

"Freelance" Spies In NYC Are Publishing Private Conversations - pavel_lishin
http://gothamist.com/2015/05/24/pro_bono_nsa_agents_are_listening_t.php

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ominous
eerie. Reminds me of Snow Crash and its gargoyles, and the information market
[0] in the book:

 _Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are
adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing
background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in
visual light, infrared, millimeter-wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You
think they’re talking to you, but they’re actually poring over the credit
record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make
and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing
there measuring the length of Hiro’s cock through his trousers while they
pretend to make conversation._

edit: saw this [1] comment

[0]
[http://everything2.com/title/Central+Intelligence+Corporatio...](http://everything2.com/title/Central+Intelligence+Corporation)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9603605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9603605)

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onion2k
I've thought for a while that there's a potential opportunity in paying people
to sit in popular coffeeshops around business districts recording all the
sound on a laptop, and then using a few audio tools to separate out individual
conversations to mine for information about what businesses are doing. People
are often completely unaware of the value of things that they're discussing in
public.

~~~
MichaelGG
Or the info they have open while working on planes. And some of them are not
diligent on locking them if they have to go use the toilet. Not to mention
taking it up a notch by attaching a bug.

And why stop there? Listening with lasers is easy, even through windows,
right? Shouldn't be hard to rent a few places (or just covertly drop off
equipment) and monitor tons of offices. Of course this will probably be
prosecuted harderthan an unsympathetic crack dealer.

But the individual value of any one compromise is probably low. Unless there
was a marketplace where sellers and buyers could list what they have or want.
If it was popular enough, then the random "FooCorp: Baz proposal 2015.docx"
might be worth something. But that would probably get more heat than Silk
Road. And there's an even harder trust issue, since every item is different
and proving authenticity is difficult.

I do wonder how much corporate espionage goes on. Do all the big companies we
know have a secret division trying to illegally get info on competitors? Do
they send employees to go work at competitors to spy or sabotage? (Hey, we'll
promote you to VP of DB Engineering for a year, then go get poached by X and
convince them an XML-based storage engine is the hottest thing.) Or is it just
nation states stealing industrial info for their own companies and a few rogue
employees flipping for cash?

Even if you did work at Intel designing the next cool chip, it's not like you
can just call up AMD and offer to sell secrets... Right? I'd imagine buyers
would be super scared of something so potentially toxic being offered to them.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Or the info they have open while working on planes. And some of them are
> not diligent on locking them if they have to go use the toilet._

You'd have to have neighbors that are completely oblivious or asleep to just
grab someone's laptop and start working on it while they're in the bathroom.

~~~
jessaustin
I sleep through most of many of my flights, and I find my fellow travelers to
be oblivious to most things.

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bradleyjg
The should do this on the commuter trains. When the first lawyer gets
disbarred for failing to preserve client confidentiality, or the first
relationship breaks up because of a conversation published online, maybe the
norms around quiet on commuter trains will finally return to their pre-cell
phone state.

~~~
oh_sigh
A lot of train systems have dedicated quiet cars.

I'm not sure how old you are, but I don't think you are remembering properly
how loud trains were before cell phones. If anything, trains are quieter now,
because people aren't conversing all the time. Yes, some people have loud
conversations on the phone, and some people don't use headphones, but those
are relatively rare.

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jonnybgood
I don't think anyone who was being recorded will take this seriously unless
they can be directly identified.

~~~
Squarel
People tend to react strangely when they see a picture they did not know was
being taken, or hear a recording that they were not aware was being made, even
if completely innocent.

I think (from the latest uploads), Kevin would be easily able to identify his
friends, and that sort of recording can easily go viral with the whole
clickbait of "Asian-Americans making fun of a friend for not being Asian
enough"

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LLWM
OverheardInNewYork has been doing this for over a decade and a half, except
with transcripts instead of audio recordings.

~~~
cbd1984
And therefore less credibility/more plausible deniability.

"Lying on the Internet" is harder to pull off when the voice is recognizably
yours.

So far, anyway.

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white-flame
Do they actually use tiny tape recorders? Is the media smaller than the old
microcassettes? :-)

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gopher2
Haven't read the article yet but not at all surprised by the concept. This
seems like it was just a matter of time.

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/24/8652925/freelance-spies-
ns...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/24/8652925/freelance-spies-nsa-
recording-conversations-nyc), which points to this.

