The Unfriendly Facebook Friend Request

It’s illegal for convicted felons to possess deadly weapons, including handguns.

Which means it isn’t a good idea for them to post photos onto Facebook that show off their Smith & Wesson, or accept friend requests without knowing the requester, given that undercover investigators are in the habit of friending suspects.

A Delaware court has decided, a felon who got caught with incriminating evidence of the aforementioned Smith & Wesson has no expectation of Fourth Amendment protection against the “mistaken trust” he placed when accepting that Facebook friend request.

A police detective, using a fake / sock puppet account sent a Facebook friend request to a convicted felon, and was able to see photos of firearms posted on this person's page. The officer was then able to obtain a search warrant, and sure enough they found all of the incriminating physical evidence that was shown in the photograph on Facebook. (Medium, June 26, 2018)
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If you receive a Facebook Friend Request from someone, ask yourself:

1. Do You Know the Requester or Have Any Friends in Common With Them?
2. Does the Request Come From a Person With a Very Limited Facebook History?
3. Is There Very Little Personal Content on Their Timeline?

One of the easiest ways to determine that a Facebook account is fake is by examining the photo. It’s often the case that fake accounts use a profile photo that they’ve downloaded from somewhere else online. Use a 'Google Image Search' to see if the photo appears elsewhere on-line.

H.R.6054 - Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018

A bill proposed in Congress would amend 18 USC by adding: ``Sec. 250. Interference with protected rights while in disguise ``(a) In General.--Whoever, whether or not acting under color of  law, while in disguise, including while wearing a mask, injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both.
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Chicago Police Release Video Amid Protests Over Officer-Involved Shooting

According to the Associated Press (July 16, 2018) "A man killed by Chicago police had a gun in a holster at his hip and was shot multiple times as he ran away, spun around and reached toward his waist, footage released Sunday from an officer's body-worn camera shows."

It's not fully clear why officers initially approached Augustus. On Saturday, patrol chief Fred Waller said officers patrolling on foot tried to question Augustus over a "bulge around his waistband" that suggested he was armed.

Protesters angry about the killing took to the streets Saturday in a city that's struggled with police shootings, especially against black men and other minorities. Some threw rocks and bottles at officers — including ones filled with urine — and police pulled people to the ground and hit them with batons."
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Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, but gun control laws don't prevent people who want carry firearms from doing so. This includes criminals who are carrying the gun to commit other crimes (i.e. armed robbery), but it also includes people whose only crime is carrying a gun in violation of some gun control law that prohibits them from doing so.

There is no question that the subject in this case was armed - his holstered firearm can clearly be seen in the video. He breaks free from officers, runs into the street, turns back toward the officers and reaches toward the firearm. - There can also be no real question as to whether the officers were justified in shooting the subject at that time.

 

Secure File Transfer

There are several options for sending a file to someone. These options range from simply sending the file as an attachment to an e-mail to using a file transfer service.

One advantage of using a file transfer service is that it takes the file that you are transferring out of the e-mail system (which may be logged and monitored) and moves it to a separate channel. Some options for transferring files that don't require registration (thus allowing for some degree of privacy) are:

PCloud Transfer - https://transfer.pcloud.com/

Firefox Send - https://send.firefox.com

Send Files Securely - https://www.sendfilessecurely.com/

While these services encrypt files being transferred, and delete them after they are downloaded or after a given period of time (i.e. 7 days) if they are not accessed, it is a best practice to encrypt all files prior to sending them through a file transfer system.

If you want to just send a message and not a file, consider using:

PrivNote - https://privnote.com/

One Time Secret - https://onetimesecret.com/

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Baltimore Cops 'Stopped Noticing Crime' After Freddie Gray Incident

USA Today (July 12, 2018) reported that "just before a wave of violence turned Baltimore into the nation’s deadliest big city, a curious thing happened to its police force: officers suddenly seemed to stop noticing crime. Police officers reported seeing fewer drug dealers on street corners. They encountered fewer people who had open arrest warrants. Police questioned fewer people on the street. They stopped fewer cars."

Baltimore police officers "stopped seeing crime" after facing harsh criticism — even from their own mayor — following the 2015 death of a man in their custody, Freddie Gray.

The Justice Department opened an investigation into Baltimore's police department at large and accused "Baltimore’s police of arresting thousands of people without a valid legal basis, using unjustified force and targeting black neighborhoods for unconstitutional stops."

Civil rights activists say they had hoped the DOJ's findings would encourage Baltimore's law enforcement officials to improve their policies... instead, fearful that they might be indicted for any wrong move, Baltimore's police force stopped moving at all.

“These guys aren’t stupid. They realize that if they do something wrong, they’re going to get their head bit off. There’s no feeling that anybody’s behind them anymore, and they’re not going to do it,” a retired officer told the paper.

The breakdown correlates with a rise in Baltimore's murder rate. Since Freddie Gray's death, Baltimore has become the nation's most dangerous city, and last year it set an all-time record with 342 homicides."
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There is no question that reports of misconduct within a police department need to be investigated, but one of the most toxic things a department can do is subject its personnel to long, drawn out, investigations in cases where allegations are questionable. When investigations become "witch hunts", this will almost certainly destroy the morale of the personnel within the department. When morale suffers, so too does performance on the street.

Police officers aren't perfect, and nobody should expect them to be. In most cases if officers make mistakes, those mistakes will be minor and something that can and should be handled at the supervisor level.

When a department allows investigations to become political, the officers in that department will stop doing their jobs, or leave the department for one with a less toxic environment.

 

 

iPhone USB Restricted Mode is Here

USB Restricted Mode is enabled by default once you install iOS 11.4.1. USB Restricted mode makes it more difficult for someone to brute-force their way into your device or make use of any other clever exploit, deployed via an iPhone or iPad’s Lightning port, to get past your device’s passcode.

USB Restricted Mode is designed to shut off access to data on an iPhone or iPad when new USB accessories are plugged into the Lightning port, as long as it's been more than an hour since you last unlocked your iPhone. The feature prevents people from using gadgets such as the GrayKey tool from accessing the phone's information.

The Russian computer security company Elcomsoft notes: "What we discovered is that iOS will reset the USB Restrictive Mode countdown timer even if one connects the iPhone to an untrusted USB accessory, one that has never been paired to the iPhone before (well, in fact the accessories do not require pairing at all). In other words, once the police officer seizes an iPhone, he or she would need to immediately connect that iPhone to a compatible USB accessory to prevent USB Restricted Mode lock after one hour. Importantly, this only helps if the iPhone has still not entered USB Restricted Mode."

So if someone who wanted access to the data on your phone, be they law enforcement officers or hackers, obtained your device within the hour, they could keep access open by continuously plugging in an accessory and resetting the clock.

In the settings menu under 'Touch ID & Passcode' scroll down and to the 'Allow Access When Locked" menu and be sure that USB Accessories is NOT highlighted (as shown above). You do not want USB Accessories to access your iPhone when it is locked.

As noted by Elcomsoft, if someone can plug a USB device into your phone before it goes into restricted mode, it will be possible to keep resetting the one hour timer. And, of course, if someone gets your passcode he or she could just access your phone and disable the USB Restricted mode.

If you think you might be in a position where an adversary could gain physical control of your phone - turn it off. iPhone requires your passphrase after restarting.

The Police Are Following You - They Can Digitally Stop and Search You

Privacy International (July 13, 2018) wrote "How would you feel if you were fingerprinted by the police before you were allowed to take part in a peaceful public demonstration?

As tens of thousands of people attend massive public demonstrations across the UK today against US President Donald Trump in a ‘Carnival of Resistance’, it’s a question worth asking. Why? Because the police now deploy a range of highly sophisticated surveillance tools at public events which are just as if not more intrusive. And these technologies should be even more alarming than being fingerprinted, because at least you would know if you were being fingerprinted - the surveillance technologies the police now use are largely invisible and imperceptible.

We want the police’s use of these technologies to be properly regulated so that people can peacefully demonstrate without being inappropriately spied on."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published as part of their Surveillance Self-Defense Guide, tips for activists and protesters to protect their communications.
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I strongly support local law enforcement, and I believe that in almost all cases the cops are the good guys. Police officers in your town, the Sheriff's deputies in your county, have a difficult job safeguarding and protecting our communities against burglars, muggers, thieves, and the like. We ask the police to protect our communities and they need to have the tools needed to do that job.

The problem we face is that police use mass surveillance, data collection, and retention of data on large groups of people (such as political activists) in the hope of finding a bad guy, instead of investigating specific individuals suspected of a crime, or in too many cases in the hope of disrupting political protest and lawful dissent.