Printable View
[QUOTE=OcAmper;7144246]Oh, forgot to mention. The site has a size limit on attachments, so that is likely the issue with not being able to upload.[/QUOTE]I broke them up to get them under the file size limitation. If you want to read them, you can DM me and I'll send you a link.
There is no safe sex / STD thread for SoCal, so.
Lots of general talk on here advising guys to get the HPV vaccine (if eligible. Up to 45 YO). There was just an editorial in the LA Times about a dude whose wife had HPV on her tonsil. Sad, as most cancer stories are, but she is alive. However, most of the throat HPV one hears about are guys who got it by DATY (such as Michael Douglas). I guess that gal subject was a guzzler.
[QUOTE=RogerOver;7143328]From what I can tell, let's look at some factors that allowed the government to pinch these guys: They didn't protect their PII at all. Suppose you're not using a "no-logs" VPN (preferably one you pay for that doesn't collect your info (mullvad comes to mind); you aren't safe. If you use the same username across all the sites for hookers, you aren't being safe. If you don't use a private email service like Protonmail, you aren't being safe. If you're doing public meetups in bars and loudly discussing your hooker hobbies, you aren't being safe. Banging hookers isn't a team sport, IMO, at least in the US.[/QUOTE]Yeah, that's mostly true. But one thing to keep in mind: All of these guys thought, at the very worst, they were committing minor misdemeanors. Something akin to a speeding ticket. Not major felonies with the potential for YEARS in prison. So, of course, at the time, many of them did not take the important steps they should have taken to protect themselves. (Which is how this whole discussion started a few weeks ago -- when I and others argued that you should protect yourself as much as possible.).
That said, the Seattle case IS the reason many mongers now use all of these internet security tools and don't attend dinners with large groups of other mongers anymore. Before that case, we all thought we were dealing with a relatively fair legal system that wouldn't over-charge people based on ideological beliefs (as well as a naked desire to further their political careers). But that's exactly what happened in Seattle. The authorities took everything to a whole new level, which is why we all need to be super vigilant and protect ourselves accordingly.
As I've always said: You are not being paranoid if they really are out to get you.
One other thing I forgot to note: Some of the guys who got busted in the Seattle case were very tech savvy. They used VPNs and other tools to protect their privacy. Guess what the prosecution said about that? They claimed using a VPN is proof that you are doing something illegal. So, as absurd as that statement is (given that nearly everyone in the corporate world uses VPNs to protect their company's internet traffic) the jury was told that using a VPN means you are a criminal.
On the flip side, a lot of the guys didn't use VPNs, so it was even easier to find them. But, either way, the prosecution turned that into a lose-lose situation for the men involved.
The only way to protect yourself from that kind of prosecutorial overreach is to lay low, use all security tools available to you, don't ever reveal your real name to anyone in the pay-for-play world (not the agencies, not the bookers, not the ladies, not your buddies, not anyone). Fly below the radar as much as possible and HOPE you never get caught up in a nightmare like the Seattle case, or the more recent cases in Boston and Virginia.
[QUOTE=Taliesin92;7146415]One other thing I forgot to note: Some of the guys who got busted in the Seattle case were very tech savvy. They used VPNs and other tools to protect their privacy. Guess what the prosecution said about that? They claimed using a VPN is proof that you are doing something illegal. So, as absurd as that statement is (given that nearly everyone in the corporate world uses VPNs to protect their company's internet traffic) the jury was told that using a VPN means you are a criminal.
On the flip side, a lot of the guys didn't use VPNs, so it was even easier to find them. But, either way, the prosecution turned that into a lose-lose situation for the men involved.
The only way to protect yourself from that kind of prosecutorial overreach is to lay low, use all security tools available to you, don't ever reveal your real name to anyone in the pay-for-play world (not the agencies, not the bookers, not the ladies, not your buddies, not anyone). Fly below the radar as much as possible and HOPE you never get caught up in a nightmare like the Seattle case, or the more recent cases in Boston and Virginia.[/QUOTE]If they were using VPN, did their emails have PII? Did the KC go to the VPN providers, get the logs, match the home IP addresses against the VPN then against the IP's on the email providers?
This is the thing that gets me. Let's say you never hobby in Washington state, but you got off on writing explicit reviews. How is that any different than Penthouse forum letters? Wouldn't that be a violation of the 1st Amendment. At that point you would hope the ACLU would step in and fight for you.
[QUOTE=Taliesin92;7146415]One other thing I forgot to note: Some of the guys who got busted in the Seattle case were very tech savvy. They used VPNs and other tools to protect their privacy. Guess what the prosecution said about that? They claimed using a VPN is proof that you are doing something illegal. So, as absurd as that statement is (given that nearly everyone in the corporate world uses VPNs to protect their company's internet traffic) the jury was told that using a VPN means you are a criminal.
On the flip side, a lot of the guys didn't use VPNs, so it was even easier to find them. But, either way, the prosecution turned that into a lose-lose situation for the men involved.
The only way to protect yourself from that kind of prosecutorial overreach is to lay low, use all security tools available to you, don't ever reveal your real name to anyone in the pay-for-play world (not the agencies, not the bookers, not the ladies, not your buddies, not anyone). Fly below the radar as much as possible and HOPE you never get caught up in a nightmare like the Seattle case, or the more recent cases in Boston and Virginia.[/QUOTE]Using VPN's or Tor clients, is not proof of anything. I've read some of the articles from the media. Definitely, a difference of opinions. I believe, only 1 fellow decided to not take the plea offer and went to trial.
Prosecution can use that thinking. Most of us, have good reasons not to challenge in court. Could be, simply and most likely, not having the funds to challenge it. The one guy that did take prosecution to task, but seems to have lost, must have had some of the funding, but not enough to carry it / thru the various appeals courts. I suspect, eventually a higher court would find issues, but that takes money and time.
I think, we all know, there is a level of risk in this activity. Mostly, the risk is low, unless one becomes one of the more prominent users. Prosecution only has so much time to pursue the case, not like they will pursue 1000's of people. They simply don't have the budget for such a pursuit.
One thing I did learn, VPN's do boast and are audited for No Logging. Casually, I looked into this, it seems they don't log the traffic that the user generates. So, basically no list of URL's that the user visited at any time. They run the servers in RAM, and probably reboot those servers on a semi-frequent basis to prevent any storage of data, and any that might be stored gets destroyed upon reboot.
They do conduct audits, from 3rd party auditors / accountant firms.
What Taliesin92 mentions, use the tools available at this time, avoid disclosing private information. It will be difficult to explain how a copy of your Drivers License should up in the agencies cache of information. It will be difficult to explain, why they have a copy of your paystub. Of course, you can change details on either document to obscure the disclosure. Use VPNs as practical, use burners as much as one can. Be certain, although very inconvenient, paying for those burners and their credits using cash. Today with all the surveillance in retail stores, it might be challenging to completely insulate oneself from 100% discovery, but one can make it challenging enough that LE just moves along to the next easier person to get to.
Even if you take all the precautions while visiting an AAMP, when you visit an AMP, you are very exposed. It's challenging to arrive by public transportation to any AMP, which means you probably arrived via your own personal vehicle.
Needless to say, arriving in your personal vehicle, it is trivial to very accurately or extremely narrow the field of possible suspects you might be. You could use a company vehicle, but that is just as bad, or probably worse than using a personal vehicle. With personal, all that can happen is a divorce, but you might retain your job. Company vehicle, unless you have one cool ass boss and a small company, you are likely fired very quickly for multiple reasons.
Although, I can only go by media reports, there seems to be very few recorded incidents where a customer is tracked down via license plate when visiting a AMP. Few cities have been as interested as Bellevue in going after the customers. That, seems to a fact, only by absence of news articles to the contrary.
[QUOTE=TapDisBong;7146679]If they were using VPN, did their emails have PII? Did the KC go to the VPN providers, get the logs, match the home IP addresses against the VPN then against the IP's on the email providers?
This is the thing that gets me. Let's say you never hobby in Washington state, but you got off on writing explicit reviews. How is that any different than Penthouse forum letters? Wouldn't that be a violation of the 1st Amendment. At that point you would hope the ACLU would step in and fight for you.[/QUOTE]Yup, non-encrypted emails do have information embedded in them that allows them to be traced, and that did happen. Google's Gmail is the worst. Google will give up everything to law enforcement at a moment's notice. ProtonMail is the way to go.
VPNs: The guys who were tech savvy, using VPNs and other security tools, were tracked down in other ways. VPNs did protect them for a while. But at least one guy made a mistake and logged into a hobby-related site using hotel Wi-Fi. Law enforcement was able to find him by contacting the hotel and asking who was in that hotel room at the time. Since he had to pay for the hotel room with a credit card, that's how they identified him. They might not have found him if it wasn't for that one mistake.
First Amendment: Yeah, that was my initial thought when this case first broke in January 2016. I thought it would all be thrown of court on First Amendment grounds, especially the felony charges for writing reviews ("promoting prostitution" But nope. That's not what happened. Defense attorneys weren't even allowed to bring up a First Amendment argument during Peters' initial trial. Astoundingly, the judge said it was irrelevant to the case. The defense did bring it up on appeal, and the argument was rejected. As I said before, this was very clearly a case where the outcome was decided long before it ever got to a courtroom. From day one, the decision was made to railroad these men, and that's exactly what happened.
The ACLU of 30 years ago might have come to their defense. But not today's ACLU. The ACLU of today is a joke. They don't believe in civil liberties anymore.
Cautionary lore. Turns out these AMP and K-connoiseurs are so very, very ordinary after all. Book of Proverbs 16:18.
[URL=https://projects.seattletimes.com/2017/eastside-prostitution-bust/]The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen[/URL]
[QUOTE=OcAmper;7146965]Using VPN's or Tor clients, is not proof of anything.[/QUOTE]Of course you are right. But that didn't stop the prosecution from telling the jury only a criminal would use a VPN.
The defense objects.
The judge overrules.
And the case continues with that idea planted in the jury's head.
[QUOTE=OcAmper;7146965]I've read some of the articles from the media. Definitely, a difference of opinions. I believe, only 1 fellow decided to not take the plea offer and went to trial.[/QUOTE]That's correct. Only Peters went to trial. But there's lots of interesting information to be learned from the other cases, as well. The guys who took plea deals still had to go to court, so their stories are also contained in the court documents. They were told, take a plea deal, admit your crime, and you will only be charged with one felony. Most of them avoided prison time that way. But they still had to plead guilty to a felony that will be on their record forever. For many of them, it ruined their careers. Having a felony on your record makes it very difficult to find employment anywhere else.
[QUOTE=OcAmper;7146965]Most of us, have good reasons not to challenge in court. Could be, simply and most likely, not having the funds to challenge it. The one guy that did take prosecution to task, but seems to have lost, must have had some of the funding, but not enough to carry it thru the various appeals courts. I suspect, eventually a higher court would find issues, but that takes money and time.[/QUOTE]Nope. Peters did appeal. And he lost there, too. He was railroaded throughout the entire legal system.
[QUOTE=OcAmper;7146965]What Taliesin92 mentions, use the tools available at this time, avoid disclosing private information. It will be difficult to explain how a copy of your Drivers License should up in the agencies cache of information. It will be difficult to explain, why they have a copy of your paystub. Of course, you can change details on either document to obscure the disclosure. Use VPNs as practical, use burners as much as one can. Be certain, although very inconvenient, paying for those burners and their credits using cash. Today with all the surveillance in retail stores, it might be challenging to completely insulate oneself from 100% discovery, but one can make it challenging enough that LE just moves along to the next easier person to get to.[/QUOTE]Exactly. That's all I've been saying since this conversation started. We can all take steps to protect ourselves. So why not do it? Sure, there is a good chance you will never get caught up in something as ridiculous and corrupt as the 2016 Seattle case. But what if it does happen to you? What if you are one of those unlucky souls? In that case, you will want to have taken every reasonable step to protect your identity and your privacy. The Seattle case shows how far some law enforcement agencies are willing to go to ruin our lives. Hopefully, nothing like that will ever happen again. But, as a former Boy Scout, I prefer to "be prepared. " Just in case.
Who knows. You might still get caught anyway. But why make it easy for them? Make them jump over a few hurdles before finding you.
Before FOSTA, I didn't use VPNs for posting (but other purposes). If you posted on USG back then, you would be a needle in a haystack. Why would they single you out? The Seattle case is different. The whole thing is interconnected. If a person is convicted only because they wrote a review and nothing else, no IRL meeting, no phone communications, how many were convicted that way?
After FOSTA, the site owner is in trouble rather than just the posters. They are either squeaky clean or moved to where they don't have to respond to LE for anything, no logs.
For the history of CA, you only get busted if you go inside an MP and say the wrong things in a sting. If they only have your license plate they can't prove anything.
PM is from one person to another. As long as you don't say anything illegal you are fine. For HX you don't need to say anything as the menu is clear. You call another number anyway. They have to get your PM, and / or your phone messages, and then prove that you were there. It's easier just to set up a sting to get everything.
Now if you need to be interviewed face to face to join a league, you are indeed joining an illegal gang.
[QUOTE=JamesD2004;7147602]For the history of CA, you only get busted if you go inside an MP and say the wrong things in a sting. If they only have your license plate they can't prove anything.
[/QUOTE]Very true, only plates like using a VPN, in itself proves nothing. I was trying to make the point, if you want to remain totally anonymous, it is challenging.
Not talking about the plates, but all it takes is one minor mistake. Me for example, gotten lazy and use a credit card to pay for minutes on my burner. Did that once, a while back due to my minutes and T-Mobile gold running out that night, so had to bite the bullet and pay via a card of mine. Now, just lazy and pay with the card.
[QUOTE=AceMcNasty;7147549]Cautionary lore. Turns out these AMP and K-connoiseurs are so very, very ordinary after all. Book of Proverbs 16:18.
[URL=https://projects.seattletimes.com/2017/eastside-prostitution-bust/]The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen[/URL][/QUOTE]I just have to laugh. Lots of misinformation in that story. The entire article was basically written by the prosecutors, with no fact checking whatsoever. For instance, it repeats the same big lie that these poor Korean women were "forced to work as prostitutes. " They were not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those jobs were in high demand.
The police tried very hard to get the women to participate in the big lie. They promised them all kinds of special treatment, including permanent visas to stay in America, if they would testify that they were coerced into the business, forced to have sex, and not allowed to leave the apartments. (All bullshit.) It's in the interrogation transcripts. You can see how desperate the cops were to get these ladies to lie.
To their credit, none of the women were willing to lie. Through translators, they told the truth, that they were willing participants, and that no one ever forced them to do anything. Afterward, many of them simply moved on and continued working in other cities.
Yet none of that is reported in the Seattle Times. Fake news.
[QUOTE=JamesD2004;7147602]Before FOSTA, I didn't use VPNs for posting (but other purposes). If you posted on USG back then, you would be a needle in a haystack. Why would they single you out? The Seattle case is different. The whole thing is interconnected. If a person is convicted only because they wrote a review and nothing else, no IRL meeting, no phone communications, how many were convicted that way?
After FOSTA, the site owner is in trouble rather than just the posters. They are either squeaky clean or moved to where they don't have to respond to LE for anything, no logs.
For the history of CA, you only get busted if you go inside an MP and say the wrong things in a sting. If they only have your license plate they can't prove anything.
PM is from one person to another. As long as you don't say anything illegal you are fine. For HX you don't need to say anything as the menu is clear. You call another number anyway. They have to get your PM, and / or your phone messages, and then prove that you were there. It's easier just to set up a sting to get everything.
Now if you need to be interviewed face to face to join a league, you are indeed joining an illegal gang.[/QUOTE]Then why weren't they charged with any of that? Why was no one convicted of any of that? The feds were involved in the case. The FBI logo was featured in the initial press conference in January 2016. (That was before SESTA / FOSTA, by the way.) If this was indeed an organized crime ring, there are laws against such things. The authorities could have brought a RICO case. They could have charged the men with human trafficking. Based on the prosecutors' lies, they could have charged some of the men with kidnapping. But no one was ever charged with any of those things. You have to ask yourself why? Why were all of these horrible-sounding allegations made, and then the most serious felony charges were leveled for nothing but writing sexy reviews?
There is no way to defend what happened to these men. It was classic prosecutorial overreach, on steroids. I think even the people of Seattle and Bellevue eventually came to realize that. The King County sheriff was defeated in the very next election. And the main prosecutor, Val Richey, was pushed out of his job and left the country. Poetic justice, I suppose.
[QUOTE=Taliesin92;7147907]Then why weren't they charged with any of that? Why was no one convicted of any of that? The feds were involved in the case. The FBI logo was featured in the initial press conference in January 2016. (That was before SESTA / FOSTA, by the way.) If this was indeed an organized crime ring, there are laws against such things. The authorities could have brought a RICO case. They could have charged the men with human trafficking. Based on the prosecutors' lies, they could have charged some of the men with kidnapping. But no one was ever charged with any of those things. You have to ask yourself why? Why were all of these horrible-sounding allegations made, and then the most serious felony charges were leveled for nothing but writing sexy reviews?
There is no way to defend what happened to these men. It was classic prosecutorial overreach, on steroids. I think even the people of Seattle and Bellevue eventually came to realize that. The King County sheriff was defeated in the very next election. And the main prosecutor, Val Richey, was pushed out of his job and left the country. Poetic justice, I suppose.[/QUOTE]What the guys were charged has little to do with why they were targeting. At least some of the guys were indefensible. An interview before allowed to join the club? I rest my case.
My reaction to this discussion, that has occurred in this thread and then in other threads in other locales just now, is that one doesn't want to draw too great a conclusion from this one case, in terms of our behavior. Yes, guys were convicted of using USASG once. The prosecutors elected to charge them for that because, of all the things they had on them, they thought that would be the most successful course of action. Maybe even they were hoping to establish a useful precedent for future prosecutions. However, it does not appear that has occurred. It hasn't turned in to a big deal one needs to worry about anywhere guys are mongering.
The Brit term is 'too clever by half'. Don't over-emphasize the importance of this 8 years old case. This happening, yeah, it was bad. It gives all of us chills, just like the Ashley Madison hack. A good reminder to try to keep good OpSec at all times. It is way better never to have to face such daunting prospects than to try to figure out how to extricate oneself. The reasons dudes here will sometimes say their 'spidey sense' went off and they extricated themselves from some potentially touchy situation.
New Year's Resolutions?
[QUOTE=FarFarAway;7148091]My reaction to this discussion, that has occurred in this thread and then in other threads in other locales just now, is that one doesn't want to draw too great a conclusion from this one case, in terms of our behavior. The Brit term is 'too clever by half'. Don't over-emphasize the importance of this 8 years old case. A good reminder to try to keep good OpSec at all times. It is way better never to have to face such daunting prospects than to try to figure out how to extricate oneself. The reasons dudes here will sometimes say their 'spidey sense' went off and they extricated themselves from some potentially touchy situation.
New Year's Resolutions?[/QUOTE]Fully agreed, and my suggested New Year's Resolution for posters is to drop this thread now. It's played out.
[QUOTE=Taliesin92;7146415]One other thing I forgot to note: Some of the guys who got busted in the Seattle case were very tech savvy. [b]They used VPNs and other tools to protect their privacy. Guess what the prosecution said about that? They claimed using a VPN is proof that you are doing something illegal. So, as absurd as that statement is (given that nearly everyone in the corporate world uses VPNs to protect their company's internet traffic) the jury was told that using a VPN means you are a criminal.[/b]
On the flip side, a lot of the guys didn't use VPNs, so it was even easier to find them. But, either way, the prosecution turned that into a lose-lose situation for the men involved.
The only way to protect yourself from that kind of prosecutorial overreach is to lay low, use all security tools available to you, don't ever reveal your real name to anyone in the pay-for-play world (not the agencies, not the bookers, not the ladies, not your buddies, not anyone). Fly below the radar as much as possible and HOPE you never get caught up in a nightmare like the Seattle case, or the more recent cases in Boston and Virginia.[/QUOTE]Bolded emphasis is mine. When this happened almost 10 years ago, I'm sure that argument worked well for the prosecution because it actually had the ring of truth. VPNs have become much more mainstream these days, and folks are encouraged to use them for all sorts of reasons: banking, netflix regions, porn sites, etc. I don't think they could get 12 jurors to buy that shit now. But I completely agree with your premise. Once they get after you, they can make it work. If one doesn't have the resources to really fight back, then there's a good chance they will take a plea deal. As far as grand juries go, the system can get a ham sandwich indicted.
Most aren't Robert Kraft, and don't have the resources to go full on nuclear and start investigating the investigators to fight back.
[QUOTE=Sticker;7148333]Fully agreed, and my suggested New Year's Resolution for posters is to drop this thread now. It's played out.[/QUOTE]It is getting tiresome and I need to get back to banging k-girls.
How do you guys get your hookups. Like 1 on 1 ones. For me fastest one was when I met a drunk girl in club, next second we were banging in parking lot. But Facebook dating is also very lucrative in this sense. I know hinge is not bad. Share your thoughts.
just wondering why this site was having access issues for the past few days? Perhaps Admin has shared this information somewhere on the pages, however I cannot seem to find it.
I'm grateful that, at least for now, it's up and running.
DB.
I think they update the platform against BOTs or machines. I think their servers were under DOS attack. They have introduced now this CAPTCHA requirement. CAPTCHA flags IP addresses associated with questionable activities, and I would guess that whoever was conducting the DOS attack was likely using a VPN. I will check later if you can still join the site using VPN.
[QUOTE=DildoBaggens;7301343]just wondering why this site was having access issues for the past few days? Perhaps Admin has shared this information somewhere on the pages, however I cannot seem to find it.
I'm grateful that, at least for now, it's up and running.
DB.[/QUOTE]
Thank you for the possible / probable explanation. I too that it was some sort of attack on the site.
[QUOTE=JanGorzo;7301362]I think they update the platform against BOTs or machines. I think their servers were under DOS attack. They have introduced now this CAPTCHA requirement. CAPTCHA flags IP addresses associated with questionable activities, and I would guess that whoever was conducting the DOS attack was likely using a VPN. I will check later if you can still join the site using VPN.[/QUOTE]
I am sure I am not the only one that had issue with recent delays and trouble with the site, hopefully everyone else have an easier access to the site than I am especially when it comes to posting messages.
I experienced a minor inconvenience earlier today.
I kept receiving timeout messages due to incorrect password attempts whenever I tried to log in yesterday and today, even though I was using the correct password. The system was showing an error message. After waiting 15 minutes, I was able to log back in. I then decided it was time to update my account email since the original one I used had expired. I changed it to a Gmail account, but I wasn't receiving the verification code. I was stressing because, when I tried to write a report like this one, I would get a message indicating that I needed to be verified. I emailed the admin but received no response.
So, I decided to go back and change my email again, this time to a Yahoo email, and I was able to get my verification code without any issues.
Anyway, I just wanted to give a heads-up to anyone who might be experiencing the same problem. I didn't want to lose my senior account and have to create a new one.
Glad to be back!
It seem like everyone had issues with the site a few days back and last month as well, but now the new security system locks my phone to the livechat ad when I refresh my page, any tips to get pass that? I can only access the site with PC now.
[QUOTE=BigBoDonk;7266222]How do you guys get your hookups. Like 1 on 1 ones. For me fastest one was when I met a drunk girl in club, next second we were banging in parking lot. But Facebook dating is also very lucrative in this sense. I know hinge is not bad. Share your thoughts.[/QUOTE]I don't know man, it depends on how you look really, I had like 0 luck getting anywhere with these women, which is why I am venturing into the habit of AMP at least getting my dick wet for about the same money to get a stuck up B* and not even getting anywhere.
[QUOTE=BigBoDonk;7266222]How do you guys get your hookups. Like 1 on 1 ones. For me fastest one was when I met a drunk girl in club, next second we were banging in parking lot. But Facebook dating is also very lucrative in this sense. I know hinge is not bad. Share your thoughts.[/QUOTE]I get better luck at the bar and sometimes fb, dating apps are just shit now a days, standards are way too high and you are competing with like 10-20 guys on average, and not being the best looking hurts your chances.
Retired monger misses your photos.
[QUOTE=StStephen;7316132]Retired monger misses your photos.[/QUOTE]Didn't he have like five handles.
Maybe he ran out of money.
[QUOTE=PoonHound1969;7316264]Didn't he have like five handles.[/QUOTE]