On Q Professional Investigations

A Palestinian security researcher gained unauthorized access, last week, to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) page to prove the legitimacy of his bug report, after the social network giant’s security team ignored his previous reports on the vulnerability.

On Facebook, users are not permitted to share or post anything on the profile pages of people that are not on one’s friends list. But, the security expert, who goes by the name of Khalil Shreateh, discovered a bug that allowed an intruder to post on anyone’s Facebook “Wall,” even without being that person’s “Friend” on the social networking site.

In an initial bug report to Facebook, Shreateh tried to demonstrate the vulnerability by sharing a link on the wall of Sarah Goodin, who is a college friend of the Facebook founder. A member of the Facebook’s online security team, who was not on Goodin’s friends list, clicked on Shreateh’s link but could not view his post as Goodin’s wall was set to be visible to her friends only.

Shreateh sent another bug report, explaining that anyone inspecting the vulnerability on Goodin’s wall needed to be her friend, or would have to use administrative access to view the post. However, the Facebook security official responded to Shreateh saying what he had pointed out was not a bug.

However, Shreateh, convinced of the bug he had discovered and to prove the legitimacy of his discovery, decided to take it to the next level by posting on Zuckerberg’s own profile page.

On Thursday, a note from Shreateh was visible on Zuckerberg’s timeline, saying: “Sorry for breaking your privacy to your wall,” it read, “i no other choice to make after all the reports I sent to Facebook team.”

As Shreateh expected, this generated a reaction from Facebook, leading the company to fix the flaw.

According to Facebook’s whitehat exploit disclosure program, Shreateh could qualify for a reward of at least $500 as the discoverer of a bug on the site. But, Shreateh might be disqualified from receiving the bug bounty, Facebook said.

According to Facebook’s bug disclosure policy, a security researcher should use test accounts, rather than real accounts of Facebook users, to work on the site’s vulnerabilities and bug reports. Shreateh, according to the company, violated this rule by accessing Goodin’s and Zuckerberg’s profiles.

“We are unfortunately not able to pay you for this vulnerability because your actions violated our Terms of Service. We do hope, however, that you continue to work with us to find vulnerabilities in the site,” TechCrunch quoted Facebook as saying.

Facebook said also that Shreateh’s bug report did not have enough technical information to convince its in-house security experts. In addition, the company receives hundreds of bug reports on a daily basis, it added, making it difficult for the company’s security team to separate the genuine reports from the fake ones.

However, Matt Jones, one of Facebook’s engineers on the security team, admitted in an online forum, Hacker News, that the social network did not follow up with Shreateh properly. “We should have pushed back asking for more details here,” he wrote.

View Source

Obama field organizers, armed with the fruits of Big Data, could bring a presidential campaign to the front porch as never before. OFA’s aim was to use algorithms to enhance the human (and thus more persuasive) part of politics: face-to-face, friend-to-friend, or at least Facebook friend-to-Facebook friend.

The new analysts did something unheard of by profiling and targeting unlikely voters. That transformed registration from a passive activity — sitting at a folding table in a supermarket parking lot — into something active and much more efficient.

By 2011 the technology of the 2008 campaign was long obsolete. So Obama campaign manager Jim Messina set out for the West Coast, where Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, and executives from Apple, Facebook, Zynga, Microsoft, DreamWorks, and Salesforce all told him he should not just view the campaign as a start-up but hire much of his digital crew from start-ups that were outside of politics. The idea was that everything the geeks did should be a “force multiplier” for Field, Communications, Finance, and other departments, not an end in itself.

The digital team assembled in Chicago was in fact three teams — Digital, Tech, and Analytics — with interrelated and often competitive functions. All were headed by soon-to-be-legendary characters within the campaign. Teddy Goff said he wanted the young recruits in Digital to be so good they could be hired afterward by Nike or Coca-Cola and “not be seen as hippy dippys.” Michael Slaby and Harper Reed hired geeky geniuses from top tech companies ranging from Google to craigslist. Analytics ended up with a motley crew of mostly under-thirty data scientists and financial analysts, plus a biophysicist, a former child prodigy, and three professional poker players.

From the start, there was trouble in digital paradise — a culture clash between the engineers from tech companies and the more politically seasoned product managers and data analysts.

Harper Reed’s code writers, though lacking in campaign experience, were often paid $100,000 a year, twice as much as some of their colleagues in other sections of the campaign. Reed said Tech could afford the higher salaries because it held down head count by hiring fewer people than rival departments. The pay gap was exacerbated by the Tech team’s habit of routinely leaving the office at the ungodly hour of 6:30 p.m., five, six, even seven hours before Digital, Analytics, and other sections went home. This schedule was explained by the fact that they were older (meaning a few were in their mid-thirties) and, unlike most Chicago staffers, often had families.

A little humility would have gone a long way toward helping Tech blend in, but it wasn’t forthcoming. “Instead of ‘Listen and learn,’ they [Tech people] came in with a ‘Burn the place down’ attitude — real arrogant,” said one senior campaign official. “It was, ‘Fuck the vendors — we’ll build everything in-house.’ ” But the vendors, firms like NGP VAN that specialized in voter contact, knew politics, and Reed’s department did not. Tech team members used their fluency in tech jargon to their advantage, but they were often illiterate in basic political language.

And they often took their mandate for “disruption” too far. But all of this would have been minor if the products Tech developed were working.

Read More

One industry group is hoping to educate youngsters on how the technology and devices nearly all of them use actually work, in hopes of inspiring the next generation of IT professionals.

Todd Thibodeaux, CEO of CompTIA, said last week that the trade association is launching a new effort in hopes of filling the gaps that STEM programs in grades 9 through 12 are lacking: a better understanding of how IT works — from smartphones to Facebook.

“We’ve come into a period when use of the product and adoption of the product is the new geek, instead of understanding how the product and components of it work,” Thibodeaux said. “We have this generation of kids who aren’t quite as geeky as the ones who came before them.”

A recent CompTIA survey of 1,002 teens and young adults found that nearly all respondents (97 percent) said they either love or like technology. Many teens also are more than just technology consumers, with 58 percent reporting that they help family members or friends with questions or troubleshooting computers, software and mobile devices.

Still, while most teens have a love affair with technology, most aren’t interested in translating that love into a career, the study found. Only 18 percent of teens and young adults reported a definitive interest in an IT career, while 43 percent identified their interest in an IT career as a “maybe.” Many respondents (47 percent) said they did not know enough about IT occupations, according to the report.

As a result, Thibodeaux said CompTIA will be going to kids in grades 9 through 12 to educate them on the processes that underlie technology, such as how much infrastructure underpins Facebook, how a text message works and how online gaming is developed.

“Teens think they have to be massive science geniuses to work in IT and that there’s no real upward career path mobility,” Thibodeaux said. “All of those things are completely false.”

View Source

The proliferation of technology comes with a host of unintended consequences, and one of those consequences playing out in the homes of average American families is parental spying.

Long gone are the days of a parent listening in on the other line of a teenager’s phone conversation. Modern parents are now equipped with GPS monitoring technology, keylogging software, fake Internet identities, and mobile tracking apps. Indeed, parental monitoring technology could turn many well-meaning parents into calculating secret agents.

Here is a look at some of the more devious ways parents keep tabs on their little ones:

Parental Control Software

On June 25th, 2012, McAffee, a security software company, released findings that claimed 70% of teenagers hide some form of Internet activity from their parents. And with the spread of social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and more, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for parents to keep track of that activity in an efficient way.

To solve this problem, several companies have now begun selling parental control software.

One such service, offered by the company Mobistealth, advertises itself as “a 21st Century solution for monitoring and protecting children from potential threats.” In a video presented on the company’s website, a woman claims that their software is “an important new tool to help you look out for your VIPs—Very Important People.”

According to Mobistealth, their service allows a parent to invisibly install the software on a computer or cellphone, then logon to the service’s website and view screenshots of activity, gain access to contacts and text messages, and even listen in to phone calls. Other features, such as the ability to log keystrokes, are a throwback to the early days of hacking, now bundled and gift-wrapped for the 21st century parent.

And with the service pricing starting at as little as 50 cents a day, what parent wouldn’t be tempted to gain a glimpse into their children’s secret world?

GPS Tracking Devices

For some parents, monitoring what the kids say or type isn’t enough; they must know where they are as well. After all, teens still occasionally venture away from their keyboards to interact in the real world, and when they do, GPS tracking devices come in handy.

As if ripped from the latest Jason Bourne film, GPS tracking devices can be installed on cars or slipped into backpacks, providing live tracking of one’s kid. Once activated, a parent can logon to a PC or smartphone and gain access to a sleek interface that displays geographical location, time stamps, and even the speed that the device is moving, effectively allowing a parent to see if their teen is driving above the speed limit—while also fulfilling long-hidden desires to play traffic cop.

Facebook

A report published by CNN on August 3rd, 2012 reported that there are roughly 83 million fake accounts registered on Facebook, amounting to roughly 9% of the service’s entire user base. Although most of these are simply duplicates or throwaway accounts, there are also a number of fake identities which Facebook calls “undesirables.”

Some “undesirable” accounts are used for spamming, but others are used for more malicious purposes. Some are even set up by parents to monitor their kids. For instance, a September, 2012 article published on the UK news site the Daily Mail reported on two parents that used a fake Facebook account to conduct a sting operation on their daughter’s boyfriend—a registered sex offender.

A week after the above report, another story in the Times of India detailed the new trend for schoolteachers to create fake Facebook accounts in order to spy on students, which in itself was reminiscent of an earlier report from 2012 of a US school principal who was busted for keeping tabs on students with a fake Facebook profile.

However, even without creating fake accounts, recent reports have suggested that as many as 50% of parents join social networking sites such as Facebook for the explicit purpose of spying on their kids, prompting the creation of several popular Facebook pages in protest, such as the page MY PARENTS SPY ON MY PROFILE!!!!, which has more than 3,500 likes.

There are also now a slew of apps to help make parents’ jobs easier, such as SocialShield, which will automatically alert parents if their kids use profanity, or Piggyback, which monitors kids’ activity in a number of social media games, such as Whyville. Because who knows what those kids do when the sun sets in Whyville.

Nanny Cameras

Finally, the last and perhaps most controversial of technologies parents use to spy on kids comes in the form of a “Nanny Cam.” Originally developed in order to secretly monitor babysitters for abusive or inappropriate behavior, these cameras in reality have a much wider range of uses due to their discrete design, often concealed as a digital clock, tissue box, speaker set, or even an electrical outlet. And one of these usages could easily be to spy on one’s kid when (s)he’s home alone.

Momnipotent Powers

The combined effect of all of these technologies is that the tech-savvy parent can now be endowed with an almost omnipotent level of knowledge of their child’s activity, but it does come at a cost. Spying on kids without their knowledge, or using underhanded tricks such as logging onto their Facebook page, can create issues of trust and unfair power dynamics in a parent-child relationship which can prove damaging later in life.

Therefore, many experts recommend being upfront with kids, so that they can prove their responsibility and parents can earn their trust.

View Source

You think half those adults on Facebook are there because they love Facebook? No, no. These are merely parents engaged in covert operations.

I had always imagined that adults entered the world of Facebook because they wanted to re-enact their teenage years, find a new lover, or “connect” with long-lost relatives whom they never really liked.

Yet a new piece of research has proved mind-altering.

My failure to regularly read the Education Database Online has been mitigated by Mashable and has led me to a new appreciation of the adult world.

For these vital statistics reveal that American parents aren’t trying to imitate children so much as spy on them.

It’s perfectly well-known that children can be trusted about as much as news stories in Pravda during the Brezhnev era.

So parents feel forced to take the radical step of joining them so that they can beat them. In a psychological sense, you understand.

Indeed, this study suggests that half of all parents sign up with Facebook at least partly in order to see what drugs their kids are taking, who they are consorting with and what they really think about, well, their parents.

An excitable 43 percent of parents admit that they check their kids’ Facebook pages every day.

Some 92 percent of them make it so easy for themselves by openly becoming Facebook friends with their kids.

Some might reach the inevitable conclusion that American parents aren’t very bright.

If they are making it so obvious they are snooping on their kids by friending them, might they not imagine that the kids, in turn, will not express themselves fully on Facebook, instead choosing to go to Tumblr, Instagram, or some other relatively recondite place?

Might that be one reason why several recent studies suggested that kids think Facebook is old?

The Education Database Online figures offer that a third of kids would defriend their parents “if they could.”

I, though, am left fascinated as to how much adults are exposing themselves.

Surely the kids — just, you know, for fits and giggles — trawl around their parents’ Facebook pages and speculate as to which of their Facebook friends are former (or even current) lovers.

Surely the kids take a look at these people’s profile pictures and pray that they never, ever end up as wizened and alcohol-sodden as some of them appear.

Given that the kids are far, far more tech savvy than their parents will ever be, might they be far better spies than their parents?

While the adults think they’re being clever in following the kids, I suspect it’s the kids who get more information out of this social-networking exchange — information that they’ll choose to use just when they need it.

Blackmail never goes out of style.

View Source

Facebook has announced a major addition to its social network – a smart search engine it has called graph search.

The feature allows users to make “natural” searches of content shared by their friends.

Search terms could include phrases such as “friends who like Star Wars and Harry Potter”.

Founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg insisted it was not a web search, and therefore not a direct challenge to Google.

However, it was integrating Microsoft’s Bing search engine for situations when graph search itself could not find answers.

Mr Zuckerberg said he “did not expect” people to start flocking to Facebook to do web search.

“That isn’t the intent,” he said. “But in the event you can’t find what you’re looking for, it’s really nice to have this.”

Finding folks

Earlier speculation had suggested that the world’s biggest social network was about to make a long-anticipated foray into Google’s search territory.

“We’re not indexing the web,” explained Mr Zuckerberg at an event at Facebook’s headquarters in California.

“We’re indexing our map of the graph – the graph is really big and its constantly changing.”

In Facebook’s terms, the social graph is the name given to the collective pool of information shared between friends that are connected via the site.

It includes things such as photos, status updates, location data as well as the things they have “liked”.

Until now, Facebook’s search had been highly criticised for being limited and ineffective.

The company’s revamped search was demonstrated to be significantly more powerful. In one demo, Facebook developer Tom Stocky showed a search for queries such as “friends of friends who are single in San Francisco”.

The same technology could be used for recruitment, he suggested, using graph search to find people who fit criteria for certain jobs – as well as mutual connections.

Such queries are a key function of LinkedIn, the current dominant network for establishing professional connections.

“We look at Facebook as a big social database,” said Mr Zuckerberg, adding that social search was Facebook’s “third pillar” and stood beside the news feed and timeline as the foundational elements of the social network.

Perhaps mindful of privacy concerns highlighted by recent misfires on policies for its other services such as Instagram, Facebook stressed that it had put limits on the search system.

“On graph search, you can only see content that people have shared with you,” developer Lars Rasmussen, who was previously the co-founder of Google Maps, told reporters.

Read More

The FTC updates rules tied to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, but the changes won’t really affect companies like Apple or Facebook.

The Federal Trade Commission today moved to make a key children’s online privacy law more up-to-date in a world of smartphones and social networks.

The agency has approved amendments to the regulations implementing the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, that would require apps and Web sites that target children to obtain parental consent before collecting geo-location information, or photos, videos or audio files that include a child’s image or voice. The law was also expanded to cover services that track kids’ online activity — namely, which sites they visit — and then give the information to third-parties, like advertisers.

“The Commission takes seriously its mandate to protect children’s online privacy in this ever-changing technological landscape,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz in a statement. “I am confident that the amendments to the COPPA Rule strike the right balance between protecting innovation that will provide rich and engaging content for children, and ensuring that parents are informed and involved in their children’s online activities.”

But Apple and Facebook, the biggest companies associated with apps and social media, may not feel much of an effect at all.

The changes, the first since the law took effect in 1998, apply only to sites that specifically target children. They don’t apply to third-party plug-ins — such Facebook’s “Like” button — or ad networks, unless the companies behind them have “actual knowledge” that they are collecting information from a service that’s specifically for children.

The commission defines those who have “actual knowledge” as a third-party that has been told directly its plug-in or advertisement is on a site for children, or if the third-party company recognizes that the site is specifically for kids, according to the updated rules (PDF).

Then there are app platforms like Apple’s App Store, the largest single source of apps in world. Platforms like Apple’s won’t have to make sure they sell apps that follow the new law. But apps made available there are hardly untouchable. On Monday, for instance, Nickelodeon removed a SpongeBob app from the Apple App Store after an an advocacy group filed a complaint with the FTC alleging that the game violated children’s online privacy rights by collecting their e-mail addresses without parents’ permission.

And the rule changes themselves may prove vulnerable to challenge in court or in Congress. “I believe a core provision of the amendments exceeds the scope of the authority granted us by Congress in COPPA, the statute that underlies and authorizes the rule,” commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen wrote in her dissenting statement. “I do not believe that the fact that a child-directed site or online service receives any kind of benefit from using a plug-in is equivalent to the collection of personal information by the third-party plug-in on behalf of the child-directed site or online service.”

The FTC has the support of at least one key figure on Capitol Hill. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia and the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, issued a statement today saying that the changes were “long overdue,” and necessary for a world filled with smartphones, apps and social network. He said he would “determine if Congress should act to make further changes in the law” –

The new rule puts all online companies on notice, no matter who they are, that they are required to comply with the law. Under the new rule, when a children’s website or application allows third-parties to collect information from children, those websites and apps will be liable under COPPA.

Furthermore, those third-parties will also be held liable if they know they are collecting information on websites or apps directed toward children.

The changes come after the FTC released a report last week slamming the app industry for not providing parents enough information about privacy. The report encouraged app companies to develop best practices to ensure parents were educated on privacy options.

The new rules are set to go into effect July 1, 2013.

View Source

More Facebook/Instagram follies raise uneasy questions why a policy change morphed into such a mess

Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is busy out hunting for his own food. The company’s No. 2, Sheryl Sandberg, might be tied up putting the finishing touches on her soon-to-be-published memoir. And so we’re left with poor — not financially poor, obviously — Kevin Systrom to explain one of the most bizarre weeks in Facebook’s young history.

On Monday, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, announced changes to its terms of service that opened the way for the company to use people’s photos in advertisements without needing permission. That triggered the predictable storm of controversy, with privacy advocates screaming bloody murder and outraged users bolting the service entirely.

By Wednesday, Facebook-Instagram apologized for the confusing language, essentially blaming the mess on inexact grammar and sought to qualm fears that filthy lucre would trump the concerns of users. But in blog post, Instagram head Kevin Systrom promised “updated language” but still hinted that something was in the offing that would result in “meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time.” Whatever that meant.

So it was that late Thursday, Systrom, who must have whiplash by now, put out yet another missive announcing that Instagram was returning to the original terms of service which accompanied the launch of the service in October 2010. Why? Here’s Systrom:

Earlier this week, we introduced a set of updates to our privacy policy and terms of service to help our users better understand our service. In the days since, it became clear that we failed to fulfill what I consider one of our most important responsibilities – to communicate our intentions clearly. I am sorry for that, and I am focused on making it right.

The concerns we heard about from you the most focused on advertising, and what our changes might mean for you and your photos. There was confusion and real concern about what our possible advertising products could look like and how they would work.

Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010.

Paging General Custer: Debacles anyone? Even if Zuckerberg and Sandberg weren’t involved in what should have been a routine policy decision that normally winds up routed to a company’s middle managers, they are now. The Mickey Mouse way this issue has been handled raises new questions about managerial judgment. It’s reached the point where the embarrassment requires a full rethink and so it’s back to the future with the original TOS until they can figure out how to do this in a way that doesn’t trigger a thermonuclear reaction among users.

Going forward, rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.

That’s touching but somebody’s head is on the block — or it ought to be. This is basic blocking and tackling. The privacy crowd can look back upon the events of the last week and say they struck a blow for user rights and the effectiveness of mobilizing user outrage but Facebook/Instagram can’t allow a repeat performance. Especially not as a publicly-traded corporation.

You also had deep concerns about whether under our new terms, Instagram had any plans to sell your content. I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos – you do.

Finally, there was also confusion about how widely shared and distributed your photos are through our service. The distribution of your content and photos is governed by our privacy policy, and always has been. We have made a small change to our terms to make that as clear as possible.

Next time some minor Einstein decides to muck around with terms of service, this decision needs to get fully vetted and checked better for the possible implications. This is user data — photos, in this case — that we’re talking about and big companies like Facebook have no interest in inflaming the passions of the folks who made them successful. If the wording is not crystal clear, then don’t hit the “publish” button before the terms are understandable to a 10-year-old.

This isn’t rocket science and so it’s amazing that the supposedly smart set running Facebook/Instagram are finding it so hard to get this right.

View Source

Ten people have been arrested as part of an investigation into international cybercrime rings that steal millions of computer users’ credit card, bank account and other personal information, the FBI said.

Individuals from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, Britain and the U.S. were arrested in an operation carried out with the assistance of the Facebook social network and numerous international law enforcement agencies, the FBI said.

The FBI said the operation identified international cybercrime rings that are linked to multiple variants of the Yahos malware, which is linked to more than 11 million compromised computer systems and over $850 million in losses through the so-called Butterfly botnet.

Botnets, short for robot network, are made up of compromised computer systems and can be used by cybercriminals to execute denial of service attacks, send spam emails and conduct underground organized criminal activity, to include malware distribution, the FBI said.

Facebook’s security team assisted law enforcement by helping to identify the root cause, the perpetrators and those affected by the malware. Yahos targeted Facebook users from 2010 to October 2012, and security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats, the FBI said in a news release Tuesday.

The FBI recommended that computer users update their applications and operating system on a regular basis to reduce the risk of compromise and perform regular anti-virus scanning of their computer system. The agency said it also is helpful to disconnect personal computers from the Internet when the machines are not in use.

Computer users who believe they have been victimized can file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

View Source

The widespread adoption of YouTube has proven to be an invaluable vehicle for police departments, who are posting video surveillance footage on YouTube to gain traction in solving crimes.

The reason is in the YouTube user statistics themselves: More than 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month; more than three billion hours of video are viewed per month, with more than one trillion hours viewed in 2011; nearly 100 million people take social action after viewing a video every week.

There are nearly 40 police departments posting surveillance video on YouTube, including Kansas City, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Houston, Tucson, Milwaukee, Portland, and Minneapolis.

The Milwaukee Police Department is a use-case for this growing law enforcement trend. The department has harnessed YouTube as an outreach tool since 2008; and since that time, the department has also become entrenched in the social media realm. Milwaukee’s Police Department has generated an impressive following on Facebook and Twitter, and sees these channels as a way to create an ongoing dialogue with the public.

“It’s been very positive,” Anne Schwartz, director of communications at the Milwaukee Police Department, says of YouTube’s impact on her department. “Someone can watch a video on our website or on YouTube and read the entire description and pause it if they want to, and really take a good look at it. We’ve solved crimes that way. We’ve had people that see these videos, and then recognize the suspect in that video.”

The Philadelphia Police Department created a YouTube channel in May 2008, a month after Milwaukee did. The department shares videos of unsolved crimes from each police division, ranging from burglaries and robberies to assaults and abductions, which, as a whole, have had more than 1.8 million views. “We’ve released just over 250 videos on YouTube and now have around 90 arrests,” said PPD Social Media Community Manager Frank Domizio.

To protect the privacy of anyone who divulges information on a crime, comments are disabled on every video posted by the two police departments. Users are provided with a phone number and email to contact the police divisions if they know something or recognize someone. To avoid legal troubles, the faces of bystanders are often blurred so that only the perpetrators can be identified. “Every face is blurred, except the people that we’re looking for,” Domizio confirmed. “We make it our focus to ensure anonymity. We use a program called Camtasia to edit videos, which lets us blur faces or zoom in on suspects. Any innocent or non-involved person is blurred or edited out of the video.”

All footage posted by police departments comes directly from business and public cameras. “The videos that we post all happen in the public — either in a public place such as a street with outdoor cameras, or in a business where there is surveillance.”

Security cameras with HD resolution noticeably enhance the quality and clarity of the video, making it easier for viewers to discern the scene’s details, including license plate numbers and faces. Day/night cameras that see in extremely low-lit or completely dark environments are beneficial in the evening when crimes generally occur. When businesses invest in these technologies, police will have access to video with greater evidentiary value.

In the end, police realize how crucial it is to make surveillance video available to as many people as possible.YouTube has enabled them to do just that.

View Source