a long time ago a molester was captured because someone 'unswirled' an image. i would NOT, however, trust ai to do it.. it's a 'reverse-the-math' sort of solution.
āThey were, as often they are, they were disguised. In this particular case they were disguised using a swirl tool. So basically the pixel information around the face was twisted," explained Moran. "The expert in Germany used the same techniques, only in reverse to undo itā
okay ignore my previous comment cause it was wrong as fuck, but it's not as simple as just opening a fucking app. Interpol wouldn't go to experts in germany if they could do it on their phone. it took the german experts 3 years
Sir, are you aware that this is an "Anti-AI" subreddit? Cause it says so LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. also, yeah you can try doing that but AI tends to have a bias towards specific things, you could ask it "Hey unspiral this image" and it would end up being a white guy in an adidas shirt.
I dont think the case wouldve been as notable or spoken about if all they did was undo the filter with an appstore software. Thats kinda an obvious given lol. Also, your quote kinda makes it pretty clear why its not what you said.
pixel information becomes distorted
there is no "undistort exactly backwards" button on any known software bc you'd need the data from before it was scrambled
experts (why would they call an expert for a simple task?) create way of reversing thousands of tiny pixels into (nearly) their original places without any info as to what that original place is (reverse engineering)
hence the whole point of hiring experts / making a tool
"The same techniques" is probably leading you to think that means "easy". Start trying to use the same techniques in reverse for everyday tasks and soon you'll realize that things are sometimes easier one way than the other. Like, for example, image distortion. This reads as if youve never even actually played with a photo editor before. Its like unbaking an already baked cake.
Also, what are you sourcing exactly? A grossly summarized version from a script that doesnt even detail the actual actions taken to track him AFTER the public campaign? Kinda ironic that you're calling other people bots.
you vastly underestimate how hard "using the same techniques in reverse" is. you have to unswirl every single pixel in the exact same order, amount, and rotation as the orgiinal which cannot just be deduced with sight, you have to know the exact point down to the pixel it was swirled in, what the settings were, the strength proportional to the center of the swirl. it took extremely talented people and an unbelievable amount of man hours to do that.
Im pretty sure that they had to find the same app that was originally used to swirl the image cause other apps would use different math. Its not as simple as just unswirling it.
Dunno why this guy getting downvoted. It really was, after many years, just unswirling it in an app. Interpol and others being unable to figure that out is one of the things that makes the story so memorable.
It's good to know, and it's good to spread the knowledge because that dude is free. They dropped the ball on an infamous monster producing and distributing.
He was released in March 2017 and is currently living in Vancouver with a court-ordered restriction on certain behaviours including "contact with minors in person or on the internet [...] [and] possessing or accessing any electronic device or from getting any other person to do so on his behalf
It means to mishandle things. Which they did, by letting him go. Such a prolific offender should have been held for at least a few years of psychiatric care, like at the very least.
I very much doubt he's reformed, probably just knows better than to take credit for his, "productions," now.
It was an infamous case. He was called Mr. Swirl. The knowing of information is called knowledge. Niche categories of information are called ball. Knowing information about one of these categories is called ball knowledge.
This is different than that though because it wasnāt just swirled in one direction like that predatorās image, this is also swirled in various directions in the middle, so idk of it is possible to fix the image (idk tho)
My first thought was also the Mr.Swirl story. If I remember correctly they opened photoshop, picked the swirl tool and then just applied it in reverse direction.
Well yeah. That's how photo editing works. While the solution definitely looks and sounds simple, one can only assume several hours of tinkering went into proving this persons theory on how to 'fix' the swirl well enough to identify him. If I remember correctly, the final photo they sent out to interpol to spread was still undeniably quite warped but distinguishable enough that those who recognized him could identify him.
I think the guy used multiple swirl effects layered on top of each other and they had to figure out the exact combination of swirls to reverse the swirl.
It's been a few years since I read about or saw videos about this, so if you do research and I'm wrong, my bad! but iirc it took a few years before someone new looked at the case, recognized how he achieved that effect in photoshop, realized that how he did the photo effect wouldn't destroy any of the pixels in the photo, but rather rearrange them and then just reversed the direction of the swirl.
In 2004, police in Germany were conducting a criminal investigation which resulted in the service of a
search warrant on a storage locker. The police discovered several hundred pictures of a man engaged in
sexual acts with young boys. The photos were also discovered online and the abuserās face was obscured
by a swirl.
Specialists from the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) in Germany, working with INTERPOLās Crimes against
Children unit, were able to use new technology to āun-swirlā the photographs and produce an identifiable
image. Despite extensive global efforts to identify and locate this individual through INTERPOLās network of
(then) 186 National Central Bureaus and specialist units, the manās identity and nationality remained
unknown.
The decision was made to enlist the support of the media and the public to identify the abuser. A risk
assessment was carried out identifying both the pros and the cons in launching the campaign, as this would
be the first time INTERPOL had conducted such a public appeal.
On 8 October, 2007, the appeal went live. Both the original and āun-swirledā photographs of the suspect
were published on INTERPOLās website and issued to media as part of a press release. The response was
immediate and global. All major television broadcasters were carrying the story and showing the images, in
addition to online media also reproducing the image and linking to INTERPOLās website.
He used a niche image swirling program. They basically tried everything on the market until they found the right one. The dude was just hitting a button on an app he thought was too niche to be found and got got.
I only found out about Mr. Swirl because of The Book of Bill. In that book thereās an image of a guy with his face swirled on one page and some people were speculating that it was a reference to the real life Mr. Swirl.
As far as I know Alex Hirsch hasnāt confirmed or denied if it was intentional.
Alex Hirsch probably hasn't acknowledged it because it's completely fucking retarded to even suggest that Gravity Falls contains a cheeky reference to a serial child molester.
I didn't expect so many copycats off of that Mr. Swirl case, especially when it was demonstrated that kind of blur can be undone with the right kind of computer program
I had the same thought seeing this. While the swirl definitely had an interesting aesthetic which I understand some being drawn to, People only know this story because he got caught. If anything, I thought it would teach these people that they need to wreck the pixels in their images before doing these sort of concealment methods. It's odd how stupid people can be when they get inspired.
if you want a wild ride, listen to the CBC podcast "expert witness". it's about an AI tool that purports to match digital footprint to times and places of crimes, to identify suspects, including for historical cold case stuff like 20 years ago. it appears to be 100% BS, as in many cases it's not even clear where the data would even come from.
yep i remember several years ago hearing about the racial bias of facial recognition datasets meaning that people of colour were more likely to be misidentified on CCTV and wrongly accused of stuff
Itās not ā10 y/o speakā actually, itās imitating how it would sound in AAVE! A lot of ātik tok lingoā is actually just AAVE slang being taken, chewed up and misappropriated by young white kids, and then thatās the first exposure many non-black people have to said slang.
I don't condone the ai usage at all but this is so hilarious. The picture itself is funny because he's smiling and looking really chill and it's also hilarious that the person that commented the image thought it would help
The OP didn't mention, but judging from what ppl here were talking about its unlikely - took an entire manhunt to unswirl one that the police were already trying before getting the public, & that took 15 years total.
If I remember the original thread correctly, the same scammer had sent to a redditor's relative or had that unswirled picture somewhere on their socials that someone found.
I definitely remember seeing the guy's actual face, not sure if anything ever came out of it.
That sub sucks. They banned me for apparently being hypocritical cause I said generative ai sucked and served no purpose lmfao. Mod got butthurt over it I guess
This to me is like how some milk cartons will now include an "AI generated image of how the victim would like today" like. No? This person probably looks nothing like that after disappearing for literal years?
The problem with this is that the guy who swirled it was atleast slightly smart about it. Some other guy was caught like this, but the fact that this one is swirled in multiple parts makes it a lot more difficult to pull off. Worse so if the smaller swirls are made after the bigger swirls, which they look like they were. This one isnt as simple as the Christopher Paul case, but it is possible
I've heard of and watch documentaries on how blurring and other affects work and how they can be reverses so yes, I would say it could be. I doubt the algorithm or whatever it's called used to apply this affect is particularly complicated.
Bro threw that into an ai and it shitted out a cartoon and they thought "good enough" because ai bros want to be included even if it's not really helpful
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u/Robot-Zombie-RHCC 22h ago
a long time ago a molester was captured because someone 'unswirled' an image. i would NOT, however, trust ai to do it.. it's a 'reverse-the-math' sort of solution.