Flutterby™! : searching for a malevolent moron

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searching for a malevolent moron

2007-10-08 17:54:26.315382+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

Note: When distributing pictures of yourself sexually abusing young boys, consider a non-reversible transform for blanking out your face (Via). Or, pedophile is about to learn the hard way that the Photoshop "swirl" filter isn't the right tool for preserving anonymity.

Ahhh, the perils of misunderstood technology...

[ related topics: Sexual Culture moron Graphics ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2007-10-16 15:54:23.058971+00 by: ebradway

According to Wired, the moron's been identified and is being tracked down in Thailand.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-10-16 16:06:52.75271+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

Yeah, saw that. In the SE thread about his identification, "Forsaken One" said:

To think, if he'd stuck to screwing 12 year old Thai girls he'd just be another tourist.

and was modded "+5 insightful". I think I'm not quite that cynical, but only just.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-10-19 15:12:12.620595+00 by: Dan Lyke

And just for completeness, he's busted.

"He was arrested Friday by tourist police in north-eastern Thailand," the police official told AFP.

"Tourist police"?

#Comment Re: made: 2007-10-20 15:37:38.153691+00 by: TheSHAD0W

Here's a scary thought: the image degradation caused by applying, and then reversing, a transformation like that swirl filter might be used to hide other modifications.

Example: Take some pictures of a boss you don't like, 'shop them into some criminally embarrassing photos, then blur them out using a reversible transformation. The police do their forensics work and reconstruct the image of your boss, but with distortions around the edges of the reconstruction traces of your photoshop job are obscured, and your boss is in deep trouble.