
Don't Use These Lame Acronyms If You Don't Want to Get Nabbed by the Feds - Sami_Lehtinen
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-02/to-nab-traders-prosecutors-hit-ctrl-f-for-suspicious-acronyms
======
unoti
Whenever you write an email, you should envision how it'll read as evidence in
a court transcript. Envision a jury reading over your shoulder. That's
essentially what will happen if there's a preservation order and a court case.

This is just one of tons of reasons why email is overused. Live, interactive,
two-way conversations are better for most things. Making better use of
interactive conversations does require some planning and discipline, to keep a
list of what you need to discuss sorted by person. But the benefits of that
practice are numerous, and increased privacy and plausible deniability is a
comparatively minor benefit.

A few reasons to prefer interactive discussion to email:

\- plausible deniability and increased security

\- reduced chance of misunderstanding

\- less time spent and potentially wasted carefully crafting the perfect
message, because you can monitor your recipients reactions in real time and
dynamically alter your delivery depending on which parts are immediately
understood and agreed upon

\- collaborate on the ideas interactively and rapidly, rather than a simple
one way transfer

Email is good for some things, but it's seriously overused.

~~~
protomyth
I had this illustrated to me early in my career in a mostly harmless way.

I worked on an early-childhood / social work combo grant program as a "Data
Consultant"[1]. We were in a building that had celebrated its 100th year, and
it had one bathroom. The nurse had accused the males of "poor aiming". In a
memo about fairly normal stuff, I included a paragraph in my status rebuking
this claim and pointing out we have young children using the bathroom who
might not be quite up to our level. I also pointed out this would be something
that the early childhood people might need to work on with the children. I am
pretty sure every word of it was viewable by a nun since we had one on staff.
I was a very sarcastic person and not a bad writer of tales at the time.

About two weeks later, I got a call from the assistant project officer
inquiring about this bit of information. He also informed me all of our
correspondence internal to the program was reviewed by the project office in
DC and a section of my memo was "well reviewed" in said office. Given the data
requirements, I am pretty sure there is a box in a warehouse with this memo in
it.

Since then, I write e-mails and memos like they will be reviewed.

1) It was a research grant and they needed help with data reporting and I sure
as heck didn't come up with that title.

------
Todd
"They use terms to find evidence of whether someone is trying to hide their
activities because _evidence of a cover-up is frequently more potent than the
evidence of the alleged crime_ "

Each of these steps towards a surveillance state would be easier to stomach if
the path weren't so clearly identified in 20th century fiction.

~~~
codyb
This doesn't really sound like the surveillance state to me. This is
regulators combing through the e-mails of the people they regulate who control
vast swathes of the United States and global economies.

And unless you want to bug every single person's office which sounds a lot
more like a surveillance state to me, I don't particularly think looking at
the activities of people who are taking things offline is particularly
egregious.

The funny thing is, if the people just discussed it by e-mail, they might get
away if no one ctrl-f's for their terms! Ha!

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
When investigators are sifting through e-mails they have already executed a
search warrant* to get them in the first place so there is established
probable cause to investigate further leads based on suspicious contents. This
isn't government overreach in any way.

* Assuming the Judiciary is doing its job properly and not just rubber stamping everything and that investigators would never lie to a judge.

------
current_call
_“Taking a conversation offline provides evidence of intent because if you’re
trying to cover your tracks, you probably know what you’re doing is wrong,”_

I can't tell if this is big business trying to make investigating white collar
crimes harder or the federal government trying to drum up support for mass
surveillance. I'm leaning towards the former based on where the article is.

~~~
mhurron
Why can't it be both? It's not like they're going to use one type of
investigative procedure on one group and not on another.

------
linkregister
This article is a waste of space. Clearly if your work emails are being
subpoenaed by a federal investigator, you're already under suspicion (the
article is talking about federal insider trading investigations). All this
means is that if you refer to an out-of-band conversation, then they will look
there.

~~~
spudlyo
I disliked this article as well. Saying 'Ctrl-f' instead of 'search' irks me,
it's unprofessional, and furthermore we all know Ctrl-f is forward-char.

~~~
qrendel
Seems mostly like a reflection on Bloomberg's target demographic - those who
will think ctrl-f is fancy tech stuff.

------
dogma1138
What's exactly the case here? The Feds won't grab anyone who's PMing some one
on Facebook "I'll call you" or "Lets talk on the phone".

This is a very specific case where Traders (that either were under suspicion
directly or indirectly through suspicious dealing on an investment firm) were
intentionally communicating with each other using office provided
communications and constantly asking to go offline or to talk through other
means.

This is nothing more than any other pattern one would find out through
exploring any other media, for example one of the ways LEO's find illegal
activity usually drug related is when by identifying numbers that only receive
or make very short calls, this activity is then usually correlated with
creating social networks of the phone numbers and what in many cases you get
is a binary relationship with phones being used only to receive or make calls.

While this might sound suspicious to you, or just interesting after
investigating how those criminal networks work through actual investigations
criminologists identified this pattern as direct correlation to illegal
activity which can be used as supporting evidence to get a wiretap or a search
warrant.

There are a metric ton of various behavior patterns that might be suspicious
and are usually related to some sort of a "illicit" activity if you are
looking at some one who's leaking information and you have a GPS location on
your suspects then some one who's driving every 3rd week out to the middle of
no where might be your prime suspect, now he can be stargazing, he can be
cheating on his wife, or he can be meeting with a contact or making a dead
drop.

------
x3n0ph3n3
I usually defer to a different mode of communication when it's more convenient
or appropriate to the discussion. Instead of trying to type a novel to explain
something, I'd prefer to engage in a conversation in order to identify parts
of the topic that can be skipped. This usually reduces the time cost to
communication.

~~~
Todd
Well, if you cross paths with this new breed of prosecutor, it will be
incumbent upon you to prove your innocence. It appears that they no longer
need evidence of a crime, just perceived _intent_. This may be starting in the
financial services industry, but it will obviously spread to become a
pervasive "best practice" in the future. Couple this with machine learning and
the tone of your conversation may eventually be sufficient "proof" of intent.

~~~
codyb
Did you read the article Todd?

And I quote: "Simply highlighting suggestive phrases isn’t enough, of course."

If someone starts talking about Jihad, you can't charge them with a crime, but
they're probably the person you want to look into when it comes to
investigating terrorism. It's the same vein.

Why would you expect prosecutors to look blindly?

~~~
Todd
Yes, I did read the article. You make a valid point. The context is important.
My point was that they are suggesting that these phrases are indicators of
guilt. It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see how this
can be applied across all communications channels, and used as indicators of
intent, such that they are eventually used prior to having a warrant and,
indeed, used as sufficient "evidence" to secure a warrant.

These types of things help establish precedents. Once their utility is
demonstrated, and tools developed to make the technique more effective, they
will begin to be deployed elsewhere.

------
jkot
This is just insane. Email communication is completely open, it is like
writing on the postcard.

------
lordnacho
The lines on a trading desk are recorded anyway for regulatory reasons. All
this is doing is telling the authorities when it might be a good idea to pull
those records.

~~~
mbrownnyc
Sell side, not buy side.

~~~
Hansi
Maybe a few years ago but I work buy side and my phone is recorded 24/7.

------
PhantomGremlin
Anyone conspiring to commit criminal acts should remember what Martin Lomasney
said[1] about 100 years ago about the importance of discretion:

    
    
       Never write if you can speak;
       never speak if you can nod;
       never nod if you can wink.
    

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Lomasney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Lomasney)

------
task_queue
Privacy implies guilt. Otherwise, you'd have nothing to hide.

~~~
dogma1138
This isn't "privacy" this is a pattern if a trader communicated with 50 other
traders but only asks 2 others to go offline every time they talk and they do
the same that's an artifact that anyone with half a brain would think is worth
looking into while investigating financial misconduct.

------
totony
And then you think you're clever and use "call my CP" (for cell phone) and the
feds come confiscate all of your hard drives

------
rietta
Wow, so asking for a PGP key or asking if they have TextSecure on their phone
must be REALLY bad!

~~~
mhuffman
What are you trying to encrypt citizen? If you have nothing to hide you have
nothing to worry about!

------
paste0x78
BRB TTYL LOL

~~~
rietta
"We're still on for dinner on Thursday, right?"

Some things are better said in person...

------
kctess5
Why not use PGP?

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Because the average person has no idea how to use it?

Because _both parties_ have to have it set up for it to work?

Because setting it up _wrong_ will grant you no protection?

Because it just encrypts the communications in transit but when you're already
under suspicion they can grab your computer, which has the unencrypted files
on it?

Because in a setting like this (trader's work computers) you're often not even
allowed to install _any_ software?

------
mamon
When I was a child I loved USA, thought it was great country, and dreamed of
visiting it one day. Now, when I'm grown up and finally I can afford
intercontinental travel I am seriously afraid to even enter USA. I might be
arrested for no reason, or have my cash forfeitured, also for no reason... I
think that few remaining free countries in the world are Switzerland,
Singapore, Australia, and maybe Hong Kong

~~~
tome
Citing Singapore and Hong Kong just make you sound a bit silly.

