Support your local police?

[Sascha]

Bad things will happen on the Safe Network. But the network itself should not and cannot be used to spy on anybody. This will inevitably cause controversy, and it will be used to demonize the whole network.

I wonder if it would make sense for Maidsafe and/or the community to actively try helping the police solve real crimes in the real world relating to e.g. snuff films and pedophilia? I’m not sure what can be done in practice, but even if it’s mostly a PR stunt, maybe creating some sort of task force for trying to help the police solve certain crimes might be a good “marketing” idea. When the FUD starts flying, it might be good to be able to point out that we are aware of the problems and are willing to help as much as we can in ways that the network allows for.

[bones]

As someone pointed out before, I think neo but possibly I’m wrong, old fashioned police work will be how these things are stopped, by infiltrating the groups.
I’m a great believer in freefom of speech, but also in not harming others.
While I would be happy to support this, I certainly don’t want to be exposed to any horrifying / harmful content.

[Sascha]

@bones

I certainly don’t want to be exposed to any horrifying / harmful content.

Neither do I, so I’m not the right person for the job. But maybe somebody is. Maybe it’s just a PR stunt, but how do you all feel about the idea? I think Maidsafe being a charity organization supporting schools and such is a good thing, not only from an ethical point of view, but also as a PR factor.

[bones]

I like the idea, we could certainly set up an easy way to report harmful content and pass that info on to law enforcement, maybe also find a way for others who don’t want to be exposed to filter out those reported bits, but in such a way that the list is unavailable if possible so it doesn’t become a list for ppl looking for such things.

[happybeing]

Unless it was of practical value and measurable impact this highlights the problem as much as counters any bad PR. Especially if in place before there’s any bad activity or PR becoming an issue.

Also look at how much of an issue this is elsewhere. It is a horrendous problem in terms of how it affects vulnerable humans, but has it really impacted services they use (video chat and streaming for example)? There seems to be much more of a problem for services that deliver misinformation, or reveal truth. Just an impression.

IMO we over worry about this and would do better to focus on the benefits.

[bones]

Maybe funding / donating to anon would be more useful if they would try to do some good on sn?
They did alot on tor, burning extremists funds and other such actual beneficial results.

[Sascha]

Filters have been discussed elsewhere, and I think they might become important. But I also think @happybeing may be right above. We have been led to believe there are terrorists and pedophiles hiding around every corner for political reasons, just like all the myths around drugs are used to motivate wars.

I didn’t necessarily mean funding or donating to anybody, just being prepared by maybe having some sort of ombudsman ready. But again, @happybeing might be right.

[draw]

It depends. Here in Belgium, Antwerp recently the local police has hacked ‘Sky ECC’ (and a couple of years ago Encrochat in the Netherlands): encrypted phones, sold for a lot of money. Clearly mainly used by criminals and more specific for drugs traffic between South America and the Antwerp and Rotterdam ports.
The last years, the police often found such a ‘Sky ECC’ phone when they arrested (small) drug dealers, but they couldn’t get info from it.
Apparently such an encrypted phone was a standard part of the ‘starters kit’ that a drugs dealer gets.
So in 2019 the police started intercepting the encrypted ‘Sky ECC’ messages in the hope they could hack them later. In the summer of 2019 they had already intercepted 1 billion messages and they could read aliases. And end last year they hacked it. Then they had a period of couple of weeks they live followed the intercepted, uncrypted messages, followed by a mass arrest. 1 billion message already unencrypted, 1 billion to go.
This seems to be a very successful operation for the police.

[fredbone]

We all should help to solve real crimes and everybody should help fight crimes against private ownership (theft, physical violence, threats and extortion).

On the other hand, I am definitely against MaidSafe engaging in witch hunts against yet illegal, but actually legitimate stuff. One of the most profound in my mind are:

illegal drugs
forbidden speech
intellectual ownership

We should NOT help the police to fight those.

[hamarana]

what if Bitcoin had a button to help the state find the money laundry schemes?

Well I guess the police will have to upgrade their level of intelligence to cope with the new world. Gold doesn´t care whether you are a criminal or a hard working person…

Instead of installing a pro police feature on the SN how about setting up a company to help solve digital crimes, and or offering insurance too ,while your company tries and solve them?

I don´t want to give the state any more power than the amount they can take by themselves…!

[fergish]

It’s really hard to look at specific questions like this without considering the bigger context and how truly decentralizing privacy, security and freedom of communication will affect the whole picture.

Communication and financial systems, etc., are used in proliferating child porn and other socially degrading, horrific practices. That’s true.

We have to start by considering what centralized financial control means in terms of allowing proliferation and protection of deep seated corruption. Drug, human trafficking, child exploitation, etc., are PROTECTED and FOSTERED within such a system. Unlimited financial control allows for deep, multi-faceted corruption. Once you see this, the whole picture looks different, if you have what it takes to look deeper.

Bitcoin is the beginning of the challenge to this situation, but it is, by itself, too dependent on centralized factors to not be co-opted to keep serving the “dark side” as well or better than the good.

The scope of what the Safe Network can bring to the table changes the overall context in a much bigger way. Will bad people have even more secure communications and financial transaction avenues? Yes.

Will a small cabal of such be able to maintain control of national and social narratives? Not so much. That’s breaking down even within the centralized social media/news structure as it exists today, though the central control is attempting to reassert itself.

When control of communication and financial interaction becomes truly granular, while also being global, morals and ethics also become granular. Individuals, then, come face-to-face, more and more with the choices between “good” and “evil”.

How will the individuals choose? We’ll see.

As to support of local police? I think the breaking of vast centralized control will require and lead to restructuring of relationships on both local and global levels. Nations will not go away, but they will take their place in the hierarchy as being functional only as a building up from the individual, rather than pushing down to the individual.

So it’s not a matter of just supporting your local police, but ensuring that you are part of their effort and that they support you and your ideals.

So, should MaidSafe engage in a preemptive campaign to support police against the bad guys? I’d say not. Let’s put the emphasis on the unquestionable value and individual desire of privacy, security and freedom, and point out that with those, we can together build a much better world. And without them, we’re at the mercy of “whoever is in charge”.

[fredbone]

@fergish

So, should MaidSafe engage in a preemptive campaign to support police against the bad guys? I’d say not. Let’s put the emphasis on the unquestionable value and individual desire of privacy, security and freedom, and point out that with those, we can together build a much better world. And without them, we’re at the mercy of “whoever is in charge”.

It’s wonderful how are we in disagreement in many assumptions but we have arrived to same conclusions.

Safe Network should be about privacy, security, and freedom. If adding some other nice features collide with those basic ones, we should always stick to the basics!

[anon57419684]

@fredbone

@fredbone

forbidden speech

Good point. “Fighting crime” is certainly perverted to suppress political/social dissidence. Just as Safe should have no censorship mechanisms built in, it should also not have any cooperation with state, or any other non-decentralized forces, built in.

That said, I support @Sascha’s initiative in spirit and expect to see the lack of censorship aid in crowd-sourced investigation of actual crimes, perhaps through informal Safe users’ groups.

[Sascha]

Please stay on topic. This is neither the place for silly sweeping statements about all cops nor for fantasizing about death squads.

[hamarana]

I apologize for speaking about things that will not happen on Maid…

My bad!

[Toivo]

@fergish

So, should MaidSafe engage in a preemptive campaign to support police against the bad guys? I’d say not.

I’d say it could be good idea to reserve domain names for police stations, before bad guys set up sites that mimic police stations on the oldweb.

[chrisfostertv]

@Sascha

Bad things will happen on the Safe Network.

Bad ‘things’ do not magically disappear on SAFE, but witnesses’ empowered with private communications… will be able to report wrongdoing for the first time in history.

@Sascha

I wonder if it would make sense for Maidsafe and/or the community to actively try helping the police solve real crimes in the real world relating to e.g. snuff films and pedophilia?

Witnesses’ empowered with private communications… will be able to document police/ legislative / judicial/crown/ commoner wrongdoing for the first time in history.

@Sascha

But the network itself should not and cannot be used to spy on anybody.

Yep, that’s impossible

@Sascha

This will inevitably cause controversy, and it will be used to demonize the whole network.

Yes, because that is impossible and is not documented in the Maidsafe Whitepaper …which badly needs updating

@Sascha

I’m not sure what can be done in practice, but even if it’s mostly a PR stunt, maybe creating some sort of task force for trying to help the police solve certain crimes might be a good “marketing” idea.

The Police have been warriors of freedom during the Plandemic, we should totally be spending money to run PR stunts for them…I would totally chair the task force

@Sascha

When the FUD starts flying, it might be good to be able to point out that we are aware of the problems and are willing to help as much as we can in ways that the network allows for.

We have total network awareness and must use our powers to overcome any dark forces that seek to contravene any code anywhere, anytime.

[jlpell]

Secure Access For Everyone.

The ‘Everyone’ in Safe includes the police and law enforcement. They are a huge potential market and community for app developers to offer custom tools. They will benefit from the Safe Network too.

Keep the discussion grounded in legal, ethical, and moral principles folks.

[Sascha]

@jlpell

They are a huge potential market and community for app developers to offer custom tools.

Can we list some benefits the Safe Network will have for law enforcement specifically?

[anon57419684]

Anonymous crime tips and evidence in the form of public immutable data being impossible to destroy.