If reading "So you have been publicly shamed" has taught me one thing. It is that an unfortunate Tweet without substance can turn into a career ending horror story quite quickly.
Yes the data is publicly available, but there are less reckless ways to raise awareness.
From the article: "I removed the last names of users because..." and from the TNW critique of the bot "... in the form of a bot that tweets the names and faces of Venmo users...".
I assumed that the available information was first name, avatar picture and the "drug deal". From the sample tweets it looks like first name and the first letter of the last name were given, but no avatars.
Meh, I'd wager 80-90% of these are kids/friends joking around. I've definitely gotten "Thanks for the great night" sort of stuff from mates before when I remind them I bought lunch a week ago.
Still don't understand why people ever use the Public setting on Venmo, but that's another story. It's practically the opposite of Instagram, instead of looking like some rich socialite to your crew you look like someone who doesn't carry enough money for takeout.
This is one of those things that the people who welcome the march towards crypto or cashless seem to forget, ignore, or don't consider important. Privacy of what you do with your money is important.
I know Vemmo is an extreme example, but it's not like they don't still have that data accessible for interested parties to access. People here like to say "We're never going to give customer data over blah blah blah," but time changes everything. The information is there, and you don't know what the laws or social forces will bring tomorrow.
Either way, a good spotlight on the issues that need to be discussed.
The majority of cryptocurrencies might forgo privacy, but there are projects such as monero (and other cryptonote cryptocurrencies) which have privacy as a first class citizen.
> Although these two weaknesses have been known to Monero’s developers since 2015, it was not until February 2017, when Monero’s implementation was modified, that these concerns were addressed, thus making post hoc de-anonymization more difficult. According to the researchers, transactions prior to this date are at significant risk of being identified.
Yes, but there are two facts that will short circuit privacy.
1. By the very nature, blockchain is public. If the wallet can verify a transaction goes from one user to another, it's not private. You can obscure all you want, but you from the way I understand it, if the system can verify itself then nothing is private.
2. Blockchains are centralized in that there is once source of information. Our current payments system is more decentralized in that Bank #1 -> Mastercard -> Stripe -> Bank #2 -> Bank #3. There are multiple parties that need to work together, and theoretically have different information collection requirements. If you need to trace money from Bank #1 to Bank #3, in theory you need multiple warrants.
Privacy requires some form of black box and trust in that black box. I'm not sure how you can remove that black box without reducing the privacy.
I think that many people believe bitcoin is anonymous. But in my experience, privacy has always seemed to be high up on the list of reasons for cryptocurrencies.
To me this brings into discussion the distinction between legal privacy and ethical privacy. If I'm walking down the street and tell my SO something in confidence (perhaps a medical diagnosis), and you are walking behind me and overhear, legally it's your right to spread what you hear to anyone you want. Ethically... it would be wrong to do so.
I do think people view online privacy through that same lens... We have community bubbles, that are technically public, but we feel confident speaking within them for whatever reason.
Yes people need to be more conscious of where communication take place, but it does not excuse unethical, legal, abuse of privacy.
But that's why this sort of exercise should be universal.
Internet communities are not a model of real life. They're not "technically" public, they are public. If somebody walked up behind you too close you'll know and you'll know whom. There is no such thing on the internet.
So let's not pretend they are similar and instead make people always aware that they are being blasted in public. That way they will not be mistaken, or take the moral hazard of security by obscurity, and instead seek out truly secure solutions.
It's exactly this sneering "user beware" attitude that fosters abuse of privacy online. It's (probably) well-intentioned and supposed to push people to take privacy and security more seriously, but what it has actually done is created a general culture of blaming the victim where everything not being absolutely locked down being up for grabs, and if you mess up in any way and are harmed it's your own fault so quit whining.
I think the parent is right: if we tried instead to foster a culture that respects privacy as an ethical issue first it would greatly improve everyone's experience online. Privacy should be a bedrock principle, not something that exists only as far as the strength of the personal digital fortress you can erect.
Now we're getting into philosophy. Moral imperatives not backed by proper incentives haven't worked since society grew larger than a few thousand people, much less in the faceless, boundary-less, transactional world of today.
I am not blaming the victim nor tasking them with sole responsibility for privacy breaches. Instead, I'm proposing an explicit contact with what is already reality, that is, the lack of any privacy. This will do several things, one, strip away the illusion that there is privacy and the delusion that it can be protected when there are no barriers except in some people's minds; two, shift the cost-reward curve immediately (rather than through incremental or hidden breaches) toward taking action rather than not for producing the capabilities and structures that move towards your goal.
Communications on the internet are different than physical communications. So different in my view as to not really have a useful comparison point.
If I tell a joke, people will chuckle and it'll be on their mind for 10 seconds, and then it's gone. All I need to do to make sure no one is overhearing it is to do a quick look over my shoulder. And if someone does leak it, I'll know which 6 people it might be and I can confront them.
If I write that same joke down online, it's there forever, anyone can grab the joke any amount of time later, strip out all surrounding context, report me and have me fired from my director gig.
Our social systems were developed with the understanding that communications would persist for a minute at most. This does not translate well to online systems.
It's basically a fact now, that anything you say in any text messaging service to anyone, no matter how encrypted or protected the service may claim to be, if you say something interesting, your friend is likely to capture the screen contents to an image, and publish it somewhere to get laughs.
There's no stopping this fact, and with daily zero day fire drills, the defense of claiming an insecure, hacked smartphone is at fault, is essentially plausible. But it gets worse, because hacking isn't a even required step. One sketchy app installed on a phone with zero defects is enough to plausibly deny a sceenshot of a private conversation escaping into the wild. People breeze past those permissions authorizations all the time. But of course installing promiscuous app isn't even a required step, because some phones have stock apps installed at the factory, and are insecure out of the box. Or, hey, maybe they bought their phone second-hand, because phones can cost $1000 now, so knocking a hundred bucks off the sticker price isn't even unconscionable, and less technical users are clueless as ever, so they wouldn't even consider the risks.
So, no matter what, at the consumer level, truly no one is in control of how things leak, even if you choose your friends wisely. An Apple engineer can't even let his daughter look at a prototype over lunch without her accidentally instagramming the world in a moment of irrevocable error.
So, chilling effects? I mean, without question, when being deaf and mute to the point that one may as well be bound and gagged is the only cure, calling that "chilling effects" is quite the understatement.
We are moving rapidly toward a society that only thinks "happy" thoughts, for fear of the consequences oherwise. Is such a fear healthy?
Venmo's "friend feed" I believe is perhaps the singular reason Venmo succeeded where others have failed.
However, I don't totally get the point of the public feed. The only thing I can think is that it showed new/light users that Venmo had a lot of activity and ideas for when to use Venmo (ie, if you saw a message from strangers "Payback for lunch" it would plant the seed to use Venmo for such).
As an american, this is one of the most sadistic and reckless ways to raise awareness of a security issue and the researcher should be ashamed.
- American drug laws carry some of the harshest penalties in the developed world. Civil forfeiture allows police to seize your car and home, without trial, for drug charges. 3 strikes laws can and have put many people in prison for sentences as long as 20 years, for less than an ounce of Marijuana
- once released from prison, many American ex-cons are required to pay restitution for their incarceration and can be legally discriminated against for housing, employment, and even public benefits in some states. reformed convicts cannot vote in most american states, and must file legal petition for restoration of their right to vote.
- parole terms can be extended well beyond a prisoners sentence and require years of monitoring and testing services the former convict must pay for, or be sent back to jail.
simple convictions like marijuana can result in the loss of your children, the loss of your job, and complete financial ruin.
Source: I have been incarcerated in the United States in the past.
>many American ex-cons are required to pay restitution for their incarceration
Hold the phone, people get sent to prison then get to pay for that privilege once released? Do you have any further reading on that?
Some states charge, for example prison health care, TDCJ/Texas will give you a bill upon release or skim your commissary account for payments. There's barely a state budget for prisons and voters don't want to pay for it, meaning political suicide if you're giving tax dollars to convicts.
> There's barely a state budget for prisons and voters don't want to pay for it
But boy do they love watching people get locked up. What a bad approach for treating the ills of society. Let's lock people up at the drop of the hat, make it the most miserable thing possible, and then expect them to come out well adjusted and fully functional. People went to jail because they were neither of those things before hand.
But I guess as long as the prison system gets to turn a couple of bucks it makes it all worth it, right?
I did a little research. It's definitely not something I've ever heard of in my state.
Looks likes this is mostly in Ohio? Apparently in the 1990's, almost all Ohio counties rolled this out. It's been being rolled back ever since. As of a few years ago, only 40 jails in the state charge these fees. Of these, the most expensive six jails charge between $50-$60 per night, 5 charge between $20-48, Some charge $1-$2 per night. $17 Ohio jails charge a booking fee only, usually $10 but up to $40.
Some California cities have a pay-for-a-nicer prison scheme, but that's not really the same thing.
A few years ago when I was on jury duty, the primary business underway in the "County Justice Complex" seemed to be poor folks making payments on their jail stays. A real issue for some of them was making payments quickly enough to avoid additional jail stays, with the additional penury inherent in missing more work and having to pay more jail fees. This is in Missouri, a state more famed for its many injustices than Ohio is. We'd be safer and happier if we fired 75% of our LEOs tomorrow.
Wow, Missouri's setup with this sounds awful! Unlike Ohio, which only has some mostly short stay jails that charge, Missouri charges statewide, and for prison, which averages six months to two years for an exiting inmate. Unbelievable!
(As to firing LEO's, I think the research shows that there is a pretty clear correlation between more officers and less crime. So I'm not with you on that one.)
I haven't seen any of that research. Overall crime levels are correlated mostly with demographics. A good case has also been made that the prevalence of lead in childhood environments is a leading indicator of crime, but that is also a mostly demographic observation.
Incidentally, if you're looking at violent crime at the state level to convince yourself that overpolicing is not a problem, you're missing out on the fact that St. Louis has the highest murder rate in the nation, and #13 in the world.
And were these things to happen to a Venmo user, it's ultimately Venmo that's responsible for it.
(Also: this is work of a random dude that whipped up a Python script in 2 hours, after finding the API link on Twitter. Were the police to care about those tweets, wouldn't they care about those payments before?).
I'm not sure if there is any other reasonable way of handling such problems. If I found this API link and saw this data, I should be able to report it to a government agency, and within a week, Venmo should be under threat of losing shit ton of money if they don't fix it (they should lose some over this anyway). Is there an official process that works like this? Why not?
> (Also: this is work of a random dude that whipped up a Python script in 2 hours, after finding the API link on Twitter. Were the police to care about those tweets, wouldn't they care about those payments before?).
Two things. First, you're seriously overestimating the technical acumen of "the police," on average. Second, there are all sorts of crimes that the police basically don't give a damn about but are more or less obligated to investigate if they're brought to the police's attention. You can see how zillions of people trolling one another's purchases online could lead to some tips to the police, etc. etc.
Second, there are all sorts of crimes that the police basically don't give a damn about but are more or less obligated to investigate if they're brought to the police's attention.
I'll counter you with anecdata: the Seattle Police Department and cannabis before it was legal in WA. They came right out and said, "it's at the bottom of our priority list." Oh, sure, they're probably still "obligated" to investigate, but writing parking tickets took priority that day, sorry.
Just like the cops are in no real hurry to investigate my missing car stereo. They might be "obligated", but that doesn't mean other things aren't ahead in the queue.
Same with Vancouver PD, who openly said they have far more important things to do than bust people for smoking weed or even the grey-area medical marijuana stores with their own in-house homeopaths writing prescriptions. Even in terms of drugs, PDs care far more about trafficking, importation and production than they care about the possession and use.
> I didn’t want to actually contribute to the problem of lack of privacy.
This reads more like "I had a funny feeling this could be wrong, but I did it anyways for internet points." How could anything on the internet possibly go viral? I couldn't take what the author said very seriously after this.
nice salacious hot take. knowing the author and having followed the development as it happened, I can attest to his sincerity. your assertion is just plain wrong.
So, an ad hominem followed by anecdata about someone with which you're personally invested?
I think the fact they wrote that at all means it crossed their mind. Did they reach out to Venmo before publishing the article? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere.
> I wanted to do something creative with this to demonstrate the lack of privacy in Venmo’s default settings.
What was the goal of this? Maybe someone from Venmo would stumble across this, and start some meaningful dialogue around how...
> to get a few laughs from my friends and colleagues
Ah, right. And of course, posting this publicly on Twitter was the only way to do that?
To me, this just shows contempt for users who may not even know that Venmo defaults to public, or even understand what that means. They became fodder for a cannon the author wanted to point at Venmo. Did the author contact all those users to inform them of the implications, both of their public transactions and the little piece of performance art they created?
>As an american, this is one of the most sadistic and reckless ways to raise awareness of a security issue and the researcher should be ashamed.
As an American, you are under educated about how the justice system works.
You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed.
Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. These people are 100% completely safe.
With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored.
> No, you cannot be charged literally without evidence. A judge would throw the case out, and likely censure or sanction the prosecutor.
Of course you can. All that's required is someone allege there is evidence establishing probable cause. Perhaps that so-called evidence has a perfectly innocent explanation that the person making the allegations is unaware of or choses to ignore. Perhaps the person making the allegations is mistaken. Perhaps they are even lying.
And sure, lack of evidence is grounds for getting cases thrown out. However, you need to make that case first. That requires time, representation and usually the services of a private investigator. The judge is not going to make that case for you.
Even if you get baseless charges thrown out, prosecutors are very rarely sanctioned.
This is what happened to my father about thirty years ago. While he was naive about a lot of things and didn't have good legal representation, he knew enough to refuse to plead guilty.
The "compromise" that prosecutors arrived at was to threaten him with a massive prison sentence, and mislead him about what an Alford plea is. "We're not asking you to plead guilty, and you wont spend any time in jail! Just sign this!" My father avoided jail time but was branded a felon.
Every couple of years since I was little I'd see him spend a few thousand dollars on attorneys trying to rewrite history or fix a new fire resulting from that plea. It took the whole family 30 years, unspeakable amounts of money and a really empathetic journalist but we managed to convince the governor of Missouri to pardon him a few years ago.
A regular person who doesn't have the inhuman qualities my father does would have been ground up and destroyed. He managed to work 35 years at the same company even though a population of "vigilantes" wanted to find any reason they could to get him fired or just make him miserable.
Every once in a while he'd let a story leak about how someone had rubbed grease on his work steering wheel or we'd have to go to the DMV to get new license plates because someone managed to get past his locking screws. My dad responded to this shit in a dispassionate way that still impresses me to reflect on. Someone might break into his locker and cut up his boots. If he said anything about it, it would be like "I should have known better than to use my locker." Then he'd treat going to the shoe store like going to the post office. It's just part of the chores one deals with.
> you are under educated (sic) about how the justice system works.
What an arrogant and ignorant comment. You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. No conviction necessary.
Also you're wrong about PII being removed, unless you think that your photo and first name don't constitute PII (in which case, I hope you are never tasked with handling PII at your job).
> You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this.
Then maybe you shouldn't be PUBLICLY posting about things like this in Venmo. Good grief people - this twitter bot did nothing to expose people that a cop/PO couldn't already do using Venmo.
The whole problem is people on probation posting “drugs” as payment comment. I’m not american, but cannot imagine a country where this wouldn’t attract “sir are you an idiot” looks. Feels like those who complain want both healthy society and easy crimes at the same time.
Not all drugs are illegal drugs, not all posts actually contained the word "drugs", and the people doing this likely didn't understand that the posts were public.
> You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. No conviction necessary.
If you're already on parole, how about not buying drugs? I agree drug laws are ridiculous and draconian, but maybe let the people who are not on parole poke that particular hornet's nest.
Or at least, if you absolutely must buy drugs while on parole, how about not publicly announcing it on social media? You don't have to put anything in the Venmo comment field, let alone a needle emoji.
What the hell does that have to do with "if you have nothing to hide"?
I'm saying if you do have something to hide, then freaking hide it.
Besides, aren't regular drug tests a condition of most parole? So what exactly was your hypothetical genius parolee planning to do with those drugs anyway?
People either still use drugs and then use fake or someone else's piss for the test, or if they have some willpower they just sell. So that's what the "hypothetical genius parolee" is planning to do with it.
Nope, it sure isn't. If you're selling drugs while on parole, and then posting about it on social media, you're going to be back in jail sooner or later, regardless of what Venmo does or doesn't make public.
I mean, I understand the dislike of authority. Drug laws are stupid. But that's just plain incompetence, man. If you want to be a criminal, at least be good at it.
>As an American, you are under educated about how the justice system works.
On paper it works as you described. In reality only celebrities, the well connected and those able to afford good lawyers get the full benefit of the doubt in our legal system. You or I could not do what OJ did and get away with it.
>Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. These people are 100% completely safe.
That's false equivalence. No, the DEA isn't going to do anything for a minor possession charge. What does happen is that companies bundle and sell this sort of data as "open source intelligence" and it's used all the time (as are many other things) to dig up dirt on low level people in order to make them snitch on higher level people.
>With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored.
This kind of data is what makes a minor charge sticky and harder to bargain down to something that's actually reasonable (assuming the accursed has a useful lawyer at all). Nobody is getting convicted on this alone but it could be the difference between getting the prosecution to drop all drug charges or not.
>Also the author said he removed PII.
He did a piss poor job as others have mentioned. It would be easy to de-anonymyze this data set.
As an African-Canadian, it appears to the rest of the world that you have two different justice systems, and the one for people of colour and allegations of “drugs” works completely differently than the one for white Americans.
I am skeptical that Americans of color will not be charged for drug crimes that cannot be proven by any reasonable standard, and I am also very much afraid that if someone is brought to the police's attention like this, they will be at risk of a wrongful prosecution, or worse.
Just bringing a person of color’s name to the attention of their local law enforcement’s attention can create a risk of death in a traffic stop or no-knock search coupled with an itchy trigger finger.
It shouldn’t be like this, but as long as it is, outing drug users to the police in any way contributes to the injustice in the American “justice” system.
> As an African-Canadian, it appears to the rest of the world that you have two different justice systems, and the one for people of colour and allegations of “drugs” works completely differently than the one for white Americans.
As an American, and one who grew up among the poor, and criminal elements of society in the "racist" deep south, I do believe you read a bit too much sensationalized news leading you to a wrong conclusion.
However, you're right, there is a dual system. A system for the rich and a system for the poor.
Interesting. That’s a testable hypothesis. If after controlling for income there is a difference in sentencing between races, then that’s evidence to reject the hypothesis that there is no racial disparity.
I believe I once read something that makes me believe that we should indeed believe there is racial disparity but I can’t find it now. Pity.
> If after controlling for income there is a difference in sentencing between races, then that’s evidence to reject the hypothesis that there is no racial disparity.
Well, logically speaking, you can't draw that conclusion.
As an aside: I'm a tall 30-something white male. I'm safe I'm not going to have the cops called on me with "$Action while black", and the assumption is that if I'm somewhere, I'm supposed to be there.
>one for people of colour and allegations of “drugs” works completely differently than the one for white Americans.
This is far more about social class ($$$) than color. I'm not saying there aren't racial injustices at play, but I promise you that whites (and anyone else) without means are treated similarly when they get busted. Don't completely buy into the picture painted by the media.
I just wanted to make a kind of empty comment to say that I agree with you. Most of the replies to your comment say you're distorting the picture, and that it's only about wealth inequalities. However, even wealthy people of color experience these injustices, they most often though just have enough money to pay their way free.
Americans want to believe that it’s about wealth disparity, because that allows moderates to believe that at some level, people are responsible for their own poverty, and if poverty is something people have control over, then they bear personal responsibility for being too poor to afford justice.
Compound that with people disingenuousy promoting this narrative for their own political reasons, such as wanting to promote the idea that the inhumanly high incarceration rates are evidence of an inherent criminality, laziness, or both on the part of people of colour, and you get an oft-repeated explanation that should not be accepted without evidence.
It might feel like it ought to be true, but it’s not.
There’s an irony in you critiquing someone about being under educated about the justice system, only to turn around and give a naive and starry eyed account of some idealized American justice system. You don’t have to be convicted of a crime to have your life ruined or seriously impaired by the criminal justice system, and prosecutors will routinely charge people with more crimes than they know they can prove in order to pressure plea deals.
> You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove.
Yes, you can, or no one ever would be acquitted, since that is exactly having been charged with a crime that the prosecutor then tried to, but could not, prove.
> It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed.
No, the reason why they can do that is a combination of statutes of limitations, decriminalization, and lack of priority for prosecution.
> Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour.
True.
> These people are 100% completely safe.
Less true.
> With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored.
Being actively monitored doesn't mean you are screwed, but, yes, something like pre-existing suspicion and this being a connecting piece of evidence and not the whole case is the main legal threat.
> Also the author said he removed PII.
Unless the author is ab expert in the area, there's generally a pretty big gap between deleting what seems to be PII and effective deidentification.
You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed.
I think you have to much faith in the justice system. They don't have to "prove" anything. Once they arrest you, they can easily intimidate you into taking a plea and the overworked public defender won't be of much help.
This isn’t a security issue, Venmo is publishing this data by design. It’s already available for law enforcement, and they don’t need a Twitter bot. The bot was to inform the public.
Shaming Venmo into protecting their users or just raising public awareness about their policies is a great start.
I think this is the right way to look at it. The twitter bot didn't give this information to law enforcement, because unless they're idiots they've been monitoring and archiving this from day one.
I would be, this is exactly the use case for Palantir's social media monitoring system. If they failed to pull in this data source that would be a huge miss. Especially since Palantir and PayPal (who now owns venmo) were co-founded by the same person.
I agree that the data is already available, but to hurt the users without a second of hesitation? Much better and justified to go after the company, ... slowly step up the pressure and escalate it gradually until you have their attention. Tag their CxOs on LinkedIn, call them out in person (don't let them hide between a corporate facade) for their greedy negligence. Better would have been by publishing a paper about it imho ... But to hurt the user like this? The author is a flipping coward.
As the author mentioned there have already been papers published about this but they got nowhere near the same attention. If you are actually concerned about the users of venmo you should be thanking the author he managed to bring major security issues to the attention of far more users then anyone else working on this same issue has been able to. And as others have noted venmo already shares everything with law enforcement, so there is no issue here with exposing people to increased legal risk.
It's available, but in many cases agencies are unaware that this data exists. Drawing attention to it exposes people who made life errors to outsized retribution. I'm willing to bet a dollar many cases brought by smaller agencies would've escaped limitations had they not been raised.
I'm entirely sober, always have been. I still think this one-person campaign may have ruined innocent lives. Just because people may not understand the seriousness of a repercussion doesn't mean they should fall victim to those which are unfairly onerous; most people can't process risk the way we can.
Those tweets cannot be used to convict someone. It's also not really their fault given they just took existing public data and reposted it...
But the final nail in the coffin is that simply put, 99% of the posts are from people who know it's public, don't care, and intentionally fill the description with stupidity. I can't count the number of times I've gotten venmo payments sent to me with salacious descriptions.
If you're actually breaking the law you are probably fine because far more people are just screwing around and you'll blend right in. And also, if you are breaking the law and think it's a good idea to admit that repeatedly via internet payments, maybe you aren't the brightest.
A lot of people are naively breaking some law, but getting by because they are too obscure for anyone to get around to caring. Something like this with media coverage can effectively 'short list' a few unlucky people who wouldn't otherwise deserve scrutiny, thus making it irresponsible to do as a real researcher.
Even fake salacious descriptions stop being fun when the IRS shows up for an audit.
These tweets can't be used to convict you, but they could be used to secure a warrant and send a SWAT team into your house. Maybe they find drugs, maybe they shoot some people or pets, maybe they just scare everyone and damage your property.
> 99% of the posts are from people who know it's public, don't care, and intentionally fill the description with stupidity
How do you know that? My assumption was that payment details would not be publicly broadcast when I send money to a friend. Do you really think this assumption puts me in the bottom 1%?
> but they could be used to secure a warrant and send a SWAT team into your house
Nobody is going to send a SWAT team to someone's house over a $25 Venmo transaction marked as "drugs". Not only is it not even close to nearly enough evidence for a warrant, but a SWAT team isn't going to get sent for drug possession in any case.
You are naive, and spreading dangerous infromation. I had a friend whose house got swatted a couple of years ago after another friend sent him money via paypal with the desc "thanks for the guns and drugs". The other friend, Canadian, also had law enforcement show up on behalf of interpol.
SWAT is called special weapons and tactics for a reason. They get sent out in dangerous situations such as hostages, or when the suspect is known to be very armed, not for any old call. It costs money to train and deploy them, and it's not done as often as you imply.
Being swatted is a thing, but it's not going to happen over a $25 Venmo transaction titled as "drugs". Or even one titled as "weapons". There needs to be actual intent to harm someone immediately declared. Last year's swatting was because the person claimed he "had fatally shot his father, and was holding family members at gunpoint."
Law enforcement is different than SWAT, so I won't even entertain your second anecdote except for saying in order for Interpol to get involved, they needed far more evidence than a Paypal transaction with that description.
Interpol wasn't involved, they literally just passed the info along to local QC law enforcement. This ended up being a thing that dragged on for several months for the Canadian. You are probably right though on the American friend, swatted was the wrong word. Maybe visited by armed cops ready to make an arrest was more like it.
People are able to send SWAT teams to houses as a prank. Someone malicious who is stalking another person could use this information to justify their "prank".
What about do-gooders? Someone sees a transaction marked "for drugs" and they call the police because they think they are helping. This already happens to a lot of people holding cookouts, selling lemonade, cutting grass, and more.
> People are able to send SWAT teams to houses as a prank. Someone malicious who is stalking another person could use this information to justify their "prank".
Yes, by lying and saying there is a dangerous situation like a hostage. In the swatting incident from last year, they were called because the person said he "had fatally shot his father, and was holding family members at gunpoint."
SWAT gets sent out, sure. But SWAT does not get sent out for minor drug charges. They're called special weapons and tactics for a reason.
"SPOKANE, Wash. - SWAT raided a Spokane home on heroin warrant. It happened just before 11 am Friday morning at a duplex home on the corner of 4th and Altamont. Details were not immediately known but authorities on scene say they were serving a warrant related to heroin."
I believe I understand your point: police themselves are unlikely to initiate a SWAT raid based on the Venmo transaction comment.
However, I don't believe you are sincerely trying to understand my point: If probably cause can be established by, "hearsay information provided by others", Then the Venmo transaction information could result in someone being SWATed by a well intending citizen or a malicious person.
Therefore, the availability of this information on Venmo can be a contributing factor to someone having the police called on them (and the police responding). I am not sure where the hole in this logic is?
> SWAT gets sent out, sure. But SWAT does not get sent out for minor drug charges. They're called special weapons and tactics for a reason.
Sure they get called out for minor drug raids. For "practice." Especially in smaller locales where SWAT is needed infrequently. It's probably a bad idea, but it is what it is.
Exactly. Anyone actually writing in "Drugs" and meaning its for drugs is going to get caught in some other fashion for being stupid. Police know 99.9999% of the Venmo comments are farce.
Wow, that's just about the most overwrought, overblown, and misinformed post I've seen here in a long time.
1) this information is already public - in fact he removed some of the identfying details (last name for example)
2) the twitter bot assumes the descriptions are jokes
3) none of this could be used to convict someone of a crime
Unless you have some evidence that making public information like this public in a different format, calling someone sadistic for it is something should really be apologizing for. Your past incarceration does not give you any moral authority to be making personal attacks like calling someone sadistic...
People who are using and selling drugs are criminals like any other type of criminal.
Civil forfeiture is fucked, sure, but the rest of the consequences sound pretty fair. Break the law, you pay the price. If you rob a small bank instead of Deutsche, should you get a smaller penalty? Just because it's a small quantity of drugs doesn't mean anything, it's still the same crime.
Nah, these people used blatant keywords in their public transactions. Even if you argue that they thought their transactions were private, these users chose to tag their payments with drug related keywords. If they really cared they would have encoded or obfuscated the payment descriptions.
Sorry to hear about your misfortunes. As more U.S. citizens abandon citizenship due to FATCA do feel the incarceration rate per capita will increase or decrease?
Its a pretty well-trod path by now, isn’t it? Find some API emitting data people wouldn’t necessarily want to see on a web page, write a few lines of code and buy a domain name for it. There’s probably even a HTML/CSS template for it
Even on cash I rarely put the real purpose in the memo field...
Coming from cash, and finding that the world has apparently settled on venmo, has me supremely disappointed. What the hell were they thinking? Payments is not a social network. I hope venmo feels blowback for this, but I know they won't.
Can any venmo engineers comment on their ridiculous system? Do any users actually find value in sharing their drug deals (and other transactions) with the public?
Yes, it's called Apple Pay Cash. You can send and receive cash through iMessage, and it gets put on a virtual debit card you can trasfer the $ out of to your bank account, or spend via Apple Pay at a store or via Apple Pay Cash.
IMHO it's better and faster than Venmo, PayPal, or any other ones I've tried. Having the money on a virtual debit card you can spend anywhere tha accepts Apple Pay is really nice, and the bank transfers are very quick.
The PayPal.me thing is quite nice though. I just don't think many people are aware of it:
i.e. If you thought this or other comments I have made on Hacker News were useful, please fund my new yacht, sorry, my 'startup business' via https://paypal.me/Jaruze1 :)
My reading of the article is that those payment notes were in jest, not payment for actual drug purchases. I would think people paying/getting payed for drugs are smarter than this.
Also it's not limited to people in their twenties, who are the only ones I've seen using Venmo. In any case, Venmo will be gone soon enough, it's already bought by PayPal and I can't see them maintaining two parallel systems.
That was close to five years ago and venmo has added major features and a lot of new users in the intervening years. Moreover the paypal brand isn't what it used to be especially among venmo's core demographics.
What major features have been added? On the contrary, I see them retiring the web portal and going mobile only. One day somebody is going to make the easy decision of migrating all the users to PayPal and cutting out the redundant work. Or maybe they'll simply brand PayPal mobile "Venmo", the effect being the same.
It's public by default, and users have to explicitly change it to private, something the average user might not know. (Or even expect that their payment app is set up by default to broadcast their payments to the world)
The system reports deals containing "stripper." Which launches it straight into moral territory.
It also has many, many false positives, e.g. "pills" are legitimate means of taking medication. And "Drank"? Is it likely this many people are mixing together cold syrup and grape juice or is it the past-tense of drink. Also notice that "beer" and "wine" aren't flagged (unless appearing along other flags).
This is absolutely emblematic of why we need our 4th amendment in the U.S. to prevent fishing expeditions. If governments were allowed to do this, they could ping things on many people who don't deserve it.
I assume a lot of these are jokes. In fact my Venmo feed is basically reversed. If someone spots me $5 for lunch I'll likely pay them back for "Drugs" or "Illegal Activities" and if I'm actually doing something I would like to keep private I will say "Stuff" or "Thanks".
> I learned that Venmo’s public by default setting made the details of millions of Venmo transactions publicly available to anyone who cared to look. So I did what any software engineer would do and started digging through the data.
This makes me gag. Don't lump this behavior in with being a software engineer.
Does law enforcement actually look at Venmo as a source of evidence? I don't think I've ever put an actual reason for my transactions in the memo box. It's always something silly, and if you're actually buying drugs you're not going to say "this is for drugs" .
>>By mid afternoon CNET, Mercury News and a half dozen other websites had posted articles about it. Not used to seeing my name on news websites, I cringed as I read expecting to get blasted — but I wasn’t.
Until one of them that went to jail or lost their lively-hood and/or family decides to ask you, "what did I owe you, that you did that to me."
Personally, I wouldn't do that for ethical and for the above mentioned reason...catching "drug users" is not my job.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 173 ms ] threadYes the data is publicly available, but there are less reckless ways to raise awareness.
I assumed that the available information was first name, avatar picture and the "drug deal". From the sample tweets it looks like first name and the first letter of the last name were given, but no avatars.
Still don't understand why people ever use the Public setting on Venmo, but that's another story. It's practically the opposite of Instagram, instead of looking like some rich socialite to your crew you look like someone who doesn't carry enough money for takeout.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17181130
I know Vemmo is an extreme example, but it's not like they don't still have that data accessible for interested parties to access. People here like to say "We're never going to give customer data over blah blah blah," but time changes everything. The information is there, and you don't know what the laws or social forces will bring tomorrow.
Either way, a good spotlight on the issues that need to be discussed.
https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2018/03/mit-finds-monero-...
1. By the very nature, blockchain is public. If the wallet can verify a transaction goes from one user to another, it's not private. You can obscure all you want, but you from the way I understand it, if the system can verify itself then nothing is private.
2. Blockchains are centralized in that there is once source of information. Our current payments system is more decentralized in that Bank #1 -> Mastercard -> Stripe -> Bank #2 -> Bank #3. There are multiple parties that need to work together, and theoretically have different information collection requirements. If you need to trace money from Bank #1 to Bank #3, in theory you need multiple warrants.
Privacy requires some form of black box and trust in that black box. I'm not sure how you can remove that black box without reducing the privacy.
I do think people view online privacy through that same lens... We have community bubbles, that are technically public, but we feel confident speaking within them for whatever reason.
Yes people need to be more conscious of where communication take place, but it does not excuse unethical, legal, abuse of privacy.
Internet communities are not a model of real life. They're not "technically" public, they are public. If somebody walked up behind you too close you'll know and you'll know whom. There is no such thing on the internet.
So let's not pretend they are similar and instead make people always aware that they are being blasted in public. That way they will not be mistaken, or take the moral hazard of security by obscurity, and instead seek out truly secure solutions.
I think the parent is right: if we tried instead to foster a culture that respects privacy as an ethical issue first it would greatly improve everyone's experience online. Privacy should be a bedrock principle, not something that exists only as far as the strength of the personal digital fortress you can erect.
I am not blaming the victim nor tasking them with sole responsibility for privacy breaches. Instead, I'm proposing an explicit contact with what is already reality, that is, the lack of any privacy. This will do several things, one, strip away the illusion that there is privacy and the delusion that it can be protected when there are no barriers except in some people's minds; two, shift the cost-reward curve immediately (rather than through incremental or hidden breaches) toward taking action rather than not for producing the capabilities and structures that move towards your goal.
If I tell a joke, people will chuckle and it'll be on their mind for 10 seconds, and then it's gone. All I need to do to make sure no one is overhearing it is to do a quick look over my shoulder. And if someone does leak it, I'll know which 6 people it might be and I can confront them.
If I write that same joke down online, it's there forever, anyone can grab the joke any amount of time later, strip out all surrounding context, report me and have me fired from my director gig.
Our social systems were developed with the understanding that communications would persist for a minute at most. This does not translate well to online systems.
There's no stopping this fact, and with daily zero day fire drills, the defense of claiming an insecure, hacked smartphone is at fault, is essentially plausible. But it gets worse, because hacking isn't a even required step. One sketchy app installed on a phone with zero defects is enough to plausibly deny a sceenshot of a private conversation escaping into the wild. People breeze past those permissions authorizations all the time. But of course installing promiscuous app isn't even a required step, because some phones have stock apps installed at the factory, and are insecure out of the box. Or, hey, maybe they bought their phone second-hand, because phones can cost $1000 now, so knocking a hundred bucks off the sticker price isn't even unconscionable, and less technical users are clueless as ever, so they wouldn't even consider the risks.
So, no matter what, at the consumer level, truly no one is in control of how things leak, even if you choose your friends wisely. An Apple engineer can't even let his daughter look at a prototype over lunch without her accidentally instagramming the world in a moment of irrevocable error.
So, chilling effects? I mean, without question, when being deaf and mute to the point that one may as well be bound and gagged is the only cure, calling that "chilling effects" is quite the understatement.
We are moving rapidly toward a society that only thinks "happy" thoughts, for fear of the consequences oherwise. Is such a fear healthy?
And realistically, while IT crowd knows about hacks, most people dont, because such hacks are in fact rare.
However, I don't totally get the point of the public feed. The only thing I can think is that it showed new/light users that Venmo had a lot of activity and ideas for when to use Venmo (ie, if you saw a message from strangers "Payback for lunch" it would plant the seed to use Venmo for such).
- American drug laws carry some of the harshest penalties in the developed world. Civil forfeiture allows police to seize your car and home, without trial, for drug charges. 3 strikes laws can and have put many people in prison for sentences as long as 20 years, for less than an ounce of Marijuana
- once released from prison, many American ex-cons are required to pay restitution for their incarceration and can be legally discriminated against for housing, employment, and even public benefits in some states. reformed convicts cannot vote in most american states, and must file legal petition for restoration of their right to vote.
- parole terms can be extended well beyond a prisoners sentence and require years of monitoring and testing services the former convict must pay for, or be sent back to jail.
simple convictions like marijuana can result in the loss of your children, the loss of your job, and complete financial ruin.
Source: I have been incarcerated in the United States in the past.
But boy do they love watching people get locked up. What a bad approach for treating the ills of society. Let's lock people up at the drop of the hat, make it the most miserable thing possible, and then expect them to come out well adjusted and fully functional. People went to jail because they were neither of those things before hand.
But I guess as long as the prison system gets to turn a couple of bucks it makes it all worth it, right?
Looks likes this is mostly in Ohio? Apparently in the 1990's, almost all Ohio counties rolled this out. It's been being rolled back ever since. As of a few years ago, only 40 jails in the state charge these fees. Of these, the most expensive six jails charge between $50-$60 per night, 5 charge between $20-48, Some charge $1-$2 per night. $17 Ohio jails charge a booking fee only, usually $10 but up to $40.
Some California cities have a pay-for-a-nicer prison scheme, but that's not really the same thing.
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2017/may/5/missouri-pri...
(As to firing LEO's, I think the research shows that there is a pretty clear correlation between more officers and less crime. So I'm not with you on that one.)
Incidentally, if you're looking at violent crime at the state level to convince yourself that overpolicing is not a problem, you're missing out on the fact that St. Louis has the highest murder rate in the nation, and #13 in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-to-stay_(imprisonment)
(Also: this is work of a random dude that whipped up a Python script in 2 hours, after finding the API link on Twitter. Were the police to care about those tweets, wouldn't they care about those payments before?).
I'm not sure if there is any other reasonable way of handling such problems. If I found this API link and saw this data, I should be able to report it to a government agency, and within a week, Venmo should be under threat of losing shit ton of money if they don't fix it (they should lose some over this anyway). Is there an official process that works like this? Why not?
Two things. First, you're seriously overestimating the technical acumen of "the police," on average. Second, there are all sorts of crimes that the police basically don't give a damn about but are more or less obligated to investigate if they're brought to the police's attention. You can see how zillions of people trolling one another's purchases online could lead to some tips to the police, etc. etc.
I'll counter you with anecdata: the Seattle Police Department and cannabis before it was legal in WA. They came right out and said, "it's at the bottom of our priority list." Oh, sure, they're probably still "obligated" to investigate, but writing parking tickets took priority that day, sorry.
Just like the cops are in no real hurry to investigate my missing car stereo. They might be "obligated", but that doesn't mean other things aren't ahead in the queue.
> I didn’t want to actually contribute to the problem of lack of privacy.
This reads more like "I had a funny feeling this could be wrong, but I did it anyways for internet points." How could anything on the internet possibly go viral? I couldn't take what the author said very seriously after this.
I think the fact they wrote that at all means it crossed their mind. Did they reach out to Venmo before publishing the article? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere.
> I wanted to do something creative with this to demonstrate the lack of privacy in Venmo’s default settings.
What was the goal of this? Maybe someone from Venmo would stumble across this, and start some meaningful dialogue around how...
> to get a few laughs from my friends and colleagues
Ah, right. And of course, posting this publicly on Twitter was the only way to do that?
To me, this just shows contempt for users who may not even know that Venmo defaults to public, or even understand what that means. They became fodder for a cannon the author wanted to point at Venmo. Did the author contact all those users to inform them of the implications, both of their public transactions and the little piece of performance art they created?
As an American, you are under educated about how the justice system works.
You can't be charged with crimes they can't prove. It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed.
Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. These people are 100% completely safe.
With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored.
Also the author said he removed PII.
You certainly can be charged with any crime with or without evidence. And the way they make it stick is to offer a plea deal to avoid trial.
Can you be charged on weak evidence, or even in some cases fabricated evidence? Yes, but that's a different matter.
we have a real one. It's an easy mistake for programmers to make. We work in a world of provable absolutes that behave exactly as written.
Of course you can. All that's required is someone allege there is evidence establishing probable cause. Perhaps that so-called evidence has a perfectly innocent explanation that the person making the allegations is unaware of or choses to ignore. Perhaps the person making the allegations is mistaken. Perhaps they are even lying.
And sure, lack of evidence is grounds for getting cases thrown out. However, you need to make that case first. That requires time, representation and usually the services of a private investigator. The judge is not going to make that case for you.
Even if you get baseless charges thrown out, prosecutors are very rarely sanctioned.
The "compromise" that prosecutors arrived at was to threaten him with a massive prison sentence, and mislead him about what an Alford plea is. "We're not asking you to plead guilty, and you wont spend any time in jail! Just sign this!" My father avoided jail time but was branded a felon.
Every couple of years since I was little I'd see him spend a few thousand dollars on attorneys trying to rewrite history or fix a new fire resulting from that plea. It took the whole family 30 years, unspeakable amounts of money and a really empathetic journalist but we managed to convince the governor of Missouri to pardon him a few years ago.
A regular person who doesn't have the inhuman qualities my father does would have been ground up and destroyed. He managed to work 35 years at the same company even though a population of "vigilantes" wanted to find any reason they could to get him fired or just make him miserable.
Every once in a while he'd let a story leak about how someone had rubbed grease on his work steering wheel or we'd have to go to the DMV to get new license plates because someone managed to get past his locking screws. My dad responded to this shit in a dispassionate way that still impresses me to reflect on. Someone might break into his locker and cut up his boots. If he said anything about it, it would be like "I should have known better than to use my locker." Then he'd treat going to the shoe store like going to the post office. It's just part of the chores one deals with.
If I were in his shoes I wouldn't have made it.
What an arrogant and ignorant comment. You can absolutely have your probation or parole revoked for something like this. No conviction necessary.
Also you're wrong about PII being removed, unless you think that your photo and first name don't constitute PII (in which case, I hope you are never tasked with handling PII at your job).
Then maybe you shouldn't be PUBLICLY posting about things like this in Venmo. Good grief people - this twitter bot did nothing to expose people that a cop/PO couldn't already do using Venmo.
If you're already on parole, how about not buying drugs? I agree drug laws are ridiculous and draconian, but maybe let the people who are not on parole poke that particular hornet's nest.
Or at least, if you absolutely must buy drugs while on parole, how about not publicly announcing it on social media? You don't have to put anything in the Venmo comment field, let alone a needle emoji.
I'm saying if you do have something to hide, then freaking hide it.
Besides, aren't regular drug tests a condition of most parole? So what exactly was your hypothetical genius parolee planning to do with those drugs anyway?
It's not rocket surgery.
Nope, it sure isn't. If you're selling drugs while on parole, and then posting about it on social media, you're going to be back in jail sooner or later, regardless of what Venmo does or doesn't make public.
I mean, I understand the dislike of authority. Drug laws are stupid. But that's just plain incompetence, man. If you want to be a criminal, at least be good at it.
On paper it works as you described. In reality only celebrities, the well connected and those able to afford good lawyers get the full benefit of the doubt in our legal system. You or I could not do what OJ did and get away with it.
>Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour. These people are 100% completely safe.
That's false equivalence. No, the DEA isn't going to do anything for a minor possession charge. What does happen is that companies bundle and sell this sort of data as "open source intelligence" and it's used all the time (as are many other things) to dig up dirt on low level people in order to make them snitch on higher level people.
>With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored.
This kind of data is what makes a minor charge sticky and harder to bargain down to something that's actually reasonable (assuming the accursed has a useful lawyer at all). Nobody is getting convicted on this alone but it could be the difference between getting the prosecution to drop all drug charges or not.
>Also the author said he removed PII.
He did a piss poor job as others have mentioned. It would be easy to de-anonymyze this data set.
I am skeptical that Americans of color will not be charged for drug crimes that cannot be proven by any reasonable standard, and I am also very much afraid that if someone is brought to the police's attention like this, they will be at risk of a wrongful prosecution, or worse.
Just bringing a person of color’s name to the attention of their local law enforcement’s attention can create a risk of death in a traffic stop or no-knock search coupled with an itchy trigger finger.
It shouldn’t be like this, but as long as it is, outing drug users to the police in any way contributes to the injustice in the American “justice” system.
As an American, and one who grew up among the poor, and criminal elements of society in the "racist" deep south, I do believe you read a bit too much sensationalized news leading you to a wrong conclusion.
However, you're right, there is a dual system. A system for the rich and a system for the poor.
I believe I once read something that makes me believe that we should indeed believe there is racial disparity but I can’t find it now. Pity.
Well, logically speaking, you can't draw that conclusion.
Still testable, and I believe rejectable that race has no impact on sentencing.
As an aside: I'm a tall 30-something white male. I'm safe I'm not going to have the cops called on me with "$Action while black", and the assumption is that if I'm somewhere, I'm supposed to be there.
Which is exactly why OJ is in prison for murder.
This is far more about social class ($$$) than color. I'm not saying there aren't racial injustices at play, but I promise you that whites (and anyone else) without means are treated similarly when they get busted. Don't completely buy into the picture painted by the media.
Compound that with people disingenuousy promoting this narrative for their own political reasons, such as wanting to promote the idea that the inhumanly high incarceration rates are evidence of an inherent criminality, laziness, or both on the part of people of colour, and you get an oft-repeated explanation that should not be accepted without evidence.
It might feel like it ought to be true, but it’s not.
This burden of proof does not apply for parole violations, or civil asset forfeiture as mentioned in the OP.
Yes, you can, or no one ever would be acquitted, since that is exactly having been charged with a crime that the prosecutor then tried to, but could not, prove.
> It's why comedians and public figures can openly admit to smoking weed.
No, the reason why they can do that is a combination of statutes of limitations, decriminalization, and lack of priority for prosecution.
> Putting a weed or needle emoji in your Venmo transaction isn't going to have the DEA breaking down your door in the next hour.
True.
> These people are 100% completely safe.
Less true.
> With all of that said, if someone is convicted due to this, they were already screwed and being actively monitored.
Being actively monitored doesn't mean you are screwed, but, yes, something like pre-existing suspicion and this being a connecting piece of evidence and not the whole case is the main legal threat.
> Also the author said he removed PII.
Unless the author is ab expert in the area, there's generally a pretty big gap between deleting what seems to be PII and effective deidentification.
I think you have to much faith in the justice system. They don't have to "prove" anything. Once they arrest you, they can easily intimidate you into taking a plea and the overworked public defender won't be of much help.
Shaming Venmo into protecting their users or just raising public awareness about their policies is a great start.
I'm entirely sober, always have been. I still think this one-person campaign may have ruined innocent lives. Just because people may not understand the seriousness of a repercussion doesn't mean they should fall victim to those which are unfairly onerous; most people can't process risk the way we can.
[1] https://qz.com/376634/the-euphemisms-people-use-to-pay-their...
That's why I mentioned "many" and not "all"
But the final nail in the coffin is that simply put, 99% of the posts are from people who know it's public, don't care, and intentionally fill the description with stupidity. I can't count the number of times I've gotten venmo payments sent to me with salacious descriptions.
If you're actually breaking the law you are probably fine because far more people are just screwing around and you'll blend right in. And also, if you are breaking the law and think it's a good idea to admit that repeatedly via internet payments, maybe you aren't the brightest.
Even fake salacious descriptions stop being fun when the IRS shows up for an audit.
These tweets can't be used to convict you, but they could be used to secure a warrant and send a SWAT team into your house. Maybe they find drugs, maybe they shoot some people or pets, maybe they just scare everyone and damage your property.
> 99% of the posts are from people who know it's public, don't care, and intentionally fill the description with stupidity
How do you know that? My assumption was that payment details would not be publicly broadcast when I send money to a friend. Do you really think this assumption puts me in the bottom 1%?
Nobody is going to send a SWAT team to someone's house over a $25 Venmo transaction marked as "drugs". Not only is it not even close to nearly enough evidence for a warrant, but a SWAT team isn't going to get sent for drug possession in any case.
Being swatted is a thing, but it's not going to happen over a $25 Venmo transaction titled as "drugs". Or even one titled as "weapons". There needs to be actual intent to harm someone immediately declared. Last year's swatting was because the person claimed he "had fatally shot his father, and was holding family members at gunpoint."
Law enforcement is different than SWAT, so I won't even entertain your second anecdote except for saying in order for Interpol to get involved, they needed far more evidence than a Paypal transaction with that description.
What about do-gooders? Someone sees a transaction marked "for drugs" and they call the police because they think they are helping. This already happens to a lot of people holding cookouts, selling lemonade, cutting grass, and more.
Hardly "nobody".
Yes, by lying and saying there is a dangerous situation like a hostage. In the swatting incident from last year, they were called because the person said he "had fatally shot his father, and was holding family members at gunpoint."
SWAT gets sent out, sure. But SWAT does not get sent out for minor drug charges. They're called special weapons and tactics for a reason.
"SPOKANE, Wash. - SWAT raided a Spokane home on heroin warrant. It happened just before 11 am Friday morning at a duplex home on the corner of 4th and Altamont. Details were not immediately known but authorities on scene say they were serving a warrant related to heroin."
http://www.khq.com/story/21437261/swat-situation
How do police obtaining a warrant? In part by establishing probable cause. How is probable cause determined in the US:
"Probable cause can be based on either direct observation by the police officer, or on hearsay information provided by others."
However, I don't believe you are sincerely trying to understand my point: If probably cause can be established by, "hearsay information provided by others", Then the Venmo transaction information could result in someone being SWATed by a well intending citizen or a malicious person.
Therefore, the availability of this information on Venmo can be a contributing factor to someone having the police called on them (and the police responding). I am not sure where the hole in this logic is?
Sure they get called out for minor drug raids. For "practice." Especially in smaller locales where SWAT is needed infrequently. It's probably a bad idea, but it is what it is.
1) this information is already public - in fact he removed some of the identfying details (last name for example) 2) the twitter bot assumes the descriptions are jokes 3) none of this could be used to convict someone of a crime
Unless you have some evidence that making public information like this public in a different format, calling someone sadistic for it is something should really be apologizing for. Your past incarceration does not give you any moral authority to be making personal attacks like calling someone sadistic...
People who are using and selling drugs are criminals like any other type of criminal.
Civil forfeiture is fucked, sure, but the rest of the consequences sound pretty fair. Break the law, you pay the price. If you rob a small bank instead of Deutsche, should you get a smaller penalty? Just because it's a small quantity of drugs doesn't mean anything, it's still the same crime.
Nah, these people used blatant keywords in their public transactions. Even if you argue that they thought their transactions were private, these users chose to tag their payments with drug related keywords. If they really cared they would have encoded or obfuscated the payment descriptions.
Your ire should be directed at Venmo.
As an American, your comment is embarrassing.
Coming from cash, and finding that the world has apparently settled on venmo, has me supremely disappointed. What the hell were they thinking? Payments is not a social network. I hope venmo feels blowback for this, but I know they won't.
Can any venmo engineers comment on their ridiculous system? Do any users actually find value in sharing their drug deals (and other transactions) with the public?
My New York circles are on Apple Pay and Zelle. I just refuse to accept Venmo, by virtue of them being a PayPal company.
IMHO it's better and faster than Venmo, PayPal, or any other ones I've tried. Having the money on a virtual debit card you can spend anywhere tha accepts Apple Pay is really nice, and the bank transfers are very quick.
i.e. If you thought this or other comments I have made on Hacker News were useful, please fund my new yacht, sorry, my 'startup business' via https://paypal.me/Jaruze1 :)
Correction: the world is not limited to the USA.
It also has many, many false positives, e.g. "pills" are legitimate means of taking medication. And "Drank"? Is it likely this many people are mixing together cold syrup and grape juice or is it the past-tense of drink. Also notice that "beer" and "wine" aren't flagged (unless appearing along other flags).
This is absolutely emblematic of why we need our 4th amendment in the U.S. to prevent fishing expeditions. If governments were allowed to do this, they could ping things on many people who don't deserve it.
> I actually don’t care for the term “bot” because it implies some sort of AI
A bot is just a regular user account dedicated to and controlled by a non-human. Script, AI, IFTTT, whatever. It's a bot.
This makes me gag. Don't lump this behavior in with being a software engineer.
That behavior.
Until one of them that went to jail or lost their lively-hood and/or family decides to ask you, "what did I owe you, that you did that to me."
Personally, I wouldn't do that for ethical and for the above mentioned reason...catching "drug users" is not my job.