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Thai Police: We'll Get You For Online Social Media Criticism
wired_parrot (768394) writes 'After a leading protester of the recent military coup in Thailand made several critical posts in Facebook criticizing the military takeover, Thailand's Technology Crime Suppression Division tracked his location through his IP address and promptly arrested him.. The arrested was meant to send a message to Thailand's online community. Said the police: "I want to tell any offenders on social media that police will come get you."'
FB gave the ip address, thank you!
They must've had a GUI interface made in Visual Basic.
Thailand is one of the few countries which still has Lèse-majesté laws, too.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
... and all of those thing you say ... which don't apply to anything other than silly movies ... will fix posting publicly on social media HOW exactly?
You've seen the Matrix or Sneakers one to many times.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
... and all of those thing you say ... which don't apply to anything other than silly movies
I think it is you who has been watching too many movies, as you seem to think that the police have infinite resources and powers. There are many things to do that will greatly decrease the chances of them catching you, especially for a government such as Thailand's.
Only if the person is ignorant does he get caught this easily.
will fix posting publicly on social media HOW exactly?
That depends on the information you give away.
I wish other things came so clearly marked.
Like the woman who will break your things when she leaves or the guy on the street who really doesn't need a light for his cigarette.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Then you really don't know anything about how automated finding someone based on an online profile is. The software has been written, the automation done. It takes VERY LITTLE resources for the system to put it all together. All but the most dedicated and vigilant people will leave enough of a trace that they can be easily tracked down.
That depends on the information you give away.
In order to actually talk to a website, you leave enough information behind to be found, especially with Tor infiltration.
You simply aren't as clever as you think you are, even if you don't realize how easy it is to figure out who you are.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
"One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster... just don't tweet about it OR ELSE"
Doesn't have the same ring to it.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
This will become the norm everywhere, soon enough. Learn to keep silent, not to make waves, not to stand out. Hold your peace. Those will be invaluable survival skills in the Brave New World to come. And by the way, what is to be gained by criticizing those in power? They're not going away. Might as well learn how to ingratiating yourself to them, for instance informing on subversive individuals. It could lead to better social standing and a better share of what scarce wealth will remain. Yes, this is what one should do.
In order to actually talk to a website, you leave enough information behind to be found, especially with Tor infiltration.
You simply aren't as clever as you think you are, even if you don't realize how easy it is to figure out who you are.
Which is why it is vital that we not magnanimously accept its warrant-less use against us by our governors.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I often find people don't seem to understand when talking about countries like Pakistan or Egypt that the military, police and intelligence services aren't just bureaucracies within the government. They are institutions that have a life of their own, a life that is parallel to the civilian government. And when push comes to shove, the nominal subservience of the security services to civilian authority goes out the window.
And here in the US, people are already crossing the line from respecting and honoring the men and women who serve this country in uniform to revering the military as an institution, and that we should never do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Isn't it a pal and a confidant?
Serious (not tinfoil) comment: you have three such entities in the US (on a scale that their equivalents in the UK do not come close to matching).
The FBI, the CIA and the NSA are all independent institutions with a life of their own.
The FBI has _repeatedly_ demonstrated that independence (under Hoover and after), and little regard for the constitution.
The CIA has a budget which you as citizens do not get to fully inspect, dark revenue streams that have seen it alleged to be involved in drug and arms dealing, and has been implicated in the killing of a presidential candidate. It dodges constitutional issues by largely not getting involved on home turf.
The NSA is operating outside of the constitution, plain and simple.
Your military (though I see your point about reverence, quasi-religiosity and cultural impact) is not on the same scale.
I'm old enough to remember the time before Obama, when you could speak out against the government and not have to worry about getting targeted by goons from the IRS.
use HTML entities like "é" :
"cliché" give "cliché"
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Telling people that you'll come arrest them when they speak out against you is admitting that you're not acting in the best interest of the people. Hence people will be less likely to support you in the long run than if you just allow and *gasp* maybe even listen to criticism.
These people act more like playground bullies than adults governing a nation. It's pretty sad and despicable. Imagine if they just came out and said "You may say whatever you like about us; tell us how you really feel. No harm will ever befall you for stating your opinion." The good will that would generate would be FAR more effective than arresting those who disagree with you!
This will only catch idiots. Smart people (the ones who are more dangerous) will be driven even more underground, using encrypted chats, sneakernets, and ways to mask IP like VPNs.
Preaching to the choir.
If you want to be politically effective you need to have significant visibility -- presence and recognition --- above-ground.
You need to take chances.
Why should we have to resort to such shenanigans when anyone with an appropriate keyboard or a 'nix-style Compose Key configured (I recommend Win Compose if you're not running a 'nix) can enter the characters in a cross-program compatible manner far more easily? This is a clear failure on the part of the Slashdot code, which has been operating an overly-aggressive unicode blacklist on comments for far too long.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I would add that if push comes to shove in the USA and the army steps in (and it would; that's what armies do), your biggest worry is which of the NSA or CIA will take control, and whether the FBI will launch an insurgency.
Wait... you mean they aren't *already* in control?
Why should we have to resort to such shenanigans
Because Slashdot is US based and is english speaking, and nearly all the discussions here can there for fit within basic ASCII char-set. (Except a few loan-words which are acceptable without accented chars anyway).
The fact that you and I come from other regions and speak other languages won't change the fact that Slashdot doesn't give a fuck about non-english language and their scripts. Support for UTF-8 is not a vital necessity on /.
On the other hand, motivated people like me have found a compatible way around.
Also, given the avarage geekness here around, html entities don't feel that far stretched. Probably half the /. readership has edited HTML source in vi or emacs (depending on religion).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The arrested was meant to send a message to Thailand's online community.
Come on, /. editors. Seriously?
Did the authorities start shit with Charles Murray over The Bell Curve ?
use some 3 letter program that rhymes with a avenger (and know how to use it).
I can't think of a 3-letter program that rhymes with Steed or Peel.
Reality is itself ignorant of your statement. For example, in the recent Snowden scandal, it wasn't the NSA whose leash got pulled hard, but all the businesses and people affected by them. For example, a huge slice of the US IT industry's existence is threatened by NSA actions, but for the NSA it remains business as usual.
This will only catch idiots. Smart people (the ones who are more dangerous) will be driven even more underground, using encrypted chats, sneakernets, and ways to mask IP like VPNs. Bit if what they want is to "make an example", it might work.
They're not trying to "make an example" they're trying to get the violence and conflict to stop. There were grenade attacks, etc., that were becoming much too "normal" a feature of political protests.
Furthermore, the Thai constitution is easy to change, and is only a few years old. There is no traditional Constitution for the people to fall back on. There is no tradition or history of democracy. Like early Americans, they care a lot more about civil rights than "democracy." They share similar negative views of "mob rule" that the US "Founding Fathers" did. And rightly so; their recent history of "democracy" has largely featured rather open corruption and nepotism.
They do have a traditional value of meritocracy, so seeing corrupt politicians plunder billions from their nation and replace career workers with cousins, it really bothers a lot of people. If they had a strong Constitution, like the US does, then preserving and strengthening it would make sense. But they don't, and the one they have, most Thais don't even know what it says. They do know that it was not the result of any sort of national dialogue about what it should say, though.
That is the current situation; the military sat both sides down and asked them what their plan was for how to start a national dialogue and work towards a Constitution that represents Thai values. Nobody had any idea for that, they just wanted to engage in a sort of emotive bickering that is unique to places without a history of Democratic ideals.
Here in the US the politics is emotive, but they have to at least pretend to have real points and policies and positions; in Thailand there is not even that expectation. They tend to start and end at raw, emotive accusations and hyperbole. That is why they have low voter turnout, and there seems to be a "silent majority" that supports the King and national unity, but doesn't support any of the political groups.
For people from countries with a Democratic tradition it is very hard to comprehend that the military isn't taking over to rule, and that this is actually a restoration of more traditional Thai government. If you look at Thai history, unlike most places, massacres happen at the hand of civilian groups, and then the military steps in to restore peace. The military takes over when the people start fighting in the streets. The people support the military because they do not want to fight a civil war over political BS, and there is no underlying issue or abuse that warrants war.
Elections will happen as soon as the sides are willing to sit down and come up with a plan to fix the politics, to enact a robust system. The past system was so broken that when the Prime Minister called early elections, she stopped being a real PM, and became a caretaker; then when the election failed, everything was up-in-the-air. That is not a robust system. Democracy had failed, due to the low quality of the Constitution. So far nobody is even proposing a consensus replacement that would allow for some sort of National Unity government. Once they get used to not being allowed to behave like children and also have power, they'll start to make those sorts of proposals. I give it 9 months to start serious talks, 2 years to fail at that a couple times, and then another 6 months to plan elections.
They are the Thai people, not the Thailanders. The country is also just "Thai" in the Thai language. Thailand is just to make it easier on foreigners.
I encourage you to spend more time learning about them than you do trying to incite conflict. ;) You may find out that there is no Thai gulag, they're not being held for months, and that they have a broad concept of "civil liberties" that doesn't include any "right" to get blown up by grenade attacks for protesting, and it does not include a "right" for newly elected politicians to replace career government professionals with their cousins, or to plunder the national budget with no-bid contracts given to... themselves!
Also I think it is pretty obviously a breakdown in "democracy" when the elected Prime Minister is allowing a former PM (her brother) who is a wanted criminal (for corruption!) to be fairly openly running the country via video conference from an undisclosed foreign location. In most countries that would be some sort of Treason.
It is pretty hard to say that if the military did nothing, that would somehow enhance "civil liberties." It certainly isn't a proposal for how to end the troubles.
There is a whole lot you're wrong about there. The FBI is only independent recently, and not entirely. Made so to reduce abuse from being used politically. The CIA is not independent at all. The NSA is independent but has no law enforcement or governing structures or rights; all they can do is collect information and give it to other parts of the government, and they're substantially restricted in what they can share.
Your claim that the CIA "has been implicated in the killing of a presidential candidate" is indeed tinfoil. "Implicated" in no fact at all, "implicated" in baseless accusations by people who claim broader conspiracy, but offer no evidence of such.
The claim that the "The NSA is operating outside of the constitution, plain and simple," is only plain or simple to the same extent that it is tinfoil. It is popular to recite such a claim inside of an anti-establishment echo chamber, but that is not the same as actually being able to point to a part of the Constitution that it is somehow "outside" of. According to the Courts it is not so, and who else but the Courts makes that determination? Our Constitution is not so clearly worded. You may find if you get into the details that there is nothing simple or clear about the issues at all, but that instead that they are fuzzy and disputed, but that most people live in an echo chamber where only one view or the other is socially acceptable even to admit exists! Just admitting it is disputed what it means will tend to get you shouted down by many faux-populists.
The military OTOH is almost entirely independent other than at the very top being controlled by the President. The Secretary of Defense, for example, can't order them around; their Joint Chiefs of Staff, made up of the heads of the different branches of the military, directly control the military, and most of the President's (Commander in Chief) power is exercised by giving directives to the Joint Chiefs. So there is nobody other than the President that ties the military to the rest of government.
Note that regarding the FBI, for example you reference to Hoover, that was when the FBI was _less_ independent, and that is _why_ they are more independent; before the politicians had more power over them, now the lawyers have that power, and the politicians only get to pick the top lawyers. The CIA is also mostly banned from operating inside the USA, and the FBI is tasked with investigating the CIA on a continual basis with regards to their US activities. That was set up after the Vietnam War-era abuses by the CIA.
Times are changing: at least they did not arrest him for outrage to the king.
will solve this problem. There is a reason brutal monarchies never exists in a society where its citizens are armed.
Thailand will be a great business opportunity to Smith & Wesson.
New Economic Perspectives
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Only Cowards Censor. Fuck the Thai police and King for being cowards.