
Anatomy of a Killing - danso
https://twitter.com/bbcafrica/status/1044186344153583616
======
dddddaviddddd
It's fascinating to me that all the information required for the analysis is
publicly available. This seems like a big shift from an era when only an
intelligence agency would have been able to perform this sort of analysis.

~~~
mherdeg
The "open source intelligence" report on the MH17 incident -- where people
found social media videos of the Buk missile proceeding through the
countryside before being used to down the passenger jet -- was super
interesting in a similar vein: [https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-
europe/2015/10/08/mh1...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-
europe/2015/10/08/mh17-the-open-source-evidence/)

~~~
megous
There are plenty of people doing open source data gathering and
investigations. It's pretty interesting. Bellingcat is one of such orgs.

You can find a lot of individuals and small orgs on Twitter doing stuff like
spotting military ships and their cargo, spotting drones on satellite imagery,
collecting lists of destroyed heavy weapons, listing ATGM attacks, airstrike
victims (airwars.com), geolocating videos/pictures posted to social media,
colleting info on chemical attacks (bellingcat), collecting and publishing
ISIS documents online, recreating 3D models of some events from public
videos/photos, etc.

One example of 3D modelling (they call it forensic architecutre) based on open
source data is in this report on Douma attack:

[https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/1000000058408...](https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000005840873/syria-
chlorine-bomb-assad.html)

~~~
stevenjohns
> There are plenty of people doing open source data gathering and
> investigations. It's pretty interesting. Bellingcat is one of such orgs.

Bellingcat is also a great example of what it shouldn't be. Most of what is
produced is misleading at best. Some of the core "experts" (i.e Dan Kaszeta)
are closer to propaganda generators than genuine researchers or informed
sources.

~~~
megous
I dunno, I'm exposed to Bellingcat only via the work of Elliot Higgins, so I'm
not able to judge other contributors for myself. But it's very frequent to
call people's work propaganda these days, just because someone disagrees. So
unless you have more info, it doesn't mean much.

~~~
stevenjohns
Higgins is the person who groomed Kaszeta, together they formed the theory
behind hexamine being used as an acid scavenger on the first Sarin chemical
attacks attributed to the Syrian government. Together they tried to take on
MIT's Postol and others who found it ridiculous (and implausible at best).

If you followed Higgins prior to Bellingcat (back when he was "Brown Moses")
you'd know he had a strong bias for the rebellion which has since just turned
into a strong anti-government bias, strong interventionalism and explicitly
anti-Russian.

A great example of how their bias slips into their analyses is examples like
the fake sniper boy[0] which fooled a lot of anti-government "experts" to the
point where people like Higgins tried to organise witch hunts against the
scene director.

[0] [https://journal-neo.org/2014/11/27/what-the-fake-syria-
snipe...](https://journal-neo.org/2014/11/27/what-the-fake-syria-sniper-boy-
video-tell-us-about-media-experts/)

~~~
megous
While I agree I see personal bias in what he writes on Twitter, I'd hardly
call it pro-rebel. Anti-government (more like anti-syrian regime), sure. It
show in the choice of topics. But the question is how much it shows in the
analysis itself.

As for Hexamine/Sarin attack/Postol issue: Hexamine was found in Sarin attacks
by OPCW, it was declared by Syria to OPCW. Postol is not a chemist, nor CW
expert, nor on the ground, nor very credible wrt his claims about Syrian
chemical attacks, as several of his claims were already rejected by OPCW, who
found Syrian regime responsible for the April 4 2017 attack (Postol had all
kinds of theories about this attack). I prefer OPCW's conculsions to some
random profesor's taking sides and judging from a distance.

[https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-
Ch...](https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical-
Weapons-Activity)

You quoted Partisangirl, and I just can't take her seriously as an unbiased
source either. Just one recent example of clear bias: Despite big civilian
protests last few weeks in Idlib, she only tweeted one picture of some
marching jihadists. She's very clearly pro assad-regime, at the expense of
truth, accuracy, and peoples lives for that matter.

So yeah, Higgins is biased, but quoting other biased, non-expert sources
doesn't really improve the matters.

Re: fake sniper. The experiment can be both revealing of reporting bias and
highly irresponsible. People criticized the irresponsibility angle at the
time. Witch hunt seems to be your interpretation.

~~~
stevenjohns
I cited that article about the existence of the fake sniper video, just
because "fake sniper boy" doesn't mean much on its own. That's it. I could
have used any other link.

I appreciate that you might have issues with the author of that article but
it's not what I was going for. It's unfair to suggest that I'm quoting biased
sources when I didn't quote them, just merely wanted to provide context of
which video I was talking about.

------
mcguire
A brilliant piece of work to place the location.

On the other hand, this seems to be...below...the BBC:

" _The government statement makes clear that all these men enjoy the
presumption of innocence, and that they will be given a fair trial._ "

" _The two women killed outside Zelevet received no trial at all._

" _No presumption of innocence was extended to the children who died with
them._ "

~~~
segmondy
You won't make such statements if you saw the complete video.

To kill unarmed women and children? Sheesh, what would you have written in
place of those?

~~~
wruza
"The government statement makes clear that all these men were arrested, and
that they will be given a trial."

See, you just ditch "enjoy" and "fair" parts and it goes neutral. You don't
have to be neutral, but news do.

~~~
tomc1985
Neither of those words are adding what you think they are adding to that
sentence

~~~
wruza
I’m pretty sure that I can distinguish neutral from emotional.

------
aidos
Incredible bit of analysis and presentation.

It's hard to watch this sort of footage for me now. Once upon a time when I
was younger I could handle it, but with young children the same sort of age it
really tears me apart. Though, I think people should be forced to confront it,
because it's the only way it's ever going to improve.

~~~
abalone
Totally. In terms of handling it, there was a French horror film "Inside"
which is very good but involves attacking a pregnant woman. After having kids
I found I just couldn't stomach it, which was a change. Same for Sicario's
child murder scene which I found just terribly lazy and desperate to be "edgy"
and all these rave reviews just pissed me off. Having kids definitely over
sensitized me.. in a good way.

~~~
duxup
There was a Frontline show about life in North Korea, they follow some folks
who sneak into North Korea and try to distribute food / money to the poor.

One child about 5 or 6 they meet says his mom had to go to the next town to
work and had to leave him ... she never came back.

The little boy tells the story as directly as a 5 year old would tell it, he
is homeless with no family fending for himself in the streets.

At the time my oldest was 5.... I can't get that child's voice and image out
of my head.

------
funwie
This is one example of routine acts committed by Cameroon’s military
especially in the English-speaking regions. No reaction from international
community. Instead, the west is asking Cameroon to investigate. They’re
basically asking Cameroon govt to cover up its atrocities.

Video clearly shows Cameroon military shooting at mother with children. Same
as hundreds of other incidents. What’s there to investigate?

Condemn the actions and let the govt face consequences.

~~~
chris_mc
Interesting. When I was in the US Naval Academy, I had a Camaroonean roommate
that was going to go to the academy, then become an officer of his homeland's
military. I wonder if the US military is still training Cameroonian officers
today.

~~~
kitrose
Not sure what years you went through but I remember we had one (about a decade
ago).

------
apo
I can't imagine this kind of analysis carrying much weight in 3-5 years as
advances in machine learning and image manipulation turn the notion of "seeing
is believing" on its head.

edit: Imagine running this process in reverse. Pick the culprit, time, and
location. Then arrange the scene to exactly match the false accusation.

Probably didn't happen here, but in a few years it won't be possible to know
the difference.

~~~
kelp
I keep meaning to write up a longer form version of this idea that I've been
kicking around to solve this.

This issue is often talked about as an unsolvable problem, but I feel like we
already have the technology to deal with it.

Lots of devices, such as an iPhone already have a secure enclave that can be
used for identity. Why not use this to sign videos and images for
authentication purposes?

Then certain devices can produce verified, undoctored images and videos. Or
even allow some amount of limited tweaking, and editing while attesting to the
original.

This could be embedded into the file produced, like exif data, and read by
services like Facebook and Twitter to badge the image/video as verified and
undoctored. This could improve the amature case significantly.

Professional photography and video equipment could have similar capabilities
so originals could be produced and proven to be genuine.

I guess this idea still depends on the hardware devices remaining secure,
which is far from trivial, but it does increase the cost of producing a fake.
And to keep producing really good fakes, you have to have a zero day to fake a
genuine signature, or it becomes know that any media produced with that device
version is suspect.

If such a system became widly adopted, at the very least, savvy users, and the
media would be suspect of anything not signed. And perhaps the general public
would also learn to be skeptical, particularly if the issue of fakes became
more widespread.

~~~
nathan_f77
Haha I was also thinking about using an HSM module to sign videos [1]. I think
the problem is that anyone can just record a projector screen and replay audio
through some speakers, and then Facebook and Twitter will still badge the
video as verified and undoctored. You could detect this by analyzing the video
and audio, but then it's just an arms race with machine learning.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18074425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18074425)

------
JoblessWonder
It all comes back to the original tip from a "Cameroonian source." Without
that, they wouldn't have only had a ridgeline somewhere in (probably)
Cameroon.

~~~
Senderman
That's a good point.

Makes me wonder if that 2D mountain range projection could be used to 'search'
through a 3D map for a match.

~~~
pure-awesome
Coincidentally, I had exactly just that thought about a week ago whilst I was
staring out at a nearby mountain.

I have very little knowledge about this kind of problem, but to me, it seems
like a solvable problem - there has been some interesting work in
reconstructing 3D models from photographs of objects (I have a friend who did
his masters in something similar) and I don't doubt that people working on
that type of problem would likely have some ideas for approaching this one.

Though to make it tractable one would perhaps want to "weight" the algorithm /
start the search from likely vantage points (i.e. from inside cities / on top
of buildings, and along roads), and take some discrete samples of what the
mountain range would look like at various angles from that point.

I wonder if it would be possible to do something similar to a binary search or
Newton's method type thing where if you have two nearby points looking at the
same mountain range, you could figure out the probability that the actual
vantage point lies somewhere in the vague area between those points, and so
get a better idea of where to take more precise samples after you've started
with a few discrete samples.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
This should be a tractable problem. Cruise missiles navigate by matching the
terrain they're flying by with a 3d model.

Doing it with 2d video and not having precise starting coordinates,
speed/heading/altitude makes the search space larger but I think that is more
than made up for by the fact that you're not trying to do it all on embedded
hardware from the 80s.

------
tw1010
That mountain ridge trick, how reliable of an identifier is that? I'm not
really questioning the validity of its use in this situation, but I'd be
curious to know more about the nature of the ridge to gps coordinates mapping.
How many ridges map to more than one gps coordinate (albeit at potentially
very distant locations, one of which could be excluded if more information is
available)? Or is the mapping completely injective? That'd be really cool, a
bit surprising, but not infeasible.

Sounds like a fun data science project. (Draw a ridge and get a google street
view image whose horizon matches the ridge as closely as possible, maybe?
Might be fun to play with!)

~~~
flatb
I think they mention they located the mountains not from the ridge outline,
but from a tip-off they received about where it all happened, and then they
corroborated that tip against the ridge outline, building placement, roads,
etc.

 _> After a tip off from a Cameroonian source, we found an exact match for
that ridge line on Google Earth_

------
Sujan
On one page:
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1044186344153583616.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1044186344153583616.html)

~~~
therein
In the original video form:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9S-eoLgX4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9S-eoLgX4)

------
rossdavidh
Just in case anyone else is as confused as I was, if you don't hit "play" on
the picture of the ridge-line, you won't see the match. Or maybe I'm the only
one who was wondering how that could be considered a match, until I figured
out to do that.

------
eveningcoffee
This answers all the questions but why.

~~~
toyg
Does it really matter? That's not the way to deal with even the most vicious
of criminals, let alone his child.

~~~
eveningcoffee
Yes it does matter. Tremendously.

For example is this soldiers initiative or part of a general tactics
encouraged by the higher command?

Was the execution justified (i.e. motivated, that is, it was not a cover up or
a random killing)?

I can come up with few reasons to kill the woman but why the child? Is there
some message behind this killing?

Naturally these questions do not matter for despising such behaviour but are
important to help to understand the human nature.

~~~
tptacek
They murdered two children.

~~~
endersshadow
Yes, but why? They're up there fighting Boko Haram -- this is a war-torn part
of the world. Why is the Cameroonian military killing the people they're
charged with protecting?

It's something I'd really like to know, after reading through this. I don't
understand anything but the most superficial issues facing this region, and it
rather shocked me that the national military that's up there to quell the Boko
Haram insurgency is committing these atrocities.

I mean, yes, people kill people for fun. People kill children because they're
monsters, and I get that. But is that what's happening here? Or is this ethnic
cleansing? Or is this something else entirely?

~~~
segmondy
The french population doesn't like the English population. The English part is
a minority and feel like a 2nd class citizen in their own country. A lot of
them are being killed, you can google these answers.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-
africa-44459488/cameroon-c...](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-
africa-44459488/cameroon-crisis-explained)

~~~
dclowd9901
This is seriously about what language they speak?

~~~
pluma
Does that really surprise you?

------
Semiapies
This is some impressive video forensics.

~~~
JoblessWonder
It all started with a tip that gave them the general area though.

This is my favorite example of gathering data just from examining a video:
[https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/case-
studies/2014/08/22...](https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/case-
studies/2014/08/22/gun-safety-self-defense-and-road-marches-finding-an-isis-
training-camp/)

~~~
peteretep
> It all started with a tip that gave them the general area _though_

You've made this point twice in the comments. What are you getting at?

~~~
JoblessWonder
Just that the investigation hinges on decidedly non-technical/novel methods.
It is an interesting news story and presentation but isn’t as unique as I
think people who just skimmed the twitter thread might assume.

~~~
dclowd9901
So we’re just going to dismiss the fact that they used social media to get the
tip in the first place?

It’s incredible boot leather investigative journalism in 2018 and doesn’t need
to be qualified. What are you? A paper salesman?

~~~
JoblessWonder
I totally agree that it is great journalism and is worth recognizing for no
other reason than that. I think I was just being extra sour because it was the
end of a long day and probably should not have been commenting on the
internet. :(

Where did they mention that they used social media to get the tip? Or are you
referring to the fact that the video spread via social media (which wouldn't
have happened x years ago) and presumably led someone to reach out to them?
Not being argumentative, just curious.

------
DoctorOetker
Could BBC please share the code for matching mountain ridges with locations?

They claim that the first mountain ridge was located by a tip from a
Cameroonian source. Here they _verify_ the ridge with the mountain ridges from
a height map.

But later on without mentioning any tip or source they "found" an Channel4
news report in archives with again a mountain ridge match. I consider 3)
possibilities:

1) They manually watched all the footage from the last few years in that area,
freeze framing them whenever they see a mountain ridge, then manually trace
it. I don't believe this is what happened, that's too many man hours.

2) They knew through other means (perhaps camera gps location metadata,
perhaps report description/summary) that the report video was taken near the
massacre video. Because of this metadata/textual data they were able to
realize they had nearby footage of an outpost by querying for the massacre
location. But then they fail to mention this trivial step and make a bit of a
show by highlighting some features and again a mountain ridge. So in this case
they have a database of archive footage and filter by location/time.

3) They have automated software for isolating mountain ridge profiles from
footage (perhaps edge detection? remove all edges that don't appear to undergo
rigid body motion? but how filter clouds etc?), and matching software for
locating where on the heightmap it the footage was made. In this case it is
explainable without ridiculous man hours or ridiculous showmanship (instead of
mentioning say GPS coordinate metadata of the journalism camera). But in this
case perhaps BBC could share this code with the public?

------
Myrmornis
Did the BBC's analysis cause the Cameroon government to come clean and start
proceedings against the soldiers or was that coincidental?

------
gpvos
Below the BBC's thread, an insightful comment by John Odande:

 _> As Africans, we like saying "African solutions to African problems" yet it
is funny that we continue relying on international media to relay accurate
information and challenge governments' positions all over the continent. Great
job BBC Africa!_

------
ismail
Wow. This is an amazing piece of investigative journalism and probably one of
the reasons we should all be supporting an independent media.

------
hkeide
At the end they bemoan the fact that the men are facing trial and will be
presumed innocent until proven guilty. I expect better from the BBC

~~~
happytoexplain
"Bemoan" is a strong word. The government whose soldiers murdered these women
and children called it "fake news", declaring their innocence before even
investigating. The BBC is criticising that disgusting behavior by contrasting
their emphasis of the soldier's legal innocence until proven guilty with the
neglect they exhibited for the people who were executed.

~~~
gammateam
I can see that perspective, I too thought the wording was negligent.

------
zakum1
Heart breaking. Congratulations to the BBC for this amazing analysis. But real
justice would require telling the story of how these women came to be
murdered. This region in Cameroon is a flash point for a regional fight
against a Muslim fundamentalist / warlord group called Boko Haram (translates
as “western education is a sin”). How and why did these four civilians come to
be murdered as a part of this tragic conflict in one of the poorest parts of
the world?

~~~
pjc50
For the motive, you'd probably have to ask the murderers. But there's a long
tragic history of opportunistic cruelty against women and children (and indeed
men, though that's clouded with arguments about combatant status) in warzones.

------
wafflesraccoon
I'm shocked how well Twitter worked here, normally I dread reading long tweet
threads but this worked really well. Short videos and a good mix of media
helps a ton.

------
x220
They should not edit out the end of the video. People should know how harsh
the world can get.

~~~
DC-3
It's not like anyone is in doubts as to what happens, therefore to show the
killings themselves would be somewhat gratuitous.

~~~
x220
It's not about people not knowing what happens, it's about people not
understanding the significance of what happens. Watching videos and seeing
pictures can make you understand the meaning of murder, massacre, and genocide
in a way that headlines never can.

------
baud147258
How do we know the whole thing isn't staged? I mean it's not as if getting
weapons and uniforms is hard in that part of Africa.

------
kabacha
Man I hate twitter as a delivery for content like this. I'd love to see it as
a proper article rather than some toy.

------
justtopost
Why a twitter link and not the oc at BBC?

~~~
danso
The linked tweet is from the official BBC account, @BBCAfrica. I did Google
around for the article page on the BBC's site [0], but submitted the Twitter
link because the BBC page isn't an article, but a 10 minute video (which also
wasn't playing correctly on my phone). The Twitter thread is fairly easy to
read as an article.

[0] [https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-
africa-45599973/cameroon-a...](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-
africa-45599973/cameroon-atrocity-finding-the-soldiers-who-killed-this-woman)

------
hi41
The footage made me very sad. The people have to live in extreme poverty and
on top of that hardship they also have to suffer such unspeakable violence.
BBC has done a great job of bringing the war criminals to justice.

------
dclowd9901
Powerful and absolutely stunning work. This, _this_ is investigative
journalism in the modern era.

I think it’s worth noting that, as despicable as some of their work can be,
Anon pioneered this kind of digital forensic work.

------
dtf
Here is the full video package on this from BBC Africa:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnLkc6r3yc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnLkc6r3yc)

------
Pristina
That's some real life CSI stuff.

------
vmaini
how long until AI can do all of this?

~~~
vpark
Interesting, vmaini. Do you mean identify the time/location/persons or kill
innocent civilians?

~~~
platz
What is your desired precision/recall rate

~~~
msds
Well, if the AI gets to do both, you can make the precision arbitrarily
high...

------
Vinnl
On the one hand I think this is really impressive and am somewhat excited that
they have been able to do this. On the other hand, I'm also somewhat fearful
about the future. For example, what if, in this age of constant surveillance,
techniques like these get more automated, and repressive governments are able
to more easily and more quickly identify investigative journalists at
locations they would not want them to be?

