
FBI Updates on Boston explosions - martin_
http://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple-explosions-in-boston/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple-explosions-in-boston
======
MichaelApproved
For me, the HN part of the story is that the FBI servers are having trouble
keeping up with the traffic to their site.

Edit: Here's one of the responses I got while trying to load the FBI website

 _ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the requested URL the following error was
encountered:

    
    
        Zero Sized Reply 
    

Footprint did not receive any data for this request. Footprint 4.8/FPMCP
Generated Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:42:44 GMT by 8.12.217.126 (Footprint 4.8/FPMCP)_

~~~
danso
Yeah, I hate to say it, but my first thought was: "Is there no one at the FBI
who has ever heard of a CDN or S3 or even Imgur to upload static assets to?"
The issue at hand isn't a national emergency (because the attacks happened a
few days ago with the suspects apparently quiet) but one of these days,
they'll need a more robust way to disseminate info.

~~~
slg
While these photos and video are the opposite of confidential, I am not the
least bit surprised that the FBI wants to keep the FBI's data on the FBI's
servers given the nature of their business.

~~~
MichaelApproved
The website is public. There's nothing keeping them from having using a CDN or
other caching service or, better yet, setting up their own caching servers to
handle the load better.

------
blantonl
So far, crowdsourcing has identified one high resolution image that shows both
suspects running from the scene:

<http://i.imgur.com/I1dF69f.jpg>

(Note the guy with the white polo hat on the left and his partner not far
behind in khakis and black hat)

I'm a firm believer that crowdsourcing is going to find out the details on
these guys much faster than a government agency trying to collect all this
digital data and do it themselves.

~~~
hallmark
First off, I completely fail to see the partner in khakis and black hat in
this photo.

Second, the mirrored imgur photo is much smaller and compressed than the
original photo to which the New York Times linked. If a crowd of people are
attempting to identify an individual, it's unfortunate if many are looking at
a suboptimal image. This should be a lesson NOT to use imgur for such a task.
Just throw the original on S3 behind CloudFront.

Original, high quality photo:
[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/thelede/posts/susp...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/thelede/posts/suspect-
number-2.JPG)

------
tych0
It's interesting that Carmen Ortiz is the (a?) US Attorney who is working on
this. I would have thought they were compartmentalized by type of crime a bit
more.

~~~
jewbacca
And I'd imagine a successful prosecution will render her completely beyond
political reproach and put her on the fast track to higher legal leadership
(which she must already be on to be assigned this case).

So, if nothing else, an HN angle here is that the outrage of 3 months ago is
completely undone and meaningless. Moreso than even the common cynicism of
that time would have charged.

I have no basis to object to her assignment to this case in isolation (I would
imagine that she's perfectly competent in prosecuting a case with less moral
subtlety), beyond complaining that in a just world she should have at least
fallen too far out of favour to be assigned this case, and that there must be
other US Attorneys in line who could handle it at least as well. But it would
be public-opinion suicide for any tech causes to widely protest someone who
will soon become a public hero.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
If anything, her role in the Swartz case shows she is aggressive and
interested more in using the full weight of the law rather than "moral
subtleties". In a case that is bound to be full of race issues, having someone
who can filter all the noise and see the facts is an asset.

------
asynchronous13
In the video, there's a girl wearing a yellow pullover and a large back-pack
that is a little behind the guy labeled as a suspect. She shows up in each of
the scenes (at 0:08, 0:20, 0:29) Is there information outside of this video
that makes him more suspicious than her?

Otherwise, I'd say both of them exhibit the same level of innocence/guilt.

~~~
Goladus
_Is there information outside of this video that makes him more suspicious
than her?_

Most assuredly. I suspect they have video of these two guys dropping their
bags. The photos they released are so that people can identify them.

------
waterlesscloud
Reddit seems to have already identified Black Hat's hat. Assume the FBI had
already, but interesting how fast the crowd works on details like that.

<http://i.imgur.com/D9tSDUf.jpg>

~~~
jaydub
I wonder if some sort of image processing could be done to further clear the
images of the face given the belief of how the hat ought to look?

~~~
incision
I had the same thought.

You'd think that knowing accurate dimensions and features of something so
nearby could be used to gauge distortion on the face.

Likewise, perhaps some kind of computer vision could quickly search for the
distinctive pattern of that hat in other images/video.

------
danso
The handling of these photos has been very interesting...since early this
morning, the FBI have been telling the press that they do have good footage of
the suspects...but they didn't release it until the end of the day, at least
12 hours later.

Assuming that the FBI had total control of this release schedule (and that'a a
big if), I don't see the strategy of this. Even if they were 99% sure that
they had legit footage of possible suspects, why announce _that_ , until they
are good and ready (i.e. within an hour) to release them to the public? In
fast-moving crime scenes, the strategy is usually to withhold as many facts of
the crime from the public until a good suspect has been nabbed...among other
things, this prevents people from claiming to have witnessed specifics when in
fact, they only saw them on TV or heard about it in the news.

When a witness (or suspect) tells the police a fact that has been withheld
from the public, that's a tool for the police to use to determine a witness's
reliability.

In the case we have now, the suspected bombers have had at least 12 hours
notice that the FBI had working images of them. Even if it were a complete
bluff...what would be the point? Isn't it better to keep the suspects in as
much ignorance as possible? It may be that at least one of them is dumb and
complacent enough to think they've gotten away with it.

But this is a new age of news dissemination, so maybe the FBI was just flying
by the seat of their pants. Part of me thinks that they did have a
suspect/person of interest all this time (since yesterday's erroneous reports)
and that this release is a partial ruse to flush out a co-conspirator (who, if
he/she believes the press conference, thinks that the FBI has no one in
custody yet).

~~~
whiskeychaser
Maybe they are putting these pics out knowing full well that they are not
suspects and they already have the real suspects either in custody or are on
their trail. This release could be a bluff. Wouldn't be the first time.

~~~
mootothemax
_Maybe they are putting these pics out knowing full well that they are not
suspects and they already have the real suspects either in custody or are on
their trail. This release could be a bluff. Wouldn't be the first time._

Purely out of interest - and I'm possibly showing my ignorance here - when has
this tactic been used before?

------
craigerrington
There's some photos on this FBI page of a 17 year old kid, who was fingered by
our internet detectives - and has already come forward to clear his name

[http://news.yahoo.com/teen-am-not-boston-marathon-
bomber-175...](http://news.yahoo.com/teen-am-not-boston-marathon-
bomber-175755674--abc-news-topstories.html)

~~~
Kylekramer
These are pretty clearly different people than the 17 year old. The Yahoo
article is currently confusing cause it has photos of the actual two suspects
and none of the person who came forward on the story, but the person who came
forward isn't in the FBI photos.

~~~
grandalf
are you sure?

------
WestCoastJustin
These photos [0] seem better as you can click on the high-res option! I am
only running linux but do you think the SmartDeblur program (Mac/Win) [3]
would work here? Some cool examples [1] [2]. [4] seems like the best option
for the SmartDeblur.

[0] [http://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into-
multip...](http://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple-
explosions-in-boston/photos)

[1]
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2221466/Smart...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2221466/SmartDeblur-
Download-app-blurs-fuzzy-images-amazing-results.html)

[2] [http://en.paperblog.com/smartdeblur-will-work-magic-on-
your-...](http://en.paperblog.com/smartdeblur-will-work-magic-on-your-blurry-
photos-333803/)

[3] <https://github.com/Y-Vladimir/SmartDeblur>

[4] [http://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into-
multip...](http://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple-
explosions-in-boston/image/suspect-2-full-length-front-view-high-res)

~~~
Ives
I tried it with both the stable version the github page links to and the
latest beta version on <http://smartdeblur.net/>. Other than changing the
blurryness to blockyness, it doesn't seem to do a whole lot. [1]

Maybe it works better on motion blur e.g. because with motion blur all of the
information is still there (just overlayed or convoluted in some other way),
while this image is just an interpolated version of a smaller image that
doesn't contain as much information.

It's definitely possible that someone else might be able to change some
program settings for the better though.

[1] <http://imgur.com/DnkbL3V> with a 100x100px kernel and 51% smooth in the
v2.0 beta. Not exactly an improvement

~~~
PatHyatt
After playing with SmartDeblur myself I concur with this finding. No
betterment to be had.

------
LammyL
Does anyone know if the crowd sourcing of suspects on 4chan the other day
picked out the same suspects the FBI announced today?

~~~
yuvadam
No, neither of these suspects came up on 4chan or reddit.

There seem to be no real hi-res images of these suspects, except for a photo
which just showed up of suspect at site #1 [1]

[1] - <http://imgur.com/a/34wtj>

~~~
themckman
Gosh that'd be eerie if it turns out to be these guys knowing they walked
right past you and your friends and to have a photograph of it.

------
iansinke
Their site is absolutely hammered right now. The live video feed here
(<http://live.reuters.com/Event/Boston_Marathon_Explosion?live>) has details.
They have video of 2 suspects, one of which set down an "unusually heavy"
backpack.

~~~
vonmoltke
Someone has an Imgur mirror of the pictures: <http://imgur.com/a/wRl0g>

------
themckman
I'm curious, I watched the conference on cnn.com and there was some guy going
off about the FBI lying and waiving around photographs that the press seemed
to swarm after the official press conference was over. He said a website a few
times, but I never got it. Did anyone else see this or know who he was?

~~~
fiatpandas
I don't know who he was but the site he was screaming out was infowars.com. I
think he was trying to draw attention to the photos you may have seen of the
black backpack special ops guys who popped up in a few images

~~~
bluepen44
Curious article. Though now I do wonder why those guys were there..

~~~
fiatpandas
I really don't think there's a big conspiracy with them. I think the article
correctly identified them as members of a private security firm, but I really
just think the city authorities hired them to assist with protecting the race,
which probably explains why one of them appeared to be walking around with a
radiation detector.

------
tunesmith
Just the fact that they're young makes me think international rather than
domestic. If they're bombers they don't exactly seem the conspiratorial old
bitter unabomber type.

~~~
teamonkey
If they're international then the FBI shouldn't need to crowdsource the
identities of these people. They will at least have fingerprints and facial
photographs of these guys.

~~~
kevincennis
Wait - what?

~~~
ef4
"U.S. Department of State consular officers and U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officers collect biometric information (digital fingerprints and a
photograph) from all non-U.S. citizens between the ages of 14 and 79, with
some exceptions, when they apply for visas or arrive at major U.S. ports of
entry."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Visitor_and_Immi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Visitor_and_Immigrant_Status_Indicator_Technology)

------
duskwuff
I'm amused to see that the FBI has a YouTube account, and posted the
surveillance video on there. :)

------
phreanix
Mirrored on imgur: <http://imgur.com/irnkk5e>

------
pkfrank
I'm disappointed in the technical solution for uploading footage at
www.BostonMarathonTips.FBI.gov

It would be very powerful if they had a public-(upload-only)-dropbox where
folks could drop relevant footage in a seamless manner.

------
ConceitedCode
Is there anyway to "stitch" together the photos to improve quality? Like
filling in details on the hat for instance. I could have sworn I have seen
similar technology before.

~~~
blhack
I believe there actually is! Isn't this part of the new version of Adobe
Photoshop?

------
tkahn6
Surveillance video here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M80DXI932OE>

This is from the FBI Youtube account and it's linked to on FBI.gov.

Guy in the white cap is the one who they say placed the bomb.

~~~
martin_
The second bomb. The first bomb is unknown, and they haven't stated why
Suspect #1 is of interest

~~~
c0ur7n3y
It appears to me that the two bebackpacked individuals are together. The
second one loses his backpack in the footage. I assume the first has the first
bomb in his backpack.

~~~
rockdiesel
I've watched the footage a couple of times. I don't see either of them losing
their backpacks. What part of the video are you seeing suspect #2 without his
backpack?

~~~
c0ur7n3y
You know what you're right. Thankfully, I'm not on the investigation team.

------
dakrisht
So I take the photos aren't clear enough and/or the FBI doesn't have the
facial recognition capabilities (read not in the database) to identify these
fuckers?

Can anyone elaborate on the scope of facial recognition technologies used by
law enforcement? NSA surely has something powerful...

Also - cell towers - they can look at logs for the time period when these guy
were on the phone and nail down a list of suspects, etc.

Wonder what their approach is here. Clearly enlisting the public to help is
key but I'm sure they have a variety of technologies to find these fucks.

~~~
cglace
unless they were using burners

~~~
dakrisht
True good point, damn burners.

Two gigantic idiots - walking the streets together, around corners carrying
heavy backpacks. Can't fathom how they didn't know with todays surveillance
and a million people taking photos that they wouldn't get spotted.

~~~
dageshi
Sorry, what's a "burner" ? I've no clue what that word means in this context.

~~~
alirov
A prepaid phone specifically purchased to be used briefly and then replaced is
known colloquially as a burner phone or burner.

Source: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepaid_mobile_phone>

So basically a phone that can't be tracked to you and you can get rid of and
replace easily.

------
aj700
When the Met(ropolitan Police) or Gendarmerie Nationale or Carabinieri raid a
property, the terrorists they are looking for have only household improvised
weapons. Every European is today, once again glibly pointing this out
(touché). When they are in the US, given the behaviour [le mot juste] of
congress today, is it surprising that they can and so will shoot back? Of
course they will. It is inexplicable and totally bizarre to the rest of the
world that they are lethally "armed and dangerous" because they ARE LEGALLY
ALLOWED TO BE.

"We don't care that the world things we are all immovably, constitutionally
crazy" is such a weird position. You seem not to. One nation _demonstrably_
under the NRA.

Americans seem to actually think that these weekly gun massacres happen
everywhere else too. They just don't.

It is now absolutely clear that you can kill hundreds in a day with a few of
your own guns, and the federal government will spring into _not the tiniest
bit_ of action.

~~~
lukifer
The atrocity in Boston has not the slightest thing to do with gun policy. Any
nutjob can create homemade bombs whether or not guns are legal.

~~~
msandford
And the people who planted the bombs are definitely NOT law abiding citizens.
If they're willing to kill a bunch of random, innocent bystanders how much
more willing do you think they'd be to kill law enforcement bent on their
apprehension? Once they decide they're willing to break the law and blow up
bombs it stands to reason they'd be comfortable procuring some illegal guns as
well.

