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What happens when you give 4chan images of the Boston Marathon?
- Aurel1us 14y agoSome people but their bag on the ground between the legs cause they are tired.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Aurel1us 14y agoOf course it would be outstanding if this leads to the people who did this cruel act but there's always something holding me back if we prejudge people. It could destroy their lives if they are innocent.
- gojomo 14y agoAnd, the lighting/angle/resolution in the later two pics don't allow a strong read, at least to my eyes, as to whether the backpack is still being carried. (Zooming in didn't help me get any more confidence either way... perhaps the originals, motivating this claim, are of higher resolution or less-compression than this collage?) Still, I wouldn't be surprised if photos like these, and crowdsourced examination, does generate actionable leads.
- tagabek 14y agoWow, if this leads to the bomber being caught, then that is amazing. This truly goes for most large online communities that I have seen. They all have their negative aspects, but this is an example of the combined efforts reaching a productive conclusion.
- panacea 14y agoI'm seeing people putting red circles around dark skinned people wearing suspicious clothing.
- wjk 14y agoOn the 2nd picture he has sunglasses, but not on the 1st or 3rd...? Completely different guy ?
- joewee 14y agoYou can't tell if he is wearing the sunglasses in the other shots. And the likelihood of two sets of guys walking around fitting the same description?
- anigbrowl 14y agoI think the likelihood of two guys with white baseball caps at a crowded event in the USA is actually pretty high. EDIT: after finding the higher-resolution photos, it's almost certainly the same 2 guys in each pic. On the other hand, the descriptors label him/them as moving, when my impression is that they're just standing there. Worthy of study, sure, but pretty weak sauce by itself.
- j4_james 14y agoThey're definitely moving. In the first picture, they're standing next to the lamp post near the tree (you can see the branches on the left). Also note the no stopping sign facing inwards. In the last picture, they've moved further away from the finish line to the next lamp post - you can see the first lamp post and tree in the background. Also note the no stopping sign on the second lamp post is facing the road. Less obviously, you can see the Slovakia flag, third to the left of the lamp post in the first picture. Harder to make out in the second picture, but it's clearly a white/blue/red tricolor.
- anigbrowl 14y agoI guess we mean different things by 'moving'. They certainly moved from where they were in the first picture, which shows a fairly thinly populated area. My impression is that they hadn't yet chosen their vantage point, perhaps having just arrived. But in the later pictures, they appear to be standing still and watching the runners with everyone else. When I say they don't seem to be moving, I mean they don't appear to be moving relative to the crowd around them, eg departing the area. I'm guessing they're not significant because while they first drew attention for both carrying heavy-looking bags (a black backpack and a blue duffel), that may be a subconscious bias towards the fact that there were two explosions. On the other hand, the two explosions were separated by a city block; so unless one or both of them were spotted a similar distance away from the start point, the fact of the two big bags is probably just coincidence. So many people were taking photos and video that by the time the investigation is done, I imagine there'll be a patchy but contiguous animation of people's movements through the area, at which point it'll be far easier to spot dichotomies in behavior between race viewers and the criminal(s) that carried out the bombing.
- jgrahamc 14y agoOr that could be Richard Jewell.
- jaredsohn 14y agoMore speculation on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers Collaborative Google Doc for list of suspects: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AgtCl8YvqiBodEl0bkFkR1ZhR3gtZFU5RnRlbzZPS0E&toomany=true#gid=1 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AgtCl8YvqiBodEl0... Raw collections of photos: http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cipl7/photo_dump_compilation_megathread/ http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cipl7/ph... IRC Channel: ##bostonspeculation Closer up view of person in OP (includes shot of face): http://i.imgur.com/BBxplgk.jpg http://i.imgur.com/BBxplgk.jpg Checking out the speculation is valuable because it gives the perspective that many such leads exist (and it is unlikely that they are all in on it.)
- Uchikoma 14y agoI wish for you the guy is not innocent and you're co-responsible for destroying his life.
- jaredsohn 14y agoI have requested that the link to the photo is removed (too late for me to edit/delete the post).
- bargl 14y agoIf he is not innocent then you wouldn't be responsible for destroying anything... because then he'd be guilty and you'd be responsible for finding the murderer. But I think what uchikoma was trying to say is that you may be ruining the life of an innocent man and that's not cool.
- VMG 14y agoDoesn't look too good. The subreddit is busy circling everybody with a backpack and the google doc doesn't even get the blast site right.
- Lost_BiomedE 14y agoThe shot of face, also shows that he still has a bag, correcting the claim in OP's post. Also note, the blown apart backpack image has been desaturated because the color is way off (again OP post).
- ck2 14y agoIt would be great if this helped but I sure hope "the internet" doesn't decide it's someone who turns out to be the wrong person, because the vigilantes will not stop even if the discovery is "corrected". The media did that with the Atlanta bombing and it destroyed a guy's life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell
- nostromo 14y agoOr more recently Steven Hatfill from the 2001 anthrax attacks.
- ck2 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill Or even more recently Ryan Lanza at Sandy Hook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Lanza#Investigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Lanza#Investigation The media doesn't learn and doesn't care to learn.
- jamesrcole 14y agoI think it's worse than that, as there are incentives (ratings, readership, etc) for them to jump to conclusions like that.
- sssk 14y agoThe very fact this post has made it to the top of HN/Reddit/4Chan, is incentive enough for similar communities to start searching for needles in those haystacks of photos. I guess we can expect more such "observations" from the crowd :-|
- n3rdy 14y agoI think there is a big difference between the news saying "THIS IS THE GUY! THIS IS THE MONSTER!" and people on a forum speculating that "this may be worth looking into further". The people who turn it into a witch hunt are likely not the people actually using their heads enough to know what to be looking for in the images.
- thegyppo 14y agoWhilst it's truly amazing that they've found 3 separate photos of the same person in the same spot at the blast there's a few questions that come to mind: - If he was planning to commit the atrocity he did, why would you stand & talk to someone? (unless they were perhaps working together) - There's a water bottle in the backpack which leads me to believe that person is a runner? - The bag seems a bit small to hold a 6L pressure cooker. Plus he doesn't seem to be straining/leaning forward. - If you're standing in the crowd most people will take a backpack off & put it at their feet? - The crowd in the second & third photos is much busier which means it's not the same spot. If you planted a bomb why would you stand in the crowd? Been trying to line up the flags in the last 2 photos to get an idea of where he's standing but can't manage it.
- zephjc 14y ago> If he was planning to commit the atrocity he did, why would you stand & talk to someone? (unless they were perhaps working together) They are photographed together in both photos, both carrying bags. But I believe it's jumping to conclusions way way too quickly.
- doktrin 14y ago> If you're standing in the crowd most people will take a backpack off & put it at their feet? I do. Both to alleviate the weight, minimize the space I take up as well as reduce the chance of someone slipping a hand inside my bag. Likewise when I'm carrying a messenger. I'm a little weary of this set of pictures. It seems like he's edging to the front of the crowd, whereas I thought the explosions occurred a little further back. Moving to the front would be a great way to get stuck, much like ending up against the rails at a concert. Anyhow, I think crowd sourcing this kind of investigation can potentially be of great help to law enforcement, but I really hope the internet community keeps itself in check when it comes to determining guilt & doling out punishment.
- Cthulhu_ 14y ago> There's a water bottle in the backpack which leads me to believe that person is a runner? Doesn't every stereotypical American have a giant bottle of water in hand / on his/her lips every two minutes? > If you planted a bomb why would you stand in the crowd? Makes sense for suicide bombers.
- DigitalSea 14y agoWe shouldn't jump to conclusions here. Are we forgetting the wrongful identification and accusations surrounding Ryan Lanza in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting? It was his brother Adam who was the shooter but it didn't stop the media from incorrectly reporting that it was Ryan and his picture was publicised all over the news, websites, blogs, Twitter and every possible media outlet you can think of. While it's possible the person in the image could be the culprit, lets not jump to conclusions until we have some more solid evidence. Some people take off their backpack in crowds because it can get in the way, how do we know this isn't the case here? There are a thousand legitimate justifications for not having a backpack on you were seen carrying earlier. I usually walk to the train station to commute to work in the mornings and take my backpack off once I get on so it doesn't get in the way of others. Now I know what people will be saying if the train gets blown up and they have imagery of me with a backpack on and without...
- Yver 14y agoI concur and I'll add that they have assembled similar "evidence" about several people already.
- coldarchon 14y agoI can't see any of the victims on the ground on the pictures next to the highlighted persons earlier, these red circles only add people to the suspects, not the bombers in a direct way.
- Dylan16807 14y agoWhy do people keep bringing up Ryan, it was an off-by-one error and the shooter killed himself so there's no way anyone could look at Ryan and discriminate against him for the wrong reason. He's in a really terrible spot but it's not because of some confused reporting.
- hijinks 14y ago/b/ has also posted this one. http://imgur.com/icyyRLK http://imgur.com/icyyRLK
- wjk 14y agoThat one is much more convincing than the one in OP.
- yaakov34 14y agoThey're all very convincing. Probably because there are thousands of people with backpacks at an event like this, and they tend to take them off and put them on when they stop or want to take something out. But hey, let's just get their photos posted all over the internet as bombing suspects.
- sdoering 14y agoJust asking out of curiosity: Do the US not have some right of being in photo, being singled out and shown without consent? Wouldn't it be a crime or at least be against basic human rights? Trying to understand, as I'm not american and wish to come to grips with the reasoning behind showing these images in public and not mailing them to law-enforcement. edit: Killing repeating use of "just asking" ;-)
- weaksauce 14y agoNot in the us. You are only shielded from pictures in places where you have the expectation of privacy; the bathroom or your bedroom when it's unknown to you are good examples. The finish line of the Boston marathon doesn't have this type of privacy guarantee.
- fossuser 14y agoI am not a lawyer, but I think you're safe sharing photos of public places. I don't think you have an expectation of privacy in a public place.
- 14y ago
- sharkweek 14y agoI'd be very impressed if this actually led to an arrest, but I am always very wary of the collective witch hunt often caused by attempts at internet heroism.
- coldarchon 14y agoUhm, I'm pretty sure the police already did the same, but as we are not involved in this process, people get amazed too easily ..
- AdamTReineke 14y agoThe problem with a mob is the lack of due process. If 4chan were to try to exact justice themselves and get it wrong (or right for that matter), stuff could get ugly fast. That said, I'm all for crowdsourcing discovery from people with downtime to pour over images as long as the discoveries are processed properly.
- valgaze 14y agoWhoever placed these devices is/are presumably still lying low someplace in New England right now and has demonstrated a willingness to murder/maim innocent people and could be planning to do so again. Frankly "due process" does not seem that important right now (as soon somebody is formally detained or accused, agree with you 100% on due process), but what is most important at this moment is getting credible leads/clues into the hands of law enforcement as quickly as possible. The people poring over photographs are doing just that
- jasondenizac 14y agoWithout due process, law enforcement is just the vengeful application of (well financed) power.
- valgaze 14y agoRandom groups of people on the Internet are stitching together photographs to help find the people who did this- that's not a police action or legal proceeding yet
- jasondenizac 14y agoNow apply that in reverse, that is, a militant regime trying to identify legal but politically inconvenient protesters. Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3h-rae3uo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3h-rae3uo
- bcoates 14y agoThat sounds like something a terrorist would say. I don't think we can take the risk of not keeping you in jail until we've sorted this.
- ck2 14y agoIt occurs to me this incident is going to get drones in use at public events asap. Because if you had several drones circling for 24 hours before the event with high resolution and night-vision cameras, you could trace every single person on each of their timelines before the event. Awesome tool for when crime happens but what do we do when it's guaranteed to be abused?
- intended 14y agoWell CCTVs, or even older technology like finger prints, could be used to reduce crime, while also resulting in abuse or a reduction in privacy and freedoms. Its always been the job of society to be rational about this and look at the cost of further infringement upon your liberties vs the marginal utility offered by a tool which enhances crime fighting ability.
- ck2 14y agoCCTV isn't going to trace you coming from your home, where you stopped along the way, how fast you went to each point and where you got out. Drones can circle a city for days and with high resolution sensors can not miss a thing. This isn't just a more advanced CCTV, it's a near-infallible machine.
- baddox 14y ago> CCTV isn't going to trace you coming from your home, where you stopped along the way, how fast you went to each point and where you got out. Why not?
- buro9 14y agoCrowd-sourced vigilantism, just what the world needed!
- pseut 14y agoIs there any other kind?
- anigbrowl 14y agoA classic case of confirmation bias?
- ddrmaxgt37 14y agospeculation. this is misleading and not productive
- _pmf_ 14y agoWith great power comes great bullshit.
- gsibble 14y agoAnother reddit comment/thread that is also interesting..... appears that another person wearing a backpack was in fact an undercover of some kind: http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cij0q/largest_black_bag_ive_seen_yet_in_any_pic/ http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cij0q/la... Very curious to know this person's story. Looks like a fed.
- yk 14y agoThe funny thing is, that there are at least six people with black nylon backpacks in the picture. So obviously an entire swarm of terrorists is depicted...
- yolonoexception 14y agoI feel the same way. This thing is ridiculous, someone could name the person in the image, and media will go after them. But in the end they will end up innocent and their life in ruins. As much as this may seem like a good idea, 4chan or the internet should away from pointing fingers at random people with backups.
- dredmorbius 14y agoThomas Crowne affair. But: yes. Crowdsourcing may be useful to develop leads. But LEO really should take it from there.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- wavesounds 14y agoSeriously what is going on here? Why are they the only people standing there not helping who aren't holding a camera, holding a head wound or old?
- DanBC 14y agoThey're trying to find out if there are other devices or if there are bombers still around.
- anigbrowl 14y agoFor the more forensically minded, this Reuters story [1] has a surprising amount of medium-res but closeup photos of bomb component fragments, for example enough to identify the kind of battery employed [2]. 1. http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow/idUSBRE93F06T20130417#a=13 http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow/idUSBRE93F06T201304... 2. http://www.amazon.com/Tenergy-3000mAh-Battery-Tamiya-Connectors/dp/B0037U35SO http://www.amazon.com/Tenergy-3000mAh-Battery-Tamiya-Connect...
- CamperBob2 14y agoUnfortunately there's nowhere near enough resolution to identify anything beyond the battery and wire labels. Do those bozos think they're saving useful amounts of bandwidth by using postage-stamp size images in 2013? Part of photo 16/28 looks somewhat like a ferrite loopstick from the AM radio portion of a portable radio, but again it's hard to be sure. The distinction is important because if that's what it is, then this PC board is probably from a benign device that just happened to be carried by someone nearby.
- anigbrowl 14y agoThey probably want other media outlets to pay for the high-resolution photos. They're not postage-stamp sized, nor are the people bozos for not making your life maximally convenient. You could try searching for larger-resolution versions with Tineye or so, though chances are the FBI are way ahead of everyone on this since they employ specialists in this sort of thing. As for the ferrite loopstick, it occurs to me that if the battery pack is from an RC device (which is what it's marketed as), the bomb maker have used the RC interface as a trigger. But that's just a guess.
- CamperBob2 14y agoThey're not postage-stamp sized Yes, they are, on my monitor. nor are the people bozos for not making your life maximally convenient. Yes, they are bozos. The FBI released those photos to the press for a reason. What do you suppose that reason might have been?
- Apocryphon 14y agoInterestingly enough, the phenomenon 4chan/reddit/Something Awful and other free-spirited trollish communities embarking on activities like this has precedence in China: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html?pa...
- GHFigs 14y agoIt's hilarious to see anything from /pol/ show up on Hacker News.
- zalzane 14y agoYeah seriously, I thought it was going to be a cold day in hell before anyone (especially HN) took information seriously coming from a board where people think that the jews have organized and are working on world domination.
- boboblong 14y agoThe rest of the Internet hates /pol/ because the posters there are at once extremely right-wing and highly intelligent (albeit paranoid). According to the liberal world-view, such a phenomenon is impossible.
- pfg 14y agoI'm wondering if law enforcement is using something like Microsoft Photosynth[0] to process all the images. Probably would make their job a lot easier. [0] Photosynth example - requires Silverlight: http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=d7d78324-ad5e-41ea-94dd-512580ed4393 http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=d7d78324-ad5e-41ea-94dd-...
- nraynaud 14y agoWonderful, now the US have investigators, spies, money, and stuff for that, so thanks 4chan for tackling last Mondays terrors attacks on Iraq where 6 times more people died in a coordinated terror attack on many cities. And Iraq doesn't have any real police, spies or security for that matter, since you know, invasion.
- withoutthis 14y agoAnd... HN is officially Reddit.
- Uchikoma 14y ago+100
- coldarchon 14y agoif this site wasn't so laggy sometimes I had made a joke about giving you +1.000 but now it officially is ..
- workbench 14y agoLe HN
- tmslnz 14y agoEnhance.
- sergiotapia 14y agoInteresting: http://i.imgur.com/i1yLgzY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/i1yLgzY.jpg Racial profiling?
- abcd_f 14y agoHardly.
- parasight 14y agoCommon. What is meant by "unusual characters" then if not the color of their skin and hair?
- draugadrotten 14y agoTheir skin color seems to be very common on all the pictures. These guys stands out for other reasons.
- pdabbadabba 14y agoThose reasons being that they came into physical proximity with one another and possibly exchanged a few words? I've looked at the pictures and see nothing "suspicious" about them at all except that they're brown and a little scruffy looking.
- stratosvoukel 14y agoIs blaming someone for a crime without actual facts legal? Is it something we should encourage? How about not? (btw am I the only one clearly seeing the bag strap on the second picture?)
- nnnnni 14y agoNo, I definitely see something that looks like a strap on his right shoulder. It's a messenger-style gym bag or something similar, not a regular backpack.
- aquadrop 14y agoOn the photo where backpack is missing he could just take it off and put it on the ground or on his knees. It's uncomfortable to sit in such a dense crowd with backpack on. I just hope this isn't another case of false accusing by media. Let FBI do their work before judge anyone.
- TerraHertz 14y agoRegardless of risks of vigilante 'justice', I consider this sort of crowd-sourced investigation a highly valuable development. For the simple reason that there's a significant chance that this attack, like many others, was done by elements of the government. Or groups with the ability to strongly influence the official investigation. The days when we the people could trust the motives or results of official investigations into politically significant crimes, are long gone. The government develops ever-more powerful technological tools for monitoring ordinary people. It's entirely appropriate for ordinary people to use every technological tool at their disposal to guard against government wrongdoings. If the Internet was able to identify the person(s) responsible here, and prove (for eg) that this was a government ploy to ban the sale of ammunition reloading black powder or bulk cartridge sales, that would be of immense significance. For this reason I applaud the posting and permanent archiving of photos of events where such attacks occurred. We need some way to bypass the controlled MSM's low bandwidth and tendency to publish low-res, selected, edited and generally useless news images. 4chan doesn't cut it, due to the impermanence problem. Another thing to be wary of, is the 'vanishing 911 photos' syndrome. Some organization appears, solicits the donation of original photo/film media with the promise of building a public archive, gets given a vast amount of such material, then vanishes along with all the material. NEVER give away or sell your original material. Post copies!
- noptic 14y agoTurning a tragedy into a proof that the gouverment is evil? Troll level: Awesome.
- Crake 14y agoYes, the bombing in Boston, 9/11, etc were all a government conspiracy. I suppose you think the Holocaust never happened either and that vaccines cause autism.
- boboblong 14y agoDon't be ridiculous--vaccines don't cause autism.
- mcantelon 14y agoRelated: http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/ http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/
- _pmf_ 14y agoThe amount of false sense of achievement, ridiculous confirmation bias and circlejerk there would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- nextw33k 14y agoDon't use drones or CCTV. Crowd source the security. I the modern world we don't take pictures of people we don't know, its considered rude. We let the state do it because somehow they are not human. However if it became the norm that 50% of a crowd of people took pictures of everybody else then you have a massive record to call upon when a crime happens. If nothing happens then the jigsaw is incomplete and privacy is maintained.
- NZ_Matt 14y agoImagine if 50% of the crowd was wearing google glass
- draugadrotten 14y agoI like your idea. How to turn it into public policy?
- swinglock 14y agoIt's very difficult to see, I'm not even convinced he's not wearing a backpack in the later pictures.
- robryan 14y agoI don't get those saying this is unproductive, it is the classic appeal to authority. "The FBI know what they are doing". No doubt they do but currently technology doesn't allow a computer to work it out from all the footage and pictures and the sheer volume means that those on the case will probably take a long time to sift through it all. What harm is it if the public puts forward some suggestions and some of those investigating use them as a starting point? All this information is in the public domain, I don't think we can simply pretend it doesn't exist.
- Goladus 14y agoWe shouldn't pretend it doesn't exist however a forum like Hacker News should be quick to identify and upvote flaws in the analysis. None of the 4chan analysis photos I've seen are anything close to reasonable. They all have blatantly obvious flaws and the pictures do not support the claims being made. In this case, a few commenters have pointed it out but there are many valid explanations for the "no backpack" shots the main one being that because the crowd is much thicker the backpack is removed and being held at his feet. It's a very common thing to do and there's nothing at all suspicious about this behavior.
- alan_cx 14y agoWhen does the "crowd" become the "mob"?
- michaelbuddy 14y agoAnd we see the double-edged sword of a crowd sourced public criminal investigation. The crowd is powerfully brilliant and ignorant.
- shocks 14y agoPeople would do well to read this [1] and watch how quickly this idea of 'helping' gets out of hand. It may be well intended, but it escalates very quickly into publicly accusing people for doing relatively normal things. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cf5wp/2013_boston_marathon_attacks_please_upload_any/ http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cf5wp/2013_boston_m...
- bargl 14y agoNot to be a debbie downer, but this seems like a more sophisticated version of a witch hunt... I assume most people here are completely against drone coverage and yet we are thrilled at the idea of going through public pictures and pointing out people who brought backpacks to an event...
- danielweber 14y ago"We're too smart to be part of a witch hunt."
- gekoloaid 14y agoNew photo: http://i.imgur.com/rTiaLuZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/rTiaLuZ.jpg. This definitely looks like a placed bomb bag to me. Who knows if any of the pictures on 4chan could have been photoshoped though, but I've yet to see one of those before.
- draugadrotten 14y agomore backpacks http://imgur.com/a/xPKgL http://imgur.com/a/xPKgL
- jrs235 14y agoAnyone else see these things? http://imgur.com/C9uo2zj http://imgur.com/C9uo2zj The man with the blue jacket and back pack is seen helping an injured person... where's his back pack? (We have no idea) There appears to be a back pack in the same picture. On the OP page the third photo stating "Backpack seems to be missing... it appears to me that the man in the white cap is looking down and doing something, perhaps getting something out of his back pack?
- natefinch 14y agoI have a laptop backpack like that. On Monday it was 27ºF at 6:30am when I left for work, but it was supposed to be 55-ish during the day. So, I wore a light jacket under my warmer jacket. My work laptop is a 15" Dell and is somewhat heavy. When I was going home, I stuffed my lighter jacket in my backpack with my laptop... and it looked exactly like that. In crowded areas, when I'm not going anywhere, I almost always take off my backpack and put it between my legs. It's the only way I can safely swivel my upper body to look around without knocking people over. Don't jump to conclusions. It's a dude with a big black backpack. There's hundreds of thousands of those in Boston. I would be surprised if there weren't a picture of a guy with a big black backpack in that area. Lots of people work around there and lots of people don't get the day off... I didn't. I saw a ton of regulars on the Commuter Rail that morning that obviously also didn't get the day off. I applaud the efforts of people to scan photos looking for the perpetrators... but saying they may have found the guys responsible is incendiary and dangerous.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago>Don't jump to conclusions. It's a dude with a big black backpack. There's hundreds of thousands of those in Boston. // Yes, but are there not only a limited number who were at the bombed locations around the time of the Marathon. Identifying those - if the evidence about the bombs being in black bags is sound - gives you leads to investigate. >but saying they may have found the guys responsible is incendiary and dangerous. // It's also true. They may [huge huge caveat] have found the people. Personally I think the only real way the public can help is to identify themselves and their family/friends in images that others have handed over or they've sent to the officials investigating (Boston FBI presumably). I'm assuming that the office based enquiries are based on using available imagery to build a profile of all movements and to list people who may need to be interviewed. I poured over a few images (in one reddit thread) of the area of the bomb outside 671 Marathon Place and it was quite easy to spot certain people hanging around - what surprised me was that there wasn't already more imagery available. There must be many video feeds, CCTV and such in the area, eg from the shops at the bomb sites.
- dopamean 14y ago
- will_brown 14y agoNow that this has been deemed a "terrorist attack", doesn't this fall under the jurisdiction of the military justice? Irrespective if the guilty party or parties are US citizens or foreign nationals - or I suppose even if they are just suspects or persons of interest - can't they be detained indefinitely without trial? Or even worse US citizen or not, suspects, without trial, can be added to the Kill List. Kind of scary, especially with the internet creating suspects for the government.
- taytus 14y agoHave you guys seen this: http://imgur.com/a/sUrnA http://imgur.com/a/sUrnA
- just2n 14y agoThose images were taken around 11 AM. The bomb didn't go off for nearly 4 more hours. So there would have to have been a suspicious looking bag in front of the store there for almost 4 hours. These guys were walking away from the bomb location. We don't have access to the images being sent to the FBI, which I imagine might include a lot of personal photographs taken on phones. Deadspin's images from a few minutes before the first explosion show clearly that there were a lot of people in the vicinity actively taking pictures in all directions, so I suspect someone got a shot of the area where the bag was placed (near the intersection of the wall of the Lenscrafter's and the black railing) within 10-20 minutes of the explosion. This is all based on public photographs and poorly coordinated timestamps. There are likely 100x as many being submitted as evidence that we can't see. It'd be nice if they were all public, as the leads a mass of volunteer investigators could turn up might result in something credible, but privacy and everything.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- debt 14y agoi kept thinking about effective it might be to crowdsource this particular part of the investigation. it seems the only venues available for collaboration in a situation like this are 4chan, reddit, hn, tumblr, etc. perhaps there's an opportunity for a collaborative forum that's a bit more focused and a bit less public in terms of the potential suspects.