But you and Declan were still wrong. His claims didn't make sense; it was the opposite of Occam's Razor. Indeed their Google searches were monitored, it just wasn't by the NSA/FBI.
Well, we don't know that for sure - they could have tipped off the employer, but that's too much speculation to be productive conversation.
So the original account was true, and it posed the question (or, demanded an explanation), how did the police know? Now we have our answer.
Edit: Wait, you're saying Declan's post was a joke? I didn't follow this one or the threads that closely after the initial read, so maybe I missed something. His reply to my earlier comment gave me the impression that was not a joke.
Declan's point wasn't that he knew the firecracker picture to be the cause of the visit, but only that there was at least one narrative more plausible than the blog post's original narrative of "they're dragnetting Google for pressure cooker searches". That's all.
The thing is, the fireworks theory was absolutely not more plausible. It didn't even make a little bit of sense. It was clear that someone had acted on the Google searches, not facebook pictures of fireworks on July 4th. Unsurprisingly, this was confirmed to be the case.
I don't see anywhere that he asserted that Declan's theory about the Facebook post was correct. In fact, I see the opposite[1], demonstrating exactly the kind of questioning everyone should have been doing today.
I also find it more than a little disingenuous that you included the "Well, we don't know that for sure - they could have tipped off the employer" line in there. Especially after attempting to invoke Occam's Razor. Yes, the NSA could have tipped off the employer to review an employee's searches and hope that they would then report it to the police. Of course, the police could have also seen the fireworks on Facebook, reported it to the NSA, who then planted the searches on the computer for the employer to find. We don't know for sure, after all!
If you found that part disingenuous, you misinterpreted my post. I included that only to immediately dismiss it, in the same vein as your intentionally asinine example. My point was that the fireworks being the cause of the visit makes far less sense than the Google searches being monitored. Which turned out to be correct - they were monitored.
Comments
But you and Declan were still wrong. His claims didn't make sense; it was the opposite of Occam's Razor. Indeed their Google searches were monitored, it just wasn't by the NSA/FBI.
Well, we don't know that for sure - they could have tipped off the employer, but that's too much speculation to be productive conversation.
So the original account was true, and it posed the question (or, demanded an explanation), how did the police know? Now we have our answer.
Edit: Wait, you're saying Declan's post was a joke? I didn't follow this one or the threads that closely after the initial read, so maybe I missed something. His reply to my earlier comment gave me the impression that was not a joke.
Declan's point wasn't that he knew the firecracker picture to be the cause of the visit, but only that there was at least one narrative more plausible than the blog post's original narrative of "they're dragnetting Google for pressure cooker searches". That's all.
Pretty sure I was the opposite of wrong.
The thing is, the fireworks theory was absolutely not more plausible. It didn't even make a little bit of sense. It was clear that someone had acted on the Google searches, not facebook pictures of fireworks on July 4th. Unsurprisingly, this was confirmed to be the case.
I don't see anywhere that he asserted that Declan's theory about the Facebook post was correct. In fact, I see the opposite[1], demonstrating exactly the kind of questioning everyone should have been doing today.
I also find it more than a little disingenuous that you included the "Well, we don't know that for sure - they could have tipped off the employer" line in there. Especially after attempting to invoke Occam's Razor. Yes, the NSA could have tipped off the employer to review an employee's searches and hope that they would then report it to the police. Of course, the police could have also seen the fireworks on Facebook, reported it to the NSA, who then planted the searches on the computer for the employer to find. We don't know for sure, after all!
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6143485
If you found that part disingenuous, you misinterpreted my post. I included that only to immediately dismiss it, in the same vein as your intentionally asinine example. My point was that the fireworks being the cause of the visit makes far less sense than the Google searches being monitored. Which turned out to be correct - they were monitored.