4 ms·

What's the legal term? I think it's "double construction"? Where the prosecution knows it's you from illegal means (wiretap/NSA spying) but by that knowledge ca

What's the legal term? I think it's "double construction"? Where the prosecution knows it's you from illegal means (wiretap/NSA spying) but by that knowledge can go back and construct the legal case in reverse. It's been rumored that Dread Pirate Of SilkRoad case was figured out that way.

SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago
It is parallel construction http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6911150 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6911150
mattlutze 13y ago
The story around DPR getting caught started in him making posts that had personally identifiable information from his anonymous accounts in the very beginning, not from illegal searches. That's just a really long scraping / pattern-matching exercise of publicly available data, and the reminder that even particularly clever people won't be on point 100% of the time.
- koide 13y ago
  Or they did find him illegally and found later on the public pattern-matching exercise to justify their findings. Which is exactly the point of parallel construction. We cannot know.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> What's the legal term? I think it's "double construction"? Where the prosecution knows it's you from illegal means (wiretap/NSA spying) but by that knowledge can go back and construct the legal case in reverse. I think the technical term is either "perjury" or "fraud on the court". The euphemism, though, is "parallel construction".
blocking_io 13y ago
It is not necessarily illegal means, but simply means that the government do not want to expose in open court. Perhaps this is because they are illegal, or perhaps revealing the source of intelligence could compromise an active intelligence operation. The NSA does not want its methods exposed in open court. You will probably say that this is because they are illegal. But an equally plausible explanation is that revealing details of their capabilities is of benefit to their adversaries.

SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago

It is parallel construction http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6911150 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6911150

mattlutze 13y ago

The story around DPR getting caught started in him making posts that had personally identifiable information from his anonymous accounts in the very beginning, not from illegal searches. That's just a really long scraping / pattern-matching exercise of publicly available data, and the reminder that even particularly clever people won't be on point 100% of the time.

koide 13y ago
Or they did find him illegally and found later on the public pattern-matching exercise to justify their findings. Which is exactly the point of parallel construction. We cannot know.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> What's the legal term? I think it's "double construction"? Where the prosecution knows it's you from illegal means (wiretap/NSA spying) but by that knowledge can go back and construct the legal case in reverse. I think the technical term is either "perjury" or "fraud on the court". The euphemism, though, is "parallel construction".

blocking_io 13y ago

It is not necessarily illegal means, but simply means that the government do not want to expose in open court. Perhaps this is because they are illegal, or perhaps revealing the source of intelligence could compromise an active intelligence operation. The NSA does not want its methods exposed in open court. You will probably say that this is because they are illegal. But an equally plausible explanation is that revealing details of their capabilities is of benefit to their adversaries.