Tracing child abusers: Where was this picture taken? [video]

I was able to see a presentation about this topic one time by ICE. It tragic in two senses:<p>1) The crimes themselves are absolutely intolerable to society.<p>2) The lack of serious resourcing the seriousness of this crime should warrant.<p>Part of the presentation was specifically on identifying the location a sequence of photos was taken in the hopes that it would narrow down the search radius for the offender. The team that did the work were members of the ICE HERO program -- one of the coolest veteran-to-civilian programs I&#x27;ve ever seen [1][2]. The folks literally spent weeks &quot;driving&quot; around likely areas in Google maps trying to identify the location. Because the photo was taken from an angle that the car wouldn&#x27;t have seen, they weren&#x27;t able to use any automation at all and it literally took a human&#x27;s intuitive understanding of 3-D spaces to eventually figure it out.<p>However, what was really tough was that the HERO program only exists because it offers an internship that costs very little to DHS -- they simply can&#x27;t afford a large group of full-time staff.<p>I urge anybody who can to petition to better fund anti-child abuse programs.<p>1 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ice.gov&#x2F;hero" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ice.gov&#x2F;hero</a><p>2 - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.herocorps.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.herocorps.net&#x2F;</a>

Here the direct link to the picture database <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;stopchildabuse" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;stopchildabuse</a>

Some of the techniques a group on 4chan used are interesting: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ign.com&#x2F;boards&#x2F;threads&#x2F;remember-when-4chan-users-got-a-terrorist-training-camp-bombed-by-russia.455038424&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ign.com&#x2F;boards&#x2F;threads&#x2F;remember-when-4chan-users...</a>

Looking at the swingset photo (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;europol_large&#x2F;public&#x2F;images&#x2F;333s.jpg?itok=qQWK_hlz" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;eur...</a>)<p>That&#x27;s an interesting design of swingset; not one I&#x27;ve seen before.<p>Unlike the bog-standard swingset in the US, which is typically all steel tube, that one looks like it has extruded (aluminum?) verticals and then a tubular horizontal weldment as the top piece. Further, the horizontal looks like it was hot-dip galvanized as a finished unit. The verticals were painted before assembly, not after, because of the bare-metal bolt heads. The fasteners are presumably stainless, since I don&#x27;t see any rust marks below them. It&#x27;s got an interesting bearing&#x2F;bushing at the top of each chain, probably to make it not squeak; that strikes me as a fairly luxe feature.<p>I couldn&#x27;t find any similar ones searching around online, although my Google searches don&#x27;t turn up many European models at all (thanks, Google).<p>The photo doesn&#x27;t go up enough to be sure, but it looks like the top bar is an unbroken one-piece section. That would make it pretty bulky and awkward to ship. (The vertical pieces look like they come apart into about 4 ft sections, which means they were likely palletized at one point. Maybe the extrusions are not done in the same place as the rest of the manufacturing..? That&#x27;s certainly plausible.)<p>If someone recognized the design&#x2F;model, I think that would probably be a significant clue towards the photo&#x27;s location; at the very least, the manufacturer would probably have a fairly good idea of where they normally sell to.

I wonder if people who use a popular photo sharing site like Google Photos would be in favor of there photos with location meta data being used for a project like this.<p>I think I would if I could trust that it was only being used for something like this &amp; not commercial advertising type projects.

This should be a subreddit. Reddit is pretty good for these things, they have a big, global audience and a great comment system for such things.<p>e.g. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;whatisthisthing&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;whatisthisthing&#x2F;</a> works great.

What incentive could be added to have people view these photos on a regular basis? I think facebook could be one answer with it&#x27;s global reach. They could do an official page or something and offer real discounts at partnering restaurants or stores from around the world if you spend time each month viewing all the pictures. Imagine the reach they could have. At the same time I feel that there should not be a business of restaurants and the like selling coupons on abuse photos but I think the greater good of finding these kids may be there. The reason I add a type of payment is because it is my belief that though people do mean well, without an incentive they are less likely to view these images. Or perhaps if add companies put those kind of pictures on the websites instead of ads I would disable the adblocker.

Photo number 9. The box shows a picture of an Asteraceae that fits well with Cichorium intybus, a vegetable cultured in temperate areas (from Europe mainly), and the colours of the Romanian flag.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;europol_medium&#x2F;public&#x2F;images&#x2F;2018-5-g28.png?itok=oMUT8Ms6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;eur...</a><p>over the green square, appears a whitish blur that could easily say Cicoarea in a stylised way (or maybe is just another picture)

This is also a good article, not sure if it&#x27;s been featured here before. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bellingcat.com&#x2F;resources&#x2F;case-studies&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;08&#x2F;europols-asian-city-child-abuse-photographs-geolocated&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bellingcat.com&#x2F;resources&#x2F;case-studies&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;08...</a>

Can&#x27;t identify the background trees at this low resolution, but there is a small Fabaceae tree in the photo that looks like either Robinia pseudoacacia or Sophora. This trees have heavy seeds that do not go very far. Some bigger trees from one of this species could probably be seen near this area. Maybe in the streets (or in a garden).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;europol_medium&#x2F;public&#x2F;images&#x2F;13s.jpg?itok=wm1V3Ktl" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;eur...</a><p>Robinia is a fully hardy and widespread species that can be found in almost all Europe and USA, USDA area 1a.

In this photo there is a small tree at rigth that is partially clipped. Compound leaves with five leaflets. Probably Fraxinus. Fits well. Temperate area in this case.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;europol_medium&#x2F;public&#x2F;images&#x2F;2018-5-g13.png?itok=XpgbNRoj" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europol.europa.eu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;styles&#x2F;eur...</a><p>If is Fraxinus excelsior (probably) Europe. If Fraxinus pensylvannica: Eastern half of USA or Argentina.

Andrew Sullivan used to run a contest doing something similar albeit less serious and with remarkably good results<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dish.andrewsullivan.com&#x2F;vfyw-contest&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dish.andrewsullivan.com&#x2F;vfyw-contest&#x2F;</a>

If there can be a first sort done by AI and then human contribution to try to narrow it better it might be helpfull.<p>Like « this picture seems to be located in this area&#x2F;country » and then people from the area could have a look.<p>I’m pretty sure people would like to help.

Do not reverse search images on Google.

Should be solveable with a NN trained on Matching Google Streetview and the images..

Hopefully we&#x27;ll come to a point soon where AI and deep learning can help out in this space. I remember models being trained that could predict the country based on a street view photo with a high degree of accuracy, which would be a good first step. The next one would be to either match a top-down satellite photo with a picture, or figure out a way to match street view photos based on similarity.<p>Given that Google actually has the data as well as the skills and computing power to help out Europol, I&#x27;d have hoped they&#x27;d be jumping at the opportunity to do so. At the least it would make for great PR, but perhaps they&#x27;re afraid of the possible privacy issues and discussions as well (I can already see the headlines: &quot;Google knows the location of any yard appearing in a photo!&quot;).<p>In any case, it&#x27;s telling how humans are so good at this stuff and picking up on clues and patterns. It&#x27;ll still take a while before machines are as good.