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0 pointsROTMetro3y ago0 comments

Ah, so criminals that get busted follow poor practices that lead to them getting busted. Not sure what this has to do with criminals at large, you know, the ones that do stuff like use a safe phone when traveling abroad.

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woodruffw3y ago· 3 in thread

This is unfalsifiable: are you saying that there's some unquantifiable number of perfectly competent criminals? How would we go about verifying that?

On an individual level, I am positive that there are criminals that escape the (not particularly competent) techniques of DHS/CBP. But the GP's claim (that Federal criminals are, as a category, completely above and beyond this kind of enforcement) is just not true.

ROTMetroOP3y ago

I'm just going off of talking with people during 5 years in the Feds. You know, the guys that can get whatever they want in prison because 'connections'. The guys that can reach out and touch someone for you if you need it. But sure, there isn't some larger more competent network of people that arrange all this for them. It's probably their grandmothers.

gmadsen3y ago

its really not though. Look up estimates of dark net economies. Obviously there is plenty of criminals not getting caught

woodruffw3y ago

Of course there are. I said that in the last comment.

There are two points here:

* Estimates of "darknet" economies (and "criminal" economies in general) strongly express preferences for the mostly unfalsifiable LEO hypothesis that there's lots of crime just floating around out there, and they could do so much more about it if we just put up with a little more surveillance, etc.

* There's no particular evidence that there's a bimodal distribution between incompetent criminals who get caught and competent criminals who don't. There are probably lots of competent criminals who don't get caught, but there are also probably lots of incompetent ones who don't (and vice versa). The strongest predictor for successful interdiction (especially at borders) isn't competence, but sheer numbers: criminals have to succeed every time, cops only have to succeed once.

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