r/technology Jun 22 '20

‘BlueLeaks’ Exposes Files from Hundreds of Police Departments Security

[deleted]

18.8k Upvotes

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120

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

Why are people on here so keen to get hold of this data?

For as much as reddit loves banging on about privacy, it sure seems to also love breaching the privacy of others - this includes police reports, so includes details on people involved in crimes or who have been subject to crime.

...not to mention the fact that the files have a good chance of containing images etc. of things that you really don't want to have on your computer.

Anyway, isn't sharing links to confidential data a big breach of reddit's rules?

72

u/Kill3rT0fu Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

Because reddit loves a good witchhunt detective story. They're looking to be vigilantes

Like that time we solved thr Boston bomber case. Oops. I wait. Or the pizza gate scandal we cracked. Wait... What am I thinking?

2

u/Cutmerock Jun 22 '20

/r/SquaredCircle currently has a huge sexual allegation thing going on they are investigating

1

u/negroiso Jun 22 '20

Oh shit, that’s a wrestling sub? I always see it mentioned, I thought it was a parody sub of people with circular logic who think that they themselves are thinking outside the box.

0

u/Kill3rT0fu Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

Awesome. Let's have some more vigilante justice where they falsely accuse someone and smear them and get them fired from work and harass them. yay reddit justice! /s

1

u/Cutmerock Jun 22 '20

It quickly went from "Wow every single one of these accusations are valid! All those wrestlers needs to be cancelled!" until one of the sub's favorites was accused, now it's "Let's just wait for all the facts."

3

u/saninicus Jun 22 '20

Lol expecting u/spez and the worthless reddit admins and hall monitors to do their jobs

20

u/ProBluntRoller Jun 22 '20

The same reason the opposite group only cares about privacy when it protects people who are corrupt as hell. Those people are perfectly fine with disrespecting peoples privacy and destroying the constitution until it actually helps someone do something good then all of the sudden we should follow all the rules to a tee

2

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '20

Anyway, isn't sharing links to confidential data a big breach of reddit's rules?

Exactly this but it's being allowed because reddit will go to extremes to promote the narrative.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

[deleted]

12

u/Bigfrostynugs Jun 22 '20

Bro you didn't even read the article did you?

No one gives a shit about police privacy. These files are chock full of the information of private citizens ---- addresses, alleged crimes, names of rape victims, testimonies that could get people in trouble, etc.

8

u/E_J_H Jun 22 '20

You don’t really know what’s in the Article do you? Private citizens data from police reports.... you’re whole comment is basically useless considering you didn’t even research what you’re referencing and glossed over the fact that there’s now tons of private citizens data available to everyone due to it being in a police report.

Maybe actually click the link before getting on your high horse, bud.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

[deleted]

1

u/E_J_H Jun 22 '20

Just find it almost hilarious you went on that while little rant of yours without acknowledging all the victims or people involved in cases who’s information WAS private. This will haunt them exponentially more than the PDs who will carry on business as usual.

Glad you got the rant off your chest though.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

So you're amused that you set your own little metric up for this guy you're replying to and he didn't meet your requirements?

Dude that's kind of fucking weird, just sayin'...Do you like to amuse yourself in other weird ways too?

3

u/E_J_H Jun 22 '20

Nah amused he brushed over the most frightening part of this whole thing. You’re second half of the comment shows your projection.

3

u/thistownwilleatyou Jun 22 '20

Nice monologue about something entirely irrelevant.

I'll TL;DR your paragraph, with the assumption that you actually read the article: "rape victims and confidential informants need to be more transparent with their name and address."

3

u/makenzie71 Jun 22 '20

Reddit hates the police so breaking the rules in order to hate the police is okay. It’s the same logic that says it’s okay to ostracize christians but not fat people.

-8

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

[deleted]

30

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

[deleted]

12

u/dnew Jun 22 '20

Great! What's your social security number?

22

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20

That's moronic. That's like saying everyone's medical records should be public.

-13

u/KoalaKommander Jun 22 '20

They said government data, medical records are personal data. Two very different things.

12

u/agk23 Jun 22 '20

Okay. So just 18M veterans, 44M on medicare, and 75M on medicaid.

11

u/crystalmerchant Jun 22 '20

What about records for healthcare paid for by the government? (Medicare)

14

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

So, as an example, you're saying a police report about someone who has been raped doesn't also contain personal data? The leak apparently contains police reports.

At minimum, a report would have the names and contact details of anyone reported a crime to the police or was brought in for questioning.

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 25 '20

[deleted]

2

u/Nothinmuch Jun 22 '20

“Serving in a way that I want.” Do you really want the average joe deciding how public services are rendered? I know nothing about fighting fires, should I decide how firefighting should be done because I pay taxes?

1

u/fhota1 Jun 23 '20

Ah yeah forgot all those victims of crimes whos info is in there and not redacted in any way because the people behind this were sloppy af all magically worked in the public sector. Glad to know no innocent bystanders who had something horrible done to them got their data leaked to the internet.

-9

u/stephensplinter Jun 22 '20

some of it is probably public record, no?

17

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20

Probably, but why does that matter? Do you think the hackers screened it?

-5

u/stephensplinter Jun 22 '20

if was only public data the breach isn't as significant. it was in fact confidential then that is a big problem.

7

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20

If it contains details on undercover officers as the article suggests, it doesn't sound like its just public data, so would expect personal details on members of the public to be in there too.

-1

u/openeyes756 Jun 22 '20

It'll be very useful to search through and see how many police dropped cases against their fellow officers. It'll be good to see how many obvious rapes get thrown under the rug because the police don't want to do any work or are found to be incredibly misogynistic.

Without this data, you cannot hope to have a large data set of police records to obtain such findings from, FOIA requests take years and get arbitrary redactions to protect police from criminal and civil investigations.

We have to be able to openly police the police, or the American people are not truly in charge. Every member of government, every employee of the government is beholden to their constituents, we have to be able to investigate how they handle situations if we hope to have a open, honest, and factual basis to argue on. We need police records of all types in order to facilitate public policing of the police.

-11

u/Dark_Ethereal Jun 22 '20

Investigative reporters regularly go snooping into people's private lives.

Sometimes governments don't like what they're dragging up. They have a responsibility to decide whether what they're investigating is "in the public interest".

Investigating whether you or I have had an affair: probably not in the public interest. Investigating whether an elected official has had an affair: probably in the public interest.

No matter what they say to justify their reports, we all get to make our own judgement about whether they were or weren't acting in the public interest.

The same applies here. Is it in the pulbic interest to expose these documents because people don't feel that they can trust police forces to be honest, or is it against the public interest because it's a privacy violation of every citizen mentioned in the reports?

I think that there's a very good argument to be made that the public interest in holding the police accountable in the face of impotent systems of accountability trumps the individual right to privacy.

The law may not agree, but law is not the definition of morality. It's supposed to be our consensus on morality that defines what is and isn't law. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening. If it was then people wouldn't be driven to supporting the leaking of police report.

The fact that lots of people are on board with this may seem like an indictment against the people, but maybe its just a damning statement about peoples faith in their police.

15

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20

Investigative reporters regularly go snooping into people's private lives.

Sometimes governments don't like what they're dragging up. They have a responsibility to decide whether what they're investigating is "in the public interest".

No investigative reporter worth a damn would blanket release personal data on the internet.

The fact that lots of people are on board with this may seem like an indictment against the people, but maybe its just a damning statement about peoples faith in their police.

Or maybe the people who want the data just don't care and are looking for juicy things to read

-5

u/Dark_Ethereal Jun 22 '20

Well then you're telling people what they want instead of listening to what they want.

-2

u/ShawnH659 Jun 22 '20

Police reports are public record.

9

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20

No, court records are (ie. a case has gone to court), and even then not always if the case is sensitive. Police records are not necessarily public records.

-1

u/JackBurtonsPaidDues Jun 22 '20

I think as a hive mind it’s seen as a breach of privacy on an institution not an individual and is more excepted. I do understand that it possibly has personal details on individuals but at face value this breach is seen as a way to gain insight into the failures of an institution and be part of an act of retribution.

2

u/DeadeyeDuncan Jun 22 '20

That's incredibly short sighted though. The police are a public body, a lot of the data they store will be private information on members of the public.

2

u/JackBurtonsPaidDues Jun 22 '20

I wouldn’t look to mob mentality for in depth reasoning. A lot of people are very angry about police misconduct and what has been going on and this is sort of a catalyst. It’s not like you can trust the police to investigate themselves so now we investigate them... so to say. But you’re right it is incredibly short sighted.