
How child predator was caught by tiny clue in photo he posted online - kschua
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/21/us/project-vic-child-abuse/index.html
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tjic
I'm thrilled at the success in putting some child abusers behind bars.

...but we have to remember that these stories are the result of press releases
and active press management by law enforcement, as part of a two pronged
strategy to (a) build popular trust for law enforcement (b) increase the
willingness of the public to hand law enforcement new technological tools.

The same technology that helps authorities pull a name off a pill bottle to
capture an evil man can also help authorities pull a name off a pill bottle to
capture a recreational drug user (and make his children grow to adulthood
without a father) or - in some countries, or in our own in the future -
capture a thought criminal who shows insufficient deference to the police
state.

The criminal justice system, financed by our tax dollars, dedicates huge
amounts of money and labor to presenting their case for expanded powers to the
public.

As someone once said (I think I read this on a blog somewhere): when the
authorities spend this much time convincing us about the right way to
understand an issue, the actual levers of power pass through the voters, and
go back to the government.

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abz10
The problem isn't that police are getting better at enforcement (rec drug
laws) the problem is that it's illegal and enforcement is discretionary. If
everyone who did rec drugs was immediately arrested it would quickly become
legal. Similar to illegal downloads of music. Because of selective enforcement
you end up with rasist effects, blackmail, corruption etc. By taking away this
discretion (as much as possible) you'll end up with laws that match society
beliefs. Not only would pedophilia still be illegal but the UK royal family
would be unable to prevent the police from investigating sick fucks like Jimmy
Saville who spent many decades abusing hundreds of the UKs most vulnerable
children.

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dx034
I can imagine that the ability to extract fingerprints from photos could have
security implications with fingerprint sensors becoming more widespread.

I'm aware that it's already possible to get fingerprints but this would make
it much easier.

~~~
s_kilk
Same goes for most biometric security. Basically, if the security relies on
scanning some visible part of the person (face, iris, fingerprint), then it
can be bypassed with a photograph of the same.

I recall the Windows 10 facial-unlock thing being bypassed by a facebook pic
of the owner, printed out on paper.

~~~
FungalRaincloud
Facial recognition is worse than that - I know people whose kids can unlock
their devices. That's bad enough, but I know one person whose dog can unlock
his device, I guess proving the old saying that dogs resemble their owners.

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DanBC
There are other efforts that you can contribute to. One example is
TraffickCam:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12058357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12058357)

You take photos of hotel rooms, which are then used to identify locations.

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joewee
Is there open source software that performs similar photo analysis /
forensics?

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fwn
> tiny clue

His name.

~~~
cpncrunch
Which they had to unblir.

~~~
dogma1138
unblurring isn't as hard as you would imagine, especially the "automated blur"
where you simply select an area and hit "blur".

The blur function is a fixed function which can be reversed with pretty decent
results.

There was a similar case where faces were masked using Photoshop's swirl blur
function and you could simply reverse it for positive identification.

The "manual" tools like the blur/smudge brush are harder since you don't know
how it was done and how many times but you can still try to reverse it.

There is a reason why no one is redacting documents with blur ;)

~~~
Overtonwindow
Clarification: Didn't the article say it was motion blur?

~~~
soylentcola
I doubt the guy used a blur filter/tool to attempt redaction of the text on
the pill bottle. More likely than not, it was plain old camera motion blur
from too long an exposure. The same sort of blur you see from less-capable
cameras in low light where there's no option to open the aperture wider to let
in more light. Instead, you expose longer and risk blur due to the motion of a
handheld shot.

