I think the difference between the two scenarios is largely dependent upon the source materials and the quality of the analysis. The author knew that the photog

I think the difference between the two scenarios is largely dependent upon the source materials and the quality of the analysis. The author knew that the photographs were authentic because they were sourced directly from ISIS. It wasn't a matter of determining who--out of many potential matches--might have fight a given profile (young male, bomb and backpack as people were searching for after Boston), but comparing the photographs to others in order to find matching geographical points of reference. The bridges in the photographs weren't going to change their looks. Even if you grant the possibility of a false positive in one instance, the use of multiple source photographs and different angles all combine to increase the accuracy of the analysis. This analysis in this blog post was thorough, precise, and clear. Professional. The responses to Boston, on the other hand, lacked such rigor and amounted to little more than a witch-hunt, despite the fact that most of those going through photographs were simply trying to help. You're right, in a sense, that it's easy for this type of analysis to be mishandled. But that's dependent upon the analyst and the materials they're working from. Rather than fret in this case, I'm happy to support it. Good examples should always be highlighted and praised, if only in the hope that such examples might help prevent poor examples in the future. A bit of a pipe-dream, but it's a nice one to imagine.