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

Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 208 posts

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#31

Post by asddubs »

Threeve303 wrote: post #6

In reality, the police were likely violating his rights and doing some good old fashioned parallel construction. They had his prints from his products, knew who he was already, waited until they watched him post a picture of cheese, then claimed it was only the picture that caused him to be caught. This is a clear change in police methods, enabled by tech, and an abuse of your constitutional rights if this was a U.S.…

yup, this is the first thing that sprung to my mind as well. yeah right, they analyzed his palm in a blurry photo. give me a break. they monitored him in some way that was illegal and then used this as the cover story

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#32

Post by avianlyric »

IshKebab wrote: post #24
simonh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it seems like he was discussing criminal activity on Encrochat, posted his fingerprints in the picture, and the Police must have had his prints on file from previous incidents. No rights violations required, not that such rights would apply in the UK anyway but that's a different issue.

Except that the photo they've shown is clearly way too low quality to get fingerprints. Presumably they actually used his palm (the article sort of mentions it), and they have a really small pool of people that they suspected so they could just manually compare his palm with known palm prints. I think that's fine though.

I don’t know why you think the photo on the BBC is the original photo. It’s probably been re-compressed half a dozen times as it was passed between police to reporter to CMS to CDN.

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#33

Post by upofadown »

IshKebab wrote: post #24
simonh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it seems like he was discussing criminal activity on Encrochat, posted his fingerprints in the picture, and the Police must have had his prints on file from previous incidents. No rights violations required, not that such rights would apply in the UK anyway but that's a different issue.

Except that the photo they've shown is clearly way too low quality to get fingerprints. Presumably they actually used his palm (the article sort of mentions it), and they have a really small pool of people that they suspected so they could just manually compare his palm with known palm prints. I think that's fine though.

It's very possible the police blurred the fingerprints in the image they distributed.

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#34

Post by asddubs »

avianlyric wrote: post #32
IshKebab wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the photo they've shown is clearly way too low quality to get fingerprints. Presumably they actually used his palm (the article sort of mentions it), and they have a really small pool of people that they suspected so they could just manually compare his palm with known palm prints. I think that's fine though.

I don’t know why you think the photo on the BBC is the original photo. It’s probably been re-compressed half a dozen times as it was passed between police to reporter to CMS to CDN.

it's not compression blurry though, it's out of focus

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#35

Post by jan_Inkepa »

axiosgunnar wrote: post #27
weego wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major dealer in Liverpool is almost certainly someone who has his prints on file for previous crimes. They'll have suspected that account was him for a while but didn't have reasonable grounds, this photo clearly convinced someone it gave them that. But sure, let's take talking points from another country and apply it here too to get angry because question mark

Exactly, this „taking Us talking points and bruteforcing them onto other societies with a completely different legal system, history, and culture“ angers me a lot.

> completely different legal system, history, and culture

America's legal system, while divergent nowadays, owes a lot to the UK's and they have a substantially common history, and American lawyers + judges still cite (pre-independence) English cases and thinkers from time to time -

'The [US Supreme] Court’s references to Blackstone [english lawyer/politician/judge] have increased tenfold since the 1930s, so that the Commentaries is now cited in 1 in 13 cases. At the same time, practically nobody reads it. Indeed, part of Blackstone’s persuasive power today comes from his text’s simultaneous familiarity and mystery. The Court capitalizes on Blackstone’s status as a kind of mythical ancestor – the “oracle of the law in the mind of the American framers,” citing Blackstone for the original meaning of the Constitution. ' e.g. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2402231

[ But yeah, US-centric projection can be wearying. ]

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#36

Post by nickkell »

getlawgdon wrote: post #22
iand wrote: post #12

The implication is that police are routinely scanning all Encrochat photographs to extract fingerprints and other biometric details to match with existing databases.

Isn't it just as likely that the police had a hunch and guided a chat with the aim of having the perp take the (or some other) incriminating photo?

Bobby_1979: Lunchtime, lads. Let's see those cheeses!

CarlS: Check me out, getting fancy with the marks and sparks stilton :P [img]

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#37

Post by upofadown »

tux1968 wrote: post #7

This is a very good example of showing that decentralized anonymous communication channels of any type are not enough to ensure free speech. I'm not saying that this particular example has anything to do with free speech, but it does show that you can not speak freely even over encrypted anonymous channels. You can still easily be doxed. We can not rely on any technology to ensure freedom of speech. We need to engend…

This was over one of those all in one encrypted messaging phones where you have to trust a single entity. Such things are eventually subverted by the powers that be due to that single point of failure. So I don't think this can be extended to some sort of general principle.

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#39

Post by GekkePrutser »

Umm you can't even see his fingerprints on that photo. It's way too blurry. Weird.

Edit: The lines on his palm are very clear though in the whole picture: https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2021/m... Maybe that was it. Those are also pretty unique.

Re: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall

#40

Post by LatteLazy »

adolph wrote: post #25
PeterisP wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO the concept of "parallel construction" is mostly an USA specific thing because USA legal doctrine is heavy on fourth amendment application and "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine that can make evidence inadmissible depending on how it was obtained. But all those things and rights are specific to USA, not in general, and not even for other common law countries. As far as I understand, such "fruit of the poison…

Parallel construction is also used to protect sources and methods.

In the UK, defense lawyers aren't allowed to reveal details if it harms future police operations. So again you don't need parallel construction.
Post reply on HN