March 5, 2016 at 13:43Scientists have compiled a geo-profile of anonymous graffiti banksy
Three years ago, experts proved that it is possible to identify a specific person among 1.5 million mobile users by just four points in time and space. Such points (for example, home - work - store - bar) are unique to each person, approximately like a fingerprint.
The last victim of scientific deanonymization was the English underground street art artist Banksy , who for twenty years managed to hide his identity and get away from the police. He is called the most famous contemporary artist in the UK.
Michelle Hauge of Queen Mary University College London and colleagues used the “geographic profiling” statistical technique, something similar to the technique of deanonymization of mobile subscribers mentioned above.
It is believed that former police officer Professor Kim Rossmo, co-author of this scientific work, invented the technique of geographic profiling. Initially, it was used to search for serial killers who commit crimes around a certain “anchor” point - usually their home or place of work.
Subsequently, the technique was adapted to study the spread of viral infections. Having received information about infected citizens, a computer program can determine the source of the epidemic in a few minutes.
Researchers studied the spatial structure of Banksy's street work in Bristol and London. They managed to prove the theory that the author of a journalistic investigation from the newspaper put forward in 2008Mail on Sunday , that under the pseudonym Banksy hides the artist Robin Gunningham (Robin Gunningham).
The authors of the new study collected the exact GPS coordinates of Banksy's 140 works, known from open sources.
For comparison, they recorded the coordinates of the apartments of Gunningham in London and Bristol, as well as the coordinates of the apartments of his girlfriend Jamie Eastham, with whom he lived in 2004-2005, and another girl (now wife) Joy Millward, the coordinates of the base of The Plow football club, for which played Gunningham, and the two football fields where the club played.
Data processed using the Dirichlet distribution model(Dirichlet process mixture, DPM), which is ideal for clustering with an unknown number of clusters. When processing the "crime scene" are divided into clusters. It is assumed that each cluster has its own separate source.
The software package Rgeoprofile , written in the programming language R , was used for work . A radius of 900 meters was set in the clustering parameters - a typical maximum distance that a criminal walks in urban conditions. With these parameters, the researchers assumed that about 95% of all Banksy's work would be within 2 km of the source.
The result of the study: in Banksy's London geoprofile, two of the three alleged “anchor” places were included in the top 10 of the geoprofile.
London geo-profile
In Bristol, two out of four.
Bristol Geoprofile
In London, the geoprofile peak is 500 meters from Gunningham’s former wife’s apartment and close to the apartment where he lived with his girlfriend. Of course, such a result cannot be called evidence that Banksy is Gunningham, but geoprofiles definitely confirm this theory.
The authors hope that the method of statistical geo-profiling is useful for identifying potential terrorists who are still involved in graffiti painting and sticking up anti-government leaflets.
Banksy's scientific article on the deanonymization is published in the Journal of Spatial Science .
The last victim of scientific deanonymization was the English underground street art artist Banksy , who for twenty years managed to hide his identity and get away from the police. He is called the most famous contemporary artist in the UK.
Michelle Hauge of Queen Mary University College London and colleagues used the “geographic profiling” statistical technique, something similar to the technique of deanonymization of mobile subscribers mentioned above.
It is believed that former police officer Professor Kim Rossmo, co-author of this scientific work, invented the technique of geographic profiling. Initially, it was used to search for serial killers who commit crimes around a certain “anchor” point - usually their home or place of work.
Subsequently, the technique was adapted to study the spread of viral infections. Having received information about infected citizens, a computer program can determine the source of the epidemic in a few minutes.
Researchers studied the spatial structure of Banksy's street work in Bristol and London. They managed to prove the theory that the author of a journalistic investigation from the newspaper put forward in 2008Mail on Sunday , that under the pseudonym Banksy hides the artist Robin Gunningham (Robin Gunningham).
The authors of the new study collected the exact GPS coordinates of Banksy's 140 works, known from open sources.
For comparison, they recorded the coordinates of the apartments of Gunningham in London and Bristol, as well as the coordinates of the apartments of his girlfriend Jamie Eastham, with whom he lived in 2004-2005, and another girl (now wife) Joy Millward, the coordinates of the base of The Plow football club, for which played Gunningham, and the two football fields where the club played.
Data processed using the Dirichlet distribution model(Dirichlet process mixture, DPM), which is ideal for clustering with an unknown number of clusters. When processing the "crime scene" are divided into clusters. It is assumed that each cluster has its own separate source.
The software package Rgeoprofile , written in the programming language R , was used for work . A radius of 900 meters was set in the clustering parameters - a typical maximum distance that a criminal walks in urban conditions. With these parameters, the researchers assumed that about 95% of all Banksy's work would be within 2 km of the source.
The result of the study: in Banksy's London geoprofile, two of the three alleged “anchor” places were included in the top 10 of the geoprofile.
London geo-profile
In Bristol, two out of four.
Bristol Geoprofile
In London, the geoprofile peak is 500 meters from Gunningham’s former wife’s apartment and close to the apartment where he lived with his girlfriend. Of course, such a result cannot be called evidence that Banksy is Gunningham, but geoprofiles definitely confirm this theory.
The authors hope that the method of statistical geo-profiling is useful for identifying potential terrorists who are still involved in graffiti painting and sticking up anti-government leaflets.
Banksy's scientific article on the deanonymization is published in the Journal of Spatial Science .
