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Comment by niom | Hacker News Reader

Why would you need hacking for that? Classic https://xkcd.com/538 nerd imagination.

Simply seize some devices and place the incriminating evidence on them. Or just place a device with incriminating evidence among other seized evidence. Crime shows make you think every item is individually serialized and bagged or whatever but in reality they're just going to make a bag labelled "15 SD cards and 6 USB sticks". Stuff like hard drives is just going to be "hard drive #6" in the log. Just swap the stickers, easy as pie. You think evidence is stored securely? Secure is expensive, and it's all stuff of guilty people anyway (otherwise it wouldn't be seized).

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I jave had the misfortune of being tangentially involved in two separate CSAM investigations, and in both cases, the inventory of items seized was pretty detailed, including serial numbers when they were legible.

In one case the suspect was innocent and no evidence was planted to try to convict. (The daughter of the woman who made the initial report admitted several months later that her mom had made the report up in order to bolster her child custody case- there were no consequences for the woman who made the false report...)

In the other case, the suspect admitted guilt forthrightly.

Now, I can't say what the norm is across the country/world, just my own experience with the system.

"Admitted guilt forthrightly" is also suspicious.

The principal activity of higher level spooks and investigators is coercing people. Even when they don't have anything on the coercee, they can have, or claim to have, things on someone one cares about: a spouse, parent, sibling. Spooks are mainly supposed to coerce information delivery. Cops are supposed to coerce confessions and (if necessary, false) testimony.

They may choose to coerce other things, of course, of less interest to their employers. Sociopaths love these jobs.

While there is always some chance of that, I know enough about this particular case to say I don't have any reasonable doubt that the person was in fact guilty.

You may be entirely correct in this case, but the result doesn't generalize.

> "Admitted guilt forthrightly" is also suspicious.

Not really. IMHO, it's pretty common impulse try to apologize when caught doing something in order to get less punishment. An apology is often effectively a confession.

> The principal activity of higher level spooks and investigators is coercing people...

So? Even if there are people who do stuff like that, it's a tiny fraction of cases like this.

Are you unfamiliar with the definition of "principal activity"?

> Are you unfamiliar with the definition of "principal activity"?

Yes. I'm just saying bringing up spies in this case is a distraction. Unless you have some compelling evidence to say it's spies, it's not spies. Your looking for the exotic when the mundane is far, far more likely.

There have been cases of people who are not law enforcement planting evidence on someone’s computer, then calling law enforcement. Which law enforcement then persues aggressively, of course. Links in sibling comments.

I've watched cop shows and noticed that there are scenes when the DA comes in and chews out the chief of police for doing slipshod work because he doesn't have enough evidence to convict. When the reality is more like a Chappellian "sprinkle some crack on the evidence". Or the cops will just lie on the stand and the jury will take them at their word.

In Ireland we had a huge bruhaha over our Tánaiste (a high up in government) being "terrorized" at a protest in Jobstown.

For weeks, headlines across the country talked about how she was "trapped" in her car "for hours". She was "terrified"! Protesters were brought up on serious criminal charges over this incident of "kidnapping" and "forceful detention".

High ranking police-people testified on the stand that her car was unable to leave the area due to the protesters, for hours.

Then, it came out - leaked on social media - that video footage from multiple angles proved beyond doubt that the incident had been completely overblown.

In fact, she could have left at any time, with plenty of space behind her car. All those police sergeants and the Tánaiste herself were lying out of their teeth.

The response from Irish media was to try and put restrictions on social media. They ignored the story for a while, then a few years later printed stories about her "recalling her trauma" at the protest.

So yeah. This was a high profile incident with an entire country watching - imagine what they do when the accused is 'just some professor or journalist or whatever'.

I think the OP was primarily thinking about placing actual incriminating evidence on an innocent subject to be used to convict them in a court of law. What was done here was stupid but not illegal, and it was done in favour of the subject (basically PR). Also no hacking was involved, just media 'spin'.

It's indeed stupid how the Irish media are obeying the government's spin though.

The really insidious part is they often aren’t even ‘obeying’ (which implies a directive), it’s often ‘goes along with’ in the hope of getting better access to interesting stories and drama, and selling more papers.

Fair points, though I'd say lying under oath is illegal even if you're in high office.

You've reminded me about what happened to Maurice McCabe though.

Summing up from memory: he gave detailed evidence about widespread systematic corruption at the highest levels and below in the Irish police.

Shortly after, he was accused of stealing a pedo priest's hard drive from evidence. Accusations, later found completely untrue, were made by a garda of him doing bad things to young people.

Shortly after, a "copy and paste error" in a Tusla (Irish child services) database accused him of molesting a Garda's underage daughter at a birthday party.

After a huge fight involving many years of horrific struggle, multiple Garda Commissioners and a Minister for Justice resigned over the series of incidents. McCabe received a 5 million euro settlement. But for many years, the vast majority of the Irish media refused to touch his story; and even after it all came out they continued to report on it in the most twisted way possible. For example, they never mention, when discussing the "copy paste error", that this was in fact the third attempt to smear McCabe in this way.

(A brief timeline of the saga: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20442857.html)

Stupid isn't the word you're looking for - it's 'complicit'.

Most popular cop shows running now (like Law and Order) are pure fantasy, propaganda, and wishful thinking. They're made to present a much better version of reality because the real story would turn people's stomachs and lead to a level of unrest and distrust that would help no one in the short term, least of all the police.

And trying to make a show highlighting the dark side of policing would be close to impossible these days. Movie shooting relies a lot on the police for things like crowd and traffic control, and even for using real cops and equipment in some scenes. The police can make it very hard to continue effectively. It's the same story as with the Pentagon and military themed movies [0][1].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29835933

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22590378

Check out "We Own This City" on HBO now, a more modern view of "The Wire". Unfortunately the story is still wrapped in people getting caught and justice being served, but it's a start.

The Wire is a work of fiction. We Own This City is based on a non-fiction book about actual cops convicted for the crimes they committed. They both are set in Baltimore, the same producer is involved, and there are many actors appearing in both series, but the story lines have nothing to do with each other. So not sure about the "modern view".

"simply"

In principle, yes, xkcd brings up a valid point. And it's not entirely sound. The entire point of hacking is to not have to get your hands dirty, figuratively speaking, and to obtain far more opportunities for exploitation than what might be had by drugging and torturing someone. After all, one could physically beat a single password out of someone to and find that said password has no value, all while putting one's self at risk of being targeted for committing crimes against humanity. If a password obtained through hacking leads to nothing, it's entirely possible no one will ever know you had it or bother coming after you.

And in this particular subject, placing material on stolen physical media carries a greater risk of being traced back to you than if a purely digital exploit was taken advantage of. It comes with less plausible deniability and a greater risk of getting caught in the act IRL.

Honestly really good point. Comic is funny but I like that you're bringing a bit more sanity here.

It would be ""useful"" if the malicious government isn't the one with jurisdiction over the target. Put something on their computer that is illegal in the target's jurisdiction (obvious example: child porn), and "tip off" the relevant authorities.

xkcd is just a comic, not a tool for reasoning.

Sure, and memes are just cats.

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