As another former investment banker, and current NCA Investigator, and - for what it's worth - Cambridge graduate, I can tell you your description of the relative competencies of the good guys and bad guys is just elitist crap.
Well, I mean you didn't provide /any/ examples, you stated something false.
My point was more that this "battle of wits" cops vs robbers narrative is just Hollywood nonsense.
Do you feel the same about MI6/GCHQ (organisations staffed to a large degree by Cambridge grads) vs ISIS (an organisation staffed mainly by idiots and conspiracy theorists)?
Clearly the two sides are not playing the same game, and any disparity in ability will be completely overwhelmed by structural differences in their respective challenges.
The uninformed opinion you're spreading is damaging because it implicitly implies that these crimes wouldn't happen if only our cops were a bit brighter.
If only they were as clever as those City boys! Too bad old chap, better luck next time, all's fair in love and war etc etc.
I seem to have touched a nerve, but I'm quite simply explaining what I've seen. I believe it to be true, much like you believe your version to be true. Without giving names, it's hard for me to prove my point unequivocally, so I'm afraid that's where I'll have to leave it.
But it's not just cops. It's also internal compliance. The truth is money attracts people. A front office person offered 40% more starting salary than compliance will attract the top performing grads. Lower paying jobs will get second pick (barring exceptions where people are committed to a career due to passion, regardless of payoff).
I was gonna guess BB, things are more fast-paced and everyone's wrapped up tight that it's a bit harder to get the time to set those kinds of deals up (but it's not unheard of ;). As for HFT, I assume you were more systematic than discretionary (like our OG), and that would lend itself to not having the leeway needed to carry anything like that out.
Chriky is confused because "percentile" has a specific meaning, and "below the 99th percentile" means everyone except the top 1%. The GP meant to say "lower than 99%", which is the 1st percentile.
That's kind of like saying taking a pay cut or working part time is tax avoidance. "Normal people" can also avoid taxes by giving their income to charity if they want.
From reading your posts it seems like you jumped to a conclusion without understanding the situation.
Except that I never said taking a pay cut or working part time were tax avoidance. Also, normal people don't usually set up tax-exempt foundations that hire them as "board members" to "give their money away".
In the US, there's the long-standing SOS program:[0]
> The unit of the DEA that distributes the information [from NSA] is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.
> "Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD’s involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD."
Which is aka "parallel construction".
Also, there's a great history of SOD online at the DEA Museum.[1]
The latest FISA law made FISA spying admissible in court. The FBI (and IRS, and SEC, and DHS, and other agencies) only needs to get a warrant after already seeing the data, at which point I'm not even sure what the purpose of the warrant is. The Fourth Amendment warrant was supposed to stop fishing expeditions.
Because Law Enforcement generally behaves like people, and (like people), often take cognitive short-cuts when making certain assessments. In this case, the short-cut would be to assume that the individual has to be a criminal, and act as such.
Now, there are step that you can take to reduce these assumptions, but those are steps outside of the program, and would have to be introduced in tandem with the introduction of the program. Unfortunately, policy-makers often assume that any single idea that is funded (i.e. buying a predictive model from Palantir) is a comprehensive solution to the problem (often encouraged by the sales reps peddling whatever the 'solution' is) and fail to recognize that other programs will have to be funded alongside in order to deploy the program effectively.
If the software says Bob probably did it, Johnny Law will assume Bob did it and stop looking elsewhere, precisely because Johnny Law wants to close the case. Throw an overzealous DA in the mix, and it sucks to be Bob.
That's just not how it works. Eventually you have to present actual evidence in an actual court and it won't be "this software you never heard of said so".
Nothing, if they have a warrant (or equivalent legal authorization).
But the reason most of us care about having our data encrypted is not actually because we are committing heinous felonies, and want our phones to hide the evidence from legitimate cops (though of course sometimes that’s the case).
It’s because we don’t trust the authorities to follow the law. If they can crack your phone legally, they can also crack it illegally. (Say, after seizing it within 100 miles of the border, which they can do any time they please for whatever reason (including no real reason)).
So even though this ability isn’t necessarily illegal in and of itself, it’s certainly of interest to those of us who are concerned about the threat vectors that are presented by government forces that do engage in illegal practices.
It's my personal belief that this line of thinking, which is common among "geeky" types but not among the general population, is a form of slight delusion or power fantasy.
Is there anything you can provide to convince me it's remotely possible?
you use illegal methods to get X without a warrant. but you can't use that information legally. so you use your knowledge of X to find a legal way of learning X, after the fact.
then you go to the courts saying you found X the legal way.
I understand the theory thanks, I'm just disputing that this scenario is anything other than exceptionally rare. Parallel construction is used to protect sensitive sources, not cover up illegality.
It seems utterly nuts to me that someone could sleep at work as a reasonable alternative to drinking coffee. Most jobs and workplaces are just not at all set up to sleep during the working day.
It’s utterly nuts that someone who is tired is still expected to keep “working” without naps. Huge waste of human performance, unless the work is absolutely time-critical (like a legal brief due by the end of the day, or a medical patient who needs urgent care, or some debugging after the whole site just went down).
For most e.g. programming work (deliverable changes due in a week, or a month, or a quarter), it’s more effective to work only a fraction as much time but all of it in a mentally sharp state, rather than to soldier through while exhausted.
Have you tried an espresso nap? It works great. Drink an espresso when you're feeling tired and go to sleep straight away. 15 mins later you'll be awake and alert but also rested.
I was always surprised when I found myself suddenly so sleepy after a shot of espresso in the afternoon. It was nice to find that there's science backing it up.
Woah, thanks for this. I knew the trick, but I always assumed it was just about sleeping until the caffeine blocked out adenosine so you woke up not-tired. Interesting to see there's a deeper mechanism in play.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "not at all set up to sleep during the working day", but I assume you mean that it would be difficult to find a comfortable place to sleep.
At a place I worked at previously, I asked if they had any quiet rooms that would be good to take a nap in. They gave me a key to the lactation room, which was quiet, dark, and great for taking a nap. As far as I can tell I was the only person to use that room when I worked there. And I believe the rooms are required by law for workplaces with a certain number of employees in the US. (If anyone who was nursing wanted to use the room, I'd gladly leave, though as I said, the room seemed to be unused.)
At another place I worked at, I'd often take a nap after lunch in the library. The location was not ideal due to noise, but it was acceptable most of the time.
Right now I'm in grad school, and I moved a small sofa chair that was being surplussed into my office. Works great, and I'm not the only person to use it for taking a nap.
Taking naps at your desk might be okay. For me, it hurts my neck.
Earplugs may be necessary, particularly if you work in an open office. I probably would not be able to fall asleep so easily in an open office. But you can ask around to see if there are any private rooms you can use.
I have worked at several companies of varying sizes, and have never seen a lactation room. They're certainly not required by law.
I can also say the only place that would have been amenable to workers taking naps was an academic lab that I worked in during a couple years following my time at school. Have you worked in the private sector much?
"I wouldn't even consider a job that wouldn't let me nap" is not a realistic attitude for basically anyone to have outside of a lucky few in tech.
I'll keep in mind that this won't be possible everywhere. So far no boss I've had cared that I took naps as long as I put my time in and was productive. I have never counted naps as work, just a break. Asking was not a career ending move in my experience so far, so I know what to do when interviewing. So far I have argued that taking a nap makes me more productive, with good results.
Additionally, when I worked at a federal government lab, I'd regularly take a nap in the library during my lunch hour right after eating. I can't see how any manager could argue against that. I've read of people in private companies doing the same in their cars.
In countries like Vietnam it is customary for employees to have their own mat and nap for half an hour under their desks after lunch, even at bank offices. It helps that in these countries people are used to sleeping in crowded conditions, noise and light no issue (and being pretty trim too).
I don't sleep at work and I don't take naps. Oddly, if I take caffeine, I get very tired and would probably want a nap. If someone at work took a nap, nobody would care as long as it was a shortish one, no meetings were missed, and the individual usually gets their work done. If someone was coming in and sleeping all day, I'm sure that would be a problem.
I take naps _and_ drink coffee. We have a few "quiet rooms" here which are equipped with a bed-like large sofa, pillows, and blankets. I think one has a massage chair, too. You go in there, turn on the "occupied" light, and can rest for a while. Sometimes it's tough to find a free nap room around lunchtime, but they are really nice when you manage to get a spot.
I don't understand your use of "monitor" here. Banks by their very nature "monitor" your financial details, what else are they going to be doing?
Swiss banks will routinely refuse to honour legal requests for information from international law enforcement, e.g from 3rd world countries investigating their own corrupt politicians.
