Computer-Edited Photos Lead To Child-Porn Locale 806
Leilah writes "Toronto police have found a new application for computerized photo editing. The police released edited photos on Feb. 3 from a series of child pornography pics in an attempt to locate where the photos may have been taken. Two days later, they have identified the Port Orleans hotel in Disney World as being the location. This seems to be the first time photo editing has been used in law enforcement this way and strikes an interesting line between protecting the victims and being able to get public tips. It looks like it may be used quite heavily in the future given this success."
It was Adobe ImageReady (Score:4, Informative)
Hex-editing arcade.jpg (the first of six photos) shows JFIF ... Ducky ... Adobe. Ducky is the code name for Adobe ImageReady.
Re:Sex (Score:3, Informative)
A 16 year old male is at a party and has sex with a 19 year old female. 3 months later she calls him and tells him she's pregnant, but not to worry about it. A few years down the road, he's about to graduate from college and her lawyer calls him up asking for child support, including back child support. As it turns out, the statutory rape statute of limitations had passed, and she waited until that time to ask for the child support. The guy had to drop out of school and get a job to pay the back child support.
The girl (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It still isn't proof (Score:4, Informative)
More specifically, the police were only using the photos to elicit eye-witness evidence of the location of the crime with the hopes that they could then find further evidence of the assault after the location was identified. This is truly a case were everyone wins (with the hopeful exception of the assailant).
TW
Re:Double-Edged Sword? (Score:2, Informative)
No punishment strong enough (Score:3, Informative)
Child molestation is not something that someone does, it is an indelible part of who they are. They never, ever get better, and the compulsion doesn't go away. Civil commitment after the end of the required prison term is the only way to keep children safe.
PRecisely (Score:5, Informative)
Now it seems to have worked, normal people looked at the photos and some said "Hey! I recognise that place!" and called it in. It reamins to be seen if they are able to get any evidence from this, but it's a place ot start at least. Knowing where something took place gives you a good starting place to look.
The next step perhaps will be to again turn to computer editing (or maybe just old fashion sketch artists) and take the faces of the children in the photos and get them out ot people in the area, and see if anyone recognises them.
The edited photos will never see a court room for a trial, because it would be worthless to do so. "Here's a picture of an empty room", not going to matter. However it does seem to be a useful step in finding the person they need to bring them to trial.
Enlisting the public's help is a powerful tool often. Hence shows like America's Most Wanted. They actually do provide a useful service, in addtion to being entertianment. It's not a panacea, and you can't rely on 100% accurate and useful tips, but it can help police get pointed in the right direction on an investigation.
Re:No punishment strong enough (Score:5, Informative)
The other is the classical child molestor in the sense that they have a constant sexual urge towards children and this in all likelihood will not go away. It is effectively a form of sexuality (albeit an incredibly destructive one). The only real treatment is counseling and some form of castration. Even with treatment, reoccurance is possible; without treatment its almost absolute.
Even though its incredibly unpopular to say so, I do have compassion for these people. The vast majority know that they are causing hurt but are unable to stop. I don't think they're evil, just very mentally ill.
Having seen the photos... (Score:1, Informative)
Many of the photos do show her in a state of undress though, although I can only recall one photo showing any hint of any sexual interference on the part of the photographer. For the most part she appears to like her photo being taken, although who can tell without asking her?
There is no sign in the photos of any force or coercion that I can remember, and nearly all the photos would be legal in many countries that do not have laws against COPINE "Level 1" images.
If you have further questions about the originals I can try and answer them in this thread.
Re:Sex (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Homeland Security? (Score:5, Informative)
Border and Transportation Security (BTS) - this is the TSA and Border Patrol, mostly.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - www.fema.gov
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
U.S. Coast Guard
U.S. Secret Service (USSS) - formerly part of the Treasury Dept.
What they did was take all those gov't agencies with overlapping responsibilities vis-a-vis "homeland security", but no communication because they were in separate departments, and combine them under one department. Really, this should have been done a long time ago.
In this case, it's the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arm that's investigating because it appears to involve a child from Canada being brought to the US. If this were a purely domestic investigation, the FBI would take care of it.
Re:Disney World and Child Exploitation (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It still isn't proof (Score:5, Informative)
Now they can compare these (and possibly several more pictures that we haven't seen) and narrow it down. The police (who frequent internet child porn rings to help keep tabs on things) may have first seen these pictures turn up around 2001, so they know it would be before 2001. Perhaps that fountain was recently renovated? If it shows the "old fountain" in the pic, then they know it was taken before X date. They go on from there. Then they can take a list of all the people that visited the hotel from records and cross it with a database of known offenders from the area they think the guy is from. They may get lucky. They may even catch the guy for a separate offense and link him back to this. Maybe the hotel archives it's security tapes (unlikely, but you never know) and they can sift through until they see somebody take a picture at the fountain or in the elevator. Hell, this is generating a LOT of publicity, the girl may even phone in and say "OH MY GOD THAT'S ME, IT WAS MY BASTARD UNCLE". Anyways, THAT is what police work is.
Either way, it's still better than doing nothing.
Re:Crime scene sketched instead of face (Score:3, Informative)
Everything from lighting to perspective, in-scene reflections, and even the quality of the photos being combined has to be carefully taken into account and expertly matched. Unless you're starting with similar photographs, it's a nearly hopeless proposition. Your average nitwit with a copy of MS Paint has no hope of pulling this off, and, in any case, the vast majority of people lack access to huge quantities of child porn to use as source photos.
In other words, the odds of this becoming a serious problem are virtually nil. I think it's a great idea, and a wonderful use of technology. It's the cops actually doing some work, instead of trying to pass retarded, technophobic laws.
Re:Fine Line? What Fine Line? (Score:1, Informative)
The photos were not posted to punish the hotel owner but rather to find the hotel so they could get a list of people staying and working at the hotel at the time the pictures appeared and get a list of people that they can start checking. This was just done to get leads in a cold case.
Re:*Shudder* (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fine Line? What Fine Line? (Score:1, Informative)
from a slashdot poster named 'danila' [slashdot.org] who quotes "There is nothing particularly bad about molesting children".
Unfortunately the dumbfuck quotes the usual bullshit I've had pushed at me to tell me why I shouldn't feel particularly bad about having been molested myself. What the dumbfuck doesn't realise, or conveniently ignores, is that as much as any psychological damage from the act, the psychological from the physical rape is horrific.
I was eight when I was molested the first time, and let me tell you the physical damage from having an adult male's dick crammed into my orifices left me with infections that continue on to my late 30s, left me needing more surgeries I can count to fix the rips and tears in my genitalia and asshole (I still can't shit properly, and that's not abnormal for 8 year olds who have been anally raped by adults) and left me unable to physically have sex. There are so many of us who were screwed over as kids who get ignored and have our conditions pushed down as 'not that bad', or 'it's all in our heads' when we are physically bleeding, ripped and broken in the most sensitive of areas and carry the permanent scars of those encounters. That's conveniently ignored by dumbfucks like 'danila'.
If there's nothing particularly wrong with child molesting then there mustn't be anything particularly wrong with going someone over with a baseball bat, it has to be one hell of a lot cleaner. Like dumbfuck danila's contribution, there's no evidence for any psychological damage from doing so (if you ignore the physical, as dumbfuck can conveniently do).
Recividism (Score:3, Informative)
It's an order of magnitude lower than those convicted for robbery and assault and lower than "other" types of sexual assault.
What you say is absurd.
Stewey
Re:Copyright infringement (Score:1, Informative)
No, I'm not kidding:d iger_kan_pistool_declareren.html [telegraaf.nl]
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/17479421/Misda
(To cost According to director Gerard Sta of the office Ontnemingen Public Prosecution Service is it indeed possible that criminal cost that has been made for committing a indictable offence, can deduct. It concerns costs which have an direct relation with the indictable offence. Costs would not have made therefore that an offender differently. A second condition is that the indictable offence must be completed be, thus stands. The law goes there according to stands from that the financial situation of the bank robber after ' payment ' with justice the same must be as for the overval. The robber of the bank in Chaam had buy that weapon to be able rob that bank. It sounds perhaps a beetje oddly, but this way is the law. Director Sta gives still a another example: "if a hemp plantation is closed down the grower can indicate which onkosten he has made.")
Lousy translation, but you get the idea. The deduction should only be applied AFTER arrest, not before. The IRS are not stupid.
Not pedophilia (Score:4, Informative)
What the parent post described is called Ephebophilia, an attraction to post pubescent adolescents, this has never been and never will be considered an illness. 70% of the world's population can be classified as ephebophiles, we're wired that way. Only the relatively recent concept of Age of Consent has attached any stigma to this. Also, it'd be worth checking out your local age of consent (I'm NOT saying this to advocate anything inappropriate, just to educate yourself.) Turns out in a majority of countries and US states, the age of consent is below 18. I'm still curious to know how 18 has become the age below which it's unthinkable to sexualize someone...
Re:Disney World and Child Exploitation (Score:4, Informative)
(Yeah, I take it personally. I have a nine-year old daughter. If you'd seen what these bastards do with kids, you'd scratch their names on a few bullets, too.)
The trouble with a death penalty is when you go "oops" [innocent.org.uk].
"11-year-old girl stabbed 12 times and then sexually assaulted" sounds like a capital-punishment offense to me. Too bad you can't trust the cops to do their damn jobs. Nor the lawyers, judges, juries.
Re:Thought crimes (Score:3, Informative)
> In order to make these photos someone has to be, possibly irreparably, harmed.
> That's why child pornography is illegal whereas simulated child pornography
> (animation, fiction, etc) is not.
Wrong.
In most jurisdictions your so called "simulated child pornography" is just as illegal as the "real" kind.
Quoted from the Canadian Criminal code, Part V, Section 163.1 [justice.gc.ca]:
163.1 (1) In this section, "child pornography" means
(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,
(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or
(ii) the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years; or
(b) any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act.