Comment on NYPD faces backlash as it prepares to encrypt radio communications | New York | The Guardian
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months agoWhy would a victims information be broadcast over the radio? And why would it matter? “Omg someone on the other side of town is going to know I got stabbed I’m so embarrassed!”
It’s not like they are sitting there over the radio giving a deep dive on the person.
You said license plates were public info you were fine with being broadcasted in public. Not sure why you’re hesitating now.
That’s like saying “if we were talking face to face you’d be comfortable introducing yourself by name, why are you hesitating now?”
The audience here is gigantic. This is a public website, accessible without credentials, store in perpetuity on any number of websites. And this is a username which has received death threats, among other threats.
I’m the other hand, anyone who knows my real name can just look up my address, assuming they know any number of secondary pieces of info. Literally saying “Hi I’m Kairu Byte from Beverly Hills” would likely be enough info to get my exact address. Or, just punch my license plate into a website.
I get that you feel like that info is private in the real world, but it really isn’t. Not in the slightest.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 10 months ago
It can cause further harm to the victim for their information to be broadcasted out. A lot of victims wouldn’t want their information and that of the situation to be shared, obviously. And it would be broadcasted because police report what they’re doing over the radio, ask for confirmation or checkups and all that. Here it wouldn’t matter so much because of encryption, with unecrypted traffic that sort of normal radio traffic would be obviously problematic.
No, the radio traffic is unencrypted and broadcasted out to everyone who wants to listen. That’s the whole problem.
The radio traffic is broadcasted unencrypted to everyone willing to listen, indiscriminately. It’s not one to one. And people share that online too. I know I’ve listened to a few streams. It’s very much like writing shit online. Someone just needs to pick the right website and you’re set.
It’s not like talking face to face, it’s yelling across a busy market place, with some people recording and broadcasting everything people are yelling.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Listen to a large cities broadcast for a while, there’s no crazy info being shared. There’s no reason for a cop to be talking about a victim beyond general terms where PII is concerned for the most part. They take that info down, but that’s about it. They aren’t saying “Mary sue at 411 Texas Roadhouse Drive, the 41 year old woman who drives a red sedan, was stabbed by her dog.” They’re going to say “requesting ems for a stab wound near Texas Roadhouse drive and Kentucky fried chicken way.”
And again, all of that info is available to the public regardless. Unless the cops are doing their job wrong and/or doing shady shit at least. You can even FOIA body cam footage, which is going to contain all that radio chatter anyway.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 10 months ago
They probably have to be (or try to be) vague about it, sending info through other means because it’s unencrypted and broadcasted to everyone. But when I listened to, there were addresses, license plates, what was happening and so on. You need to exchange some level of info, would be pointless to have the radios otherwise. And when exchanging such info, better to have it be encrypted.
And yet you’re unwilling to indiscriminately broadcast the info here. Even if you don’t seem to knowingly recognize the difference between the info being public in some form and broadcasting it indiscriminately to anyone wanting to listen, you don’t want to share it here because you know it’s different.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
I’ve had my license plate run before, it’s been broadcast over the county radio system, and I couldn’t care less.
I’ve also had my name in the newspaper, again I don’t really care.
I’d be more than happy telling random people offline my license plate number, because I don’t care.
In fact, I myself have said my license plate number over an open radio frequency.
But you’re essentially asking me to dox myself and remove my online anonymity, which is a major difference. It’s not comparable to having the info randomly said over an open radio, it just isn’t.
You know what else I would do over a radio, but not here? Announce my name. Mention the city I live in. Say my address. All specifically because I’m using this username.
Now, if this was legitimately anonymous, impossible to trace, a username not connected to me? Fuck yeah, I’d say my license plate. Because it would be meaningless. A drop in the bucket of millions of license plates. But you’re asking me to connect my identities.
The difference you’re talking about is all down to level of effort. On one hand I can listen to a radio, on the other I submit a form online (and get a hell of a lot more detail.)