dinner with a narc -- and holy shit!

Last night I ran into a very old friend -- we used to get stoned together in high school in the 1970s and he even is one of the people I ever first tried to grow with. I haven't seen him in about 30 years.

So what do I find out he's doing now? He's a narc! He works at a high level in my state's drug enforcement program -- he manages a department that is involved in most of the major drug busts here, and he also is the main coordinator in my state between federal enforcement and local jurisdictions.

He looks me straight in the eye and asks, "So what are you growing these days?" I guess I was taken aback because in the split second before I could answer he burst out laughing and said he could tell from the look on my face. Then he confided that he does too!

But if that's weird, here's where it turns really scary...

He told me I should stop growing. Now. He said that there is this major program across the USA, very hush-hush, that will be coming online in the next several weeks. At first he was holding back the details, but as our conversation progressed he revealed more and more. Basically this is a new drug enforcement program that will be able to identify over 80% of all growers. That's right, over 80%, according to this high-level narc. What he said is that the federal government has secured access to a multitude of different databases -- electric company records, archives of police helicopter FLIR fly-overs, credit card transactions, face recognition software, on and on -- it is the integration of literally thousands of separate databases. But the key to all this is a new, very sophisticated algorithm (basically a super-duper computer program) that can analyze all this data and spot patterns, even with only tiny variations in a person's data.

I told him I didn't believe him, that I grow only a few plants in the privacy of my own house and nobody knows about it, my electrical consumption is within norm, and I am very discreet in my purchases. We had had a few drinks and he was feeling pretty lubricated (so was I), so he invited me over to his house to show me something.

He was one of the consultants on this algorithm, and he has been beta testing it and developing policies for how law enforcement should utilize it for more effective drug busts and such. The point is, he has access to this right now, and he showed it to me.

Holy shit.

We poured some more drinks and then, just for grins, he asked the system to identify likely MJ growers in my zip code, and I came up on the list. He then opened my field to show me what the algorithm had flagged. Even though my grow op uses only about 250kwh of electricity per month, this algorithm could identify a pattern of usage increasing and then decreasing within a range of the same start and stop times every day. He said the system can identify regular patterns of less than 100 watts at a time. Wow.

Electrical use isn't enough evidence for a bust, it's sort of a first filter for this system, the next is archives of FLIR flyover data. Apparently police have been doing FLIR flyovers for years, looking for entire grow houses and such, but also have been recording all that data. This new algorithm can access that data and recognize patterns of as little as a 2 F and also overlay the data with GPS data and a google-maps-like interface to pinpoint addresses.

He then showed me that the system can look at credit card receipts for certain items, and the more of those items the more it flags you. For example, buying soil may be no big deal, but buying soil and also buying activated carbon and also buying a new HPS bulb, even if scattered over a 6-month period, is a pattern this algorithm can spot. (P.S. the algorithm is rigged to look for likely meth labs, crack houses, and so on, each drug has it's own filters of suspicious activity).

From this new system he not only was able to tell I am a grower, he looked at my data and could tell fairly accurately when I switched from veg to flower and when I harvested! He had a pretty good idea of what my soil mix is and what nutes I am using.

Needless to say, this completely blew my mind, and scared the living piss out of me. Will law enforcement want to bust a small-time personal grower like me? Who knows. But can they if they want to? You betcha, or very soon can.

My friend called me this morning a little nervous, he said that he had too much to drink last night and had told me and showed me way more than he should have. He made me swear not to tell anyone the details of what I saw, but info about this new system in general is going public even as we speak so it's OK for me to relay this info to you.

As for what us growers should do, he told me of a website that has popped up that has tips for defeating this new algorithm. Of course, these tips only apply to what you might do in the future, you can't change what is already in the databases.

Here is a link to the website, but I want to caution all of you: there is something you will see at this website that readers here really must see directly for themselves -- when you see it you'll know it, so all I ask is that you do not post comments here about this particular bit of information you'll find. GC readers have to see for themselves, so please don't spoil the surprise. Here's the link. Any other comments certainly are welcomed.
 

 

Yes, but an asshole who cares... ..

 

That's true, which is why:

But the real key to my story lies in following that weblink at the end, so everyone needs to follow that link to truly understand the situation...