clandestine service. Basically this is how it is... you look in a magazine, see all the police's new kit, go around criminal circles, and find the very same kit being used by undercover officers. Not too tech
This points to a larger sort of logic; I've been discussing it a lot of late. We think of surveillance and data gathering broadly as a categorical negative. It is really negative, but there is a flipside here and the point you make gets at the heart of it.
A few years ago there were a lot of articles about the "CSI Effect," in which shows like CSI set unrealistic expectations for juries when it came to things like DNA evidence. Shows like that want to depict a very clean and flawless approach to presenting a case which may not be realistic. Juries may well demand the standards of evidence set by these shows, which may not serve the cause of criminal justice very well.
As more and more court cases will rely on data tracks -- cell phone location pings, ATM transactions, and so forth -- an outlaw would do well to specifically tweak his practice to take into account the increasing reliance on these things (and the expectation of juries that this information is likely to be made available during a trial), and specifically operate in such a manner as to create no such track: that is to say, traveling without a cell phone at all. Using cash.
It is odd at my age that I should be thinking of this at all: I lead a very boring and unremarkable life, staying mostly within the law save the things everyone does from time to time (speeding, etc.)
Your post is interesting because it suggests that a lot of the tech used by local law enforcement may be public knowledge if one only knows where to look. I am interested in cataloging where one could obtain this kind of intelligence (you mention that magazine), but I am also interested in praxis, or, whether or not one can reconfigure a life to be inconvenient to a surveillance-obsessed society as a matter of day-to-day habit whether or not one has any inclination to ever actually break the law.
(A side note: if we make the assumption that we are being surveilled any time police are around, saying as little as possible, or possibly nothing - old advice from most lawyers - seems particularly resonant).
I enjoy the discounts one can get using loyalty cards at supermarkets, for instance. But I know that you can get one in any name you like, and if you pair this with cash, there's no way an automated search on your name through purchase data will know you were ever there at the supermarket that day. This is just one example. I am just trying to go through my typical day and wondering how to minimize the tracks I leave behind.
The most difficult thing of all are institutional security cameras which unlike the situation you mention (undercover police) are much more likely to be encountered. If you've ever been bored in a Walmart and just looked up, staring blankly at the ceiling, you'll see they're all over the place. Some years ago I wanted to see how it was possible to register a domain name and purchase hosting anonymously. There are a lot of dodgy registrars with language like, "Your real name is absolutely required. SERIOUSLY DON'T LIE HERE," with no further check, to cover their butts. Likewise, hosting - in this case a virtual machine, can be purchased anonymously, with the weak link for both being electronic payments.
Bitcoin is not anonymous; I have read that Monero is, but a lot of exchanges won't deal with Monero for this reason so you have to buy Bitcoin and exchange it for Monero somewhere. But at the time I did this I am not sure Monero even existed.
What I did was I found a small-town CVS, and a now-defunct company allowed funds transfers via phone, via this service CVS offered. So I walked in with cash, paid the cash to the CVS employee, got the CVS employee to do the transfer to the exchange, and then I had Bitcoin. The VPS provider and the domain registrar each took Bitcoin, which by virtue of having been bought with cash, couldn't be traced back to me (they could get as far as the exchange, who would probably indicate it originated at a CVS, but at that point it was cash, and no ID presented.)
The weak spot here were the damn security cameras at the CVS. I wasn't doing what I was doing for any specifically illegal purpose so my disappointment in having that one weak spot was more theoretical than practical.
Anyway. I am curious how to develop a life with these habits. There's paranoia, and then there is rational inconvenience. People around me tend to be annoyed by my use of encryption when I am discussing financial matters, and it astonishes me how people refuse to make even the slightest changes to their lives in light of the way the world has changed.
Maybe I should start reading those magazines you mentioned more often.
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