Geographical profiling study claims to have unmasked Banksy | Hacker News Reader

Geographical profiling study claims to have unmasked Banksy

bbc.com

12 pointsevo_98 comments

This raises some interesting questions about the ethics of what these researchers did. Similar to when JK Rowling was "outed," although IIRC they asked her permission before revealing it.

Submission from 4 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11236213

I don't buy the "we do not know who Bansky is" meme.

The guy has had exhibitions at major museums, interventions where someone, at least police, should have allowed him to carry out his stuff without interruptions, and yet the media claims that all these things can be carried out by an anonymous player.

What surprises more is that pretty much everyone is falling for that fad.

The article itself does say: "the resulting 'geoprofile' was a good match for an obvious candidate: Robin Gunningham, whom the Mail on Sunday named in 2008 after an investigation into Banksy's identity... 'What I thought I would do is pull out the 10 most likely suspects, evaluate all of them and not name any ... But it rapidly became apparent that there is only one serious suspect, and everyone knows who it is. If you Google Banksy and Gunningham you get something like 43,500 hits.'"

I buy the idea that there's a small group of people who Banksy trusts with their identity and act on their behalf.

I don't know why we wouldn't know who those people are, though.

Yeah I think it should work out like that.

Still doesn't make sense why police does not prosecute the guy when it clearly does some things that are illegal.

The most plausible theory I'm willing to believe is "the guy is part of the English royalty".

Well, if the police don't know who Banksy is, and there's no evidence that his "inner circle" is aiding his crimes, what can they do?

Then again, I know almost nothing about UK criminal law, so I don't know the limits and requirements for compelling someone to give information.

Url changed from https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/science-has-revealed-bank..., which points to this.

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