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Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

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Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#161

Post by [deleted] »

philfreo wrote: post #79
mmmooo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

post pic on craiglist/similar in Austin area. Say you found wallet/purse/camera/etc with her picture. Anyone that knows her please call/email w/ Name/Address for you to send back. Use highschool for validation when contacted. Might have some error.

This is the closest I've heard to one of the ideas that we expected to work, so I'll share. - Create an ad on Facebook with her picture. - Target people that went to her high school within 4 years of the range of years we thought she graduated within. Was only a few hundred people so the cost of running the ad would likely only be a few bucks. - The ad copy / landing page just needed to be convincing that we weren't…

[deleted]

Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#162

Post by qu4z-2 »

Someone wrote: post #143
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how can there ever be 'nothing interesting' in EXIF data :-)?) If one strips all of the metadata a photo, or replaces it with metadata from another photo, or makes up some bogus metadata.

"If one strips all of the metadata a photo" A photo without EXIF data? Someone must be trying to hide something from me. Let's see how good he is, and check whether there still are parts of the file with metadata in the disk's free blocks. "or replaces it with metadata from another photo" A Nikon F5 at f/5.6 and 1/100s? No way! If so, that car must have done a thousand kilometers an hour or so. Also, the aberration l…

Assuming "interesting" means "relevant to finding the identity", and you strip the metadata before sending the photo you should be fine.

Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#163

Post by espeed »

philfreo wrote: post #17

I'm the engineer he's referring to. I still get a laugh seeing Justin's amazement when we told him her name. To answer a few questions... - This isn't the actual photo but looks similar, except that she was alone. Justin was afraid of reposting the same photo after the results of handing over a photo last time :) - There was no useful exif data in the image. - We knew her high school and approximate age in Austin, bu…

Called and sent the picture you took to the bar and/or to the people you met at the bar where you took the picture, and someone knew her.

Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#164

Post by wojcikstefan »

georgemcbay wrote: post #160

This thread kind of exists as it does based on the fact that people were assuming there was something clever and software related that lead to the information because that's what the sales guy thinks, but the incomplete information we have from the developers suggests that they simply had a second photo that probably had some kind of identifiable information in it like her name that they saw via ZOOM,ENHANCE and a bi…

The photo used in the blog post is not of the girl the bet was about.

Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#165

Post by [deleted] »

abalone wrote: post #116

Wow. It is stunning how oblivious nearly everyone on this thread is to how douchey it is to BET YOUR BROGRAMMER PALS THEY CAN CYBERSTALK A GIRL. Advice to woman: Run. Advice to startups: Don't let your sales and engineering teams be giant douche canoes and if they are certainly don't publicly brag about it.

[deleted]

Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#166

Post by georgemcbay »

wojcikstefan wrote: post #164
georgemcbay wrote: post #160

This thread kind of exists as it does based on the fact that people were assuming there was something clever and software related that lead to the information because that's what the sales guy thinks, but the incomplete information we have from the developers suggests that they simply had a second photo that probably had some kind of identifiable information in it like her name that they saw via ZOOM,ENHANCE and a bi…

The photo used in the blog post is not of the girl the bet was about.

Are you sure? (serious question here, since I'm not) philfreo said:

"This isn't the actual photo but looks similar, except that she was alone. Justin was afraid of reposting the same photo after the results of handing over a photo last time :)"

Which to me suggests it is the same girl in a different photo. I would still find it creepy even if the photo is not of her at all, though somewhat less so.

Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#168

Post by jbg331 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #166
wojcikstefan wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The photo used in the blog post is not of the girl the bet was about.

Are you sure? (serious question here, since I'm not) philfreo said: "This isn't the actual photo but looks similar, except that she was alone. Justin was afraid of reposting the same photo after the results of handing over a photo last time :)" Which to me suggests it is the same girl in a different photo. I would still find it creepy even if the photo is not of her at all, though somewhat less so.

The photo used in the story is not her. I am 100% certain. The photo in the blog is a picture of a random girl who lives in another part of the country, has different physical attributs, and is a different age than the original girl in question

Re: Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer

#170

Post by smoyer »

jbg331 wrote: post #33
oh_sigh wrote: post #22

How are you surprised that they did it when they knew what high school she went to? Two possibilities: Option 1: Step 1) Find copies of yearbooks going back a few years, 2) find her face in the yearbook. Option 2: Step 1) Search facebook for people who went to the same high school as she did in the probable time frame. 2) Look for her in that set, or in the set of friends that the people who matched the search have.…

They knew what high school because it was a slip up. If you knew these guys, they aren't the kind who would just sit there and look at pictures. They had some software running. FYI, I am a sales guy...not an engineer

Having software running doesn't preclude using your brain - first to consider possible heuristics and then to do the types of analysis computers aren't good at. There's a reason mechanical turk exists.
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