All the other details are fairly straightforward (toner, envelope, paper, etc) that can be nailed down with enough legwork, but I am wondering how they possibly had figured out the GPU of machine.
- Are there certain rendering artifacts that can be seen on printed glyphs that give clues to the GPU?
- Or, are they going by heuristics here? (I.e. it was XYZ GPU, because it was a common machine that at the time that would be running Win 8 or 10)
This is an ongoing investigation, the police don't have to be truthful in their releases. It might be a guess, it might be because they're already fairly sure who did it or is an accomplice and want to create pressure. They might know it for entirely different reasons than analyzing a piece of paper.
On the surface it seems like a very strange assertion.
Even if there were subtle GDI rendering differences -- which I doubt -- it is hard to believe that a printout would let them positively identify Intel HD Graphics 630 specifically, as opposed to say HD Graphics 610 or 615 which are slightly slower clocked versions of the same GPU released at the same time and which almost definitely use the same drivers and GDI rendering system.
But if the information comes from elsewhere, as in already having a suspect and knowing what computer they used -- they should reasonably have given more information from the same source -- CPU model, etc.
I can't imagine a possible way to leak only GPU info -- unless GDI or the Intel drivers has some secret mechanism for intentionally rendering some sort of subtle identification code onto printer output.
You’re assuming extreme precision and competence. I’m guessing they have an incomplete database of GPU samples and a fuzzy result came back like “86% match to Intel 630,” and that’s what they published.
If you only knew how much the Norwegian police are blasted these days for over-stepping boundaries in searches of persons, and their interpretation of reasonable cause for home searches, and their ties to the private drug cop association NNPF (and reluctance to release membership details)
Like, the "State Attorney" (Riksadvokatsembetet) had to issue a clarification that busting someone with a joint in the street is NOT reasonable cause to search their home for more, please stop doing that you morons, also don't lift people's testicles to see if they have hidden something there thank you.
All the while more violent and serious shit is being ignored.
Don't pretend to laugh when you are angry. Of course you're right police are not great here either, just recently there was a case with punitive cavity searches etc. Police are also complaining about harassment online and ostracism offline (gee, I wonder why?)
But the fact that they are complaining about these things shows they're not quite as unrestricted as police in other parts of the world. Lying is one of the areas there is a difference: Norwegian police aren't allowed to e.g. lie to a suspect that his friend has already confessed. Which isn't to say they won't, but cases can get thrown out over it.
So it's a stretch to think that the police are lying to the public about the positive evidence they have. Lying by omission, maybe, perhaps being wrong, hell yes, but making up things out of whole cloth in public in just to gather information would be new ground for Norwegian police.
I'm not Norwegian, but I spent the last 20 years working for a Norwegian company, and spent a lot of time in Norway as a result.
Norway is a beautiful, modern country, and while the older generation is still fairly religious (and racist to some degree), overall it's pretty liberal. It's a really nice place, and I considered moving there more than once.
The Norwegian police may have some warts, but they are held to a much, much higher standard than police in the US.
Honestly, there is no comparison between US police and those in any part of Europe or Scandinavian - we don't have paramilitary-style police busting down doors with flashbangs and automatic weapons blazing, police officers regularly murdering people, or anything like the overt fabrication of "evidence" that some US PDs seem to think is a sport to see how much they can get away with.
Sibling comment's points about police- and judicial excesses in the case of drug-related crime, however, are very much relevant. It's hard to consider the darker parts of Norwegian culture and mindset from a Western perspective, as it takes on shapes that are largely unfamiliar in Western culture. Criticism against Norwegian society looks more like criticism against collectivist societies, where out-of-the-norm non-violent behavior is sometimes harshly punished.
I do agree that our police cannot be compared to the US "out of control" situation, where both its conduct and its excessive use of violence is extreme and avoids judicial oversight. But that's not to say it goes clear of criticism from a systemic perspective.
There are ongoing debates and investigations concerning effectively punitive cavity searches against persons suspected of having smoked a joint, using suspected drug use as a pretext for invasive home searches, immediate confiscation of drivers' licenses after reports of one-off marijuana use (no judicial process involved), involuntary commitment to somatic hospital followed by coerced drug testing in pregnant women after (flimsily) suspected drug use, punitive home searches against drug reform activists and more.
The most high-profile of the two latter cases were conducted against women who visibly participated in democratic debate for reforming our drug laws, and participation in said debate was documented in writing as probable cause for having the woman involuntarily committed by the police.
All but the very last example is strongly suspected to be systemic; it has happened with regularity. And the problems are so obvious that the conduct clearly has a high degree of political support, although "should we systematically jail marijuana smokers and degrade them by probing their vagina or rectum in the police station" has never featured in a debate preceding the elections for Parliament.
Also plenty of criticism regarding the democratic role of a private drug law activist organization (NNPF) that's effectively both part of the police force and a central partner in the bureaucratic process for determining what drug policy should be democratically enacted.
> participation in said debate was documented in writing as probable cause for having the woman involuntarily committed by the police.
No. If this is the case from just before Christmas, the media reporting was extremely biased as the health services cannot comment due to privacy. However, the woman posted her letter on Twitter (now deleted but still available at the internet archive) and it was, in my opinion, justified. (1) The woman had a history of drug use, (2) her mother had reported concerns regarding the woman's drug use and asked the health services to consider involuntary treatment the same year as the woman became pregnant, (3) the woman did not meet her GP after becoming pregnant, (4) the woman did not respond when the health services approached her to evaluate her drug use voluntarily, (5) the woman moved to another municipality (which may have been interpreted as an attempt to "escape" from them), (6) the woman did not approach the health services in her new municipality to follow up her pregnancy.
In light of the two previous reports of concern and the use of drugs, [the woman]'s information about pregnancy, [her] lack of contact with her GP during pregnancy, [the authorities] found cause for concern. [...] The decision was made on the basis that she has orally informed [the authorities] and confirmed to [the authorities] that she is pregnant and the severity of which drugs (including cannabis, MDMA, LSD) that she has stated that she uses in the newspaper and Social Media. Use of these drugs is not compatible with pregnancy. There is no information on how far she has come in her pregnancy or that she has followed up regular pregnancy controls. [...] The municipality considers that it is overwhelmingly probable that the mother's drug intake will be harmful to the fetus
The national guidelines highlight that the fetus should have priority - "the care of the fetus takes precedence over the care of the woman" - and that
Pregnant women with substance abuse problems are in a special position and the consequences for the fetus can be serious if the municipality spends too much time considering the use of coercion. The municipality must therefore not spend unnecessarily long time on assessment and testing of voluntary measures. The due diligence requirement requires quick clarifications to prevent the fetus from being exposed to an unnecessary risk of injury.
and that coercision should be considered if "the pregnant woman deliveres a positive urine sample, fails to take a urine sample or fails to make an appointment"
However, it is mentioned several times in that letter that she had been positive to drug use in her public writing and admitted to using several illegal drugs in social media. That was probably not okay, but the decision was not - by far - based on that fact alone.
What you've posted here is an excellent representative example of the form of social control in Norwegian society that I'm criticizing. It's a great contribution to the discussion.
I sort of doubt we can find agreement, since we appear to have quite different views on what basis is required for the authorities to perform this kind of incredibly invasive use of force against a citizen that isn't even suspected of having broken a law. This is not suspicion in the legal sense -- it's a possibility or a worry.
I'm not able to draw the conclusions you are from the part of the letter you've quoted. None of what is mentioned there is evidence -- she has publicly stated that she's been using certain illegal drugs on numerous occasions, that she's advocated for legal reform regarding drug use and that she is pregnant. She has declined seeing a publicly-provided doctor wrt. the pregnancy.
None of this is an indication of drug use!!
Related side note. If you ask other Europeans, e.g. someone from Germany, they might tell you that Norway's system of having regular, public-sector scheduled pregnancy inspections where declining will make alarms go off...is actually pretty creepy from a privacy perspective. At least that's what my left-voting German friends told me when they had kids a few years ago. Not that the service is a bad thing, but that declining or arranging your own is considered grounds for suspicion.
There is a difference between the Norwegian (Scandinavian?) and Western mindset here that our discussion illustrates splendidly. Our society is in some ways more collectivist; there are numerous situations where the rights of the individual are put last which contrast quite markedly to other Western societies. And these rules are enforced with strict social penalties.
The same contrast can be seen in the 13 (and counting) cases where the Norwegian Child Protective Services, supported by the Norwegian Supreme Court (and obviously the laws enacted in Parliament), have had rulings against them in the Human Rights court in Strasbourg.
No, that's right. But there's a still a lot of things the police get away with, especially with respect to drug addicts, "troubled youth" and other people who don't get believed/sympathy when they complain. And then there's NNPF, a not-so independent NGO consisting of current and former narcotics police, which advocates for (and largely runs, without political approval) a much more macho tough-on-crime narcotics policy with school visits etc, interventions which have been rightly rejected by the Norwegian social science and political establishments.
It's a constant fight to make sure Norwegian police doesn't drift closer to UK/US style police, and in many ways we are losing.
> Most printers will do their own rendering, it's not often that a text document gets pre-rendered by the OS.
Without surveying the industry, I doubt that's accurate. Most inexpensive home printers sold to purchasers of Windows PCs are GDI printers. Part of the cost savings associated with those comes from using the PC to render the document.
- Are there certain rendering artifacts that can be seen on printed glyphs that give clues to the GPU?
- Or, are they going by heuristics here? (I.e. it was XYZ GPU, because it was a common machine that at the time that would be running Win 8 or 10)