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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

#91
post #68
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…

How many of these sex offenders bought this couch and live close to this brick factory in homes built in that time period?

I think what is confusing is likely that the investigators/detectives were probably trying to make sure that the girl was actually in the house where the sex offender was registered or technically living, and not maybe kept somewhere else. A lot of detective work is building the case, but also confirming what you believe is actually true and you need the evidence to also request the warrant on factual grounds. They could have busted in the door of that house and found that there was no such brick to be found anywhere and the girl was sold off to someone else or something like that.

It’s really rather sick and deranged though that this kind of dynamic of women with children associating with sex offenders is not exactly rare. Frankly, I hope the mother was also charged.

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

#92
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.

Indeed, he may not have even been on the lease or title of the residence.

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

#94
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.

I can't help but notice the exact wording of FB's response - or rather what they didn't say.

If someone asks me to do them a favor, I have basically three options for a reply:

• I can and I will;

• I can but I won't; or

• I am not able to.

FB's answer was not option 3.

I think a more plausible explanation is that FB did not want to set a precedent of being the facial recog avenue of choice for the Fed.

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

#95
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 would hazard a guess that the facial recognition will limit the search scope to people associated (to some degree) with your friends account and some threshold of metrics gathered from the image. I doubt it is using a broad search.

With billions of accounts, the false positive rate of facial recognition when matching against every account would likely make the result difficult to use. Even limiting to a single country like UK the number could be extremely large.

Let say there is a 0.5% false positive rate and some amount of false negatives. With 40 million users, that would be 200 000 false positives.

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

#96

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.

I'd argue the DHS is incidental and the real story is "law enforcement deserves open access to social media feeds." In this light, the BBC's angle becomes much clearer.

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

#98
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…

Right but I'll be honest, I've never thought about looking up the people I've dated in the past. No one really talked about it when I was younger. I don't remember my mother telling me to do criminal background checks on people I'm seeing.

Happened to me. Went out with somebody who turned out to be a serial shop lifter who operated with a small gang of other shop lifters. Everything looked fine up front until they disappeared when we had plans without contact for days. Thought I was ghosted. Turns out they were arrested.

A friend went out with someone who destroyed his car after he broke up because she was violent twords him. He had to get a restraining order. A friend of his dug up a link to a FL police site. Turns out she did a little time down there for assaulting another woman, beating her with a coat rack during a fight. He never thought to look her up either and she seemed nice at first. Shit happens. Don't blame the victim for not being paranoid that everyone they're dating might be a criminal. Especially when there are damn good liars out there.

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

#100
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…

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