crime

A two-minute scene from The Wire in which Baltimore police brass pressure subordinates to fix the crime statistics. It dramatizes how metrics and incentives distort policing.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen explains in a TEDx talk why Germany has lower crime and far fewer prisoners than the US, and what American criminal justice could learn from German prisons.

An Adam Ruins Everything segment claiming that jaywalking became a crime through campaigns by the auto industry. It is a short, comedic history of how streets were reclaimed for cars.

A 60 Minutes segment on how German prosecutors and police go after online hate speech and insults, which are crimes there. It contrasts this with the broad First Amendment protection of online speech in the US.

A short clip, from 2003, of Noam Chomsky going through crimes of post-WW2 US presidents. He argues that they would be indictable under the Nuremberg principles.

Clip from a John Oliver segment showing Newt Gingrich arguing that feelings about crime matter more than FBI statistics at the 2016 RNC.

Cathode Ray Dude covers two bizarre HP 'Quick Start' features: QuickLook, an offline email client built on EFI firmware, and Daystarter, which hijacks the Windows boot process. It includes an explanation of EFI applications and why HP built these things.

Weird Al Yankovic's 2014 parody of 'Blurred Lines' that scolds common grammar and usage errors, with a kinetic typography video. It is a catchy music video about language mistakes.

A Black Hat USA 2017 briefing by the prosecutors who caught Russian carder Roman Seleznev. It covers the electronic evidence collected, the international trail, and how he was located and arrested.

Bloomberg shows Ross McNutt demonstrating his wide-area aerial surveillance system, following a shooting and the getaway car and piecing together a crime network.

A KOMO News documentary about Seattle's homelessness, addiction and street crime. It examines the City Council's policies, shows conditions on the streets and the impact on local businesses, and explores possible solutions.

Phone footage of looting in the makeup aisle of a San Francisco CVS, with commentary that police did not show.

A 29C3 panel with whistleblowers Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake and William Binney. They talk about what happens when exposing secret government power becomes a crime, and about surveillance abuses.

Veritasium explains how investigators caught the Golden State Killer using forensic genealogy, matching crime scene DNA to distant relatives in public genealogy databases. It also covers the privacy implications of DNA databases.

A compilation of police interrogations of innocent suspects who behave in very different ways yet are treated as guilty. It illustrates how interrogation tactics and detectives' assumptions can distort the truth.

Former bank regulator William Black explains how fraud, including liar's loans, was committed from inside banks and drove the 2008 financial crisis.

A Chappelle's Show sketch in which drug dealer Tron Carter and a white businessman face the justice system in very different ways.

Moxie Marlinspike's DEF CON 18 talk on changing threats to privacy argues that surveillance arrived through convenient services and network effects, so opting out is not a real solution. It also includes his framing of getting social democracy rather than the fascism people feared.

Tom Scott writes a more honest VPN ad, with the sponsor's name redacted, and explains why the typical claims in VPN advertising are misleading. He notes the sponsor was not happy about it.

CGP Grey explains the history of the US Social Security card and number, and why they became a de facto national ID despite never being meant for it. He also covers why America resists a proper identity card.

Frank Abagnale, the real subject of Catch Me If You Can, speaks at Google about his life as a con man turned FBI fraud and cybersecurity expert, including advice on fraud, breaches and credit cards.

The Grugq's Hack In The Box 2012 talk on operational security for hackers, drawing on hacker indictments and counter-intelligence research. It reviews OPSEC goals and methods for avoiding detection and arrest, with case studies of how hackers got caught.

Dan Geer's Black Hat 2014 keynote argues that cybersecurity is a matter of power and policy rather than wishful thinking. He covers surveillance, the vulnerability market, software liability and privacy as the capacity to misrepresent yourself.

Cory Doctorow's 28c3 keynote argues that the copyright wars were just a skirmish and that the real fight will be a war on the general-purpose computer. He explains why locked-down devices, DRM and surveillance tools all depend on removing general computation.

Zoz's DEF CON 22 talk on operational security in the age of pervasive surveillance. He shows how hard it is to avoid mistakes even for people who should know better.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment explains how data brokers collect and sell personal information, including a stunt in which his team bought data to identify members of Congress.

Cory Doctorow's Talks at Google lecture on the coming civil war over general-purpose computing. He argues that locked-down devices, DRM, and surveillance threaten user control of computers.

Technosociologist Zeynep Tufekci argues that the machine-learning systems used to serve ads also decide what political and social information people see. She explains how opaque algorithms can nudge, segment and manipulate users, and warns that the real danger is powerful people using AI to control populations.

A DEF CON 23 talk showing how weak controls in electronic death registration systems let someone virtually kill a person and obtain a real death certificate, with consequences for their identity and life.

An Extra Credits episode on China's Sesame Credit, which gamifies obedient citizenship through a social score. It covers how the system rewards conformity and pressures people through their friends' behavior.

John Oliver interviews Edward Snowden about NSA surveillance, including street interviews showing people have not thought about what the government can see. The segment famously frames the issue through private photos.

A Last Week Tonight segment on pig butchering scams, in which long-con romance and investment fraud is run, often by trafficked workers. It explains how victims are groomed and interviews people who lost large sums.

Poul-Henning Kamp's FOSDEM 2014 talk is a hypothetical account of how an intelligence agency such as the NSA would sabotage open source software, standards and online discussion. It covers Skype's history, OpenSSL and psyops against standards.

Kim Nilsson presents his investigation into how Mt. Gox was hacked and mismanaged, tracing the finances and the missing bitcoins. It was given at the 2017 Breaking Bitcoin meetup.

Benn Jordan explains how Flock Safety's license plate cameras log and share vehicle locations, and explores how adversarial AI can defeat them. It covers weak security and the surveillance risks of private police-camera networks.

Aral Balkan's re:publica 2015 talk argues that people are the product of surveillance-based business models. It makes an ethical case against data monopolies and for privacy as a human right.

Benn Jordan details security vulnerabilities in Flock Safety license-plate-reading cameras and how easily they can be compromised. It includes citations from security researchers and discussion of police surveillance.

Dick Hardt's fast-paced OSCON keynote on Identity 2.0 and the move toward user-centric digital identity. It is also famous for its rapid-fire, many-slide presentation style.

At DEF CON 27, Nina Kollars tells how buying Nespresso capsules on eBay led her to investigate fraudsters reselling goods bought with stolen credit cards. She describes her non-technical tracking and reporting efforts.

A short clip of Steve Jobs at the 2010 D8 conference, interviewed by Walt Mossberg, defining privacy as people knowing what they are signing up for, in plain English and repeatedly. The discussion centered on location data.