Look, Ma… I’m a Terrorist!
The FBI guidelines for spotting suspicious activity in an Internet Cafe:
- Are overly concerned about privacy, attempts to shield the screen from view of others
Check!
- Always pay cash or use credit card(s) in different name(s)
Usually pay cash, check!
- Apparently use tradecraft: lookout, blocker or someone to distract employees
Have small children, check!
- Act nervous or suspicious behavior inconsistent with activities
Someone has found my goateed face nefarious, I’m sure. Check!
- Are observed switching SIM cards in cell phone or use of multiple cell phones
Used to have to carry two cell phones, check!
- Travel illogical distance to use Internet Café
California license plates in Utah, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Nevada. Check!
- Evidence of a residential based internet provider (signs on to Comcast, AOL, etc.)
Okay, not in a decade, but yes!
- Use of anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address
I have used TOR in a cafe before, check!
- Suspicious or coded writings, use of code word sheets, cryptic ledgers, etc.
Anyone seen what an open book on set theory looks like to a layman? Check!
- Encryption or use of software to hide encrypted data in digital photos, etc.
Encryption, yes! How a cafe worker would know what I was doing with it, I don’t know. Close enough!
- Suspicious communications using VOIP or communicating through a PC game
Check!
- Download content of extreme/radical nature with violent themes
Every video game that’s been released since… well, nearly forever. Check!
- Gather information about vulnerable infrastructure or obtain photos, maps or diagrams of transportation, sporting venues, or populated locations
I’m writing my neighborhood crisis management plan, check!
- Purchase chemicals, acids, hydrogen peroxide, acetone, fertilizer, etc.
Yep, done that too!
- Download or transfer files with “how-to” content such as:
– Content of extreme/radical nature with violent themes
– Anarchist Cookbook, explosives or weapons information
– Military tactics, equipment manuals, chemical or biological information
– Terrorist/revolutionary literature
– Preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks
– Defensive tactics, police or government information
– Information about timers, electronics, or remote transmitters / receivers
Yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, and yes. And some of the papers I’ve read about Somali piracy might come across as sympathetic to the pirates, so even the no could be considered a yes, to the right audience.
Stay alert! Trust No One! Keep Your Laser Handy!
Come on… goatee=evil.
Case closedReport
Have you read the Federalist Papers?
If so… guess what?Report
Not since I was 19.
Come to think of it, I just re-read Hegel, Locke, and found them different (Aristotle hadn’t changed). Maybe I ought to re-read the Federalist papers.
I’m working up a Horror/Cliffhanger campaign for some friends, and a couple of days ago I had “Military Small Arms of the 20th Century”, Miller’s “The President and the Assassin” about McKinley and Czolgosz, GURPS Horror, and “Dreams of Terror and Death” which is a Lovecraft anthology… on the table next to me at Peet’s.
I wonder if anybody took a picture of my car.Report
… yeah. I know of at least one video game that is technically illegal to own in America. (it’s freeware to boot). Not that anyone’s likely to care, because you aren’t using that RNG to encrypt anything…Report
You still pay for things with cash?Report
As often as I can.Report
That definitely sounds like a kind of terrorism.Report
Paying cash for things is annoying enough down here, but US money is awful, how do you put up with it.Report
I pay for things with cash for a very simple reason- it really helps us keep an eye on how much money we have when we keep it in envelopes at home.Report
And I am reminded of yet another story.
Back when I was like 25 or something, I applied for an entry-level job at Boeing. We got to the question in the interview where I was asked “are you now, or have you ever been, a member of any organization that actively fought for or supported the violent overthrow of the United States Federal Government?” and, me being 25, I answered “The Southern Baptist Church.”
Well, the interviewer did *NOT* think that that was anywhere *NEAR* as funny as I did.
I didn’t get the job.Report
Missing out on the job was worth it for the story.Report
I tell myself that too.Report
Ain’t the retconning of your own past grand?Report
Well they did ask.Report