Identifying a Person Based on a Photo, LinkedIn and Etsy Profiles, and Other Internet Bread Crumbs

guest · Jun 22, 2020

Identifying a Person Based on a Photo, LinkedIn and Etsy Profiles, and Other Internet Bread Crumbs
June 22, 2020
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/06/identifying_a_p.html

Interesting story of how the police can identify someone by following the evidence chain from website to website.

According to filings in Blumenthal's case, FBI agents had little more to go on when they started their investigation than the news helicopter footage of the woman setting the police car ablaze as it was broadcast live May 30.
Investigators discovered other images depicting the same scene on Instagram and the video sharing website Vimeo. Those allowed agents to zoom in and identify a stylized tattoo of a peace sign on the woman's right forearm. [...]
The obvious moral isn't a new one: don't have a distinctive tattoo. But more interesting is how different pieces of evidence can be strung together in order to identify someone. This particular chain was put together manually, but expect machine learning techniques to be able to do this sort of thing automatically -- and for organizations like the NSA to implement them on a broad scale.

Another article did a more detailed analysis, and concludes that the Etsy review was the linchpin.
Click to expand...

mirimir · Jun 22, 2020

There are no surprises here. Just another example of how hopeless anonymity in meatspace has become.

Perhaps it's ironic, but online ~anonymity is all that's left.

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Identifying a Person Based on a Photo, LinkedIn and Etsy Profiles, and Other Internet Bread Crumbs

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Identifying a Person Based on a Photo, LinkedIn and Etsy Profiles, and Other Internet Bread Crumbs

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