPlease tell me they're using Workplace.
- jedahan 5mo agoReminder if you work for any of these companies (not unlikely on this site) you are actively enabling this. If your first reaction is doubt, deflection, rationalization or discomfort, there are ways out.
- 6thbit 5mo agoIf you make open source used by any of this companies for this network, would you also characterize it as actively enabling this? If your retirement fund owns stocks of the s&p 500, does that make you an enabler? Are there really ways out?
- croes 5mo agoNo Yes Maybe
- pamcake 5mo agoAre those things you are personally struggling with (if you are considering quitting open source contribitions wholesale: don't let this make you) or is this a showcase of rationalization?
- Barbing 5mo ago> Are there really ways out? Not with that attitude
- jedahan 5mo agoIts very personal and situation dependent, but I truly believe that if you work at Amazon or Facebook and do not want to support this, you can.
- saghm 5mo ago> If you make open source used by any of this companies for this network, would you also characterize it as actively enabling this? That's a pretty strange conflation. It's pretty commonly discussed exactly how rare it is for people to make open source to get compensated by companies that use their projects. I find it hard to imagine that you genuinely think that there isn't an obvious distinction that most observers would draw between that and direct employment.
- zuzululu 5mo agoHow bad are things in Seattle that they are resorting to this? What the hell happened to my hometown?
- pocksuppet 5mo agoBLM protestors set it on fire and it's gone now, just like Portland. No but really, probably nothing special happened. It's just another case of surveillanceists gonna surveil.
- tinix 5mo ago> All suspicious activity reported must be behavior based. It is important to keep in mind that suspicious behavior, such as taking photographs or videos, is not a criminal act by itself, but may be a precursor to criminal activity. the number of times I've been harassed by police for taking photos... even in small towns in the middle of nowhere people are paranoid.
- neoCrimeLabs 5mo agoI couldn't help but remember when the police talked to David Hobby (aka Strobist) for photographing a tree. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/chronicles-of-a-paranoid-nation-the-deciduous-infrastructure-factor/253653/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/chronic...
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- conductr 5mo agoUnfortunately we have to live in the reality that any unusual thing is a suspicious thing. There’s a whole entire concept that has been popularized around the concept of “see something, say something” and it would be expected that such vague concepts generate paranoia. I am not in a touristy or scenic area so seeing people out taking photos is unusual here and I could see how at least talking to the photographer isn’t a bad idea from a security standpoint. Might help to mention I’m American so, you know, random joes blowing stuff/people up is part of my reality.
- matheusmoreira 5mo ago> suspicious behavior, such as taking photographs or videos What is the logic behind this? Why is it suspicious? Everybody's got a camera now. People taking puctures is the most normal thing in the world now.
- Terr_ 5mo agoA fictional public service announcement from the classic game Deus Ex (2000), also involving photographs... > [Be Safe: Be Suspicious] How can you tell who might be a terrorist? Look for the following characteristics: > * A stranger or foreigner. > * Argumentative, especially about politics or philosophy. > * Probing questions about your work, particularly high-tech. > * Spends a greater than average amount of time on the Net. > * Interests in chemistry, electronics, or computers. > * Large numbers of mail-order deliveries. > * Taking photographs of major landmarks. > And those are just a few. If you're suspicious, then turn them in to your local law enforcement for a thorough background check. Better safe than sorry. You and your neighbors will sleep more securely knowing that you're watching each other's back.
- Zhenya 5mo ago[flagged]
- lorecore 5mo agoWhy would an attack on Israel warrant spying on US citizens? We are not Israel and our government should not be working for Israeli interests.
- red-iron-pine 5mo agoyou're not gonna believe this
- Zhenya 5mo agoIt doesn’t. That’s not what I wrote. I asking what does warning about attacks on Jews have to do with not saying something about Muslims.
- lorecore 5mo agoThey are pointing out the same thing I am: we are spying on Americans for Israel. Israel’s enemies get surveillance but not the so called “protection” this program uses as a veil for said surveillance.
- sailfast 5mo agoI don’t understand. This seems like some version of NextDoor / neighborhood watch but for companies and larger interests in the Seattle area that might have their own security apparatus. Why are folks jumping to some conclusions that this is some illuminati threat to democracy? Why is the article so breathless?
- baddash 5mo agoIt might be a purposefully sensationalist framing in order to increase KPIs. It works because a lot of people have strong opinions things without thinking much.
- saghm 5mo agoI don't know what neighborhood you live in, but there aren't many billion-dollar corporations hanging out on my block. Given how much shady stuff has come out about some of these companies, I don't think it's really that terrible a presumption that pretty much anything they've invested time and effort into that isn't already public knowledge might have been used for some stuff that we'd be unhappy to find out about.
- wesleychen 5mo agoThe density of these offices in downtown Seattle is super high and it's also an area that has a lot of crime so this implementation makes sense. Probably low ROI in other areas like your neighborhood that don't fit this profile.
- saghm 5mo agoMy point is that if you start with the premise of something rife with frivolous fear-mongering like Nextdoor, swap out "random individuals with no real clout" with "some of the most powerful companies in the world", and then move everything behind a login that only established business and law enforcement can view, there's plenty reason to think that maybe this might not end up being a healthy thing for society at large. There are already established ways for crimes to be reported to law enforcement, and arguably even in those ways that are ostensibly open to the public, it's already a well-known thing that the amount of help someone gets is proportionate to their wealth/power/social/influence/etc. There's absolutely no need to have a special extra channel for them that's not visible to the public if there's truly nothing to hide because the justice system already is tilted widely in their favor in the normal way things work.
- baddash 5mo agoMy thoughts as someone who doesn't know much about these types of things: 1. Terry Albury calling this list the "Panopticon" could have merit since he's a former FBI agent. However, I'd have to research more into him to figure out how credible he is, and why he is framing it like this. 2. Amazon and Facebook being in the title is most likely clickbait. They're literally only mentioned once in the article and the rest of it has nothing to do with them. 3. It's concerning that the National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) can potentially cause this network to be used to label protestors as "far-left domestic terrorists", however, that is more of an issue with the NSPM than this network. Understanding the NSPM and the effects of it is probably worthwhile. 4. The article mentions that there's no oversight program for Seattle Shield. Is that a problem? Is it typical to have oversight for a program like this, or necessary? What would the program be like? Overall, the article feels sort of sensationalized. It frames Seattle Shield as suspicious and questionable due to its secrecy and the fact that it performs surveillance. However, there aren't any strong facts or evidence of this program being abused in some Big Brother-type way. Terry Albury framing it in this manner might be the most credible point against it, but I would have to look into that to determine how credible it is.
- dakolli 5mo agoI don't want any secretive surveillance, I don't care if you can prove whether its malicious or not.
- baddash 5mo ago[flagged]
- whatshisface 5mo agoIf not knowing who somebody is weighs into your consensual model of interactions with them, just wait until you hear about surveillance! :-)
- john_strinlai 5mo agook. explain why we should care about your thoughts as "someone who doesnt know much about these types of things", then? its a message board. people post their opinions. its how they function.
- dakolli 5mo agoRandom Idea: Make a tool/browser extension that submits suspicious queries to Google, Facebook, Amazon on behalf of the user like "how to make a bomb", "How to make an explosive drone" or whatever. Have it run several times a day and use a lightweight abliterated llm to create unique queries that would match the kind of heuristics these programs are filtering for. Hopefully 10s of thousands of users use it and poison the ETL of these intelligence gathering operations. This kinda creates a prisoner dilemma for the first set of users, perhaps the tool would only start making queries once there was enough of a user base so that the first few users aren't signing up themselves for unnecessary scrutiny.
- travisgriggs 5mo agoPeople are never going to quit doing this. I'm surprised we still get "incensed" by being "watched without consent". There is No. Way. It's. Going. To. Ever. Get. Stopped. The only way to level the effects are to radically increase the surveillance so that everyone ends up in a Dark Forest "I know shit about you too" deterrence stand off. And/or flood the sensors with so much input/noise that meaningful signal is tough to suss out.
- jazz9k 5mo agoWith gun rights and the right to defend yourself in many US cities, surveillance is the next step to stop crime. In places like the UK, where guns are nearly banned, this is the norm. If I can't stop you from robbing me, I should have the ability to record you and identify you later. I'm fine if we reduce surveillance, if gun/defense rights are added.
- Freedumbs 5mo agoSelf censored headline to avoid flagging? "Amazon, Facebook, ICE, and the FBI have access to a private intelligence-sharing network operated by Seattle police"
- indianbunghole 5mo ago[flagged]
- dfbdbdffgn 5mo agoDidn't stop me from nearly getting attacked by a homeless junkie hearing voices a few weeks ago on Capitol Hill.
- Ember_Wipe 5mo ago[flagged]
- gmerc 5mo agoThe thing with screaming FIRE as an overreaction is that it’s not an overreaction when everyone is doused in kerosine.