[HN Gopher] Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall
___________________________________________________________________
Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug dealer's downfall
Author : mnw21cam
Score : 285 points
Date : 2021-05-24 10:28 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Forgive the hot-take-paranoia, but this tale is exactly what the
| parallel constructors want you to think.
|
| In reality the criminal was traced using* a government mandated
| BT Internet router backdoor / super grass / chemtrail deployed
| insect drones.
|
| *one of the above is not serious.
| [deleted]
| Threeve303 wrote:
| 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. citizen.
| But hey, it's funny because the guy liked cheese.
| hristov wrote:
| Why would it be a violation of his rights? The police have a
| right to investigate and they sure have a right to gather
| fingerprints from drugs.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Do they, for example, have a right to decrypt emails for the
| purposes of data mining? I'd have thought they needed a
| warrant and/or reasonable suspicion before they're allowed to
| just mine anyone and everyone's private communications.
|
| Are UK police, for example, allowed to run fingerprint and
| facial matching algos against all image-based content
| uploaded to Facebook/YouTube/Instagram/whatever? I thought
| dragnet policing was considered to infringe the right to a
| private and family life, say?
|
| In short the police right to investigate is curtailed, and
| controlled by the courts and a warrant process, at least.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Not needed (Occam's Razor). EncroChat is a gold mine for the
| police, world wide. Being active there alone is suspicious, and
| it was effectively a honeypot. High quality picture containing
| a finger contains fingerprint. You run that through a database
| and presto.
| tomcam wrote:
| Almost certainly true and seems to show a fairly deep
| understanding of police work in the real world. I am truly
| conflicted about these techniques.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| If the photo in the article is the actual photo posted, then
| I'm most impressed. It seems out of focus in all the areas
| you'd expect to need detail to match fingerprints.
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| 976px x 549px is a standard size the BBC use for images to be
| displayed on desktop computers. 976px x 549px would be half a
| megapixel. The BBC most likely resized the image they
| obtained from the NCA down to that res and prob threw some
| jpeg compression on it just as a matter of course when
| publishing the image to the site.
|
| While the focus would play a huge part, an iPhones camera (ok
| the phones were Android Based, but the res of an iphones main
| camera hasn't changed since the iphone 6s, which is what 5
| years old by now? So its not unfair to say the phone model
| could easily of had just as a camera with just as high MP) is
| 12MP. So right off the bat the image you are looking could
| easily have 24 times less pixels in it then the image posted
| to the system, and thats before you throw in compression that
| could easily smooth out the fine detail of a finger print.
|
| EDIT: The BQ Aquaris X2 (which seems like was one of the
| models used on the service) comes with a 12mp camera. Even if
| the phones camera was disabled so the person had to manually
| copy the picture to the phone inorder to share it just means
| the picture we see on the BBC site could easy be just a
| shitty compressed of the orig that was shared.
| sorenjan wrote:
| The full image is 2048x1152: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/
| 2048/cpsprodpb/F8F6/production...
|
| Anyway, it's still cropped, and in this other version from
| a different source you can clearly see part of his palm
| print, which the BBC references: https://www.merseyside.pol
| ice.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/images/...
| periheli0n wrote:
| Yep--there's also tons of motion blur. Although this could
| perhaps be filtered out using deconvolution. Using the cheese
| label as ground truth to parameterise the deconv filter, this
| might just work.
| wp381640 wrote:
| Nope this is all from the compromise of Encrochat.
|
| There have been dozens of stories about the pseudonymous users
| of that service being linked back to real identities since the
| initial first large wave of arrests
|
| Sometimes you don't need crazy parallel construction theories -
| just a simple criminal network cracked because the participants
| believed it to be secure
| simonh wrote:
| 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.
| VMG wrote:
| I'm extremely skeptical that usable fingerprints can be
| captured from any casual photo that is sent through a chat
| app
|
| The CCC in Germany did this once with a picture from Ursula
| von der Leyen, but IIRC they contacted the original
| photographer who provided an extremely hi-res image
| IshKebab wrote:
| 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.
| avianlyric wrote:
| 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.
| asddubs wrote:
| it's not compression blurry though, it's out of focus
| StavrosK wrote:
| It's not even out of focus, it's motion blur.
| gus_massa wrote:
| In this other source, the fingerprints of the thumb and
| the pinky are almost visible https://www.merseyside.polic
| e.uk/news/merseyside/news/2021/m... Anyway, the other
| fingers look too out of focus to detect anything.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| The writing in the BBC article suggests "this photo",
| they refer to "the photo" and show a photograph.
|
| IMO that's bad journalism if it's not the original photo
| - how about 'the original photo, of which this is a lower
| quality copy, had enough detail for police to read
| fingerprint markers from, those markers were matched to
| the suspect [...]'.
|
| If it's not _the_ photo, then who knows, perhaps it's a
| fake the BBC produced or it's a stock photo. Why not
| state details about the pertinent evidence on which the
| whole story supposedly hangs.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| > I don't know why you think the photo on the BBC is the
| original photo
|
| Because people love to troll when it comes to pixels?
| [deleted]
| upofadown wrote:
| It's very possible the police blurred the fingerprints in
| the image they distributed.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Not really, the cheese is also blurred. And not uniformly
| so, very gradual. It looks like a photographic artifact,
| not post-processing.
|
| I'm glad they were able to take this guy off the streets
| but there's a smell to this IMO and it's not just the
| cheese.
|
| Edit: Someone else shared the link to the uncropped
| picture: https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside
| /news/2021/m... . Fingerprints are still too blurry but
| his palm lines are very clear. It could indeed be those.
| avianlyric wrote:
| I'm a little confused could you explain a little more detail
| why you think this is parallel construction?
|
| You're probably right that they already knew who he was, and
| probably had some evidence that he was drug dealing, certainly
| enough to arrest him. But unequivocally proving he's a dealer
| is still tricky, especially establishing intent. The image made
| it possible to tie the individuals real world identity to their
| "anonymous" identity, and thus associate it with clear intent
| to distribute drugs (presumably they also had his chat
| history).
|
| If the chat system he was using was compromised by police with
| a lawful warrant to compromise the service, then what right was
| violated? How is it different to police infiltrating online
| forums, or even just physical locations that dealers are know
| to spend time in?
| asddubs wrote:
| 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
| weego wrote:
| 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
| StavrosK wrote:
| Do you see any visible fingerprints on the photo? I don't.
| bdowling wrote:
| > Do you see any visible fingerprints on the photo? I
| don't.
|
| The photo accompanying the article has the fingers blurred
| out. In the original photo the fingers must have been
| clearly visible, because that's how the police are claiming
| they identified the man.
| StavrosK wrote:
| It's motion blur, evident from the blurring of the
| letters. Unless the police added motion blur to the
| entire photo (why?), they would appear to be stretching
| the truth.
| spoonjim wrote:
| The police may have downsampled before releasing and the
| website may have downsampled before posting to save
| bandwidth.
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| If you look at the full size image there's at the very
| least a large portion of palm print fairly visible. That's
| enough if you have a palm print, I assume.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| 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.
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| > 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. ]
| dokem wrote:
| I'm not following, of course they would have to have his
| fingerprints also somewhere else.
| PeterisP wrote:
| 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 poisonous tree"
| doctrine is not applied in UK, as long as the evidence is
| believed to be _true_ , it would generally be admissible in
| court even if it was obtained through e.g. mass warrantless
| wiretapping, so if they knew who he was already, they could and
| would have just gone ahead and there would be no need to put in
| the effort for some parallel construction.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Fruit of the poisonous tree assumes that the real way they
| identified the target was through illegal means. It doesn't
| have to. Could be an anonymous tip, a suspicion from the
| police, etc.
| jerf wrote:
| "Fruit of the poisonous tree assumes that the real way they
| identified the target was through illegal means."
|
| But bear in mind that typically we read "illegal means" as
| some sort of deliberate violation of the law, whereas in
| the US it's more like there's a relatively carefully
| defined set of "legal means". There are a number of sources
| of inadmissible evidence that a common, normal person would
| probably consider perfectly moral to introduce as trial
| evidence, but is denied in the US. (At least, officially.
| Of course things can be cheated. I'm talking about the
| nominal system here, not the real one.) "Illegal means"
| means less in this context than it might normally.
| swarnie_ wrote:
| Chap got 13 years, considering how lenient our sentencing
| usually is i can only assume he was moving massive
| quantities. Couldn't have gone unnoticed even in a place
| like Liverpool.
| [deleted]
| anomaloustho wrote:
| After looking at the Wikipedia page for Parallel
| Construction[1], there is a subsection about the UK, it
| mentioned that one could argue that parallel construction is
| now a concept that applies in the UK as of 2016. It then
| points to an article on The Register subtitled "Enshrining
| parallel construction in English law"[2].
|
| It looks like Section 56(1) of the Investigatory Powers Act
| prohibits "any content of an intercepted communication" from
| being used in court.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
|
| [2] https://www.theregister.com/2016/12/06/parallel_construct
| ion...
| tptacek wrote:
| The UK doesn't even have the exclusionary rule --- in fact,
| most countries don't. There's no need for "parallel
| construction" there.
| freeflight wrote:
| The exclusionary rule ain't the only reason to engage in
| parallel construction.
|
| A whole long list of reasons can lead to that, a list
| that also includes criminal actions by the police itself.
| spoonjim wrote:
| In many countries the parallel construction is to protect
| illegal police methods. They torture a criminal in an
| abandoned shed, or threaten to have his mother evicted,
| to get his list of associates. Then they cook up things
| like "fingerprints in a cheese photo" to make themselves
| seem very clever and also keep their methods concealed.
| deegles wrote:
| There was an article[0] from 2018 about how the UK police
| monitor CCTV footage with "super recognisers" - people who
| have a way-above-average ability to remember and identify
| faces. Ostensibly, they would look at footage from
| previously captured crimes and then pick out the
| perpetrators by watching other footage. It just smells like
| a convenient source for parallel construction to me.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/11/super-
| recogn...
| pc86 wrote:
| I agree with you on the legal doctrine piece, but most in the
| US (myself included) would say that the US Constitution
| doesn't grant anybody any rights. It codified _inalienable_
| rights that exist for all people merely by virtue of their
| existence. Every person has the right to speak their mind, to
| defend themselves, to not incriminate themselves, etc. etc.
| with all the caveats and potential nullifications that
| accompany those rights. The fact that some countries may
| violate those inherent rights is irrelevant, and the fact
| that some of those countries may be common law is equally
| irrelevant.
|
| It's possible to believe both that Liverpool and the
| surrounding area is better off without this man free, but
| that the UK as a whole is worse off for their frequent
| violation of rights with regard to those in the US Bill of
| Rights.
| webmobdev wrote:
| It codified inalienable rights that exist for all people
| merely by virtue of their existence ... The fact that some
| countries may violate those inherent rights is irrelevant
|
| Ok, so what is your opinion on the trial and detention of
| various foreign "terrorists" in the USA who are / were in
| Guantanamo Bay Naval Base military prison? If we go by the
| very US laws you believe apply to every human being in the
| world, that implies the US government tortured, denied due
| process and illegally detained and treated many foreign
| citizens differently because they were not American
| citizens.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| > but most in the US (myself included) would say that the
| US Constitution doesn't grant anybody any rights. It
| codified inalienable rights that exist for all people
| merely by virtue of their existence
|
| And many outside the USA would disagree with your position
| that a 200 year old document, written in part by slave
| owners, is the sole source of truth of our inalienable
| rights.
|
| I for one disagree with the concept of immutable, codified
| constitutions entirely. I grew up in New Zealand, a country
| with no codified constitution, and yet somehow a country
| with a far better track record in human rights than the
| USA.
| adventured wrote:
| > And many outside the USA would disagree with your
| position that a 200 year old document, written in part by
| slave owners, is the sole source of truth of our
| inalienable rights.
|
| Their disagreement also is meaningless, fortunately.
|
| Whether the documents were written in part by Martians or
| slave owners doesn't by itself alter the words on the
| documents, as such rationally what is solely to be judged
| is what was written, not how people feel about some of
| the contributors. If the world went by the standard
| you're floating, the last several thousand years of
| history and all successful political systems of human
| liberty have to be necessarily obliterated, including New
| Zealand's entire political system and system of law,
| which is inherited from a thus poisoned history involving
| European slavery and conquest.
|
| The US, as with most of Latin America, inherited enormous
| European slavery and has spent its entire existence
| dealing with the fact of that history and its intense
| consequences. What has New Zealand confronted that
| compares to that? Nothing remotely close (and yes I'm
| familiar with the history of New Zealand).
|
| > and yet somehow a country with a far better track
| record in human rights than the USA.
|
| The benefits of being a tiny, largely irrelevant
| westernized country formed merely a century ago and long
| after slavery was outlawed in the West. New Zealand's
| existence has been an exceptionally easy and sheltered
| one compared to most every other nation, and good for
| them.
|
| What responsibilities globally does New Zealand have?
| Practically none. It's free to not matter, in the best
| way possible. It doesn't have to make hard decisions that
| risk altering the world. It's like a cute little trinket
| country, lots of preaching and little responsibility. It
| never has to step inbetween two warring parties going at
| it in a civil war and decide which side to support, who
| is right and who is wrong (North Korea attacking South
| Korea, North Vietnam attacking South Vietnam), or choose
| not to get involved at all and have that similarly be
| judged by history just the same as a superpower capable
| of intervening (and arguably with a moral responsibility
| to do so in some cases). It doesn't have to decide if
| it's rational to launch a war to stop a genocide of
| Muslims in Europe (Kosovo). It doesn't have to decide
| whether to protect Ukraine against an invading Russia. It
| doesn't have to decide if it's worth going to war with
| China to try to save democratic, peaceful Taiwan. It
| doesn't have to make a decision about maintaining or not
| maintaining a global superpower military (which comes
| with severe, inevitable moral consequences whatever
| direction you choose to go with that). It never has to
| make any globally consequential decisions what-so-ever,
| decisions that can remake the planet; it can be a very
| nice, easy place to be, the life of a sheltered, small
| population island that rides on the prosperity and
| protection of other larger successful nations.
|
| Dropping context around the birth & existence of New
| Zealand and its particulars, is convenient and makes your
| premise very unrealistic. The US was born into a context
| of European sin and had no choice in the matter. Make any
| other decisions around the founding documents at the time
| and you don't get a US to begin with (as demonstrated by
| the civil war that it took to smash slavery in the
| southern states a century later). Which simultaneously
| doesn't excuse any mistakes the US has made since then,
| however context always matters, and New Zealand has had a
| trivially easy existence by comparison. There isn't a
| single nation of global importance without some terrible
| history behind it and there is a reason for that (it's
| impossible in actuality; only in theory is it not).
| xtian wrote:
| No one outside of the US or perhaps a minority within
| NATO takes this kind of ahistorical apologetics
| seriously. They see the US for what it is. As an
| American, my most fervent hope is that believing these
| sorts of stories becomes untenable here as well.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| In the US (and associated territories) I think you mean.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The position that the US constitution applies to the UK is
| a pretty crazy piece of legal maximalism in the first
| place, but there is plenty of US caselaw that it doesn't
| apply equally to non-US nationals even within the US.
|
| https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
| a...
|
| https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=592919&p=4170926
| (which reminds me of the US failure to ratify certain
| international conventions under which it provides weaker
| rights)
| pc86 wrote:
| I'm not meaning to imply that the USC applies to anyone
| other than US citizens from a legal standpoint. Not only
| am I not a lawyer, but I'm meaning to draw a distinction
| between legal rights and human rights in this context.
|
| I'm saying that the rights codified in the USC are
| inalienable rights. The US government isn't _granting_
| the freedom of speech, and it can 't take it away. The
| right exists because you're a human being.
|
| The fact that a country doesn't recognize it as a right
| doesn't change its status.
| akarma wrote:
| As an American happy to live in a country with all our
| protected freedoms, there are some parts of the
| Constitution that other reasonable countries don't agree
| with, and that's fine. There are other cultures with
| other value systems and they're no less valid.
|
| (1) Freedom of Assembly, part of our 1st Amendment, is
| one example.
|
| A French court recently decided a protest in Paris could
| not take place. The court rationale was that a previous
| protest a few years ago in the same area on the same
| issue led to violence and destruction of property.
|
| The French Constitution allows freedom of speech, but not
| freedom of assembly, and Americans are often confused by
| that. The freedom to write and say what you want does not
| equate to the freedom to protest in the streets. Not
| allowing freedom of assembly would have saved many lives
| in the protests that have swept the US, though
| potentially at the cost of slower social progress.
|
| (2) Right to bear arms, our 2nd amendment, is another
| example.
|
| The vast majority of first-world countries don't agree
| that the right to bear arms is an inalienable human right
| in today's society.
|
| As Americans, we may prefer the added protection against
| government tyranny and our personal ability to protect
| ourselves and our belongings. Unarguably, however, it
| comes at the cost of mass shootings, and additionally,
| though many factors are responsible for our uniquely high
| homicide rate, easy availability of firearms certainly
| does not help to curb it.
|
| --- All this to say, many of our protected rights have
| clear, substantial disadvantages. It's not our place to
| tell every other country in the world how to operate.
| kergonath wrote:
| > The French Constitution allows freedom of speech, but
| not freedom of assembly, and Americans are often confused
| by that.
|
| It is a subtle issue, but under French law assembling and
| protesting is covered under free speech, which is a human
| right.
|
| However, another principle is that all rights are limited
| when they are in conflict with other people's fundamental
| rights, one of them being to live in peace. So in case of
| protests they have to register beforehand to ensure that
| there would be some police to prevent violence. That's
| the theory anyway. They are not quite as murderous as
| American policemen, but French ones can also be violent
| and heavy handed.
|
| For the same reason some protests can be forbidden.
| Usually, it is very difficult as the local government
| needs to demonstrate a significant risk of unacceptable
| violence. It is easier these days (in the last 2 decades
| or so) since there are "exceptional" measures in force to
| limit terrorism. And of course now there are public
| health restrictions because of COVID.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Right to bear arms, our 2nd amendment, is another
| example.
|
| From what I've read about this arcane piece of
| legislation, some historians have suggested it stemmed
| from the fear of slave owners who believed that freed
| black man may choose to exact revenge on them and they
| feared that others in their country, who favoured
| abolition of slavery and criticised them for owning
| slaves, may not stand with them to offer protection
| against such revenge attacks. Thus, many spoke in favour
| of the right to bear arms, stoking fears of a future
| conflict between the white man and the black man.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> Not allowing freedom of assembly would have saved many
| lives in the protests that have swept the US, though
| potentially at the cost of slower social progress._
|
| The US supreme court has established that the government
| can't regulate the content of speech, but the government
| is in its right to regulate the time, place and manner of
| speech. [0]
|
| So it is very much a thing in the US and has been
| enforced plenty of times, for example during Occupy and
| even during BLM when protests were just declared as
| "riots" to then crack down on them with the full force of
| a militarized police arresting thousands of people [1].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/american-protests-us-news-
| arrests...
| akarma wrote:
| > even during BLM when protests were just declared as
| "riots" to then crack down on them with the full force of
| a militarized police arresting thousands of people
|
| Many Americans actually died in these events in addition
| to dangerous fires (with people still inside buildings!)
| and random acts of violence, so the riot characterization
| has at least in some cases been fair. It makes sense
| thousands of people would be arrested when hundreds of
| crimes have occurred.
|
| The difference in the US is that these events could not
| be stopped from occurring, and people were not
| immediately arrested and water cannoned and so forth by
| police. It was only after the event grew and escalated
| and changed in nature.
|
| That is where France differs -- a protest can, from the
| beginning, be declared unable to occur, and police
| respond to it accordingly.
|
| This is not _at all_ to say that these events were all
| wrong or created with ill intent, but that there is a
| clear advantage and disadvantage to the right to freedom
| of assembly in the US.
| watwut wrote:
| USA also allows and disallows protests at various places
| and times. And they have just legislated new additional
| laws about that.
|
| But I give you that personal guns being framed as anti
| goverment tyranny is profoundly us thing. I find out odd
| also because those guns tend to be stockpiled by pretty
| authoritarian groups and very rarely by civil rights
| groups.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yes, that's the usual human rights rationale but it's
| practically a theological one - that the rights have
| always existed and exist even if you can't see or action
| them.
|
| Interestingly ECHR doesn't bother to define what a right
| is or where they come from, leaving the implicit position
| being simple legal realism that the rights exist because
| this document says they do and the parties agreed to it.
| https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Archives_1950_Conventi
| on_...
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The other point of course is that even if you recognise a
| pre-government system of human rights, it is reasonable
| to apply exceptions. For example, the right to free
| speech is reasonably curtailed when the person speaking
| is ordering a lackey to commit murder. Most countries
| recognise some level of intrinsic human rights, but they
| all handle these exceptions slightly differently.
|
| It's not that the UK is dastardly in violating this
| person's right to privacy because it doesn't think the
| rights are worth upholding. It's just that the UK has
| formulated a particular set of reasonable circumstances
| where it is alright to violate the right to privacy, and
| has reasoning behind each of them. The US has a different
| set of formulated reasonable circumstances where it is
| alright to violate the right to privacy that much of
| Europe is pretty horrified about. Both sides being
| horrified at the borderline areas of the other is not
| surprising.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Interestingly ECHR doesn't bother to define what a
| right is or where they come from, leaving the implicit
| position being simple legal realism that the rights exist
| because this document says they do and the parties agreed
| to it.
|
| That's a strange take. It is basically a rewriting of the
| Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. It even
| says so right there in the preamble. And it's a law, part
| of an international treaty, not a history book. So where
| the origins of these rights are is beside the point and a
| legal description is not really surprising.
| michaelt wrote:
| I think a lot of people in the US would say that rights
| like freedom of speech ought to be available to everyone,
| everywhere in the world.
|
| But if you ask them whether 4th-8th amendment rights
| should extend to detainees at Guantanamo Bay; or whether
| separation of church and state should be demanded of our
| Israeli friends; or whether the Queen should be deposed
| as a tyrant; you would find a lot less support.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| These two points of view aren't contradictory, the
| Constitution is very clear that it does not grant anybody
| rights but it is less clear about whose rights they can
| infringe on.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That's all good for the origin story but obviously lacks
| impact in reality.
|
| The "bug" in the system is that when you talk about
| inalienable rights inherent by the grace of god or the
| creator is that god doesn't write shit down. The canonical
| texts have been edited by various entities for thousand of
| years in some cases. So you're dependent on the
| interpretation of others. Usually people's understanding of
| God's will (assuming agreement on the deity) is influenced
| by their mortgage.
|
| I'm sure the high and mighty philosophy was confusing to
| any of the 1M enslaved people who were literate. But then
| again, the fiscal success of the plantation was dependent
| on _those_ humans being classified by law as more
| intelligent cattle.
| refurb wrote:
| You're interpreting it way too literally. The Declaration
| of Independence isn't saying "god said X", it's declaring
| that everyone had these rights, not based on the govt
| giving it to them, but that they always had them and the
| US govt is simply recognizing that. There is no religious
| document one needs to refer back to.
|
| I think it's actually a genius way of describing rights.
| It's the same way one might say that slavery ended not
| because the govt decided to give slaves rights (the
| government doesn't have that power), but rather that they
| always had them and the govt simply stopped denying their
| rights.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| > I think it's actually a genius way of describing
| rights.
|
| In context, it absolutely is.
|
| Remember that many of the key constitutional framers were
| believers in deism, and believed in god in the context of
| a creator, but not as an omnipresent supernatural being.
|
| Outside of that context, things get difficult. Looking
| beyond the slavery example, the Commonwealth of
| Massachusetts was governed in the early years of the
| republic as compared to New York or Pennsylvania. It
| demonstrates the differences in how context as defined by
| religion matters.
| wfleming wrote:
| > but most in the US (myself included) would say that the
| US Constitution doesn't grant anybody any rights. It
| codified inalienable rights that exist for all people
| merely by virtue of their existence
|
| As an American I find this a very surprising
| interpretation, and I doubt anybody in my close social
| circle would agree with it either.
| logicchains wrote:
| It's literally what the constitution itself says: "We
| hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
| created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
| with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
| Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The vast
| majority of Americans are not Silicon Valley technocrats
| who reject any kind of deontological ethics.
| wfleming wrote:
| As others have pointed out - that's not the constitution.
|
| From a philosophical perspective, though, I agree that
| Jefferson and others saw those rights as fundamental
| human truths. They were saying "people already have these
| rights, we promise the government won't infringe on
| them", not "the government grants people these
| privileges". (Of course, who qualified as "people"
| continued to be a matter of debate. And some of the
| "fundamental" rights later enumerated in the bill of
| rights, specifically the third, seem like pretty
| localized of-their-place-and-time concerns in
| retrospect.)
|
| I think what prompted my comment and some of the other
| replies to pc86 was that the beginning of this comment
| thread was discussing some fairly specific applied legal
| concepts (e.g. "parallel construction") from a practical
| perspective of applied law. So replying to that thread
| with a point about political philosophy from an entirely
| different country is a bit of an odd tangent. Re-reading
| the comment, I do think that's how it was intended, but I
| think the context made it easy to misinterpret it as
| suggesting that Americans believe everyone in the world
| should abide by our political philosophy. Which is
| certainly regrettably true of some Americans, but I hope
| it doesn't describe anywhere close to most of us.
| ghaff wrote:
| >From a philosophical perspective, though, I agree that
| Jefferson and others saw those rights as fundamental
| human truths. They were saying "people already have these
| rights, we promise the government won't infringe on them"
|
| In general, that's almost certainly true. But there was
| also genuine disagreement between the Federalists and
| Anti-Federalists over the power of the central government
| and the Bill of Rights was essentially an effort to craft
| a compromise that could be ratified. Madison whittled
| down a long list of suggested rights and liberties to 12
| amendments. Some of which (as in the first amendment,
| right to a trial, etc.) are fairly fundamental. Others of
| which, perhaps most of all the third as you say, fairly
| clearly grew out of Revolutionary War concerns.
| sjy wrote:
| That's the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution
| came 11 years later (and did not, even then, include the
| Bill of Rights).
| benjohnson wrote:
| As I understand it, the Bill of Rights was considered
| redundant by many people - and some thought that
| enumerating the rights line by line was dangerously
| limiting them.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Not sure where, but i heard once that the constitution
| was actually only intended to be a temporary document
| until a more reasonable draft could be hammered out. Even
| its authors didn't imagine it would still be relevant 200
| years later.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| The first one was more temporary while they figured out
| what they had just did. (things like how do we pay the
| bills)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation
|
| That is why the one we are under is basically the 2nd
| revision of that.
| indymike wrote:
| The Declaration of Independence made the claim that
| certain rights were inalienable. The US Constitution was
| much less exciting and largely just laid out how the
| government would function.
|
| "We the People of the United States, in order to form a
| more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
| tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
| general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
| ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
| Constitution for the United States of America."
|
| The Bill of Rights wasn't even part of the original
| constitution. The constitution was ratified in 1788, and
| the Bill of Rights was ratified in the form of amendments
| 1 through 10 in 1791.
| will4274 wrote:
| > The Bill of Rights wasn't even part of the original
| constitution
|
| I see this claim frequently, but I still judge it as
| "mostly false." Multiple states refused to ratify the
| constitution without the bill of rights. Without the bill
| of rights, the original constitution would have collapsed
| in less than ten years. The original constitution by
| itself was a piece of paper. The constitution together
| with the bill of rights are the foundation of our
| government.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Its not an interpretation at all. Its is litterally
| written by Jefferson in the preamble to the constitution
|
| > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
| are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
| with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
| Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to
| secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
| Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
| governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes
| destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
| to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
| Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
| organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem
| most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
|
| From your comment I wonder how many americans actually
| understand the history behind the constitution.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I'm really, really enjoying that two people (this comment
| and a sibling comment) both posted in support of this
| interpretation of the constitution, and then both of them
| posted the same snippet of the Declaration of
| Independence instead.
| will4274 wrote:
| It's disappointing to me that you and your social circle
| weren't educated in your own country's government and
| history. Can I ask which underfunded school district you
| attended?
|
| In most American schools, for "social studies", US
| history is grades 8 and 9, while US government is grade
| 10. What did you study instead at these grade levels?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| This is the reason that the Bill of Rights say "Congress
| shall make no law infringing on..." The creators of the
| Constitution were very clear that rights were not granted
| by the state, they were inherent to all people.
|
| There's still room for the Bill of Rights to only apply
| to Americans though, it is not clear whether they may
| make no law infringing on the rights of citizens or
| people.
| simias wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you arguing that
| you think that the UK police and/or justice system tacitly
| enforce the US Constitution because they think it's a good
| idea or merely that you think that the world would be a
| better place if all of humanity adhered to said
| constitution?
|
| The former is preposterous, the latter is your opinion but
| it's frankly irrelevant in this discussion.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Great explanation, I understood parallel construction and
| chain of custody but did not know it was due to "fruit of the
| poisonous tree."
| webmobdev wrote:
| Watch this episode of The Good Wife (season 05, episode
| 13): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3540606/ ...
| adolph wrote:
| Parallel construction is also used to protect sources and
| methods.
| adolph wrote:
| _The perverting the course of justice charge alleges the
| trio disclosed information that law enforcement could
| access encrypted EncroChat data._
|
| https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/operation-
| veneti...
| nullc wrote:
| > Parallel construction is also used to protect sources and
| methods.
|
| And, of course, it is the unethical and unlawful methods
| which have the greatest need of "protection".
| LatteLazy wrote:
| 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.
| pc86 wrote:
| Does this result in a lot of sealed/private hearings
| where methods of gathering evidence are discussed? I'd
| imagine the majority of criminal prosecutions would
| involve at least some "trade secrets" (for lack of a
| better term) on the part of the police.
| pjc50 wrote:
| There have been various rather nasty trials in which
| vital defense info was ruled both secret and
| inadmissible; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-
| interest_immunity covers the most famous examples,
| particularly Matrix-Churchill which I'm just about old
| enough to remember.
|
| I believe ECHR 1998 has improved the situation a bit,
| although the existence of a court outwith the UK to which
| people can appeal their human rights violations is
| controversial and unpopular with the right.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Railing against the ECHR is arguably one of the things
| that sparked Brexit.
| nojokes wrote:
| Can you elaborate this a little?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| We're sick of having rights and we've had enough of EU
| monsters telling us we can't all die from drinking
| posion. What is this, Nazi Germany?
|
| - standard brexiteer position despite the ECHRs not
| actually being an EU body.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| A key point of Brexit is to "restore sovereignty." At
| least some of that ire is directed at the ECHR, which can
| issue rulings that override British rulings and
| parliament. One of the examples of this occurring is when
| the ECHR overturned a British ban on voting for
| prisoners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirst_v_United_K
| ingdom_(No_2)
|
| Like many things independence from the ECHR has not
| actually happened yet. https://www.lexology.com/library/d
| etail.aspx?g=7e0577d5-e617...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| (it's worth nothing that ruling was in 2005 and prisoners
| still can't vote so it's not as much of an override as
| people might imagine)
| kergonath wrote:
| > Like many things independence from the ECHR has not
| actually happened yet.
|
| Independence from the ECHR does not follow from leaving
| the EU. To get out of the European Convention on Human
| Rights, the UK would have to leave the Council of Europe.
| The Convention is also in the Brexit agreement. Though of
| course whether the tories will follow the provisions of
| the treaties they sign is another matter.
| kergonath wrote:
| Which is very funny because the ECHR has nothing to do
| with the EU. But hey, that's brexit logic for you.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The ass of that joke is the UK being very influential in
| creating the ECHR in the first place.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA
| adolph wrote:
| That sounds airtight--the defense lawyers surely wouldn't
| say a word because it isn't allowed.
| toyg wrote:
| It's sadly more common than one would think. There are
| some very undemocratic bits in the bowels of the UK
| justice system, and nobody that matters has any intention
| of fixing them. In fact, they are busy trying to import
| all the worst elements of the US system, removing legal
| aid so that poor people won't be able to bother the rich
| and powerful anymore.
| gpderetta wrote:
| I don't think there is a fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine
| in UK.
|
| Of course there might be other reasons not to admit to
| illegally obtained evidence.
| faverin wrote:
| There isn't. Until very recently (Human Rights Act) justice
| was deemed to have been served by bringing all evidence to
| the court.
|
| The ECHR gave some rights which now have to be balanced
| against justice but its still anything goes. There is some
| interesting court ruling on Azima Rakia hacking case too.
|
| Interestingly the courts are waiting for the case where
| computer hacking infringes on people's right to privacy...
|
| Rather than pretend i'll quote a leading case. Woman faked
| her hand palsy and was filmed illegally by the insurance
| agents...this is the appeal rulign (so important in uk legal
| terms)
|
| Jones v University of Warwick [2003] EWCA Civ 15
| https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2003/151.html
|
| That leaves the issue as to how the court should exercise its
| discretion in the difficult situation confronting the
| district judge and Judge Harris. The court must try to give
| effect to what are here the two conflicting public interests.
| The weight to be attached to each will vary according to the
| circumstances. The significance of the evidence will differ
| as will the gravity of the breach of Article 8, according to
| the facts of the particular case. The decision will depend on
| all the circumstances. Here, the court cannot ignore the
| reality of the situation. This is not a case where the
| conduct of the defendant's insurers is so outrageous that the
| defence should be struck out. The case, therefore, has to be
| tried. It would be artificial and undesirable for the actual
| evidence, which is relevant and admissible, not to be placed
| before the judge who has the task of trying the case. We
| accept Mr Owen's submission that to exclude the use of the
| evidence would create a wholly undesirable situation. Fresh
| medical experts would have to be instructed on both sides.
| Evidence which is relevant would have to be concealed from
| them, perhaps resulting in a misdiagnosis; and it would not
| be possible to cross-examine the claimant appropriately. For
| these reasons we do not consider it would be right to
| interfere with the Judge's decision not to exclude the
| evidence.
|
| Mr Weir's submission that we should determine the issue on
| the basis of the facts as they were before the district judge
| is not realistic. Nonetheless, it is right that we should
| make clear that we do not accept that the criticism of the
| claimant's legal advisers for deciding not to reveal the
| contents of the video films in issue to their medical experts
| is justified. It was sensible to defer doing so until it was
| known whether the evidence could be used. While not excluding
| the evidence it is appropriate to make clear that the conduct
| of the insurers was improper and not justified. We disagree
| with the indication by Judge Harris to the contrary. The fact
| that the insurers may have been motivated by a desire to
| achieve what they considered would be a just result does not
| justify either the commission of trespass or the
| contravention of the claimant's privacy which took place. We
| come to this conclusion irrespective of whether Mr Weir is
| right in contending that in this particular case the evidence
| could be obtained by other means.
|
| Excluding the evidence is not, moreover, the only weapon in
| the court's armoury. The court has other steps it can take to
| discourage conduct of the type of which complaint is made. In
| particular it can reflect its disapproval in the orders for
| costs which it makes. In this appeal, we therefore propose,
| because the conduct of the insurers gave rise to the
| litigation over admissibility of the evidence which has
| followed upon their conduct, to order the defendants to pay
| the costs of these proceedings to resolve this issue before
| the district judge, Judge Harris and this court even though
| we otherwise dismiss the appeal. This is subject to Mr Owen
| having an opportunity to persuade us to do otherwise. In
| addition, we would indicate to the trial judge that when he
| comes to deal with the question of costs he should take into
| account the defendant's conduct which is the subject of this
| appeal when deciding the appropriate order for costs. He may
| consider the costs of the inquiry agent should not be
| recovered. If he concludes, as the complainant now contends,
| that there is an innocent explanation for what is shown as to
| the claimant's control of her movements then this is a matter
| which should be reflected in costs, perhaps by ordering the
| defendants to pay the costs throughout on an indemnity basis.
| In giving effect to the overriding objective, and taking into
| account the wider interests of the administration of justice,
| the court must while doing justice between the parties, also
| deter improper conduct of a party while conducting
| litigation. We do not pretend that this is a perfect
| reconciliation of the conflicting public interests. It is
| not; but at least the solution does not ignore the insurer's
| conduct.
| bserge wrote:
| Similar to how companies "don't discriminate" when hiring or
| firing.
| [deleted]
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| The BBC is used to nudge people into behaving as preferred by
| higher-ups - it's a propaganda organisation. The police are
| basically government thugs - not law abiding where they can get
| away with it. So whether your interpretation is correct or not,
| I don't know, but you're right that this story is probably
| untrue.
| reledi wrote:
| It's a plausible theory, but they almost definitely would have
| had prints from him already.
|
| The fingers and palm were analysed in the photo. There's a
| better photo here:
| https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2021/m...
|
| Without any image processing, we can already see palm prints
| and the ridges and lines in the palm and fingers. These are
| unique biometric identifiers. In fact, palms have more
| identifying characteristics than fingerprints.
|
| They are almost certainly telling the truth in this story.
| tux1968 wrote:
| 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 engender social acceptance and our laws to encourage it.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Wikipedia says EncroChat used central servers in France.
| upofadown wrote:
| 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.
| tux1968 wrote:
| > So I don't think this can be extended to some sort of
| general principle.
|
| Very clearly it can. There is no technological solution to
| doxing. You have to censor yourself, you have to hide facts,
| you can not speak freely.
| kijin wrote:
| No amount of technology will keep you anonymous if you freely
| post details that identify you. This example is just poor
| opsec. He might as well have posted a picture of his driver's
| license! Just like that guy who posted the exact GPS
| coordinates of his terrorist camp.
| xtracto wrote:
| You dont need any sort of encryption to preserve anonymity. You
| just need a fraction of a clue.
|
| Look at Satoshi Nakamoto. The entity posted in public forums
| and had conversations in the public view for so long. He is
| presumably one of the most infamous subjects in the last 10
| years an nobody has managed to doxx him
| tux1968 wrote:
| Some areas of conversation require disclosing who you are.
| Freedom of speech means being able to say you don't agree
| with your town council for instance. Thus revealing much
| about yourself.
|
| Yes you can censor yourself, hide facts, and remain
| anonymous.. but you can not do so across the entire spectrum
| of discourse, only in limited domains.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Are you arguing that arranging to commit a crime is protected
| speech? I don't think that one will fly anywhere, even in the
| US, let alone in the UK with no constitutional protection only
| the much weaker ECHR one.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| That's pretty much every protest ever. You would make
| organizing protests against marijuana laws or laws against
| homosexual behavior illegal?
|
| Moxie Marlinspike has argued that it is important to be able
| to break the law and that perfect surveillance means the end
| of making social progress in a civil manner.
|
| https://www.metafilter.com/161351/I-think-it-should-
| actually...
| ben_w wrote:
| As the law recognises that the law can be changed,
| protesting to _change_ the law is not generally itself a
| crime.
|
| Laws get interpreted by humans, not by computers, so they
| should not to be taken literally and in isolation --
| they're both harder and laxer in different ways.
| WindyLakeReturn wrote:
| In some cases changing the law is itself illegal, which
| brings us back to the original question.
|
| There is also the matter of protecting a persons right to
| commit a crime when it involves behaviors that should not
| be criminalized. A same sex couple being in a
| relationship is something that we should protest for,
| even if it is illegal. Not just making it legal, but also
| protesting specific examples of it being criminalized.
|
| Is free speech itself something worth protecting enough
| that we should give it some level of special protection?
| In a world where the only person who doesn't have to know
| the law is the cops enforcing it, who are given their own
| special protection from harm they cause, I don't think it
| is an unreasonable request.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| >let alone in the UK with no constitutional protection only
| the much weaker ECHR one.
|
| I think that's overstating the situation a little.
|
| The Human Rights Act (which enabled domestic courts to give
| effect to the ECHR) is considered to be as much of a
| constitutional document as one can be in the UK.
|
| Laws can't accidentally go against Convention rights.
| Secondary legislation can be struck down if it breaches the
| HRA/ECHR, and even primary legislation (Acts of Parliament
| etc.) isn't completely immune.
|
| Primary legislation must be interpreted by courts to be
| compatible with the ECHR, even going as far as to reverse the
| plain meaning of statutory language in some cases. It's only
| where there's an _express_ contradiction or one that can 't
| be "interpreted around" where the court has to apply the
| statute as-is.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > The Human Rights Act (which enabled domestic courts to
| give effect to the ECHR) is considered to be as much of a
| constitutional document as one can be in the UK.
|
| Yes - that is, it can be overruled by a simple majority of
| MPs plus the unelected House of Lords. So constitutional
| change can be achieved with the support of only a minority
| of voters.
| tux1968 wrote:
| Read the second sentence of my post.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| You mean I shouldn't share a photo of personally identifiable
| information through the same communication medium that I'm
| using to sell drugs?
|
| Anyways, you think we should change the laws so that just
| because somebody is using an encrypted or "anonymous" chat app
| the police can't use any of that to build evidence against
| them? That seems too OP for the criminals
| usrusr wrote:
| Next up: T-Shirts printed "I'm feeling invisible and I demand
| you to respect that feeling!"
| nix23 wrote:
| That reminds me so much about "The Expanse" and i don't know why!
| busterarm wrote:
| Obviously because Miller busted the Space Cheese Cartel.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcNnUHSwOHI
| iand wrote:
| The implication is that police are routinely scanning all
| Encrochat photographs to extract fingerprints and other biometric
| details to match with existing databases.
| getlawgdon wrote:
| 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?
| nickkell wrote:
| Bobby_1979: Lunchtime, lads. Let's see those cheeses!
|
| CarlS: Check me out, getting fancy with the marks and sparks
| stilton :P [img]
| pdpi wrote:
| Or even more prosaically -- they were monitoring that chat
| for anything juicy at all, and got a break when the
| conversation organically went to cheeses and the guy posted
| that pic
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yes, they compromised the network through the usual means (the
| center) and recorded all the messages for a while.
| https://www.reeds.co.uk/insight/encrochat/
| 40four wrote:
| I don't get it. I'm mostly very skeptical of the claim of making
| a positive fingerprint ID through a picture. Has anyone ever
| heard of this before? Fingerprints are known to be very
| unreliable and subjective. I'm not convinced this is actually
| what happened, and not just a cute story pushed by the British
| law enforcement.
|
| Edit: I did find a couple articles talking about technique of
| lifting prints from photographs, so I guess it's a thing? Enough
| confidence for them to track him down, and win a guilty plea.
| meowface wrote:
| Yeah, the article title should be "Drug dealer caught by online
| photo that revealed fingerprints". That's the interesting and
| unexpected part, here. I didn't really know that could be done
| and hadn't heard of it before; but I suppose it's not too
| surprising given the prevalence of high-resolution phone
| cameras, now.
|
| I'm guessing what happened was that they were monitoring an
| anonymous chat group on this EncroChat app and weren't sure of
| the true identities of some of the people in it. They saw one
| of them posted a photo showing fingertips, decided to see if
| they could extract and match the fingerprints against their
| database, and got a hit.
|
| I disagree with the (current) top post in this thread saying
| it's "likely parallel construction". It could be, but the
| claimed story also sounds pretty plausible, if it's indeed true
| that they could match the fingerprints based on that photo.
|
| That said, if they didn't heavily downscale or obfuscate the
| photo before uploading it, the fingertips look so blurry that I
| imagine it'd be hard to get anything actually useful from it...
| (https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/F8F6/production/..
| .). If that's close to the original photo, I would grant more
| probability to the parallel construction/source protection
| hypothesis.
|
| I'd be quite impressed if the photo was really that blurry and
| they still managed to extract fingerprints. Though, maybe it
| could become more feasible with some Photoshop adjustments?
| p_j_w wrote:
| >I disagree with the (current) top post in this thread saying
| it's "likely parallel construction". It could be, but the
| claimed story also sounds pretty plausible
|
| Others have pointed out that this happened in the UK, so it's
| probably not parallel construction anyways. Still, I wanted
| to get this out there: isn't the claimed story being
| plausible a pretty important part of parallel construction?
| If you needed parallel construction for your evidence to not
| be thrown out of court, then if the story of how you obtained
| it isn't plausible, it seems likely that it'll get thrown out
| anyways.
| meowface wrote:
| >Others have pointed out that this happened in the UK, so
| it's probably not parallel construction anyways.
|
| Yeah, I should've said "parallel construction / source
| protection / cover story". Parallel construction implies
| hiding an illicit and/or unethical technique (like
| warrantless NSA collection methods), but it could also be
| done to protect a valid information source, like a
| confidential informant.
|
| >Still, I wanted to get this out there: isn't the claimed
| story being plausible a pretty important part of parallel
| construction? If you needed parallel construction for your
| evidence to not be thrown out of court, then if the story
| of how you obtained it isn't plausible, it seems likely
| that it'll get thrown out anyways.
|
| Absolutely. But it's kind of a double-bind sort of
| situation. If it seems potentially implausible, you can say
| it smells like a cover story diversion. If it seems
| plausible, you can say it could be a believable-sounding
| cover story diversion that's tricked the naive masses.
|
| It's similar to the logic serial conspiracy theorists use;
| counter-claims are easily dismissed as "that's what they
| want you to think" / "of course they'd do that". The onus
| is on the claim-maker to provide evidence of possible
| deceit.
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| That's not the full image. The full image
| (https://twitter.com/MerseyPolice/status/1395783747115618306)
| has a lot of detail in the palm area - enough to get a match
| I'd assume, if they have his full palm print on file.
|
| Even if it's not a super high probability match, it could
| have been enough to give them a name and find more evidence.
|
| I don't buy that they'd make up the story _and then tweet
| proudly about it_, especially when the image they posted is
| so easy to be sceptical about because of the blur.
| meowface wrote:
| Thanks; makes sense.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| IIRC a top European politician's, maybe Angela Merkel's, prints
| were lifted from a foto a few years ago and used for something,
| so it's not a new or rare thing - examples come up in the press
| about once a year.
| gatvol wrote:
| Still finding it hard to believe that society is willing to spend
| this much resources on locking up people for dealing in the wrong
| sort of chemicals.
| 3GuardLineups wrote:
| prudishness is a hell of a drug
| moioci wrote:
| Isn't this just like trying to link the Dread Pirate Roberts
| identity to a real-world person? Not really anything nefarious
| about that.
| dmix wrote:
| Ross/DPR ruined it by acting like some anonymous drug lord
| doing (fake) assassinations with (pretend) Hells Angels.
| Violence is the scourge on (certain) societies that needs to be
| dealt with.
|
| This guy was just selling drugs consensually/non-violently
| (AFIK) and probably happened to be far up the chain.
|
| The police pat themselves on the back and 20 other distributors
| they didn't catch are getting a minor pay raise and life goes
| on.
|
| The only hope is this guy can find real productive work in the
| 5-7yrs he actually does in prison, and doesn't become a
| hardened criminal with street rep from prison.
|
| The other risk is potential power vacuums that results in
| violence that wouldn't otherwise be there but I doubt it in
| Liverpool (unlike Mexico and for example: CJNG, aka Jalisco New
| Generation Cartel).
|
| Note: I feel the need to point out I'm not some hippie activist
| against the police. It's just obvious and rational that DEA is
| burning through money while the real work of addiction and
| access to drugs is much harder problem than arresting
| replaceable dealers and needs a new whole new approach. It's
| been obvious for decades and some governments are finally
| realizing it.
| ChaitanyaSai wrote:
| Here's a fun little game. Try and get GPT3 to reconstruct the
| story, based on the headline (and maybe just a wee nudge). Here's
| one attempt:
|
| ===== Story of the day: Cheese photo leads to Liverpool drug
| dealer's downfall "In an awe-inspiring display of the power of
| the internet, police in Liverpool have arrested a drug dealer in
| connection with an online cheese sale. A 28-year-old man has been
| charged with controlled drug supply after a photo of him holding
| a block of cheese was posted on Reddit yesterday. The photo was
| posted by the user 'Whatyouknowaboutdis?' underneath a thread
| about the best place to buy cheese. The photo, captioned: "Cheese
| is good", clearly shows the man holding a large block of cheese,
| however, one observant user noticed something very sinister. The
| cheese, which was only on top of a carrier bag, didn't have a
| price label and appeared to be slightly curved towards the
| bottom. After seeking advice from other users,
| 'Whatyouknowaboutdis?' commented: "This is actually really
| interesting, the cheese is curved towards the bottom (in the pic)
| but if you look at the bag it's flat. It's on a bag, so the
| cheese is obviously curved due to the weight of the block. This
| is a new one to me, I can't wait to hear the excuse." As
| expected, the photo shot to the front page of Reddit, with more
| than 800 comments and counting, including several from users who
| claimed they were police officers and would be investigating. One
| user, who claimed to be a police officer with the Kings Cross
| Police Force in Australia, commented: "I'm a cop and I'm here to
| tell you ... this is a very clear case of controlled drug supply.
| The cheese has clearly been purchased by this man." The Reddit
| users were not to be disappointed, however, as the Liverpool
| police tweeted this morning: "We've arrested a man today. He was
| charged with drug offences after an image of him holding a piece
| of cheese was posted on @reddit." ==== * (search engines: this is
| a fictitious story with fictitious names made up by GPT3)
|
| Here are a few more attempts:
| https://saigaddam.medium.com/cheese-photo-leads-to-liverpool...
| iNic wrote:
| I love how bad GPT-3 is at logical inference:
|
| > "This is actually really interesting, the cheese is curved
| towards the bottom (in the pic) but if you look at the bag it's
| flat. It's on a bag, so the cheese is obviously curved due to
| the weight of the block. This is a new one to me, I can't wait
| to hear the excuse."
| ChaitanyaSai wrote:
| It's fascinating that it mimics linguistic structure
| exceptionally well, but not semantic structure and sequence.
| Reminds me of how people with Wernicke's aphasia can create
| long sentences that are grammatically alright, but
| nonsensical. Not quite the same, but there's an interesting
| limitation on the semantic side, which is almost masked by a
| truly world-class linguistic ability. I continue to be in awe
| of GPTS's ability to mimic any style and marry into to pretty
| much any kind of content.
| lovecg wrote:
| The story has a sort of a dreamlike quality. All the words
| and sentences are there and any individual piece kind of
| makes sense but if you zoom out the whole thing is
| nonsense.
| fnord77 wrote:
| amazing the amount of data leaked by a photograph.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I remember I once saw a post here about research at (I think)
| MIT where they were able to use shadows in photographs to "see"
| what was behind the camera and "see" around corners. It was
| really rough and didn't really look like very much but I think
| about that research all the time. What happens when that
| technology improves and _every_ photo that has been posted
| online is suddenly a photo of _way_ more than the photographer
| intended to share?
| shadowythroaway wrote:
| You'll probably be interested in
| https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/04/15/did-these-
| syrian-...
| aritmo wrote:
| There is some heavy editorializig by the BBC here. As a cheese
| lover, the cheese was fine. That person just posted a photo that
| also included their fingertips.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| It _was_ posted as a "cheese photo", it just happened to
| include his fingerprints.
| ginko wrote:
| I was hoping it'd be some extremely rare regional cheese that
| allowed them to find the guy.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| I kind of wanted it to be a Wallace and Grommet crossover
| with Breaking Bad.
| panzagl wrote:
| Claymation Brian Cranston points pistol at snitches head-
| "You've got the wrong trousers" <Bang>
| scop wrote:
| Welp with that comment HN has peaked for the day.
| xtracto wrote:
| I think the article is originally from Echo, which is
| Liverpool's local newspaper. Crazy the number of people that
| have been arrested in that city.
| gadders wrote:
| Kind of disappointed. I thought they would do some high-tech
| matching of the blue veins in the cheese in the photo to one in
| the suspect's fridge.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| The irony is that judges believe fingerprinting (and sketchy
| police lab DNA processing), but would laugh you out of court
| for applying that to cheese.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/merseyside/news/2021/m...
| is the police source for the news. The fella pleaded guilty, so
| (I guess?) the rest of the evidence didn't have to be revealed in
| court.
|
| Of interest is that Liverpool police arrested 60 people because
| of the Encrochat "hack" for selling drugs and weapons. I imagine
| some of those would be customers, but I imagine a few hundred
| would have been arrested across the country.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| 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.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's a pretty huge leap to assume that the image you see in a
| public news article online is the same image the police have
| access to without any form of recompression or artifacting.
| Kenji wrote:
| The fingers are out of focus. No amount of image resolution
| will correct for out of focus optics at the time the photo
| was taken. The fingerprints are nowhere to be found in this
| picture. So clearly something is bogus about the claims in
| the article.
| dTal wrote:
| "Bogus" seems strongly worded when the article makes no
| hard claims, but it does call into question the
| _implication_ we 're all here for, which is that
| fingerprints were extracted from the photo.
|
| Although, come to think of it, it is in fact perfectly
| possible _in theory_ to recover information from out-of-
| focus images. In practice it tends not to work well due to
| noise, but it 's theoretically a reversible transform if
| you can deduce the blurring kernel. I highly doubt it would
| work well on a social media JPEG, however.
| dTal wrote:
| The blur is clearly optical.
| danbruc wrote:
| You can remove blur from images with [blind] deconvolution. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_deconvolution
| dplavery92 wrote:
| Blind deconvolution is useful in astronomy and space domain
| awareness where you can make reasonable assumptions that the
| support for the signal pixels is limited against a blank
| background. This isn't the case in everyday terrestrial
| photography, and the Lena image on that wiki shows the sorts
| of results you get from applying a blind deconvolution
| algorithm naively to this sort of imagery.
| periheli0n wrote:
| It wouldn't even be blind deconvolution since they can use
| the cheese label as ground truth.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I wouldn't think so, since the level of blur is less or
| non-existent on the label. In infinitely long focal length,
| everything is the same level of focus.
| periheli0n wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but I tend to see a lot of motion
| blur on that label, an amount that could easily account
| for the blur on the fingertip, too. Given the ultra-short
| focal length of mobile cameras and the large focal depth
| that comes with it I would expect very little out-of-
| plane blur on the fingertips.
| corobo wrote:
| Dumbass drug dealer took a picture of his fingerprints*
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| in the category "we had nothing else to write, the title pretty
| much has all the information". There's no reason to even click
| the link, it's not going to tell you anything about how we got
| from A to B other than "they looked at the fingerprints of the
| hand in the photo".
| jonplackett wrote:
| Did they blur that photo for use in the media?
|
| I can't see how you get could any prints off of that image.
| prismatix wrote:
| _enhance_
| jonplackett wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2aINa6tg3fo
| hyko wrote:
| Yeah, they didn't get them from that photo.
|
| Edited to add: where has this story come from? Why does someone
| want us to believe in CSI Stilton? And why on Earth do they think
| we'd swallow it?!
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| How do they legally get from "it's his hand holding the cheese"
| to "he's the true source of all the bravado in this nefarious
| forum" to "he's a drug dealer"?
|
| If all they needed was a fingerprint, certainly there are more
| convenient ways to go about it. He's got to touch something other
| than his product.
|
| This smells more like a false narrative contructed to cover up
| the actual source / methods for cornering him. Maybe law
| enforcement had someone on the inside? And still does? Or a loyal
| flunkie turned on him? But holding cheese? (Note: I'm aware this
| is technically possible. I'm questioning it's use in ths case.)
|
| Much like the news stories of "car stopped on interstate and
| police find _____ amount of ______ in the trunk." Right. Of all
| the cars traveling the police randomly pick the car filled with
| drugs? Sounds great. But too random too often to be legit. They
| knew which car to stop but they're not going to say how they
| knew.
| mannykannot wrote:
| The police could have had his prints from his merchandise, or
| an entirely separate issue, with no idea that they matched a
| certain until-then anonymous drug dealer known only for his
| posts on EncroChat.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| So they have drug product with prints.
|
| They match those to the hand / fingers holding the cheese.
|
| Presuming the EncroChat is anonymous, how do they then tie
| that to the person arrested? Where and how does that happen?
| the_doctah wrote:
| The article states that EncroChat has been cracked by
| police. It's not anonymous.
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| I suspect it's the other way - they have his prints on file
| already from some previous arrest, and the image linked the
| incriminating EncroChat account to his real identity
| through the data already on file.
| mannykannot wrote:
| You are right, under the assumption of anonymity, that
| alternative does not work. Prints on file for a different
| reason, such as a prior conviction, would give you an ID.
|
| According to a link from the article, however, EncroChat
| was cracked last year. Stewart was presumably not one of
| those arrested at that time, which implies that either this
| crack did not yield enough information to ID him, or did
| not yield enough evidence to proceed against him. The
| former case could be solved if his prints were on file, and
| in the latter case, his prints might have led to additional
| evidence which had previously not been attributed to him.
|
| As the article says he was identified by his prints, the
| former seems much more likely.
| legohead wrote:
| 13 years? wow. do British prisoners get out early for good
| behavior and such similar to US?
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