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> The pictures included closeup pictures of Porras’ hand with visible fingerprint ridges. I thought via the title that they fingerprinted the lens used to take
by modin 6y ago
> The pictures included closeup pictures of Porras’ hand with visible fingerprint ridges.
I thought via the title that they fingerprinted the lens used to take the photograph, not that there was literal pictures of fingers.
- usr1106 6y agoOf course as a SW engineer you think any kind of digitally embedded fingerprint first.
- modin 6y agoNot digitally embedded as EXIF since it was uploaded to Imgur which AFAIK strip those out, but more like lens scratches and sensor noise, similar to [0]. [0]: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1634362 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1634362
- heelix 6y agoI strongly suspected that is what they did too. Got to wonder if they used the EXIF data to find him - linking photos of the pot and other social media/etc public shots, then used the fingerprints as parallel construction.
- ficklepickle 6y agoImgur strips exif by default. I agree it sounds like parallel construction. The article mentions they compared his finger prints to those from the picture. How did they know to check against his prints? Sounds like they already knew who it was, by means that aren't admissible as evidence.
- Jabbles 6y agoImgur certainly doesn't display EXIF by default, but are you sure it doesn't retain it such that it could be obtained by a warrant?
- Scoundreller 6y agoIf I were them, I wouldn’t save it just to reduce my warrant workload. Kinda like 4chan and DMCAs: there’s no point since it’s usually deleted by the time it’s submitted anyway.
- mianas 6y ago4chan is a bit special when it comes to government orders. For example, they have a (heavily limited) de-facto warrant canary. Since damn near all of them specify that no data should be deleted for a period of time, posting is disabled on a board, or the entire site so nothing gets deleted. They also disallow posting of files with embedded data (based on some heuristic) and either strip exif data, or forbid posting images containing it. (the exif stripping thing comes from people accidentally doxing themselves by posting an image from facebook a few years back)
- DonHopkins 6y agoMaybe they were supplying his meth.
- jcrawfordor 6y agoThe quality of the fingerprints in the image mentioned is amazingly good, not so much worse than what's produced by proper fingerprint capture devices. The FBI operates a database of fingerprint images (IAFIS) and his fingerprints were taken when he was arrested prior to this incidents and submitted to the FBI (standard practice by nearly all law enforcement agencies). IAFIS includes an automatic matching system which allows you to submit fingerprint images and receive a list of possible matches, and this is also standard practice in criminal investigations (as well as often used for background checks). So really, nothing about this is suspicious at all, it's completely standard law enforcement practice to obtain fingerprints in any way possible and submit them to the FBI for matching, and then run down any possible matches. Your local police department does this for car breakins if they can spare the resources (not too unusual to get good latent prints off the windows, but it is unusual for police department to spend the time/money). The only odd thing here is LE's fortune, and the accused's misfortune, of images having been uploaded with such clear capture of the fingerprints.
- daniellarusso 6y agoIt was interesting the amount of redactions in the documents and the plea deal, as well as law enforcement operating as the launderer. I, too, thought parallel construction.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoWell they also mention in the article that the drug dealer also sent bitcoin to a money laundering service run by Homeland Security, so his OpSec was probably as leaky as a noodle strainer.
- parliament32 6y agoImgur strips EXIF data on upload, so that's unlikely.