The 25-year-old’s alleged actions in the days after the attack suggest he was not exactly a criminal mastermind. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Council conducted a series of suspicious internet searches, for phrases like “SECGOV hack,” “telegram swap,” “how can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI,” and “What are the signs you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”

  • cogman@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Clickbait title. Makes it sound like he was arrested for searching the term. He was arrested for hacking the SEC account. He later searched for “how do I know if the FBI is investigating me”.

    • cannibalkitteh@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      25 days ago

      Yeah. It’s likely that the terms only came up with a wider investigation of the device/network data that the hack originated from.

    • Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca
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      25 days ago

      No it doesn’t sound like that at all. It sounds like they’re having a bit of a laugh at the fact that he was in fact being investigated by the FBI when he did that search.

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
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        24 days ago

        Yes it does sound like that. The title doesn’t suggest that he actually committed crimes. Sorry!

    • NicolaHaskell@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      I recently saw a thread fawning over regular posters without much critical thought to standards for editors in the age of meme-based reporting. The 90s yutes, upset about their aunts’ chain mail emails’ claims about artificial sweeteners and theology, ran to the Internet in search of Truth but stumbled into a breeding ground for misinformation. Oop!

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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        25 days ago

        I did read the article before I posted it. Hence my putting something from way down in the article in the body of my post.

        And the headline might be a bit deceptive, but it’s not inaccurate.

        The article was both amusing and it fit the criteria of news, so what’s the problem?

        • Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works
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          25 days ago

          A better title would have been "Man arrested by FBI for SEC hack had searched ‘How to know for sure if you are being investigated by the FBI’."That would eliminate the incorrect implication.

        • NicolaHaskell@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Standards for reporting on Internet forums are the same as for the grocery store tabloids that agitated the forum dwellers to begin with

            • NicolaHaskell@lemmy.world
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              25 days ago

              I’m still talking about standards of reporting, and pointing out that Internet culture tends to be especially vocal about truth and science while amplifying the same ol’ sensationalism and romanticism.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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                25 days ago

                Okay? Well I wasn’t doing that. I was posting a bit of news that I thought people would find amusing. It was clear from the headline that it was basically fluff news. You could easily have just skipped it.

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      25 days ago

      That was really nice of them to answer the question personally

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      25 days ago

      I’m guessing if you have to Google it, either you are or you won’t be easily convinced you aren’t.

      • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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        25 days ago

        I’m just curious because I’ve made some jokes in a thread about snipers before and I wonder if that triggered anything. But now with this article I realize that even if that one didn’t, my recent comment “I wish I could know if I have ever been investigated by the FBI” might have. And if neither did, then maybe this new one might.

        Crap, I might go as well and say “hey FBI, investigate me”. So that I can now be sure.

        …unless Lemmy is still out of their automatic tools?

        I considered adding more to the joke here but got afraid it would be going too far. I think I’ll write a short story about someone who gets so paranoid about knowing if he’s on the FBI list or not that they end up actually doing some terrorism act just to be sure they are.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      If you really think you’re the subject of a criminal investigation and think there is some utility in engaging with it before it comes to you, retain a criminal defense attorney and let them start making phone calls and sending letters

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      25 days ago

      I tried and it’s just a bunch of legal firms offering advice. There is also a result by the FBI themselves, trying to sell you a copy of your rap sheet lol

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      This is EXACTLY what Yahoo Answers was for!

      Apart from providing material for the McElroy brothers, of course.

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    25 days ago

    So, I guess now we need a control group to do those searches without having hacked into government-owned social media accounts.

    Any volunteers?

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      After that student got arrested in the EU for making a joke in his Snapchat group of friends before boarding a flight, I’ve always wanted to see someone do exactly this experiment to check which messaging apps are actually E2E secure lol.

      It’d be interesting to try a phone call group too.

      • Eheran@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        A person of the group chat simply reported it. There is no way for them to somehow monitor that chat.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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    25 days ago

    I mean you can go to the FBI website and request their data on you.

    I did it myself. It was empty. But now its probably not empty.

    • Scolding7300@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Do it again, if it’s empty, then it might not be because of the two tries. You’ll have to continue to ask for your data until you die of old age

  • Billiam@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    What a ding dong.

    Tech-savvy enough to “hack” the SEC, has to Google “How do I know if the FBI is on to me?”.

    • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Being tech savvy doesn’t automatically bestow knowledge of good opsec.

      I wouldn’t assume that a guy who builds top-fuel dragster engines could tell me how to avoid a speed trap.