Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 359 posts

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#31

Post by jariel »

pixl97 wrote: post #13
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #2

Seems like a case of hasn't cracked yet, not can't crack.

DNA is our best bet, but as we see it's the missing part of the story. With this said, it makes for a decent fictional writing prompt. It's 2045, the cold case on Mostly Harmless has been reopened after 24 years. Advances in DNA matching technology beyond what we imagined possible in 2020 have occurred. Detective Williams submits the preserved DNA to the US National DNA Registry (DNAR). Within minutes an exceptionall…

"DNA is our best bet"

No, social networks are. More than likely there are people who absolutely know who he is, they just need to see the photo.

DNA databases are not necessarily comprehensive, if there aren't people in his lineage who are both registered and who know about/of him, then it won't work.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#32

Post by [deleted] »

thom wrote: post #10
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #2

Seems like a case of hasn't cracked yet, not can't crack.

Reminds me of the old adage that if you want to find out how to do something in Linux, it's quicker to make a post saying "Linux can't do X!" and watch the rebuttals roll in than ask the question "How do I do X?"

[deleted]

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#34

Post by jariel »

Young men don't die for 'no reason'. It's odd that they couldn't find some cause of death, I assumed that in 2020 we'd be able to make a rough estimate. If there's no obvious foul play then statistically the obvious one would be suicide, but that should narrow only to a few specific things. How many ways are there for one to 'just die' while lying in a tent.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#35

Post by paxys »

I wonder how long it will be before someone truly cannot be anonymous in this country (or the world). Whenever I come across a book/movie about someone traveling to the future and trying to blend in, my immediate thought is that they will instantly be flagged as suspicious by a hundred different automated systems (where is your advertising profile, credit history, location history, iris scan, microchip??)

There probably are already enough biometrics, digital records etc. today that can accomplish this given the right incentives for everyone involved.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#36

Post by dheera »

paxys wrote: post #35

I wonder how long it will be before someone truly cannot be anonymous in this country (or the world). Whenever I come across a book/movie about someone traveling to the future and trying to blend in, my immediate thought is that they will instantly be flagged as suspicious by a hundred different automated systems (where is your advertising profile, credit history, location history, iris scan, microchip??) There proba…

I'm slightly less concerned about being anonymous from the government and far more concerned about being anonymous from businesses.

How is it that every time I move, they still figure out where I live and continue to send me junk mail? I'm extremely concerned about the ease of arbitrary businesses finding out where some person lives. I want this to be unethical to the point that whoever leaked my address without my consent to be arrested and fined.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#37

Post by Raphmedia »

Could it be a Canadian that drove to NY and then hiked west?

That's a pretty common thing to do.

I have a bunch of friends from college that are bouncing around the globe travelling on foot, picking fruits and doing farm-work when they run out of funds.

Or are the databases / missing persons agencies communicating with each others?

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#38

Post by bastawhiz »

jariel wrote: post #34

Young men don't die for 'no reason'. It's odd that they couldn't find some cause of death, I assumed that in 2020 we'd be able to make a rough estimate. If there's no obvious foul play then statistically the obvious one would be suicide, but that should narrow only to a few specific things. How many ways are there for one to 'just die' while lying in a tent.

I'm not sure the article said...is it known how long he was dead for before the body was discovered? After enough time has passed, it becomes impossible to reliably determine whether certain factors played a role in the death. Underlying health issues and infection can be hidden by decomposition.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#39

Post by roywiggins »

dheera wrote: post #36
paxys wrote: post #35

I wonder how long it will be before someone truly cannot be anonymous in this country (or the world). Whenever I come across a book/movie about someone traveling to the future and trying to blend in, my immediate thought is that they will instantly be flagged as suspicious by a hundred different automated systems (where is your advertising profile, credit history, location history, iris scan, microchip??) There proba…

I'm slightly less concerned about being anonymous from the government and far more concerned about being anonymous from businesses . How is it that every time I move, they still figure out where I live and continue to send me junk mail? I'm extremely concerned about the ease of arbitrary businesses finding out where some person lives. I want this to be unethical to the point that whoever leaked my address without my…

USPS sells change-of-address data.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/07/08/how-the-p...

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#40

Post by Componica »

ColanR wrote: post #25
thomasqbrady wrote: post #5

The Screeps detail seems like something that could be fairly easily pursued... there can't have been that many players of that game to begin with, let alone those that would care so much about it that they would journal their thoughts about it. A quick check of the GitHub repo doesn't show he contributed code, but might he have opened an issue, contributed to docs? Might there be someone who was active in the communi…

If someone wants to check, I'd bet he at least forked or starred the github repo. A script to pull the list of those people, minus anyone whos been active since april 2017, would probably show his account.

Looking at https://imgur.com/a/eTphrRF The code that he writes is a blend of languages. The arrow operators -> is indicative of C/C++ but C/C++ doesn't use nil or function. It's like he thinks in C/C++ first which puts him at about my age mid-40s. Anyone younger than 40 would be using dots '.' due to Java/Javascript/Python instead of '->'. Does anyone else get that vibe?
Post reply on HN