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Comment by mrangle | Hacker News Reader

"Hackers" want to publicly snitch on those with supposed "links" to financial crime and sanctions. Not convictions nor actual sanctions, but links. Like the same brand of hacker that is all in on bitcoin, anarchy, etc? Hackers are shaming agents in service of the State Department now? Sell us another one.

People should not be de-personed because a bank thinks that they are risky. The population, in general, needs to stop pretending that anonymous "hackers" are legitimate justice advocates instead of the likely state actors that they are. Unless they want anything of the sort to be co-opted and then utilized against them.

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These are KYC checks so the information is very interesting if you're the average joe.

the US Bank Secrecy act prohibits you from ever knowing the details of a SAR, or suspicious activity report. there are criminal punishments if a bank were to tell you a SAR had even been filed against you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_activity_report

if this agency does not capitulate to the demands of hackers, then 5.3 million people would suddenly know their SAR/KYC status. it would do quantifiable harm to the prosecution of financial crimes globally.

From your link:

> A 2020 Bank Policy Institute study found that American SARs elicited a response from law enforcement in a median of 4% of reports, and that a tiny subset of those responses resulted in arrest and conviction, suggesting that 90% to 95% of SARs reports were false positives of unlawful activity.[5]

Anecdotally, I've heard of many people having issues with this system.

I find the claim that "it would do quantifiable harm to the prosecution of financial crimes globally" technically true (it is quantifiable), but to be overall exaggerated as to its actual harm.

That's not surprising. There are plenty of suspicious things that aren't illegal. Moving $10k in cash around can often be legal, but could trigger a SAR. SARs aren't just supposed to catch illegal things. They catch suspicious things, and illegal things will be a small subset of those.

Is it just cash? I was doing some freelancing and as I invoiced each month, I'd often generate a cashier's check from my business checking account to my personal checking, that varied between 9-12K a month. I was "warned" by my credit union about this and that there could be flags raised, but my response was, "what am I meant to do? That number is derived from my consulting hourly rate and the work I put in each month."

No, I just picked one example, there are a lot of things that could trigger it

I believe the way to avoid SAR here is to file for an LLC, then create a business account, then pay yourself whatever wage via direct deposit for 1099/W-2/capital divestment payments. I'm not saying that you should have to do that, but I believe it's the best way to avoid SAR.

When you own a company, you can direct that company to pay you.

There are many names for the payments to owners, such as "dividend", "loan", "draw", etc. None of these payments are suspicious if both you and your business account for them properly.

You don't need to disguise payments to owners as wages or 1099s, but you're free to do so if for some reason it's advantageous. But don't do it just for the appearance of legitimacy.

There are some rules that kind of establish a minimum amount you need to pay yourself for your own labor (either W-2 or 1099), I don’t think you can take 100% as capital divestments, but otherwise yes totally agree with you. I meant paying yourself however is most advantageous for your earnings/tax/savings situation.

KYC checks have in the past resulted in me being unable to open a bank account due to a "discrepancy" between my SSN and my DOB (due to me being an immigrant).

The flip side of your comment is that 1 in 60 (including minors) people in the USA are on a watch list for financial crime.

I think more worrying as a society is not the risk to prosecution of financial crimes (this list being uncovered does not erase evidence of previous or current financial crimes in progress) is how those 1 in 60 people got to be on such a list in the first place.

That doesn't really sound like a lot, in the scheme of things. Almost 1 in 3 Americans (adults) have been arrested for a felony crime. (edit: have a criminal record)

> Almost 1 in 3 Americans (adults) have been arrested for a felony crime.

That one is absurd. How do your governments (on all spheres) keep up? Do they even know who is arrested?

They... keep records? It's not like they have to memorize it lol

The keep searchable records so that criminals get to see a judge when their sentence finishes?

Or they keep local records that nobody looks at or know if they are correct?

Because if it's the first one, kudos for whoever created that system. Plenty of countries fail with way less prisoners/inhabitant.

Every arrest is logged into a database run by the FBI, along with the data (ID, fingerprints, description, arrest records, etc.). I don't think all states/jurisdictions are part of the information sharing program, but the majority are at least, and some of that data is even shared internationally when people go through customs IIRC.

I think you’re misremembering that statistic. 1/3 of Americans have some form of criminal record, but not all crimes are felonies, anyone with a traffic ticket counts.

https://www.ncsl.org/civil-and-criminal-justice/criminal-rec...

The 1/3 number I'm citing counts arrests without convictions

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/aug/18/andrew-cuo...

But on a second reading of that page, I think you're right, "criminal record" is more accurate. My point is the same, either way -- it's a lot of people.

Most traffic violations are civil infractions, not criminal (unless there's many repetitions of the same CI to elevate it to a criminal charge, it's not going to be on a criminal record).

Yes and no, in the same way that Social Security is and is not an income tax. A minor speeding ticket does and doesn’t get added to your criminal record.

Wow, I found this hard to believe. I still couldn't find the figure of % arrested for a felony, but I found a reliable looking source that 8% of adults have been convicted of one in 2010, so I find it very believable now. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5996985/

that is false information

If I was incorrectly "linked" to some financial crimes I'd like to know about it. If others make decisions based on this data that affect me personally then I'd like to know about it. I have to pay to know about it. But any powerful/wealthy person who has done things that could get them on the list probably have the means to see the list for themselves.

Send a data access request (under GDPR if you are in the EU).

I did so a few years ago and found I’m on their shit list :)

I'd be wondering if sending the request was enough to get you on the list.

Hackers come in many different flavors. It's entirely possible that this group is state sponsored. Would that really change anything?

I don't see anyone seriously claiming that leaking this data would deliver any sort of legitimate justice.

My point was that it should change public support for their intended data release.

Because no one should be ok with the State anonymously doxxing uncharged targets, let alone people who are merely on lists as being known to have "links".

I assume that such an action would be to create both leverage and punishment, outside of what legal constraints would otherwise allow.

The nature of democracy is such that the government can't punish individual citizens via stealth practices, and the citizenry can't be ok with it.

Generally speaking, this type of thing would have been vetted by a journalist. Who would have acted as the final release valve, after verifying that the source was legitimate and not, for example, the government itself. While keeping the source confidential, and vetting the information for the ethics and justification for its release.

But today it would be foolish to trust most journalists with that process. And so the public are left with the judgement as to the possible motivations, identities, and probable legitimacy of the actions of anonymous sources who, for whatever reason, aren't first releasing to journalists. Backstops removed, such an action represents a lot of social risk and begs questions.

I'm confused, is this a restatement of "call the bad ones crackers not hackers" debates of a couple decades ago?

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