Names are linked to allegations and photos, which are posted online. Anyone who has something to add can post a comment, much like users do on Wikipedia. What had been a dark world of prisons and abuse is slowly surfacing, even though state security made a practice of blindfolding prisoners while in custody so that they couldn’t see what was happening…

The activists got a lucky break in March when they unearthed a trove of photographs inside state security headquarters that amount to a secret policemen’s yearbook: records of officers at work and play. In some, security officials smile arm in arm at weddings and parties. In others, they glower at the camera while at work.

The photos are being posted online, one by one, alongside allegations about what the officers did during the Mubarak years. The charges include cutting off Internet service across the country during the protests earlier this year, tapping phones, beating and electrocuting people while they were in prison.