7 ms·

Of course this is helping. They aren't convicting anyone, they are tracking down leads. I'm sure the police would be engaging in this exact same exercise if the

by kjackson2012 13y ago

Of course this is helping. They aren't convicting anyone, they are tracking down leads. I'm sure the police would be engaging in this exact same exercise if they had the manpower. Luckily, there are hundreds or thousands of motivated volunteers who are willing to sift through this data and hopefully something really good is in there.

brazzy 13y ago
The problem is that if those "leads" are made public and point at specific people, then some people will let their outrage over what happened blot out all doubt that the "leads" are not conclusive evidence and take what they believe to be justice into their own hands.
- VLM 13y ago
  As a counter example look at the arab guy. You can read about him in wikipedia and somewhat online (its intentionally not being discussed much by the media). Immediately after the blast a bunch of people tackled an arab dude for the crime of "running while Arab" and turned him over to the cops who tossed his apartment upside down. The latest I've heard was an official police spokesman said the arab dude had nothing to do with the event other than being another victim. I would say this is an absolutely worst case heat of the moment outcome. Can't claim its unrelated or irrelevant. Its a sad outcome that lots of americans automatically equate being arab with being a criminal, and its sad he got tackled after nearly being blown up, and its sad the cops trashed his house, but in the long line of human injustice, its not that bad, no one shot him or lynched him or ruined his reputation. In a somewhat slower paced, more methodical, less emotional situation like looking at pictures of backpacks online, I think the likely outcome compared to the poor arab dude would be immensely more likely to tend toward rational wise justice than uncontrolled rabid injustice.
  - auntienomen 13y ago
    I confess to being strangely comforted that no one in Arizona has shot a Sikh yet.
  - brazzy 13y ago
    Sure, the outcome is more likely to be rational for each single person, but when it's published on the internet, there are suddenly potentially millions of people involved, some of which are certain to be not rational and wise at all...
sdoering 13y ago
They are publicly "accusing" (or putting somebody in a very specific corner) two guys. They do not have any, any idea, what has really happened. They are nothing more than unethical algorithmic drones, that dig up stuff. So far, no problem. But when showing their findings in public, they have a responsibility in thinking through the possible consequences, that might arise for these two guys if the (with a by the way very high probability) are innocent. So raising the internet-pillories with possible media outlets taking these images and (not fact checking) showing them in different channels, might just destroy lives. So yeah, sit in your chair and believe this unethical bs about them not convicting anybody. Right, the internet is just a tool. As wise Uncle Ben once said: "With great power comes great responsibility." That is, what seems to be missing here. ps.: Imagine a different scenario: They dig up these images, they send it to the law enforcement agencies. They find these guys to be potential suspects. They get a fair trial. After all is said and done . These guys come out to show what they did. Something in the line of finding a security flaw at your favorite digital place.
- n3rdy 13y ago
  What super power does law enforcement possess that us lesser humans don't?
  - blaabjerg 13y ago
    They have the super power of working within a judicial framework which forces them to be prove the suspects' guilt thoroughly before any kind of punishment can be dealt. This is not the case with vigilantes.
    - markdown 13y ago
      Doesn't America have the perp walk of shame (considered unlawful in some other developed countries)? Isn't that almost the same thing as this, just with a higher probability that the shamed person is actually guilty of the crime?
      - 13y ago
1337biz 13y ago
I'm sure the police would be engaging in this exact same exercise if they had the manpower. If there is something the US intelligence services are lacking when it comes to terrorism than it is certainly not the lack of manpower and money...
VLM 13y ago
Well, you seem to be making some rather positive assumptions, completely out of context. I saw this when it was new, yesterday, and it is one pic in a in a giant series of photoshops showing Dorner is responsible, and a zillion of the other usual 4chan and reddit suspects. So I glanced at this (or one of the numerous others very similar) and at a glance said Oh LOL very funny to photoshop Moot into the pix but Moot is going to be pissed now. At closer glance today, Moot is in fact a skinny white dude but this seems to be a different one (insert racially insensitive comment about skinny white guys all looking the same to me at long distance and low res, hey recognizing the problem is more than half way to fixing it). And its all rather tasteless humor so I scrolled past it pretty quick for better stuff (aka pretty much ANYTHING other than jokes about blown up people) I'm surprised this is still "of interest" today. The properly journalistic way to look at this is in context, you REALLY need to look for instance at the reddit posts on the same topic immediately before and after which show the probably late mr dorner being responsible in one via some pretty amusing CSI style animated gif photoshop work, and another photoshop job doing the same with spiderman (no kidding). And some dumb anime ones, and the usual racial slurs, etc. However in a giant sea of photoshops, this one story is gaining traction. Probably because its politically correct to assume an angry white dude did it, whereas the similar photoshops of arabs in turbans are too politically incorrect (aside from also being completely ridiculous and tasteless). Now the question of the day is who is this dude who probably got photoshopped in, and I'm not a huge Stargate fan by any means (err, well...) but I am about 95% sure this was a generic uniformed dude from SG:U or SG:Atlantis. Now it could all be real in which case SG:U or SG:Atlantis uniforms are going to be solely for the tasteless next Halloween, or its just vaguely coincidental that the the SG uniform people used some pretty much off the shelf stuff from Gander Mountain or uscav and it means pretty much nothing. I wrote a bunch of stuff about which episode of SG:U I think this uniform and backpack comes from, but the pix is so low res and I'm working from memory, so I deleted it. I don't know whats more embarrassing, a bunch of people getting all worked up believing one pix on a site known for "funny" photoshops is authentic, or me admitting in public that I watch syfy network sometimes, even worse I got roped into watching SG:U and I'm still kinda pissed they never had any closure to the series. I guess if there is any "startup lesson" here for the HN community its that you can't usefully research something in total isolation of its surroundings. That doesn't mean its absolutely false, just probably. For gods sakes whoever is doing this research for real, do us all a favor and DO NOT publish it in the funny photoshops section if you want it taken seriously, OK? Frankly anywhere else would be better. This doesn't mean its all a waste of time. If the pix are not photoshopped, and if for example the SG:U costume department bought its backpacks and shirts and caps from Cabellas Outfitters or REI or whatever, and the dude in the pix shopped fairly recently at the same place, extensive research into that topic MIGHT help the authorities.

brazzy 13y ago

The problem is that if those "leads" are made public and point at specific people, then some people will let their outrage over what happened blot out all doubt that the "leads" are not conclusive evidence and take what they believe to be justice into their own hands.

VLM 13y ago
As a counter example look at the arab guy. You can read about him in wikipedia and somewhat online (its intentionally not being discussed much by the media). Immediately after the blast a bunch of people tackled an arab dude for the crime of "running while Arab" and turned him over to the cops who tossed his apartment upside down. The latest I've heard was an official police spokesman said the arab dude had nothing to do with the event other than being another victim. I would say this is an absolutely worst case heat of the moment outcome. Can't claim its unrelated or irrelevant. Its a sad outcome that lots of americans automatically equate being arab with being a criminal, and its sad he got tackled after nearly being blown up, and its sad the cops trashed his house, but in the long line of human injustice, its not that bad, no one shot him or lynched him or ruined his reputation. In a somewhat slower paced, more methodical, less emotional situation like looking at pictures of backpacks online, I think the likely outcome compared to the poor arab dude would be immensely more likely to tend toward rational wise justice than uncontrolled rabid injustice.
- auntienomen 13y ago
  I confess to being strangely comforted that no one in Arizona has shot a Sikh yet.
- brazzy 13y ago
  Sure, the outcome is more likely to be rational for each single person, but when it's published on the internet, there are suddenly potentially millions of people involved, some of which are certain to be not rational and wise at all...

sdoering 13y ago

They are publicly "accusing" (or putting somebody in a very specific corner) two guys. They do not have any, any idea, what has really happened. They are nothing more than unethical algorithmic drones, that dig up stuff. So far, no problem. But when showing their findings in public, they have a responsibility in thinking through the possible consequences, that might arise for these two guys if the (with a by the way very high probability) are innocent. So raising the internet-pillories with possible media outlets taking these images and (not fact checking) showing them in different channels, might just destroy lives. So yeah, sit in your chair and believe this unethical bs about them not convicting anybody. Right, the internet is just a tool. As wise Uncle Ben once said: "With great power comes great responsibility." That is, what seems to be missing here. ps.: Imagine a different scenario: They dig up these images, they send it to the law enforcement agencies. They find these guys to be potential suspects. They get a fair trial. After all is said and done . These guys come out to show what they did. Something in the line of finding a security flaw at your favorite digital place.

n3rdy 13y ago
What super power does law enforcement possess that us lesser humans don't?
- blaabjerg 13y ago
  They have the super power of working within a judicial framework which forces them to be prove the suspects' guilt thoroughly before any kind of punishment can be dealt. This is not the case with vigilantes.
  - markdown 13y ago
    Doesn't America have the perp walk of shame (considered unlawful in some other developed countries)? Isn't that almost the same thing as this, just with a higher probability that the shamed person is actually guilty of the crime?
    - 13y ago

1337biz 13y ago

I'm sure the police would be engaging in this exact same exercise if they had the manpower. If there is something the US intelligence services are lacking when it comes to terrorism than it is certainly not the lack of manpower and money...

VLM 13y ago

Well, you seem to be making some rather positive assumptions, completely out of context. I saw this when it was new, yesterday, and it is one pic in a in a giant series of photoshops showing Dorner is responsible, and a zillion of the other usual 4chan and reddit suspects. So I glanced at this (or one of the numerous others very similar) and at a glance said Oh LOL very funny to photoshop Moot into the pix but Moot is going to be pissed now. At closer glance today, Moot is in fact a skinny white dude but this seems to be a different one (insert racially insensitive comment about skinny white guys all looking the same to me at long distance and low res, hey recognizing the problem is more than half way to fixing it). And its all rather tasteless humor so I scrolled past it pretty quick for better stuff (aka pretty much ANYTHING other than jokes about blown up people) I'm surprised this is still "of interest" today. The properly journalistic way to look at this is in context, you REALLY need to look for instance at the reddit posts on the same topic immediately before and after which show the probably late mr dorner being responsible in one via some pretty amusing CSI style animated gif photoshop work, and another photoshop job doing the same with spiderman (no kidding). And some dumb anime ones, and the usual racial slurs, etc. However in a giant sea of photoshops, this one story is gaining traction. Probably because its politically correct to assume an angry white dude did it, whereas the similar photoshops of arabs in turbans are too politically incorrect (aside from also being completely ridiculous and tasteless). Now the question of the day is who is this dude who probably got photoshopped in, and I'm not a huge Stargate fan by any means (err, well...) but I am about 95% sure this was a generic uniformed dude from SG:U or SG:Atlantis. Now it could all be real in which case SG:U or SG:Atlantis uniforms are going to be solely for the tasteless next Halloween, or its just vaguely coincidental that the the SG uniform people used some pretty much off the shelf stuff from Gander Mountain or uscav and it means pretty much nothing. I wrote a bunch of stuff about which episode of SG:U I think this uniform and backpack comes from, but the pix is so low res and I'm working from memory, so I deleted it. I don't know whats more embarrassing, a bunch of people getting all worked up believing one pix on a site known for "funny" photoshops is authentic, or me admitting in public that I watch syfy network sometimes, even worse I got roped into watching SG:U and I'm still kinda pissed they never had any closure to the series. I guess if there is any "startup lesson" here for the HN community its that you can't usefully research something in total isolation of its surroundings. That doesn't mean its absolutely false, just probably. For gods sakes whoever is doing this research for real, do us all a favor and DO NOT publish it in the funny photoshops section if you want it taken seriously, OK? Frankly anywhere else would be better. This doesn't mean its all a waste of time. If the pix are not photoshopped, and if for example the SG:U costume department bought its backpacks and shirts and caps from Cabellas Outfitters or REI or whatever, and the dude in the pix shopped fairly recently at the same place, extensive research into that topic MIGHT help the authorities.