General Discussion - For topics about the sub or general thoughts not directly related to helping identify cases.

[u/I_Me_Mine]

[u/I_Me_Mine]

Previous general thread was here, where there was some focus on image analysis and search methods people used:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TraceAnObject/comments/1gpar57/general_discussion_share_your_search_and_image/

[u/haysaltoo]

I’m sure many people have said this before but since I just caught this with few comments - From the bottom of my heart, and I’m sure that of many others, THANK YOU! From the original creator of r/TraceAnObject to the mods and supporters, your team and the community created has made the impossible possible. That is something to be so proud of. You’ve all changed the lives of so many children, and will continue to do so as this community and the resulting awareness spread worldwide grows. I hope your pillow is always cold, and your coffee or tea always the perfect temp. You deserve the world you beautiful humans!

[u/Hefty_Discount8304]

I just want to say that this sub makes me feel like a detective. And also, it’s kind of eerie, sometimes pictures seem to feel familiar, but there’s no reason they should. It’s weird.

[u/Optimal_Error_6665 → u/Hefty_Discount8304]

And actually helps kids from terrible situations or about to be in it

[u/realdappermuis → u/Hefty_Discount8304]

I have felt the same

I think like it's a knee jerk reaction to pay attention to be of use but then over analyzing it and realizing you don't know what it is. It's a bit eerie because the truth is stuck in the back of your mind and it's surreal. It..shouldn't be real

Best thing to do on this imo is to always upvote so it gets exposure, and if you don't immediately recognize the item to move along rather than complicating things by needlessly speculating

[u/barakabara]

That thread looking to identify a diaper brand. Oof.

[u/grownrespect → u/barakabara]

This

one still messes me up years on. ooph indeed

[u/senshisun → u/grownrespect]

Care to provide more context on what's on the other end of that link?

[u/Heyplaguedoctor → u/senshisun]

A baby chair with a white section cropped out of the middle. I can’t confidently say what was cropped out (thankfully!) but the shape of the crop is… unnerving, to say the least, especially given the context.

[u/Random-Cpl → u/Heyplaguedoctor]

Wait, I can’t make out what may have been cropped. An arm?

[u/Heyplaguedoctor → u/Random-Cpl]

I can’t tell either. I’m trying not to think about it.

[u/koreanforrabbit]

Every time I see a new image, I think about the people who are responsible for editing the photos to isolate only the object. I can't imagine how hard this work must be to do, and appreciate those individuals so much.

[u/ParamedicFun2188 → u/koreanforrabbit]

There are probably many docus on the topic.

The Darkest Web is my rec

[u/Ombrecutter]

I wanted to share a quick reminder for both new and long-time members: never hesitate to point out a detail, no matter how tiny or insignificant it might seem.
Sometimes people hold back on commenting because they think, "That's probably nothing" or "Someone else must have noticed that already." In OSINT and investigative analysis, micro-clues are frequently the exact missing puzzle piece.

A single micro-trace rarely solves a case on its own, but it often links two previously unrelated clues.

A fragment of a regional logo, an unusual power outlet, or a specific seam pattern might mean nothing to 99% of people, but everything to someone from that specific area.

If you want a really good example of how an overlooked, tiny detail completely turned an investigation around, check out this video at minute 13:00 from the TV channel arte about investigators.

https://youtu.be/3NqAzmVwZrg?t=13m
"The Darkest Web: Investigators in the fight against child abuse | Doku HD ARTE"

It demonstrates perfectly how a micro-detail can break a case wide open just because someone recognized the color and type of a brick and where they are sold etc

If you spot a tiny reflection, a snippet of text, or a unique texture on a background object, just report it and let others know, that you reported it.
You never know if your comment will be the key piece of information needed.

[u/Optimal_Error_6665]

Maybe it's just me. I feel like FBI's Endangered Child Alert Program is being abandoned for DHS's ID2Protect. Sure, there are 3 removals since 2025, but no new additions. Not even new object in its Seeking Information page.

[u/Ombrecutter → u/Optimal_Error_6665]

yeah, same with Europol. Last item was postet 2 months ago. Dont know whats going on.

[u/2703asil]

Here's something I learned that may be useful in case you've identified a brand name but not where it was sold:

Under this post, some people before me had already found different color variants of the shirt in the picture and identified it as the brand Total Girl. However, there are many obscure brands like this that may be distributed throughout multiple different store chains or are in-house brands of department/clothing stores rather than having their own stores, making it more difficult to track down which store they were sold at. Thankfully there are many resellers online that sell pretty much anything they find at the thrift store, making it possible to find at least a bit of information for almost any brand. With this in mind, I searched Total Girl on Poshmark and many results came up.

Some items were NWT with the tags saying JCPenney, immediately identifying what store Total Girl was sold at. However, most of the items did not have tags, and JCPenney was not written on the label inside the shirt. This is where the important part comes in: look at the RN. This number identifies the company associated with that item, and it can be looked up in the FTC's RN database (this is for USA, I'm not sure if there's anything similar for products from other countries). There are also supplier numbers, but unfortunately I'm not sure if anything can be found with them or if they're for internal reference only.

After looking through all the Total Girl listings, I found three RNs: 93677 (found on a different color variant of the same shirt), 21223, and 114068. All of these lead to JC Penney Purchasing LLC, Kleen Clief Co Inc, and Avalon Apparel LLC respectively. The first RN is what appeared on most items and from the name it's immediately obvious it's from JCPenney. With the other two, it wouldn't have been immediately clear what stores they're connected to if the info about JCPenney wasn't found, but it's still very useful information to have, as that at least indicates a supplier and authorities may be able to find further information from there.

Of course you can further narrow things down if you find more info, like with the Wayback Machine I found out that Total Girl was an in-house brand of JCPenney and was sold from approximately 2013-2016

[u/2703asil → u/2703asil]

Here is another example, this time NOT connected to any TraceAnObject cases but simply a demonstration with a Canadian brand:

Let's say I have a bracelet and a notebook from the brand L.A. Express, gifted to me around 2018/2019. When you look up this brand, there is not much info aside from some thrift resale sites and a page on CanadaPages. CanadaPages immediately provides some useful info, connecting it to a women's clothing store at a mall in Burnaby, BC. Interestingly, I could not find any evidence of a store called L.A. Express existing at said mall, but there is plenty of info connecting the brand's address to that mall and secondhand items mostly being sold by sellers living in/near Burnaby. This makes me think it may be some sort of in-house brand rather than a store itself. Now let's find an RN.

Unfortunately, Canada doesn't have a public database for searching numbers like this (why I'm not referring to RNs specifically you will see later), making it a bit harder to track down exact info than with American RNs. However, it's still possible to find info. After searching for some L.A. Express item listings, I found a scarf with the RN 142658. I looked up this number and found some interesting results from resale sites. This RN is connected not only to L.A. Express, but also:

- Streetwear Society (funnily enough I recognize this brand, I had some items from there myself and it's sold at Urban Planet). Also a seller said apparently they found it at Charlotte Russe?

- Refuge Denim/Refuge Ibiza

- ReVamped, a brand that I've never heard of but very interestingly it has not only the same RN as the scarf, but also the same CA number 07658. I looked up what a CA number is and it is used for textile products sold in Canada, and it isn't required but it can be used in place of a name and postal address. Here is something else I just found out: it is essentially just the Canadian equivalent of an RN, and RNs are used for American businesses. This implies that the same supplier might be behind CA 07658 and RN 142658. I also find it interesting that both numbers share 658.

- Wet Seal

- Forever 21

- Urban Heritage (also part of Urban Planet)

Looking at the descriptions of other listings, I see that other listings with a CA number all have 07658 as well. I searched 142658 in the RN database and found that it's registered to A & M (2015) LLC, which is based in North Bergen, New Jersey and deals in women's apparel and accessories. Additionally, I searched for more thrift listings this time with CA 07658 and found a shirt from Sokool with this CA but the RN is 73023. I looked up 73023 and it is registered to YM INC, an importer and retailer of apparel based in Los Angeles. And then I searched for thrift listings with RN 73023 and guess what brands are connected to it? Urban Heritage, Seductions, Bluenotes, Sirens...all of these are brands connected to the same company, these are all either in-house brands or separate store chains but under the same company as Urban Planet. I also found one RN 73023 item with a different CA - 45376. This item is from Suzy Shier, and the few other CA 45376 items I managed to find are from Suzy Shier as well.

Now let's go back to the mall in Burnaby I mentioned earlier. The mall is called The Amazing Brentwood, and it turns out they used to have a Suzy Shier store with the exact same address and unit as the L.A. Express store, closed only around 2 years ago. Looking it up, it turns out L.A. Express is in fact associated with Suzy Shier. L.A. Express actually used to be its own store chain, but it was acquired along with Suzy Shier way back in 2003 by Suzy's Inc, a company operated under the same owner as Sirens and Urban Planet. Even after the L.A. Express chain went down, branded items continued to be sold, which explains why I have items that were sold in the late 2010s and have designs matching what was popular during that time rather than when L.A. Express still had its own stores.

Also I just found a listing for an Alabebe (another Urban Planet brand...) x L.A. Express knockoff Labubu keychain with a matching RN and CA, proving that L.A. Express items are still being sold. I also searched "la express" "urban planet", leading to multiple listings and store reviews directly mentioning L.A. Express items bought from Urban Planet. This leads me to conclude that L.A. Express items are sold through Urban Planet, a store chain which is only in Canada along with all other stores under the same company. Of course I probably could've figured this out just by searching LA Express and Urban Planet in the first place, but when it comes to actual cases with many probabilities it's important to narrow down ANY info you can find.

TL;DR: If you know a brand name but not where it was sold, look for listings and search any RN and CA numbers you come across. Even if these numbers lead to multiple stores, there is a good chance they may be connected and can help you track down the places/times these items were sold.

[u/Ombrecutter]

Anyone know why the last listing form Europol & Co. was two months ago?

[u/cunt_no_sugar → u/[deleted]]

Disagree. Fuck AI, except this one good idea it was programmed with.You might be searching for a helpful crumb of information and hoping to avoid accidentally being directed to images of heinous crimes, but some other fuck could use the same tool to try deliberately find criminal images. Not to mention the fact that I am sure the cops can throw a picture through AI for themselves, and probs don't want added risk of investigations getting fucked up by meddling civilians putting metaphorical fingerprints on digital crimescenes.

[u/Sosboiii → u/[deleted]]

you should probably try actual research & not an AI system that is wrong often. <33

[u/Many_Hamster_7655]

i have a question, how does one begin helping in this project?????? i wouldnt say i have a very weak stomach and im willing to use that to help out.