Australian Police Crowdsource Missing Person Investigations

October 14, 2019

DarkCyber noted the report “Police Turn to Hackers in Australia’s First Crowdsourced Attempt to Find Missing People.” The idea is interesting and illustrates the lateral thinking law enforcement is increasingly directing at certain investigative challenges.

The write up states:

More than 350 internet sleuths and “ethical hackers” — hobbyists and professionals — gathered at 10 locations around the country on Friday in a national missing-persons “hackathon”. The aim was to generate leads for 12 of Australia’s most frustrating cold cases, using sophisticated but legal methods of trawling the Internet.

There have been OSINT efforts to address criminal issues. Open source information is an important component of the approach.

WorldStack, according to the article, “has built a search index of content on the ‘dark web’ — a network of hidden, encrypted websites, sometimes used to organize illegal activity, and hoped to use image-matching software to help find some of the 12 missing people.”

Australian engineers have developed or contributed a number of useful tools. Examples include Sintelix, TeraText, ISYS Search Software, Funnelback, and LMNTrix, among others.

Stephen E Arnold, October 14, 2019

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under News, Policeware

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.