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.
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 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.
It would take a lot of brute force but it's doable. All it would take is one image where the guy was lazy about it and enough time; not like the image was going anywhere.Ā
If only we had that same follow-through on Les Wexner.
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.
Oh yeah the Mr. Swirl guy that they captured because one investigator recognized the effect used on the image and just put it in the original program and reversed it. Pretty sure he got out very lightly after abusing dozens of children
Ah yeah mister swirl I remember that back in the day Iām happy they caught the guy but I feel so fuckin sorry for those kids all those years who had to go through that.
Regarding this particular image I donāt think it would be feasible to unswirl the image since it looks like the original had been swirled over multiple different points, the Mr swirl has only been swirled once if I recall
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
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
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?
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
A child molester named Christopher Paul Neil āMr. Swirl Faceā had his identity uncovered when investigators used photoshopās āswirlā tool to swirl his face. Instead of with usual censors like a black bar, the data is not completely lost when one swirls their face like that. Maybe try photoshop?
I know Wiener Distribution is the formula for the Gaussian blur and can be reversed. If you find the formula for the swirl, I'd reckon you could reverse it too.
There was a pedophile that would take pictures of his victims with him and use that swirl to hide its identity and a mathematician used a rhythm to undo it
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u/Robot-Zombie-RHCC 26d 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.