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Social Media a Threat To Undercover Cops
angry tapir writes "Facebook has proven to be one of the biggest dangers in keeping undercover police officers safe, due to applications such as facial recognition and photo tagging, according to an adjunct professor at ANU and Charles Sturt University. Mick Keelty, a former Australian Federal Police commissioner, told the audience at Security 2011 in Sydney that because of the convergence of a number of technologies undercover policing may be 'impossible' in the future."
Don't have a public profile and don't go out with friends and have them publicly tag your photos. Just an idea.
Don't have secret police in the first place. "Undercover" cops have no place in a free society. Only police states have or need secret police. If social media makes the secret police impossible, GOOD!
As to the cop's safety, being a cop is nowhere near the top ten list of dangerous jobs. A taxi driver or construction worker is in far more danger than a cop.
Free Martian Whores!
The less you have in return. Especially for the government, it seems.
Pretty soon, the people you track will know where all of you are, and then it's their game, not yours.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Most cops are corrupt. Here in Lake County, California we finally got a Sheriff who actually wants to change things. Here is an article on him being cleared of certain wrongdoings. Because our police force is so very corrupt (with ties to meth production and such) he did not inform them of a bust the sheriff's department was conducting. The cops found out anyway and showed up to point guns at them just to fuck up the whole operation, because the bust was against one of their cronies.
Why do I say most cops are corrupt? Because if you're a cop and you cover for a bad cop, you are precisely as bad as he is. You are precisely as responsible for his actions, because it is your job to attempt to prevent and to help bring people to justice for these actions. You are instead a traitor to the American people, and I hope you die of ball cancer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Facebook has helped the police get dirt on people in many cases. Don't be surprised when it works the other way too.
Everything we lose in security will be gained tenfold in liberty if undercover policing shits the bed.
You create a fake Facebook profile and mistag-yourself everywhere. You have a police department staff scan photos and mistag you. With a little more effort, Facebook could become the best thing that ever happened for people setting up false identities. But Facebook has to let you mis-tag yourself. I started a Facebook Group "Data Camouflage Anonymous" for the purpose of mis-tagging and mis-identifying photos (to water down the facial recognition database) and within a day found my "tagging" ability turned off by Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/groups/151915044879668/ Facebook should be no more reliable at facial data than they are at birthday records (which are a joke).
Gently reply
7 years into a known criminal gang? what the fuck kind of policing is this, assist & switch? they would have to know that it's a criminal gang to have ethical reasoning for infiltrating - and in that case they certainly wouldn't have good reasons to let it keep going on for seven friggin' years. that's not infiltration, that's living a lifestyle - that's being fabric of the criminal gang, that's giving motivation to the criminal gang if you hang around with them for seven frigging years while they don't get busted, so they're having a part in spurring the crime they're supposed to prevent while messing with peoples lives.
because, suppose that they don't even bust them. they made an artificial, constructed impact on the people they interacted with and that's messed up, peoples political etc motives depend on the people they know so government invented shill persons shouldn't be on the list unless you want to copy STASI.
""If you have someone in the service who is trying to remain anonymous for whatever reason, it is still possible through other relationships to find them," Keelty said. " no shit, it always was. and anonymous isn't the right word here, FAKE person is the right word. but this issue is just highlighting issues that existed in their covert police operations long before this - and that they seemed to prefer guys who never appeared in a yearbook. actually they could fix this by hiring immigrants to police their kids, as they want people who had been invisible and never appeared anywhere.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Not all cops do that.
True, but far too many do. As we found in the 1920s, prohibition of intoxicants breeds corruption.
In any case - undercover cops aren't cost effective for catching small time criminals.
Half of all arrests in the US are for misdemeanor marijuana possession. THAT's what the secret police are for -- to catch pot smokers. You can't catch armed robbers with secret police.
Free Martian Whores!
you're missing the point, they can't even associate themselfs with OTHER people using facebook or social media, because if they appear on some wedding photos etc for some family, you know that there's an association there. basically the same sort of stuff that would have gotten them busted before if the bad guys would have hired a private eye to do some digging.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Just remove "Undercover cop" from your profile and you're done.
Nice and easy peasy.
What if the law becomes a tool to criminalize those that dare to stand up against an unjust regime?
People who follow the law, no matter what this law may be like, is what makes dictatorships possible in the first place. There were not many people who liked that Nazi ideology. Or the Commie one, for that matter. There were rather few who were die-hard supporters. There were just many who don't give a shit how they're governed and who just follow the rules, without questioning whether those rules are just and 'right'.
Not questioning laws is dangerous. Question them! Test them against your moral code and see if they hold up against it. And please note that I do not say "to hell with the laws, laws are evil". I do not ask you to break the law, no matter what (it's about as bad as following the law, no matter what), I do expect people to be willing and able to see if the laws stand the test of their personal morals. Because that's what laws generally (should) codify: The common consensus what is "right" and what is "wrong".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The percentage of criminals who get caught who are "ragingly stupid" is likely higher than in the general criminal population. You just haven't heard about the smart ones. You know; the ones who would do diligent background checks, because they are careful and keep some idiots around to take the fall when things don't work out.
Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
Sorry coppers, you started this. We now live in a world where constitutional protections of privacy are nothing more than symbolic and viewed by school kids on field trips on an old parchment document of the past.
I don't feel sorry for the undercover cops one bit. In Chicago, where I live we have a saying, What goes around, comes around!
See ya on Facebook!
* Carthago Delenda Est *
you're missing the point, they can't even associate themselfs with OTHER people using facebook or social media, because if they appear on some wedding photos etc for some family, you know that there's an association there. basically the same sort of stuff that would have gotten them busted before if the bad guys would have hired a private eye to do some digging.
In other words, the risk has always been there, and therefore this entire story and hype is pure and utter bullshit.
Facebook hasn't changed a damn thing with regards to undercover officers being exposed, save for making it cheaper to expose them. That's about it. If a criminal is hell-bent on doing harm to an undercover officer, they're going to spend money and effort anyway, just as they have had to do in the past. Facebook doesn't change that hardly at all.
You've never been to a semi-public event where people asked not to be photographed, or asked that photographs not be published? Sometimes even former agents/officers/employees who did work outside the country will avoid being in the publicity photos, stand aside in group photos, etc., because their face might be recognized. It isn't just abused women and witness-protection-program w/ new names trying to avoid getting their pictures published. I guess people like that can't go in bars/public places any more.
And before long, privacy will be even more impossible - you can be tracked down, and your history at a place can be verified. It will be harder to create a fake identity, (or one that doesn't have obvious holes in it), but it will also be harder to escape some obsessed stalker or crazy ex or jilted 3rd world arms dealer, unless you totally drop out of society.
I personally know at least a half-dozen cops (through various organizations I am involved in) and I can't see a single one of them doing anything like that.
You can't see them showing up at a bust to disrupt it or you can't see them covering for their friends and colleagues or turning a blind eye?
Most problems in life are economic, and criminals are not super-men who have infinite resources. I think the point of TFA is that some countermeasures against infiltration are transitioning from impractical to practical.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
An earlier comment put it perfectly: "If they're not doing anything wrong, what have they got to hide?"
Liberty in your lifetime