More tips for people planning a felony on what *not* to do.

If you are planning a felony, consider your pacemaker might testify against you. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

As a public service to people planning a felony (but will never read my blog) and also for entertainment of people who would never commit a felony, I have accumulated a few stories of people who really messed up their escapade by not quite thinking things through.

Extra special tip for your planning consideration:  pay attention to the impact of technology.

Previous discussions:

Here are a few more tips on how not to commit a felony, or in one situation how not to commit fraud:

 

Tip #13

This item doesn’t involve criminal charges, but it sure does fit with the theme of these posts…

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Guy took some time away from basketball after college and playing pro on several teams in Europe. Wanted to join a team in Bosnia after his break.

The league requires a drug screening test. For reasons unknown, he used his girlfriend’s urine. Seems obvious to me that he wanted to hide something.

Urine test was clear for banned drugs.

However…

Continue reading “More tips for people planning a felony on what *not* to do.”

More tips for people planning a felony. Don’t do it.

This is not a wise strategy for addressing the judge who will preside over your criminal trial. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Previously mentioned several tips for people planning to commit a felony. For example, don’t take your location tracking fitbit with you while you carry out a contract assassination. Why? The location data will testify you were at the scene of the crime the very instant the crime was committed.

Some more helpful tips.

Tip #10

As you are preparing your case as you represent yourself and approach your first day of trial for threatening to kill someone and ignoring a restraining order, don’t sent a written death threat to the judge who is trying your case. Reported in Williston Herald on 2/25/19: Man accused of threats sends threatening letter to judge before first day of trial.

A man facing trial for terrorizing and violating a restraining order (class C felony and class A misdemeanor) for harassing a women is representing himself at trial. During the three hours that constituted the first day of trial, he did not question any jurors, did not make an opening statement, and only asked one question of one witness with said question obviously irrelevant to his case.

In the days before trial starting, the guy sent a letter to the judge saying that the judge is now on the list of people that the defendant will kill.

Continue reading “More tips for people planning a felony. Don’t do it.”

Friendly tip to people planning a felony: don’t do it. And if you still want to, you might want to avoid planning your escapade with the internet or your phone.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

If you are planning to do something that our society says is a felony, or even thinking about it, please don’t.

Please change your plans. You won’t like the result.

If you are still pondering something that our society says is a felony, or even thinking about it, you might want to avoid using electronic devices that record your planning. Definitely don’t use your phone in commission of the actual crime.

Here are a few examples of what not to do, for amusement of people who are inclined to read my blog.  People likely to go ahead with felonious plans probably are not in my audience.

 

Tip #1

Don’t take along your location recording fitness device while conducting reconnaissance to plan an assassination and definitely don’t take it along for the ‘hit’:  Runners World -1/17/19 – This Runner is a Hitman. His GPS Watch Tied Him to a Mob Boss Murder

A competitive distance runner who moon lighted as a contract hit man took along his fitbit watch as he conducted recon and planning runs for two different assassinations. Also wore it for one of the actual hits. Police looked at the recorded location information on the watch which showed him making recon runs and placed him at the scene of the hit.

Result: Life in prison.

 

Tip #2

Don’t conduct an internet search with questions of whether your plans are illegal: Cleveland.com – 10/19/18 – Brooklyn Woman falsely accused Parma Heights police chief of rape, investigators say.

Continue reading “Friendly tip to people planning a felony: don’t do it. And if you still want to, you might want to avoid planning your escapade with the internet or your phone.”

Update on the wide open frontier of technology – 12/21

Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com
Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

Lots of amazing things going on in the technology open frontier: military countermeasures to combat drones, registration requirement for small drones goes into effect today, and lots of federal agencies use cellphone spying technology.

12/14 – Space War – Venom could address UAV threat to ground forces

Continue reading “Update on the wide open frontier of technology – 12/21”

More good stuff on surveillance – 4/27

Here is my sixteenth list of good stuff on our surveillance society. A few articles of interest.

The depth, breadth, and speed of the surveillance continues to astound me.

4/21 – Schneier on Security – Hacker Detained by FBI after Tweeting about Airplane Software Vulnerabilities – Check out the speed of surveillance in this story.

While in the air from Denver to New York, a security researcher joked in a tweet about hacking specific airplane systems. When he landed, the FBI detained him for a 4 hour interrogation and confiscated his electronics.

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 4/27”

More good stuff on surveillance – 11/14

Here is my fifteenth list of good stuff on our surveillance society. A few articles of interest:

11/14 – Wall Street Journal – Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program – Devices on Planes that Mimic Cellphone Towers Used to Track Criminals, but Also Sift Through Thousands of Other Phones

The same technology used to identify and track terrorists in battle zones is being used on U.S. citizens. The Department of Justice in running a program through the US Marshall Service that puts a detector in a small plane and flies over an area.

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 11/14”

More good stuff on surveillance – 9/15

Haven’t mentioned any good stuff on our surveillance society for a few months. Here’s a few articles of interest:

Downside of technology (cross-posted from previous post

because it has significance on the surveillance society we are in)

9/6 – The Economist – The two towers – Junk science is putting innocent people in jail – Cell phone calls don’t necessarily go to the nearest tower.

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 9/15”

More good stuff on surveillance – 6/28

Here is my thirteenth list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a paragraph.

6/6 – Wired – Some Governments Have Backdoor Access to Listen in on Calls, Vodafone saysContinue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 6/28”

Here is an illustration of the damage caused by our government from the spying scandal: We can see the loopholes in corporate denials.

Those who have paid attention to the massive spying effort of the feds have learned how to parse corporate denials. Comments like We have never knowingly participated in program ‘AbuseOurCustomersTrust’, could mean one of three things:

  • The company didn’t know they were participating because they got bugged or hacked, so they really didn’t know until they read it in the newspaper like you did, or
  • The company knows the actual program was TellTheFedsEverythingYourCustomersEverSaid, therefore they really and truly didn’t participate in a completely different program called AbuseOurCustomersTrust, or
  • The company has no idea what name was used for the program for which they were a fully aware participant.

All of which means the company was telling the technical truth while fully cooperating with the specified program and saying they didn’t.

Shall we apply this parsing ability to a denial from the UPS about shipping packages to the NSA for hacking?

Background

Continue reading “Here is an illustration of the damage caused by our government from the spying scandal: We can see the loopholes in corporate denials.”

More good stuff on surveillance – 5/13

We are past the day-by-day dribble of compromised companies and products. The daily revelations of vaporized integrity have slowed to weekly or monthly. What is appearing now is a gradual realization that the companies running the tech we use every day just can’t be trusted, no matter what they say.

Here is my twelfth list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment.

3/31 – Schneier on Security – The Continuing Public/Private Surveillance Partnership– Public posturing by tech giants is merely that – posturing. The surveillance continues. There are 4 major sources of authority for the government surveillance.

When a federal player says a particular action isn’t taking place under a particular law, it is probably a true statement. How can that be?

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 5/13”

More good stuff on surveillance – 3-28-14

Here is my eleventh list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a paragraph. One new perspective is maybe we should fully embrace the surveillance society and push the boundaries out further. Hmm.

2/25 – Schneier on Security – Breaking Up the NSAContinue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 3-28-14”

More good stuff on surveillance – 2-20-14

Here is my tenth list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment.

Big brother

1-16 – Schneier on Security – Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA – Mr. Schneier visited for an hour with six Members of Congress. Apparently they haven’t been getting much information from the NSA (seems to me a fairly serious oversight/constitutional issue) and wanted some description from someone who has access to the Snowdon documents to explain what’s going on at the NSA (see previous parenthetical comment re: oversight failures).

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 2-20-14”

More good stuff on surveillance – 1-7-14

Here is my ninth list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment.

1-3 – The Atlantic – How the NSA Threatens National Security – Bruce Schneier points out the extreme level of compromised systems caused by the NSA spying fiasco is a serious threat to national security.

It is also breaking systems that we have spent decades building in America. It is breaking us financially and diplomatically. It is tearing down our political, legal, commercial, and technical systems. It is destroying trust in government, tech companies, and the internet itself.

As for the potential for abuse, here’s an experiment for you.

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 1-7-14”

More good stuff on surveillance – 12-23-13

Here is my eighth list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment.

  • Who do you trust? and
  • Lost sale for $4B worth of fighter jets

12-23 – Schneier on Security – NSA Spying: Who Do You Believe? – The worst damage from the NSA spying fiasco is the corrosion of trust. Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 12-23-13”

More good stuff on surveillance – 12-16-13

Here is my seventh list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment. Check out the new Christmas carol –

ACLU – The NSA is coming to town

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8pcWlyUu8U4]

and fictional illustration of the cascade effect in spying and also spying on the game world –  

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 12-16-13”