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Rescue Forensics (YC W15) Helps Law Enforcement Find Victims of Sex Trafficking

107 points by ryandalton 12y ago

tdicola 12y ago
That's awesome. I have a friend who's really passionate about this stuff and has some development experience in the area--are you guys hiring?
awesome_work_ 12y ago
This is inspiring. I hope to one day do work that matters in this kind of way.
- a3n 12y ago
  There are lots of ways to do work that "matters." For example, I work for a 50 year old company that makes medical devices. Those devices save lives. I'm only a small cog, but I'm working on something that, if it didn't exist, would probably mean some number of people would die or suffer. I'm very grateful to be working on something like that, and it's not a sexy new startup, it's a smallish BigCo. Look around, find something that interests or matters to you, and consciously move in that direction. Start now.
MichaelGG 12y ago
Didn't Craigslist throw a wrench in things by totally closing off "adult" ads, to which LE had backdoor access? And isn't the illegality in the states (like the "seizure" of RedBook) just causing all sex work to go more underground?
- lsiebert 12y ago
  Craigslist still has sex ads, usually veiled in euphemism (roses instead of dollars), but yes, this is the argument that Craigslist raised. There are plenty of other sites though.
- ryandalton 12y ago
  Craigslist has way fewer ads than they used to. They are actually playing ball and closing off many of these ads. The journalist was really kind to not mention our primary data sets we collect. We don't want traffickers hiding somewhere else.
- AznHisoka 12y ago
  The biggest player is BackPage now. lots of shady stuff goes on there.
  - ryandalton 12y ago
    bingo
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    How much of it is shady due to unreasonable laws? Does LE have a backdoor to view Backpage information? Does Backpage refuse to respond to subpoenas? Are sex buyers just gonna say "darn, I googled but didn't find anyone, oh well"? Especially the ones that are looking to find underaged workers?
staunch 12y ago
What so few people realize about the NSA spying debates is that the issues will extend into everything. This private company is building a mass surveillance database to track people. They're scraping and archiving what used to be considered anonymous postings. Their current goal is to go after sex trafficking, but they could easily expand into spying on people for any reason. They're not the government, so I think they have a strong right to do this, but don't let cause of "the children" confuse the issue. This is a new kind of spying, unlike anything that has existed in the history of American society. Just imagine how much crime we could stop if local police had full access email, phone, and social networking data. There's no question that we could save thousands of children per year. You would have to be a monster or a terrorist not to consent to having your data searched.
- zenogais 12y ago
  Warped kinda logic you got there.
  - remarkEon 12y ago
    Not at all. The parent describes pretty succinctly how a liberal democratic society can chip away, over time, at some of its core values in order to go after "the bad guys". The bad guys in this instance are sex traffickers. But who knows who the next "bad guys" will be. Think of it this way - these guys built something that collects online behavior and checks it against known behaviors, catalogs "suspicious" listing activity, unmasks phone numbers etc (on a technical level, could someone add to the specifics of how this works?). In this case it's being used to target sex trafficking. But could it not also be used in less progressive countries to target minority community behavior? Could Russia, already with a history of discrimination against the LGBT community, use it to find and target those members? Edit: I don't mean that Russia could literally use this company's product. I meant the principle.
    - orbifold 12y ago
      There is research on identifying sexual orientation from Facebook profiles beyond those that volunteer thar information.
schimmy_changa 12y ago
I don't mind the "software eats things" meme, but I think they probably should have rethought this title........ (shrug)
ajiang 12y ago
Big fan. Email me if you're interested in connecting with the folks at Thorn - they do a lot of work with DHS on child sex trafficking.
prutschman 12y ago
"The company itself doesn’t make any judgments about what might constitute illegal trafficking behavior. That’s up to investigators to determine, as there are adult women who want to do sex work and aren’t being trafficked." I'm glad to see this at least get mentioned; there are people in bad situations who need help, but too often well-meaning people are unfortunately reluctant to listen to the people they think they're trying to help.
- jholman 12y ago
  Yeah, I went and read their FAQ, and I'm struggling to see how this tool isn't equally useful to target sex workers. I'm perfectly willing (in my ignorance) to believe that sex trafficking is a problem worth tackling (in scale, in urgency, etc). But I also (already) believe that anti-sex-work laws act to oppress and victimize already-marginalized women, with dubious benefit (without taking a side on whether this effect is deliberate). For example, in my jurisdiction (IANAL), although I understand that prostitution itself is not illegal as such, the following things are illegal: * posting/negotiating prices openly * operating a place of business for prostitution (a "bawdy house") * living "off the avails" This last law is supposed to allow the prosecution of pimps (yay!), but it also means that sex workers cannot hire bodyguards or accountants. The second law is presumably supposed to keep "decent" neighbourhoods "decent", but it also results in more streetwalkers, and more liaisons in minimum-price hotels, and so lowers safety. It seems sort of obvious that the right direction is to have better laws, and then enforce them. I'm not holding my breath. And, to return to TFA, in the mean time, what stops LEAs from using Rescue Forensics to pad their docket by harassing already-oppressed sex workers who are not victims of trafficking, merely victims of being poor and desperate. PS: I salute and hugely respect people tackling social justice problems, and I want to emphasize that I'm not condemning Rescue Forensics, I'm expressing a concern.
  - ryandalton 12y ago
    Hey, thanks for the concern. We take this very seriously. We also didn't build this in an echo chamber. I've worked for five years in this space and am very familiar with concerns about sex workers, poverty, desparation, and exploitation. I can say with confidence that law enforcement, particularly human trafficking investigators, are also sensitive to these distinctions, generally. This used to not be the case, but a lot is changing and very quickly. An example: An investigator I spoke to the other day said they used to be called a "VICE" unit, but they changed their name to the "counter-exploitation unit". This is similar to many agencies across the US and Canada. We reserve the right to revoke a user's license if they are using our platform to harass persons, but so far this has not been a problem. In fact, just the opposite.
guelo 12y ago
Any startup based on scraping Craigslist will probably get shutdown.
porter 12y ago
Gosh, there is no reason to be embarrassed about your mission. Your mission is more inspiring than any other I've seen in the startup world. While all the other 'cool' startups are doing things like "enabling people to watch other people play video games all day", you guys are literally saving and changing lives. And if it works you'll be doing it at scale. It's inspiring, it matters, and you should be damn proud.
- ryandalton 12y ago
  Hah Im not embarassed at all, I just am sensitive to bringing up such a dark topic at social settings. Im happy to talk to anyone about our work anytime. The comment I made was being playful - came out a bit more serious in the article. Thanks so much for the encouragement.
- bhayden 12y ago
  I'm not sure I'd want to found a startup like this, simply because the pressure of messing and it having real, huge impacts on peoples lives. If the founder at Twitch screws up, maybe a few thousand people don't get to watch the video game they wanted. These guys really deserve a lot of praise.
throwaway022015 12y ago
I love the idealism, I really do, but I have to wonder under what criteria this company was accepted into YC? Certainly there's money in law enforcement tools, but there isn't much incentive for LE to pursue trafficked or underage sex workers, nor are they hard to find. The most common reason I've seen for my friends to be trapped in agencies or abusive pimps has been immigration status, by far. And nobody is doing them any favours by taking them in. LE hates the paperwork so much that a decent way to get out of a pickup is to feign being an illegal alien. Underage workers are similarly avoided. If you're 16-17 with no fixed address, it's going to be a nightmare of social services for everyone involved before you're spat back out onto the street. (I was arrested twice when underage. Both times they let me go when they saw I was 17 and a ward of the state.) I don't doubt that there's revenue here though, because LE just loves to do stings. Mostly they're single moms or otherwise trapped by circumstance and trying to make ends meet with a side gig. They're the ones who go quietly, who plead out, who pump arrest records, etc. Sex trafficking is an immigration/social services problem far more than it is a law enforcement concern. Giving LE more tools to track us is going to make things worse. I supported myself with sex work when I was a self-sufficient and independent from 15-19. Now I'm a software developer in my late 20's, but that's still my community. I realy wonder if these founders ever actually asked any of us what we thought about this idea before charging ahead? Note: Throwaway acct. (And I mean throwaway. I'm in an incognito window I'm about to close, with a /dev/random -generated password, and won't be watching for replies. Please leave me alone.)
- username3 12y ago
  Law Enforcement
- ryandalton 12y ago
  There actually is a good deal of money in law enforcement for this kind of tool. Anti-trafficking efforts are becoming more and more of a priority at the federal, state, and local levels. There is also a lot of demand for this solution as demonstrated by our user base. Federal grants are increasingly common, local and state multi-disicplinary task forces are being established more and more frequently, and they need solutions for dealing with these kind of problems. Sex trafficking is rarely an immigration problem. According to the DOJ, 83% of their cases deal with victims of sex trafficking who are U.S. citizens and trafficked by U.S. citizens. The remaining 17% are foreign nationals. This is a homegrown problem, generally.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Related feature on Memex, a military-originated tool that does broad=spectrum searches, metadata integration and so on. http://www.wsj.com/articles/sleuthing-search-engine-even-better-than-google-1423703464 http://www.wsj.com/articles/sleuthing-search-engine-even-bet...
ajju 12y ago
I logged in just to say that you don't have to feel so disconnected from the startups in SF. Although I don't go to many parties, if I met you at one, I would consider it my good fortune and anything but a buzzkill. Most of my friends probably share that opinion. Are you guys a nonprofit or a company? I am not a big angel investor (I have made one investment so far), but this sounds like something I would like to invest in / donate to. My email is aj at ridelabs dot com if you're interested.
- ryandalton 12y ago
  Hey, when I made that comment I was being playful. She made it sound way more serious than I made it. It is tough to talk about sex trafficking at a party though!
  - ajju 12y ago
    Alright! Hope to see you at alumni demo day. I think your company will be better off if you stay in the bay area instead of returning to Tennessee. I am from Atlanta, started my company there, and miss it a lot, so I do identify with your feelings.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
xkcd-sucks 12y ago
A hooker-tracking database, which will be used to Save Exploited Children-- just like the NSA's products are used to to catch Bad Foreigners.
tzakrajs 12y ago
I am not sure TechCrunch understands what "eats" means in the context of "software eats _____."
tzakrajs 12y ago
SaaS for Pimps?
MichaelGG 12y ago
The more I thought about this, the more bothering it potentially seems. Their Twitter feed chats with a religious group, which may appear biased. Does the company press for reform laws? How would such a company be treated if it was looking for drug buyers and sellers? Especially if such a company didn't encourage legalization but appeared to stand with Christian groups? What steps are they taking to ensure innocent people are not being prosecuted with their tools? Going by current laws is no moral compass. Finally, if they or the anti trafficking groups want to be taken seriously, provide real stats. This is from their Twitter account: "39,000 escort ads were posted on the #Louisiana Backpage since July. How many are sex trafficking victims?" Well, I don't know, why don't you tell us? They've got big data and LE, but they post leading questions like that with apparently no followup. It's like saying X number of people OD on heroin. For any X we should figure out A: if current legislation is helping or hurting that number, B: is infringing on the rights and potentially destroying people's lives worth the cost? I'm sure it feels great to save 100 people from OD'ing. Does that mean it's OK to imprison millions? I know this probably comes off making me look terrible. And I don't know anything except this article and reading the company's Twitter account. But it feels slightly off, as if I'm being convinced of a problem without seeing all the numbers. Where're the calls for legalization and regulation? Maybe I'm just too cynical.
bigmofo 12y ago
Web sites can put a robots.txt that prohibits crawlers. Are violations of the robots.txt a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, which would knowing operating a bit in violatoin a felony? The content and images posted could also be copyrighted or such that they are only for viewing in a browser and any other purpose would be a copyright violation or at a minimum a violation of the terms and conditions of using the site. Companies don't like their content being made available elsewhere, and would probably fight vigorously. How much bandwidth would polling and copying the site take? Wouldn't the companies notice it? Wouldn't they stop it? Wouldn't most of these sites would want to work with the police to ensure that there were no underage people offering sex for money or anybody of any age being forced to work? Wouldn't most of these sites have an alert link for each posting? People can probably ignore consensual adults making an illegal business transaction, but probably not underage or forced prostitution. If the software can recognize under age workers or people being forced to work, wouldn't the sites welcome the software alerting them of such listing? Would they be willing to pay for it?
vdaniuk 12y ago
I wonder, what is going to happen when there is a 10x/100x revenue opportunity in providing LE in US and other countries with data on other criminals, including sex workers? Illegal aliens, drug users, vandalism? Will they become fair game for Rescue Forensics? It is a for-profit company after all.
pskittle 12y ago
How's this different from what palantir is doing?
wcummings 12y ago
>The company itself doesn’t make any judgments about what might constitute illegal trafficking behavior. That’s up to investigators to determine, as there are adult women who want to do sex work and aren’t being trafficked. Pretty weaselly.
athenot 12y ago
The sad part is how "everyone’s buzz gets killed" when he mentions the true mission of his company. Here he is, making an attempt at solving a real problem in the real world but he has to feel ashamed because somehow it's less sexy than web intelligence.
sitkack 12y ago
Why is YC funding this?

107 points by ryandalton 12y ago

That's awesome. I have a friend who's really passionate about this stuff and has some development experience in the area--are you guys hiring?

awesome_work_ 12y ago

This is inspiring. I hope to one day do work that matters in this kind of way.

a3n 12y ago
There are lots of ways to do work that "matters." For example, I work for a 50 year old company that makes medical devices. Those devices save lives. I'm only a small cog, but I'm working on something that, if it didn't exist, would probably mean some number of people would die or suffer. I'm very grateful to be working on something like that, and it's not a sexy new startup, it's a smallish BigCo. Look around, find something that interests or matters to you, and consciously move in that direction. Start now.

MichaelGG 12y ago

Didn't Craigslist throw a wrench in things by totally closing off "adult" ads, to which LE had backdoor access? And isn't the illegality in the states (like the "seizure" of RedBook) just causing all sex work to go more underground?

lsiebert 12y ago
Craigslist still has sex ads, usually veiled in euphemism (roses instead of dollars), but yes, this is the argument that Craigslist raised. There are plenty of other sites though.
ryandalton 12y ago
Craigslist has way fewer ads than they used to. They are actually playing ball and closing off many of these ads. The journalist was really kind to not mention our primary data sets we collect. We don't want traffickers hiding somewhere else.
AznHisoka 12y ago
The biggest player is BackPage now. lots of shady stuff goes on there.
- ryandalton 12y ago
  bingo
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  How much of it is shady due to unreasonable laws? Does LE have a backdoor to view Backpage information? Does Backpage refuse to respond to subpoenas? Are sex buyers just gonna say "darn, I googled but didn't find anyone, oh well"? Especially the ones that are looking to find underaged workers?

staunch 12y ago

What so few people realize about the NSA spying debates is that the issues will extend into everything. This private company is building a mass surveillance database to track people. They're scraping and archiving what used to be considered anonymous postings. Their current goal is to go after sex trafficking, but they could easily expand into spying on people for any reason. They're not the government, so I think they have a strong right to do this, but don't let cause of "the children" confuse the issue. This is a new kind of spying, unlike anything that has existed in the history of American society. Just imagine how much crime we could stop if local police had full access email, phone, and social networking data. There's no question that we could save thousands of children per year. You would have to be a monster or a terrorist not to consent to having your data searched.

zenogais 12y ago
Warped kinda logic you got there.
- remarkEon 12y ago
  Not at all. The parent describes pretty succinctly how a liberal democratic society can chip away, over time, at some of its core values in order to go after "the bad guys". The bad guys in this instance are sex traffickers. But who knows who the next "bad guys" will be. Think of it this way - these guys built something that collects online behavior and checks it against known behaviors, catalogs "suspicious" listing activity, unmasks phone numbers etc (on a technical level, could someone add to the specifics of how this works?). In this case it's being used to target sex trafficking. But could it not also be used in less progressive countries to target minority community behavior? Could Russia, already with a history of discrimination against the LGBT community, use it to find and target those members? Edit: I don't mean that Russia could literally use this company's product. I meant the principle.
  - orbifold 12y ago
    There is research on identifying sexual orientation from Facebook profiles beyond those that volunteer thar information.

schimmy_changa 12y ago

I don't mind the "software eats things" meme, but I think they probably should have rethought this title........ (shrug)

ajiang 12y ago

Big fan. Email me if you're interested in connecting with the folks at Thorn - they do a lot of work with DHS on child sex trafficking.

prutschman 12y ago

"The company itself doesn’t make any judgments about what might constitute illegal trafficking behavior. That’s up to investigators to determine, as there are adult women who want to do sex work and aren’t being trafficked." I'm glad to see this at least get mentioned; there are people in bad situations who need help, but too often well-meaning people are unfortunately reluctant to listen to the people they think they're trying to help.

jholman 12y ago
Yeah, I went and read their FAQ, and I'm struggling to see how this tool isn't equally useful to target sex workers. I'm perfectly willing (in my ignorance) to believe that sex trafficking is a problem worth tackling (in scale, in urgency, etc). But I also (already) believe that anti-sex-work laws act to oppress and victimize already-marginalized women, with dubious benefit (without taking a side on whether this effect is deliberate). For example, in my jurisdiction (IANAL), although I understand that prostitution itself is not illegal as such, the following things are illegal: * posting/negotiating prices openly * operating a place of business for prostitution (a "bawdy house") * living "off the avails" This last law is supposed to allow the prosecution of pimps (yay!), but it also means that sex workers cannot hire bodyguards or accountants. The second law is presumably supposed to keep "decent" neighbourhoods "decent", but it also results in more streetwalkers, and more liaisons in minimum-price hotels, and so lowers safety. It seems sort of obvious that the right direction is to have better laws, and then enforce them. I'm not holding my breath. And, to return to TFA, in the mean time, what stops LEAs from using Rescue Forensics to pad their docket by harassing already-oppressed sex workers who are not victims of trafficking, merely victims of being poor and desperate. PS: I salute and hugely respect people tackling social justice problems, and I want to emphasize that I'm not condemning Rescue Forensics, I'm expressing a concern.
- ryandalton 12y ago
  Hey, thanks for the concern. We take this very seriously. We also didn't build this in an echo chamber. I've worked for five years in this space and am very familiar with concerns about sex workers, poverty, desparation, and exploitation. I can say with confidence that law enforcement, particularly human trafficking investigators, are also sensitive to these distinctions, generally. This used to not be the case, but a lot is changing and very quickly. An example: An investigator I spoke to the other day said they used to be called a "VICE" unit, but they changed their name to the "counter-exploitation unit". This is similar to many agencies across the US and Canada. We reserve the right to revoke a user's license if they are using our platform to harass persons, but so far this has not been a problem. In fact, just the opposite.

guelo 12y ago

Any startup based on scraping Craigslist will probably get shutdown.

porter 12y ago

Gosh, there is no reason to be embarrassed about your mission. Your mission is more inspiring than any other I've seen in the startup world. While all the other 'cool' startups are doing things like "enabling people to watch other people play video games all day", you guys are literally saving and changing lives. And if it works you'll be doing it at scale. It's inspiring, it matters, and you should be damn proud.

ryandalton 12y ago
Hah Im not embarassed at all, I just am sensitive to bringing up such a dark topic at social settings. Im happy to talk to anyone about our work anytime. The comment I made was being playful - came out a bit more serious in the article. Thanks so much for the encouragement.
bhayden 12y ago
I'm not sure I'd want to found a startup like this, simply because the pressure of messing and it having real, huge impacts on peoples lives. If the founder at Twitch screws up, maybe a few thousand people don't get to watch the video game they wanted. These guys really deserve a lot of praise.

throwaway022015 12y ago

I love the idealism, I really do, but I have to wonder under what criteria this company was accepted into YC? Certainly there's money in law enforcement tools, but there isn't much incentive for LE to pursue trafficked or underage sex workers, nor are they hard to find. The most common reason I've seen for my friends to be trapped in agencies or abusive pimps has been immigration status, by far. And nobody is doing them any favours by taking them in. LE hates the paperwork so much that a decent way to get out of a pickup is to feign being an illegal alien. Underage workers are similarly avoided. If you're 16-17 with no fixed address, it's going to be a nightmare of social services for everyone involved before you're spat back out onto the street. (I was arrested twice when underage. Both times they let me go when they saw I was 17 and a ward of the state.) I don't doubt that there's revenue here though, because LE just loves to do stings. Mostly they're single moms or otherwise trapped by circumstance and trying to make ends meet with a side gig. They're the ones who go quietly, who plead out, who pump arrest records, etc. Sex trafficking is an immigration/social services problem far more than it is a law enforcement concern. Giving LE more tools to track us is going to make things worse. I supported myself with sex work when I was a self-sufficient and independent from 15-19. Now I'm a software developer in my late 20's, but that's still my community. I realy wonder if these founders ever actually asked any of us what we thought about this idea before charging ahead? Note: Throwaway acct. (And I mean throwaway. I'm in an incognito window I'm about to close, with a /dev/random -generated password, and won't be watching for replies. Please leave me alone.)

username3 12y ago
Law Enforcement
ryandalton 12y ago
There actually is a good deal of money in law enforcement for this kind of tool. Anti-trafficking efforts are becoming more and more of a priority at the federal, state, and local levels. There is also a lot of demand for this solution as demonstrated by our user base. Federal grants are increasingly common, local and state multi-disicplinary task forces are being established more and more frequently, and they need solutions for dealing with these kind of problems. Sex trafficking is rarely an immigration problem. According to the DOJ, 83% of their cases deal with victims of sex trafficking who are U.S. citizens and trafficked by U.S. citizens. The remaining 17% are foreign nationals. This is a homegrown problem, generally.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Related feature on Memex, a military-originated tool that does broad=spectrum searches, metadata integration and so on. http://www.wsj.com/articles/sleuthing-search-engine-even-better-than-google-1423703464 http://www.wsj.com/articles/sleuthing-search-engine-even-bet...

ajju 12y ago

I logged in just to say that you don't have to feel so disconnected from the startups in SF. Although I don't go to many parties, if I met you at one, I would consider it my good fortune and anything but a buzzkill. Most of my friends probably share that opinion. Are you guys a nonprofit or a company? I am not a big angel investor (I have made one investment so far), but this sounds like something I would like to invest in / donate to. My email is aj at ridelabs dot com if you're interested.

ryandalton 12y ago
Hey, when I made that comment I was being playful. She made it sound way more serious than I made it. It is tough to talk about sex trafficking at a party though!
- ajju 12y ago
  Alright! Hope to see you at alumni demo day. I think your company will be better off if you stay in the bay area instead of returning to Tennessee. I am from Atlanta, started my company there, and miss it a lot, so I do identify with your feelings.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

xkcd-sucks 12y ago

A hooker-tracking database, which will be used to Save Exploited Children-- just like the NSA's products are used to to catch Bad Foreigners.

tzakrajs 12y ago

I am not sure TechCrunch understands what "eats" means in the context of "software eats _____."

tzakrajs 12y ago

SaaS for Pimps?

MichaelGG 12y ago

The more I thought about this, the more bothering it potentially seems. Their Twitter feed chats with a religious group, which may appear biased. Does the company press for reform laws? How would such a company be treated if it was looking for drug buyers and sellers? Especially if such a company didn't encourage legalization but appeared to stand with Christian groups? What steps are they taking to ensure innocent people are not being prosecuted with their tools? Going by current laws is no moral compass. Finally, if they or the anti trafficking groups want to be taken seriously, provide real stats. This is from their Twitter account: "39,000 escort ads were posted on the #Louisiana Backpage since July. How many are sex trafficking victims?" Well, I don't know, why don't you tell us? They've got big data and LE, but they post leading questions like that with apparently no followup. It's like saying X number of people OD on heroin. For any X we should figure out A: if current legislation is helping or hurting that number, B: is infringing on the rights and potentially destroying people's lives worth the cost? I'm sure it feels great to save 100 people from OD'ing. Does that mean it's OK to imprison millions? I know this probably comes off making me look terrible. And I don't know anything except this article and reading the company's Twitter account. But it feels slightly off, as if I'm being convinced of a problem without seeing all the numbers. Where're the calls for legalization and regulation? Maybe I'm just too cynical.

bigmofo 12y ago

Web sites can put a robots.txt that prohibits crawlers. Are violations of the robots.txt a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, which would knowing operating a bit in violatoin a felony? The content and images posted could also be copyrighted or such that they are only for viewing in a browser and any other purpose would be a copyright violation or at a minimum a violation of the terms and conditions of using the site. Companies don't like their content being made available elsewhere, and would probably fight vigorously. How much bandwidth would polling and copying the site take? Wouldn't the companies notice it? Wouldn't they stop it? Wouldn't most of these sites would want to work with the police to ensure that there were no underage people offering sex for money or anybody of any age being forced to work? Wouldn't most of these sites have an alert link for each posting? People can probably ignore consensual adults making an illegal business transaction, but probably not underage or forced prostitution. If the software can recognize under age workers or people being forced to work, wouldn't the sites welcome the software alerting them of such listing? Would they be willing to pay for it?

vdaniuk 12y ago

I wonder, what is going to happen when there is a 10x/100x revenue opportunity in providing LE in US and other countries with data on other criminals, including sex workers? Illegal aliens, drug users, vandalism? Will they become fair game for Rescue Forensics? It is a for-profit company after all.

pskittle 12y ago

How's this different from what palantir is doing?

wcummings 12y ago

>The company itself doesn’t make any judgments about what might constitute illegal trafficking behavior. That’s up to investigators to determine, as there are adult women who want to do sex work and aren’t being trafficked. Pretty weaselly.

athenot 12y ago

The sad part is how "everyone’s buzz gets killed" when he mentions the true mission of his company. Here he is, making an attempt at solving a real problem in the real world but he has to feel ashamed because somehow it's less sexy than web intelligence.

sitkack 12y ago

Why is YC funding this?