Fear of Getting Caught

TaimaSan

Active Member
I am new to the grow world but i have a minor itch.... how can we be sure that what we are posting here be it topics, info, pictures, advice etc., that there isnt some govt agency reading this stuff and tracking the users via IP address? i am scarred to ask questions or post pictures of my stuff and that at the same time i am being tracked... i hate that paranoid feeling.
 

utbob

Active Member
Dude as long as you don't say "hey guys look at this picture of my 10,000 plant crop I have growing in my backyard here behind my computer" then you should feel free to discuss and post freely.
 

thephantompain1990

Well-Known Member
I am new to the grow world but i have a minor itch.... how can we be sure that what we are posting here be it topics, info, pictures, advice etc., that there isnt some govt agency reading this stuff and tracking the users via IP address? i am scarred to ask questions or post pictures of my stuff and that at the same time i am being tracked... i hate that paranoid feeling.
from what ive been told the DEA only handles cases of 100+ plants and that anything under that is state or local jurisdiction. not sure how true this is but if its the case then the majority of people on here dont have to worry.

theres a thread on security on here in toke n talk that discusses this in full detail and has tons of information. ill look for the link in a sec and edit it


EDIT
sorry i couldnt find the thread
 

SeattlePot

Well-Known Member
Fuck it. Get a prescription for xanax and then load your basement up with about 200 plants. You won't be stress'n at all!
 

ctemp1

Well-Known Member
wish the DEA wouldnt fuck with us! ive seen em bust people for having qps haha. pick on the big boys
 

malbulja

Well-Known Member
Yah fuck it if you are that scared....change your proxy I said fuck it i quit posting pix and got rid of my last i.d on here.... http://www.proxy4free.com/page1.html
From a forensics perspective a proxy doesn't do shit for your security, and to a certain degree it can diminish your security. Unless you're using an encrypted tunnel, the packets are still traveling through your ISP's gateway (so they can still interrogate the data being transmitted and received) and now you're adding an additional hop and more eyes looking at you. The only thing a proxy does for you is (sort of) hide your origination IP from the target website's logs but it should be noted that most proxies also forward the origination IP, and keep logs.

Your only real options are to:

* Setup a secure encrypted tunnel which will secure the data being transmitted from your ISP and hide your real IP from the destination server
* Use a network like Tor which will mask all your activity.

It should also be noted that prosecutions are difficult to administer (and warrants are difficult to obtain) if the only thing the enforcement agency has to work with are posts on a forum. They're going to need to establish a clandestine relationship with you and get you to incriminate yourself, usually by setting up a face to face meeting or having you mail them drugs.

As for pictures, all digital pictures contain meta-data in their header frames which contain attribute data about the camera used to take the picture, the shutter speeds, date taken, camera serial number, and in a lot of cases, the GPS coordinates where the picture was taken. NEVER post a picture online until scrubbing the metadata frames with a program like JHead (Copy jhead.exe into c:\windows\system32).

I use a batch file to scrub all photos at once after I resize them and move them to a folder called Resized.

Code:
@echo off
@echo Scrubbing metadata - GPS, Date Taken, Camera Serial #
jhead -purejpg c:\temp\Resized\*
pause
 

skippy pb

Well-Known Member
DEA handles anything even if its one pound. just to let u know
Dude sick backround picture on your iphone thing.

Wouldn't it be an invasion of privacy maybe not since were posting on the web which would have to be hacked into to see.

But to track our I.P. to where we live, isn't that invasion of privacy. Cause they have no way of telling if were telling the truth or not. We could just be taking picture from other grows/sites on the web.

Personal grows would take to much work though to bust it wouldn't be worth it.

I mean after what that cop said about how police will do that stuff anyway if you have your plants inside our houses, and its like 1 plant there not gunna be able to get a warrant.


Right? or maybe wrong?
 

Exertion

Well-Known Member
The real question is how many cops come on here to help them grow their own weed... Im sure theres a few or maybe even lots.. I know a few cops around my area that smoke and a few i can roll blunts in front of as long as u dont rub it in their face..
 

Brick Top

New Member
Dude sick backround picture on your iphone thing.

Wouldn't it be an invasion of privacy maybe not since were posting on the web which would have to be hacked into to see.

But to track our I.P. to where we live, isn't that invasion of privacy. Cause they have no way of telling if were telling the truth or not. We could just be taking picture from other grows/sites on the web.

Personal grows would take to much work though to bust it wouldn't be worth it.

I mean after what that cop said about how police will do that stuff anyway if you have your plants inside our houses, and its like 1 plant there not gunna be able to get a warrant.


Right? or maybe wrong?

The Internet does not have the same invasion of privacy protections as say telephones do, though as we all know even those have been weakened in the last number of years.

If you post information about illegal activity online and LEO is watching that site you can fall under suspicion. If you make it appear as if you are a worthy valid target they can easily enough, at least in the U.S., a warrant to go to your ISP and tap/trace/record your activity and then they will look to see if you are sending buddies emails or instant messages with the same info and of course hope you send pictures too. If so that tells them that most likely you are not just pulling people’s chain on the site they found you at by using other people’s pictures and posting them claiming them to be yours.

If they find that they can check your power usage and check your home for heat signatures etc. and if they find enough suspicious stuff they can then get a warrant to come take a look around.

Many people will say LEO won’t mess with small growers even if they know of them or just suspect them. The thing to remember is if busted they weigh each and every plant, the entire plant and in its wet form so what they come up with is not what you have or would have in actual usable bud but just a weight and it is easy for even small grows when weighed like that to come up to a weight that is something that looks impressive to a judge and jury and to make a cop shop look like it is earning its salt.

The DEA is not likely to get all that worked up about the possibility of someone with two plants or four plants but then they may pass the info on to your State guys and they might figure its worth looking into or they might tell your County guys and they might think it is worth looking into. It can all depend on where you are and how busy the last groups of guys are to be informed and what resources they have. If they are busier than a one armed paperhanger they might just ignore it and if they are sitting around all day playing cards with nothing to do they may say goodie, something big to deal with for a change because to them it might be like a big deal and something worth tackling.

Face it, anyone who grows is taking some degree of risk. You may have a fire and find yourself with firemen all over your home and they spot things. You may be asleep one night and someone breaks in and out of fear and without thinking you dial 911 and then you have cops looking around your place because you invited them. You may have an old pain in the butt neighbor who notices that in one room of your home the lights are always on during a certain period of the day or that they always go off at the exact same time each night regardless of you being home or not or if the rest of your home is dark and you are most likely asleep. They may think it is just a regular light on a timer for security purposes but then if it is some bathroom or something where you are growing in a closet and they know your home and know it’s a bathroom or store room or something or garage they may think it is an odd place to have a light on a timer for security sake and might in passing one day talk to some cop and ask does this sound odd to you? There are many things that can make someone suspicious so there is always some degree of risk regardless of how small it normally is.

Then if you post info online saying I’m doing this that increases your risk factor and if you post pictures that can increase it more especially if your plants are big and lush, and even more so if there are a bunch of them, instead of a couple babies.

But the thing is they will prioritize things and if you are a very small fry they may not feel it is worth their time and effort and expense. Then again if they check and see that you own your home, especially outright, they may say we can charge him/her with growing for distribution and take his/her home and it will be auctioned off and we’ll get a lot of funding from that so that makes it more tempting to them.

Growing is like "Fight Club." The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB! The same goes with growing. The less you say the safer you are and saying nothing is best. Loose lips sink ships.

I used to grow a lot and when I first found sites like this I would start grow threads and post pictures often and then one day I thought, hey, I am giving out a lot of info here and info that I might be best not spreading around. I really began wondering when I would get PM’s from members I had never talked to asking for beans and began to think it may be some boy in blue asking for evidence. So I stopped making grow threads and I stopped talking about what I was doing at the time.

Later, after years of growing, I retired and was in a position where I could buy super great pot and not mind spending the money on it and I almost totally stopped growing. Now that then just for fun I will have a small grow, especially if I can find some really great genetics for a good price but it is as much for something fun and different as it is for the outcome so in my case the chances of me being caught with anything growing is about the same as me being hit by lightning and living.

So now I hang around sites like this and have fun and give some info about what I learned in the past when I was growing often and if that makes someone suspicious that’s cool and the gang with me because if they look around they won’t find anything going on that will be enough to get them a warrant and if they fake some facts to get one the most they are likely to find in part of a bag I bought and a few pipes and papers and I can deal with that plus maybe even have a case of my own because they faked info to get a warrant and have those charges dropped.

What growers, especially new ones face is a tradeoff. They begin a grow and run into trouble and need help so they have to decide if passing out details and posting pictures is worth it to them or not, if it is taking to much risk or not. If you’re an experienced grower and do not need to seek other’s help it is smart to not ever mention what you have going on. There is no reason to brag and post pictures about your ten 1000 watt large basement grow. That is only asking for trouble.

While I love sites like this and enjoy giving info when I can when it comes down to it people with problems can research and find all the information they need without putting up an electronic billboard of what they are doing online.

Now some of that might have increased the level of paranoia in some but relax. If you are small and you don’t say things like ‘oh boy, I’m going to be able to retire in 5-years from my massive grow-op’ most likely everything will be cool and the gang. Even if the boys in blue are hanging around if you are a small fry it is unlikely you will make it to the top of their charts list and get an unwanted visit. Just be smart. If you need help and can’t find the answers researching while it helps to be honest about some things like saying what your lighting is it is not a bad idea to underplay things a little. If you have a dozen plants and a couple need help and you are baffled there is no reason to say I have a dozen plants and two need help and post pictures of the healthy ones with the sick ones. Downplay things, say I have two plants and they seem funky, what’s up and just leave it at that and don’t bother to mention that you have ten healthy ones. That alone could be the difference between getting a full night sleep or being woken up with someone knocking on your door with a battering ram.
 

mannurse801

Well-Known Member
If there are any mods looking, has anyone from this site, to your knowledge been busted due to information on this site?
 

Hotwired

Well-Known Member
I am new to the grow world but i have a minor itch.... how can we be sure that what we are posting here be it topics, info, pictures, advice etc., that there isnt some govt agency reading this stuff and tracking the users via IP address? i am scarred to ask questions or post pictures of my stuff and that at the same time i am being tracked... i hate that paranoid feeling.
Dude I dunno how but the coppers got my IP and came right to my house. They didn't find nothing at the time except for a pipe. So they beat the shit out of me and left.

Before they left they said if I posted here again they would kill me. So I killed them first. Now I can post here again.

Thanks RIU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :bigjoint:
 
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