

Crowdsourced identification of London rioters - wgx
http://londonrioters.co.uk/identify/

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zbyszek
Was there not something similar after the Vancouver riots? There were
misgivings expressed: [http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/world/on-the-dangers-of-
crowd...](http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/world/on-the-dangers-of-crowdsourced-
surveillance). Was is successful?

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graemem
I'm on a pretty slow connection here, so If I want to try identify some
rioters, I need to sit and wait for a whole page to load with the new image? I
could do that once, maybe twice before getting bored.

Why not just follow the "old school" method and just make a page full of
faces, like the newspapers are doing. There is nothing new or innovative about
this site, if anything it's backwards!

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praptak
Identify them and then what? If you haven't got any witnesses to accompany the
photo, it is useless as evidence. Running around masked with a cardboard box
full of stuff is not a crime by itself.

~~~
graemem
I don't know about this site, but the photos in the UK newspapers are released
by the police - so they are probably linked to evidence on that person. So if
you could identify someone the police would just have to find them.

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dazzawazza
I don't know how small the image set is but it kept getting the same image
again and again. Maybe one in five was a dupe.

The only person I recognised was Kernel Sanders ;)

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avantgrden
I have recognized PM David Cameron, what about u guys?

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X4
Reminds me to Minority Report. Really. I'd like to express something without
beeing rude, because it's a waste of energy.

<emotionml
xmlns="[http://www.w3.org/2008/11/emotionml>](http://www.w3.org/2008/11/emotionml>);
<emotion date="2011-08-12"> <intensity value="0.5" confidence="1.0"/>
<category set="everydayEmotions" name="boredom" confidence="0.1"/> </emotion>

<emotion date="2011-08-12" <friendliness value="-0.5"/> <arousal value="very
high"/> <valence value="negative"/> <rejecting value="3.0"/> </emotion>

</emotionml>

I'm sorry if my emotion doesn't validate for you, but it validates for me ;)

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pointyhat
This is the most dangerous use of technology these days: Incrimination. I've
been campaigning to have this site shut down in various places.

All it takes is incorrect information, a bad photo or a grudge and the world
comes down for an innocent person. On the hand of the guilty people, it shows
nothing of what they have done, merely a snapshot in time.

Also, if the database is hacked or leaked in any way, a lot of people are
going to suffer from vigilante attacks.

This is simply NOT A GOOD THING.

Also it's technically 100% ILLEGAL as they do not have a data controller and
are not registered with the ICO. This IS vigilante justice by idiots.

And after all, the politicians gave a clear message with the expense scandals,
News Corp scandals and cuts that it's ok to loot and pillage...

~~~
kahawe
This goes a bit beyond the purpose of the website but is in context of what
you wrote about incrimination and vigilantes:

It is amazing how quickly and effortlessly the otherwise so liberal and
typically indifferent average internet user will turn into a zealous vigilante
from behind their keyboard - I remember countless instances of that on reddit
and 4chan basically calling for a lynch mob on people who tortured animals or
did other very-bad-image crimes.(And by "bad image" I am referring to the fact
that the average internet vigilantes I encountered definitely has strongly
skewed priorities as to which crimes need the most severe punishment) And
there are reports of the same being rather "popular" in China.

And the worst part was? You could not convince them that what they are doing
is completely wrong, illegal and immoral by all of our modern social
standards. I mean, really, what ever happened to "in dvbio pro reo" and do
these people not realize how very much alike their actions are to the dark
times of the SS/SA, Gestapo and Stasi? How can you justify "taking things into
your own hands" and ruining other people's life?

~~~
pointyhat
Very true. I think this was a very pre-emptive warning about humanity:

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When
change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set
for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among
savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

I worry less about the rioters than I do about the general population calling
for lynching and murder.

