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Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

bbc.com

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Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#51
post #44

Am I reading this correctly that the address where they found the child was where her mother’s boyfriend was living? > "So we narrowed it down to [this] one address… and started the process of confirming who was living there through state records, driver's licence… information on schools," says Squire. > The team realised that in the household with Lucy was her mother's boyfriend - a convicted sex offender. There’s a…

There's also a lot of "WHY AREN'T YOU FOCUSING ON THE MOTHER?" whataboutism in the comments, which I find appalling. The article was about something else, and who knows what her circumstances were.

Most crimes like this are, sadly, committed by someone who has some connection to the family. It’s standard to investigate connections first. That’s not “appalling” to suggest, it’s just a sad reality of these crimes.

They should be focusing on everyone connected to the family if known. It would be negligent not to.

The confusion came from the way the article was written. They didn’t know the identity until afterward.

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#52

This is an old story about an old investigation. It is old news dredged up to try to win sympathy for DHS/ICE. It is propaganda resurrected to make DHS look useful. They cherry-picked a story that they knew would win public sympathy since no one wants a child molester to run free. Lets show a time when an agent solved a case for an excellent outcome. Pick a DHS/ICE story from this year and see what kind of dystopic s…

Propaganda made by the BBC to make DHS look good? You are awfully cynical.

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#53
post #49

Am I reading this correctly that the address where they found the child was where her mother’s boyfriend was living? > "So we narrowed it down to [this] one address… and started the process of confirming who was living there through state records, driver's licence… information on schools," says Squire. > The team realised that in the household with Lucy was her mother's boyfriend - a convicted sex offender. There’s a…

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…

The salient point was that the person was in a relationship to the child’s mother.

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#54
post #3

> They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos - to see if Lucy was in any of them. But Facebook, despite having facial recognition technology, said it "did not have the tools" to help. Willing to bet my life savings that they are able to do exactly this when the goal is to create shadow profiles or maximize some metric.

Facebook shut down their facial recognition program in 2021 and deleted the data in response to public frustrations.

It’s really sad now to see people getting angry at Facebook not having facial recognition technology.

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#55

Strange to think that right now, the people doing that work are not getting paid for it.

DHS? There are a lot of different orgs doing this type of work, but I'm pretty sure (nearly?) all of them are getting paid to do it. Horrific job though.

Probably a reference to the shutdown.

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#56
post #49

Earlier 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…

The salient point was that the person was in a relationship to the child’s mother.

They didn't know who the child was, yet alone the mother. All they had were photos of an unnamed girl being abused.

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#57
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facial recognition is very powerful these days. My friend took a photo of his kid at the top of Twin Peaks in SF, with the city in the background. Unfortunately, due to the angle, you could barely see the eyes and a portion of the nose of the kid. Android was still able to tag the kid. I feel like Facebook really dropped the ball here. It is obvious that Squire and colleagues are working for the Law Enforcement. If F…

When people on hacker News talk about requiring cops to do traditional police work instead of doing wide ranging trawls using technology, this is exactly what they meant. I hope you don't complain when the future you want becomes reality and the three letter agencies come knocking down your door just because you happened to be in the same building as a crime in progress and the machine learning algorithms determined…

The grim meathook future of ubiquitous surveillance is coming regardless. At the very least we could get some proper crime solving out of it along the way.

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#59
post #3

> They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos - to see if Lucy was in any of them. But Facebook, despite having facial recognition technology, said it "did not have the tools" to help. Willing to bet my life savings that they are able to do exactly this when the goal is to create shadow profiles or maximize some metric.

Facial recognition is very powerful these days. My friend took a photo of his kid at the top of Twin Peaks in SF, with the city in the background. Unfortunately, due to the angle, you could barely see the eyes and a portion of the nose of the kid. Android was still able to tag the kid. I feel like Facebook really dropped the ball here. It is obvious that Squire and colleagues are working for the Law Enforcement. If F…

> I feel like Facebook really dropped the ball here

This story was from more than a decade ago.

Facebook had facial recognition after that, but they deleted it all in response to public outcry. It’s sad to see HN now getting angry at Facebook for not doing facial recognition.

> I hope when Zuck is lying on his death bed, he gets to think about these choices that he has made.

Are we supposed to be angry at Zuckerberg now for making the privacy conscious decision to drop facial recognition? Or is everyone just determined to be angry regardless of what they do?

Re: Dark web agent spotted bedroom wall clue to rescue girl from abuse

#60
post #3

> They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos - to see if Lucy was in any of them. But Facebook, despite having facial recognition technology, said it "did not have the tools" to help. Willing to bet my life savings that they are able to do exactly this when the goal is to create shadow profiles or maximize some metric.

The fine article actually ends with this text:

  > The BBC asked Facebook why it couldn't use its facial recognition technology to assist the hunt for Lucy. It responded: "To protect user privacy, it's important that we follow the appropriate legal process, but we work to support law enforcement as much as we can."
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