10 secrets and crimes solved using the Internet

There are many stories of the internet being used for evil purposes. From scammers who steal your money to online harassment in those hidden corners of the network, which many hesitate to talk about; the worst things on the world wide web somehow coincide with the most terrible things that happen in human life.

However, in exceptional cases, the Internet can be used for good purposes, which is confirmed by many "Internet forensics". They have succeeded in places where professional criminal agencies and the police have been powerless; whether due to good old incompetence, or due to the lack of crowdsourcing tools that can only be collected on the Internet.

10. Shot down - ran away

Catching a person escaping from the scene of an accident was rather difficult before the advent of the Internet, since there was usually no evidence of any kind. If you are lucky (and you survived), the driver will leave traces of the crime. But this is unlikely to be enough; unless he ditched his driver's license or a cotton swab soaked in his saliva.

No one can claim that the worldwide network has improved the detection rates, although history is still known for a case when a criminal was caught, thanks to the Internet community. It happened in Washington, when a cyclist was killed in a collision with a car. The police did not have a single clue about the culprit. As a result, a photo from the scene of the accident was uploaded to social news site Reddit, asking for help in identifying the details of the car.

Probably, the author posted this post out of curiosity. But events took a serious turn when the former traffic inspector was able to establish the make and model of the car. Unfortunately for the culprit, not many people in the area owned a 1980 Chevrolet Sirvelado. Subsequently, the offender was arrested and given a guilty verdict.

9. Inconclusive footage

America is far from new to extrajudicial killings, except in the 21st century, thanks to modern technologies such as cameras, it is very difficult to avoid punishment for such crimes. But this does not mean that such murders are not committed, you just need to be sure that there are no eyewitnesses and witnesses who can film what is happening on camera.

This principle, however, passed by Michael Slager; South Carolina police officer who was convicted of killing an unarmed black man named Walter Scott. The charges against the offender were not immediately brought forward, because the footage taken by the witnesses at the crime scene looked too dubious. The situation lasted until one student from Canada accidentally stumbled upon a video on the Internet.

Daniel Woshart studied cinematography focused on image stabilization. The student stabilized the video at the point where he perceived the murder as racially motivated. After working on the video, Daniel uploaded it in GIF format to the news site Reddit, which - in addition to proving to be indisputable evidence - created an online community to support the victim.

8. Provoked to suicide

When 18-year-old Nadi Kajuji committed suicide by throwing herself off a bridge into the Rideau River in Ottawa, her family couldn't believe what was happening. The girl went through a lot, including miscarriage and pressure from her classmates.

As events developed, it became clear that her decision was not voluntary. A few weeks before her suicide, on an online forum, Nadi talked with a certain Cami D (real name Melkert-Dinkel), who made her take the last step. His identity was later revealed by Celia Blay, an online consultant. She found that the perpetrator had persuaded people to commit suicide on more than one occasion. Overall, he pushed five or six people to voluntarily die. Thanks to Celia, the perpetrator was charged with incitement to commit suicide.

7. Rape

The debate around sexual abuse and violent high school students has been going on for a long time; although the history of Steubenville High School dates back to the days of social media. We would have shielded you from the horrific details of the crime, but in short, a teenage girl was raped by a group of peers in August 2012 on and off campus.

The rapists were subsequently convicted, but we forget about the involvement of the Internet in such cases. At first, the authorities were reluctant to take the crime seriously due to the impeccable reputation of the accused. This happened until some anonymous - global and controversial - online group of executioners mapped out most of the evidence on the Internet. In addition to forcing the authorities to reopen the case, they also brought this precedent to the national level, supplementing it with confessions of the accused, photographs, videos and other incriminating material.

6. Stolen laptop

The news of a stolen phone or laptop is comparable to a real tragedy. It's not so much about the monetary component - although gadgets nowadays are not cheap pleasure - as about the leakage of your personal information, which is almost impossible to recover. These are the thoughts that went to Sean Power when his Macbook Pro was stolen along with his phone and some other documents.

But everything turned out to be not so scary, since a program was installed on the owner's laptop that notifies him of his location every time he appeared on the network. Sean didn't go to the police. He asked his 12,000 Twitter followers to help find the stolen gadgets. To his surprise, one of the subscribers managed to find the laptop along with other documents.

5. Online vigilantes and their assistance in the consideration of the case of rape of a minor

News of the alleged gang rape and possible suicide of 17-year-old Reteya Parsons from Canada spread throughout the world.

Opinions differ as to what exactly led the girl to commit suicide. Most believe that the main reason was the spread of her photographs on the Internet and cyberbullying. Similar crimes have happened before, but the involvement of social networks and the relatively new (at that time) phenomenon of virtual harassment made this case look from a completely different angle.

At first, the police dropped the case due to a lack of evidence linking gang rape and suicide (despite the obvious photographic evidence). But due to the growing pressure from people on the Internet, they were forced to reopen the business. We agree that any kind of lynching is an immoral thing, but here the vigilantes are sure that this is not the end.

4. Almighty

Anyone who has plunged into the very depths of the Internet (for research purposes, of course) would tell you that the world wide web is teeming with terrifying things. This is not only about illegal drugs and deviant behavior of people, child pornography and hired killers. The World Wide Web is a place hidden from the police by a dark web and privacy terms.

This alignment was not approved by one of the hackers named Brad William. Acting anonymously under the pseudonym Omni-Potent, he created a virus with the goal of infecting over 3,000 computers of suspected child abductors. Despite the fact that the evidence he collected was revealing, the authorities did not take it into account, since this material was obtained through legal means.

The man's efforts did not go unnoticed. Ultimately, his evidence helped to track the suspects and convict them.

3. Grateful Doe

Anyone who grew up in Greensville County, Virginia, has probably heard of the Grateful Doe. This is the unofficial name given to the victim of a car accident. For 20 years, no one could identify the victim due to his injuries. The only evidence was a tattoo on his arm, two tickets to a rock concert by the American band Grateful Dead, and a note addressed to a certain Jason.

But that all changed when fans of the Grateful Dead set up a page on the Internet to identify the deceased, which caused a storm of attention to the closed case. Fortunately, one of the photos prompted the woman to contact the page administrator. As it turned out, the unidentified body belonged to her son, Jason Callahan, who disappeared at the same time (parents assumed that the guy ran away from home), which was later confirmed by DNA tests.

2. Hate crime

In today's society, the media is increasingly encouraging, rather than preventing, hate crimes. In most cases, it is impossible to identify the attackers, since the crimes take place in secluded parts of the city (if the criminals took care of this, of course).

When a couple of men were beaten in 2014 in Philadelphia for being gay, it seemed that the attackers would get away with it. However, the authorities decided to post the pictures on Twitter to enable people to identify the criminals.

1. Murder

No matter how much we tried to convince people not to kill each other, it has always been an integral part of society. Even with the latest technology, it is difficult to solve all the murders due to the impossibility of obtaining revealing evidence. On the other hand, some crimes are solved by people from whom no one expects it; for example, amateur detectives on the Internet.

Example: The murder of a homeless man named Abraham Shakespeare in Florida. Until the police had any leads, visitors to an online crime-solving community called Websleuths contacted the woman to whom the murdered Abraham donated all of his previous lottery winnings. The situation took an unexpected turn when the woman herself joined the discussion and eventually confessed to the murder.

The moderators made sure that none of her words were edited. That was enough for the police to convict her.