> 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.
Related: A researcher for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, warned executives at the tech giant that there may be upward of 500,000 cases of sexual exploitation of minors per day on the social media platforms.
Note: the "agent" the title refers to has nothing to do with an AI/LLM agent. Originally I thought this had something to do with an AI agent, as if someone put an AI agent in charge of identifying dark web pictures for clues. It's a good story nevertheless and I'm glad the victim was rescued, but nothing to do with AI/LLMs.
I’ve spent just a teeny bit of time helping international ICE investigators (not that one; internet child exploitation) postpone PTSD with technology. It seems like after two years of their job, they’re going to have a mental break. So postponing is all you can really do.
It’s disheartening how underfunded these agencies are compared to, what feels like at least, the severity of the crimes they’re up against.
These folks are heroes. This is one place AI has a lot of potential (but very little commercial value).
I'm wondering why they didn't cross reference the addresses they had from the furniture stores with those of registered sex offenders, as this abuser turned out to be? And further intersect that with "Flaming Alamo" brick houses??
periodically the various forces tackling CSAM release images which are ENTIRELY SFW, and are purely of a jersey, a backpack, a location, a tea setting, and ask people to tell them things: Was this available in Belgium? Did you ever see this in a second hand shop? Do you recognise the logo on this bag?
Information inside images is useful for this kind of struggle to identify victims of crime.
First of all, sorry to hear about the poor girl’s ordeal, and I’m glad she was rescued. But after reading about all that complicated digital sleuthing, it basically comes down to this:
"The team realised that in the household with Lucy was her mother’s boyfriend - a convicted sex offender."
I feel like the police should’ve started there: cross-referencing people in her close circle against a list of known sex offenders.
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 lot of focus on Facebook in the comments here, but unless I’m missing something the strangest part about this story was that the child’s mother was dating a convicted sex offender and they had to go through all of this process to arrive at this? It’s impressive detective work with the brick expert identifying bricks and the sofa sellers gathering their customer list, but how did this connection not register earlier?
EDIT: As others have pointed out, the wording is confusing. They made these connections to the identity only after identifying the house
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 shitshow you report on.
This is propaganda. Gullible people fall for this shit every day. Put some thought into the context before you swallow the turd.
So, I had a friend. Had because he's dead. He did this work for a decade and a half and then couldn't deal with it anymore. In that time he put countless assholes behind bars. At some point he stopped responding to my emails so I called the unit and they were absolutely devastated, this guy was the backbone of their operation, the one with by far the most computer experience of all of them. RIP Ronald.
It is very hard to imagine what the life of someone on the frontline is like, the ones that are really battling online scum. So take that 'think of the children' thing and realize that there are people who really do think of the children and it is one of the hardest jobs on the planet.
Quote from TFA:
"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."
So, privacy matters to FB when it is to protect the abusers of children. How low can you go...
As someone who hasn't done this line of work, the only words of power I could imagine which would help me get though it day-in-and-day-out is: "but it matters to this starfish."
It must be so demoralizing seeing such wicked behavior day-in-and-day-out and thinking it's only a drop in the ocean.
Maybe it's just me, and I wouldn't have thought this a few years back, but my immediate reaction as I started reading this was "Oh look, somehow they got the fucking _BBC_ to run a DHS whitewashing feel good story. I wonder what's about to hit the media that they'd like buried?"
On the one hand, this is a beautiful (but depressing) story about humans standing up for each other.
On the other hand, this is clearly propaganda from the BBC to push police state functionality on the UK population by pre-justifying it. "See what happens? Never mind the part about it taking six years. Let us see everything in your fucking lives, you twats."
I found it quite depressing to read. This guy spent so much time to put just one offender behind bars but the are likely hundreds of thousands out there. So sad
49 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 30.5 ms ] threadWilling 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.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/meta-researcher-warned...
Who needs the dark web when Meta exists and is protected by the US government?
Edit: downvotes? Lol
It’s disheartening how underfunded these agencies are compared to, what feels like at least, the severity of the crimes they’re up against.
These folks are heroes. This is one place AI has a lot of potential (but very little commercial value).
Information inside images is useful for this kind of struggle to identify victims of crime.
"The team realised that in the household with Lucy was her mother’s boyfriend - a convicted sex offender."
I feel like the police should’ve started there: cross-referencing people in her close circle against a list of known sex offenders.
> "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 lot of focus on Facebook in the comments here, but unless I’m missing something the strangest part about this story was that the child’s mother was dating a convicted sex offender and they had to go through all of this process to arrive at this? It’s impressive detective work with the brick expert identifying bricks and the sofa sellers gathering their customer list, but how did this connection not register earlier?
EDIT: As others have pointed out, the wording is confusing. They made these connections to the identity only after identifying the house
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 shitshow you report on.
This is propaganda. Gullible people fall for this shit every day. Put some thought into the context before you swallow the turd.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/dark-agent-spotted-bedro...
It is very hard to imagine what the life of someone on the frontline is like, the ones that are really battling online scum. So take that 'think of the children' thing and realize that there are people who really do think of the children and it is one of the hardest jobs on the planet.
Quote from TFA:
"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."
So, privacy matters to FB when it is to protect the abusers of children. How low can you go...
It must be so demoralizing seeing such wicked behavior day-in-and-day-out and thinking it's only a drop in the ocean.
On the other hand, this is clearly propaganda from the BBC to push police state functionality on the UK population by pre-justifying it. "See what happens? Never mind the part about it taking six years. Let us see everything in your fucking lives, you twats."