"holds passports or other documents in different names for no obvious reason"
-- their spies are terrorists, wow
"travels for long periods of time, but is vague about where they're going"
-- seriously?! Must every citizen post their travel itinerary now?
"is visiting the dark web, or ordering unusual items online"
-- well, they need to start arresting thousands if not millions of people
-- also "unusual items" like what? When is something "unusual"?
These UK Cops are spreading FUD and turning people, families, against each other.
I'm a liberal/hacker/software-engineer - you know the type, even joined the Pirate Party years ago.
But am I the only one that doesn't have a problem with this. The set of people that visit the dark web intersects with the set of terrorists so obviously they should look into those people.
>their spies are terrorists, wow
Their spies are a special case.
If you don't want to abide by the laws of the UK then nobody is forcing you to live here.
It's not about that but rather the way authorities worded it. They are the government so they have to be extra careful how they present their message because people, most probably, will take their message at face value. In this case, accessing dark web is a potential sign one is a terrorist or has connection to such activities.
It's the same in any government, even more so to the "top ones" because other countries are using them as a "model" or "pattern" for their own use or version. (Although of course, it's not your country's problem.)
From where I live, we're already battling this same mindset that "if you have nothing to hide, you don't need [1] encryption; [2] online privacy; [3] dark web; [4] anonymity. And in our neigbouring countries, it's much worse. We're not even "members" of the "Fourteen Eyes".
>If you don't want to abide by the laws of the UK then nobody is forcing you to live here.
Oh please, this is just another way of saying "if you're disenfranchised you don't belong here."
People born in the UK are absolutely forced to live there in the short term-- You need a passport to leave the country, and the means to afford resettlement.
The fact that cops would want to be aware of people using the Dark Web doesn't seem particularly surprising or alarming. When you're looking for bad actors you build up a profile based on previous bad actors. I used to work in fraud prevention, and we found, for example, for our particular product if someone opened an account and then changed addresses within two weeks, there was a pretty good chance it was identity fraud.
Of course there's nothing nefarious about opening an account two weeks before you move to a new place, but it would get you looked at because so many people who did were fraudsters.
The goofy thing about this story is the fact that they circulated a leaflet listing something like this as suspicious behavior. They're going to get buried under bogus tips from nosy neighbors as actual terrorists avoid doing this kind of stuff publicly.
Yes, exactly. For those who are not like you and me, people who probably subscribe to "if you have nothing hide…" will suddenly get suspicious of us. Sure, maybe not terrorism, maybe buying "unusual" items, say illegal drugs.
It's the way they worded it. Too encompassing. Lacking information, and yes, distributing leaflets. People who doesn't understand what the dark web is will simply believe what they've read. (And "dark" being in the phrase…)
The only country capable to deal with terrorism today is Israel. In the UK and the US there's a generalized state of paranoia. Or maybe finger pointing is just a sign of incompetence? Everybody is suspicious now, yet they failed to act on warnings from Italian security agencies regarding the perpetrators of the London Bridge attack.
Add to that, the intelligence the Philippines gave to the US re: threat of, what we later know as, 9/11, was ignored. No doubt (and this was also reported) because they don't trust "third-world" countries, or from intelligence agencies that is not themselves.
11 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 39.9 ms ] thread"travels for long periods of time, but is vague about where they're going" -- seriously?! Must every citizen post their travel itinerary now?
"is visiting the dark web, or ordering unusual items online" -- well, they need to start arresting thousands if not millions of people -- also "unusual items" like what? When is something "unusual"?
These UK Cops are spreading FUD and turning people, families, against each other.
But am I the only one that doesn't have a problem with this. The set of people that visit the dark web intersects with the set of terrorists so obviously they should look into those people.
>their spies are terrorists, wow
Their spies are a special case.
If you don't want to abide by the laws of the UK then nobody is forcing you to live here.
It's the same in any government, even more so to the "top ones" because other countries are using them as a "model" or "pattern" for their own use or version. (Although of course, it's not your country's problem.)
From where I live, we're already battling this same mindset that "if you have nothing to hide, you don't need [1] encryption; [2] online privacy; [3] dark web; [4] anonymity. And in our neigbouring countries, it's much worse. We're not even "members" of the "Fourteen Eyes".
:)
The rest of your post makes this hard to believe.
Some laws are dumb and should be broken.
Most social progress throughout history has come from people breaking the law, civil disobedience and dissidence.
Oh please, this is just another way of saying "if you're disenfranchised you don't belong here."
People born in the UK are absolutely forced to live there in the short term-- You need a passport to leave the country, and the means to afford resettlement.
Of course there's nothing nefarious about opening an account two weeks before you move to a new place, but it would get you looked at because so many people who did were fraudsters.
The goofy thing about this story is the fact that they circulated a leaflet listing something like this as suspicious behavior. They're going to get buried under bogus tips from nosy neighbors as actual terrorists avoid doing this kind of stuff publicly.
It's the way they worded it. Too encompassing. Lacking information, and yes, distributing leaflets. People who doesn't understand what the dark web is will simply believe what they've read. (And "dark" being in the phrase…)