Great article. On HN though “dark web agent” sounds like some AI bot did the work. It was far more interesting the way they did it.
So "agent" only means "AI agent" now?
So HN commenters only are trolls now?
Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
261–270 of 401 posts
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
FB is more than large enough to have dedicated liasons to make sure that there is a difference between 'dumb requests that are irrelevant' get separated out from the ones that matter.
I don't think you understood, we weren't understaffed, that's besides the point as it's not hard to reply to an email. The main aspect is you should demand a warrant because you as someone that works for a private company shouldn't be the arbitrar of if a cop has enough or not (plus the cop will obviously not give you any details besides ongoing investigation in most cases). There's a job for that which is a judge. I…
> we
Ah ok, never mind me then.
I've in FBs position and I'm happy to report that we had a very well oiled process to deal with pederasts and assisted LE in putting a couple of them - also in the US and Canada - behind bars. That's one of the reason I knew that officer that I mentioned above. These people need all the help they can get, their departments are overworked and understaffed. Investigations are often a bit more time sensitive than you seem to believe. But hey, it's just a couple of kids.
FB has armies of lawyers to stall each and every legitimate request for data and there is ample proof that they have done this many times over the years. This is just one of many cases where they - you - and their tech could have made a difference, but chose to withhold aid.
As for LE sharing proof to convince you that things are a bit time critical: I have never found that to be a problem, assuming you have the stomach for it. What you seem to miss is that warrants have to be more specific than is useful in many cases and FB is well aware of this. In this case the LEO went with that request because he knew that a warrant with that specific set of conditionals would be unlikely, even if it would have helped to solve the case that much quicker.
But given that they're a terrible company with an absolutely horrible person at the helm I should probably not be surprised. See, if the likes of FB would actually take a stand on this subject that would take the wind out of the sails of a lot of these efforts to really harm privacy. But they're happy to sell you down the river when it benefits them and to use the privacy argument when that benefits them too.
A few years ago I came across a company that was wholesale sharing the worst of the worst and the CEO of that company was making all kinds of silly arguments about how they were 'just a dumb pipe'. They refused to take any counter measures and it took me proving to them and their - future - investors beyond a shadow of doubt that they must be aware of what and how much is going on but willfully turning a blind eye. Privacy was - of course - their stated reason for upholding their values. Because it suited them commercially, not because they actually gave two bits about actual privacy.
FB is a massive conduit for child pornography. You know it. FB management knows it. They have their internal processes to deal with flagged content. But they could do a lot better and they don't simply because it is just a cost to them. So they do the minimum and hide behind the privacy cloak when it suits them, even if they know full well what is going on.
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#263I'm impressed by the people doing this job. How do you turn off at the end of the shift and go home to sleep, when you know an hour more of work could make a more immediate difference? How does work/life balance work in this profession?
Micki Pistorius (yes, Oscar Pistorius' aunt) talks about this in her auto-biography - Catch Me a Killer (2000)
[also made as a TV series of the same name in 2024]
To paraphrase "How can I sleep when I am the key to finding these murderers."
She was involved in more than thirty serial killer cases while at South African Police Service (SAPS) working as a Criminal Profiler.
It took a great toll on her life but she was ultimately able to overcome the stress of it.
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sex offender registries are just registries. They only work if someone decides to actually do a query. It might prevent them from getting a childcare job, but it doesn't really prevent them from accessing children at all. The registers are also massively bloated, some people get put on them for nothing more than public urination. The only sex offenders who actually get regular checks that might identify this type of…
Other things that could get you on the registry include visiting a nude beach in California or being an 18-year-old high school student with a 17-year-old girlfriend and having your sexual activity discovered by a vindictive parent (that last one will get you the bonus bar of shame of criminal activity involving a minor). The registries are rather blunt tools and also end up doing things like making getting housing d…
Louis Theroux did a very interesting but quiet sad documentary on this
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 0.3% of the adult population is on registries in the US. With 40,000 couch sales, there would be roughly 120 sex offenders would have bought that couch. You can see what I mean about the registries being bloated. Doesn't really narrow things down until you add the brick factory, but then they already had it down to 40 houses. But it's a mistake to even assume the couch was bought by the same house as the offend…
So ~1m people are registered sex offenders? As in, 1m people who were arrested and found guilty of sex offences? That’s insane.
It's more like 800,000
But I used number of adults, not total population. Because most children aren't registered sex offenders, or buying expensive furniture.
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Frankly, I hope the mother was also charged. Would you want her charged if she didn't even know? There is nothing in the article suggesting that the mother conspired with her boyfriend, or that she even knew he was a sex offender. I can imagine a scenario where the mother blames herself for not knowing and is utterly destroyed by misplaced guilt. Who knows what actually happened? The article wasn't about that.
> Would you want her charged if she didn't even know? Yes? There are laws against child endangerment for a reason, and giving someone unrestricted accsss to your child without performing a basic background check very much falls into that territory.
> There are laws against child endangerment for a reason
What do you think the reason is? The deterrence value is zero.
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#267On the one hand, this is a beautiful (but depressing) story about humans standing up for each other. On the other hand, this is clearly propaganda from the BBC to push police state functionality on the UK population by pre-justifying it. "See what happens? Never mind the part about it taking six years. Let us see everything in your fucking lives, you twats."
None of this required a police state. Just people working together to cross-correlate information in the way that you would expect to be able to do in an open society.
What wrong do you think was done here? What would you prefer to be different?
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#268This is awesome - but they shouldn't have revealed the secret on how they caught them.. like 1000's of other offenders could land up making similar mistakes. It just makes sense to keep your mouth shut and keep on hunting.
Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not very wrong unfortunately. Do you remember back in school that the nice, timid guys were friendzoned but the assholes always had girls after them ? There must be some evolutionary justification, but we have to live with that unfortunate reality..
Just take off those glasses and everyone will realize you're secretly hot
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Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse
#270This is awesome - but they shouldn't have revealed the secret on how they caught them.. like 1000's of other offenders could land up making similar mistakes. It just makes sense to keep your mouth shut and keep on hunting.
I thought so too, but it actually wasn't the couch, brick or whatever. It was overconfidence and mistakes that were exploited and there is no patch for that