Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

An M-66 is a perfectly legal firecracker sold in all states where firecrackers are legal, and purchased by what is probably millions of people over the years.

http://www.fireworksforever.com/products-page/firecracker/m-...

Only $11.59 for a box of 36.

The author of this inane hit piece Declan McCullagh, gives his title as "Chief Political Correspondent" at CNET, and an employee of CBS. He posts that Ms. Catalano posted "photos of explosives."

Are M-66 explosives? Yep. Firecrackers are in fact explosives. They are also legal to purchase, possess, and light.

How is posting a stock photo of these firecrackers to your Facebook feed on July 4th relevant to anything at all? CNET Chief Political Correspondent Declan McCullagh certainly is implying that posting such a stock photo gives the JTTF, whose members are generally coordinated under and paid by the FBI, the right to search your house and ask questions about pressure cookers which you happen to have recently done a google search for. Why does CNET Chief Political Correspondent Declan McCullagh believe this is justified or that anyone would consider posting a stock photo of firecrackers on the 4th of July to be something anyone would reasonably expect should lead to an armed house search and interrogation by JTTF members?

What does this stock firecracker photo posted on July 4th have to do with JTTF agents searching this couple's house and asking them specific questions about whether they owned a pressure cooker?

Jesus. He's not saying the visit was a good idea. In fact, he's said the opposite. Character assassination is bad enough, but to do it for absolutely no reason at all?

The fact is that you have absolutely no idea what happened, or even what some of the words in your comment (like "JTTF") actually mean. But you've got strong opinions and a lot of outrage. Because you're an outrage tourist. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be angrier to find out that the FBI HADN'T been dragnetting Google.

He's also saying the fireworks were the reason the police visited. Which seems unlikely.

That's just one public post he found. There may be others. Overall, the theory that overzealous local police are monitoring local citizens' social media posts is much more plausible than what's been reported.

Remember that most Google searches are encrypted these days, plus it would be profoundly stupid for the NSA/FBI to reveal a program targeting citizens by rolling trucks to their doors at the mere mention of "pressure cooker backpack".

Seems significantly more likely than what was claimed in the original story:

1. The NSA using monitoring technology against civilians in the country, against their charter. 2. County sheriffs deputies who are members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force obtaining this classified information from the NSA 3. Aforementioned county sheriffs accidentally divulging said classified data

I'd listen to an argument that points 1 or 3 occurred. Point 2? Way more likely that somebody read facebook than interagency communication of classified data from a classified program to a local law enforcement officer with no security clearance.

We don't even know that the police looked at the page; for all we know, someone called this in to the police.

Hey, guess what? Someone called this into the police. I'm shocked.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6144198

Absolutely stunning that Occam's Razor won out.

Occam's Razor is pre-Snowden thinking. Like 9/11, Snowden changed everything.

tptacek, when you have a moment please answer the questions I asked you an hour ago here, addressing a number of falsehoods you have been claiming about this incident:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6142909

Of course you already saw that some time ago and chose not to answer, but that post does show that you are aware that I know exactly what the JTTF is, contrary to the bald faced and audacious lies you have just stated.

Why, so you can find more ways to call me names too?

"JTTF" does not not necessarily mean what you think it means; and in fact the interpretation you've used has probably already been shot down; David Gomez says LEOs involved in FBI-managed JTTFs all have federal credentials. But of course you knew that, right?

I'm not sure what you mean by this exactly. What does "federal credentials" mean?

JTTFs are manned by both federal and local LEOs. The Chicago JTTF, for example, absolutely includes detectives from both Chicago Police Department and Cook County Sheriff's Police.

According to Gomez, as I understood him, when they're doing federal JTTF work, they display federal JTTF credentials. But he also said the term has lost meaning; it's used as a catch-all for specialized teams of any sort doing CT work.

I see. I've not seen authoritative JTTF credentials, or if I did I didn't look at it closely. I have seen a JTTF badge printed on an LEO business card, but I hadn't actually considered that there might actually be a legit JTTF shield!

How ironic.

I would say that labeling someone who posted factual evidence that M-66 explosives are in fact legal and relatively ordinary recreational fireworks as an "outrage tourist" is a beautiful example of character assassination. Far more so than merely alluding to the title of a self-identified media correspondent who goes on to make a defense that the photos are public and that law enforcement can access them, while de-emphasizing/distracting from the fact that neither google searches for pressure cookers nor facebook photos of fireworks merit a law enforcement visit. Verbatim from declan's G+ post "Having curious local cops ask you questions about your public photos of explosives is not [a big story]."

If one or the other is potentially happening, then there is a cause for concern that at least justifies a personal article on medium by Catalano. Had law enforcement actually revealed to Catalano, that hey, we're visiting you because you posted fireworks on your facebook, then she probably wouldn't have written that article. However, being investigated in a Kafkaesque manner, where you have little idea what your original crime could have been since you are a law-abiding citizen (searching for pressure cookers or posting fireworks photos on facebook is pretty innocuous behavior) might lead to legitimate speculation on the methods of law enforcement.

EDIT: None of this is to say that mass media isn't overly eager to report stories without enough support, and kudos to declan's investigative skills and intent, but I do think that drawing conclusions based on contrarianism and real character assassination of someone who added legitimate facts to the discussion isn't very productive.

Character assassination is bad enough, but to do it for absolutely no reason at all? [..] you're an outrage tourist.

Uhhh. Was that just to bury the very valid and very simple question at the end of the post, or for no reason at all?

What valid and simple question? Which of the premises of that question are reliable at this point? For instance, what does "JTTF agent" even mean?

What does this stock firecracker photo posted on July 4th have to do with [..] agents searching this couple's house and asking them specific questions about whether they owned a pressure cooker?

It is reliable that some people searched the house and asked that, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JTTF

"JTTF agents" in this case would be FBI agents part of a JTTF I guess. As a tip, if someone uses bigger words than necessary, simply replace them mentally and see if there's still something there.

51% of Wikipedians might believe they know who knocked on these people's door, but we happen to know in this case that it was the Suffolk County PD.

and now we even know why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6144198

The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.”

So it wasn't Google, but it was because of searching for pressure cookers; it wasn't posting images of firecrackers on facebook, but it was a tip-off based on (private) surveillance.

Sheesh, this is one of the most inane comments I've ever read on HN (which says something). My post wasn't a defense of the cops. I never said the visit was justified.

If anything, as I wrote, it makes the cops look even more dumb. And if I'm a cop who's told by my supervisor to ask some guy about a bomb, and we have a 45-minute discussion, in the wake of the Boston bombing I definitely will ask about pressure cookers. This is how the real world works outside of HN, folks.

Declan,

I have a question for you, and maybe a suggestion for an article.

Around 2005/2006 I believe you published this article suggesting that cell phones could be remotely monitored. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html

I think that article took on a life of its own, perhaps (?) beyond what you had intended, and since then has been the source of many articles saying the Feds could remotely turn on any cell phone at any time.

I once spent an afternoon reading various articles and they all used your article as their sole source.

I also think that folks suggested it wasn't any cell phone, but a particular few phones that could be reprogrammed, or that never really turned off, perhaps on a specific few carriers. (And there was some speculation that it wasn't even the phone, but a bugged phone battery.)

I haven't read anything further since 2006 about the Fed's ability to turn on cell phone mics when the phone is off, so I was wondering if you could do a follow up.

    1. Have you heard anything further on this?
    2. Did your article (inadvertently) create 
       unfounded rumors/conspiracy?
    3. Do you think that Android phones, mostly open 
       sourced with a few proprietary drivers, or 
       iPhones could be susceptible to this?
    4. If so, how might you answer the question of how 
       are all those employees at all those companies,
       Apple, Google, Verizon, ... being kept unaware, 
       or being kept silent?

For the most part, I had dismissed (no offense) the claims because no one else seemed to cite any other article (that didn't lead back to yours).

But recently, Dana Priest at the WaPo made a claim that:

By September 2004, a new NSA technique enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC troops called this “The Find,” and it gave them thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq, according to members of the unit. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-gr...)

Which made me rethink my dismissal.

Still, I haven't seen anything other than your piece and Dana Priest's piece suggesting anyone has this capability.

I'd love to read a follow up.

I'm working on an unrelated piece this evening, so briefly: I don't know if my 2006 article fueled conspiracies. I assume that Glenn's pieces on the NSA for the Guardian moved the needle far more in that direction, but nevertheless they're good pieces that should have been written (even if I quibble with his presentation).

I cast around for a followup a year or so after the original article ran but didn't have enough to warrant a second story. In terms of remote activation of microphone, that also could be done with malware without any company's participation, which is what today's WSJ piece suggests. Re: the WashPost piece, I saw it too. I speculated via Twitter at the time that it could be referring to last cell tower pinged.

Thanks for the response.

I just now read the WSJ article and while I am probably wrong to feel this way, I am a bit happier they need to get me to load malware on my phone, rather than the spooky action at a distance, reach out and touch someone approach suggested in 2005.

Priest's article is vague enough that last cell tower pinged may be what she was getting at, but the context, IIRC, was that the Army could determine down to a few feet where people were. Well, yes, maybe that's just cell tower triangulation and having a quick response.

Oh well, perhaps we'll know before the black helicopters arrive over the city. :(

An M-66 is a perfectly legal firecracker sold in all states where firecrackers are legal

That is as irrelevant as saying, "An M-66 is an illegal firecracker, banned in all states where firecrackers are illegal." Are they legal in the state where Catalano resides? Even if they are, it only takes a nosy neighbor to make a phone call about explosives to generate an overboard police response.

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