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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

The real problem with the FBI's "Innocent Images" program is that too much of the FBI's resources are devoted to it. As of about 5 years ago, the FBI's "cyber security" operation was about 50% "national security" (much of which is trolling for wannabe terrorists), 40% child pornography (much of which is trolling for people who want child porn), and 10% online fraud. The first two are easy; FBI people can sit in their offices in Baltimore and do much of that. It brings up their numbers. Solving online crimes is really hard, involving tracking through multiple countries, and is likely to be unsuccessful.

This is why law enforcement shouldn't be allowed to set their own priorities. The institutional goals and the goals of the taxpayers who pay them don't match.

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Governance. Those who execute the law enforcement shouldn't define priorities, except for the daily basic investigation.

Does the FBI read HN? I don't think they realize how much they're missing out from not reading this feedback and actually giving it a few seconds worth of contemplation =/.

There's been substantial criticism of the FBI's terrorist entrapment efforts. Too often, they find out about someone mouthing off about "Death to America", and gear up a sting operation to encourage them to commit some act for which they can be convicted.[1] Most of them are wannabes, not real threats. The FBI director once said of the group convicted of planning to below up the Willits Tower in Chicago that their plans were "aspirational, not operational". In the case of the “Newburgh Four,” a judge said the government “came up with the crime, provided the means, and removed all relevant obstacles,” and had, in the process, made a terrorist out of a man “whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope.”

It's not entirely the FBI's fault. They're under heavy political pressure to stop every terrorist plot. Every time some nut actually does something, they get criticized for missing them.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/fbi-terrorism-sting...

I don't know if they read HN, but I remember from some leaks that they read and comment on 4chan.

Someone posted on 4chan claiming to be FBI, provided no proof, and only made predictions (some turned out wrong) and vague insights. Almost certainly not actually FBI, or at least certainly not anyone high up at FBI.

They know most of what they're doing is bullshit. They don't care. Just hand a guy a cell phone and tell him to dial a number to blow up a building. He dials it, nothing happens, FBI arrests him, sends him to jail for life. Repeat dozens of times and claim you've stopped dozens of terrorist attacks. This is the FBI today.

> much of which is trolling for wannabe terrorists

Forgive me for being pedantic, but it's "trawling." Trolling is another thing entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)

Although given the breadth of their fishing, I guess trawling (using a net) is more accurate than trolling (using a line).

Thank you, I learned something new. I do think trawling would be a better metaphor, but my correction is also wrong.

Trolling, the original meaning, makes sense too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)

Thank you, I learned something new.

Are you sure about that derivation?

I believe the polari version is more appropriate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(gay_slang)

The US Secret Service actively investigates online fraud. They have operations around the country investigating things like credit card fraud and identity theft. The most well known was Operation Firewall, although that happened back in 2004. They still run these operations, although it seems to be smaller scale since we haven't heard of such large busts in a while.

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