Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#81

Post by jasonkostempski » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 10:59 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #58

angry_octet wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the page. Yes, it isn't obvious is it? Look down the bottom. https://ocr.space/ It uploads everything to a commercial OCR service. Which provides these CPU cycles 'for free'. Who owns this data? Do you have a privacy agreement with ocr.space? Can you trust them as far as you could spit? It doesn't matter that this is documented though. Unless it had a popup banner EVERY TIME YOU USED IT saying "Your data will be…

I think you are going a bit too far with your requirement for a popup banner every time you use it. Do you expect a popup banner every time you click a link on a web page taking you to a third party website, because they are going to be able to run javascript code on your computer? As long as the plugin is clear that they are using a third party service that will recieve your images, I think it is fine to leave it at…

A link shouldnt get a pop up but, if running JavaScript had required at least a one-time user approval for each individual script link from the day off it's inception, the web would be a much friendlier place.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#82

Post by ignoramceisblis » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 2:47 PM UTC

jolmg wrote: post #71

JoblessWonder wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you end up going with a .space domain? We blocked that whole TLD because we were getting massive amounts of spam from it when it first came out.

Oh dear. My main domain and email are in the .space TLD. I hope your practice is not widespread. Personally, I chose .space simply because it's cool, cheap, and not overcrowded. It also seems to lend itself well to being part of a name. I know spam is a hard problem, but I wish you wouldn't label me a spammer simply because of the TLD I chose.

The author's full comment:

> Why did you end up going with a .space domain? We blocked that whole TLD because we were getting massive amounts of spam from it when it first came out.

From your comment:

> I know spam is a hard problem, but I wish you wouldn't label me a spammer simply because of the TLD I chose.

The author is not "labeling you a spammer". They're simply stating a fact about their experience. And in fact, it doesn't even mention you.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#83

Post by kronos29296 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

ocrcustomserver wrote: post #77

kebman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a deal breaker because THAT'S NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS, and that also goes for Copyfish. It smells fishy to me, and _promises_ never kept prying eyes away secret documents. People who handle confidential documents should never use SaaS. It's an issue of trust, and Copyfish deserves none.

If you need a private OCR server that you can host yourself (locally or on the cloud), shoot me an email.

Did you create this account just to answer this question? I am curious.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#84

Post by drez » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

kronos29296 wrote: post #83

ocrcustomserver wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need a private OCR server that you can host yourself (locally or on the cloud), shoot me an email.

Did you create this account just to answer this question? I am curious.

They sure did. I also have a sneaking suspicion that it's a9t9, the owner of copyfish and ocr.space.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#85

Post by jolmg » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

ignoramceisblis wrote: post #82

jolmg wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh dear. My main domain and email are in the .space TLD. I hope your practice is not widespread. Personally, I chose .space simply because it's cool, cheap, and not overcrowded. It also seems to lend itself well to being part of a name. I know spam is a hard problem, but I wish you wouldn't label me a spammer simply because of the TLD I chose.

The author's full comment: > Why did you end up going with a .space domain? We blocked that whole TLD because we were getting massive amounts of spam from it when it first came out. From your comment: > I know spam is a hard problem, but I wish you wouldn't label me a spammer simply because of the TLD I chose. The author is not "labeling you a spammer". They're simply stating a fact about their experience. And in fac…

I'm not taking offence nor am I taking it personally. I was hoping my tone was clear on that (i.e. "I know [you have reason], but ..." and "I wish ...", which is just an expression of hope). Sorry, if it came off as aggressive.

I only tried to hightlight that they have, in effect, labeled everyone in .space (not just me, but me included) as a spammer.

It's heavy handed, but I understand there are sometimes pressing needs for quick solutions, like when having your mailboxes flooded with SPAM. Hence, the "I know ..." clause.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#86

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #60

mnem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, however the description of the plugin should make it clear data will be uploaded to a third party server for recognition so the user can make a choice about that.

It more or less does. `For developers: Copyfish is published under the GPL open-source license. As OCR software, it uses the free OCR API from https://ocr.space/ .`

I don't find that clear at all. And this is also important to non-developers.

Also, for nearly all documents I ever need to scan, if they're important enough to require scanning, they're important enough that a third party should have nothing to do with them.

The majority of exceptions to the above being, ironically, documents without text, sketches, doodles, etc.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#87

Post by ocrcustomserver » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

kronos29296 wrote: post #83

ocrcustomserver wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need a private OCR server that you can host yourself (locally or on the cloud), shoot me an email.

Did you create this account just to answer this question? I am curious.

Yes. Does it sound like shameless promotion to you? Maybe it is, but some people might have a need for this (and it's relevant to the topic/comment).

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#88

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 10:35 PM UTC

jasonkostempski wrote: post #81

cortesoft wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are going a bit too far with your requirement for a popup banner every time you use it. Do you expect a popup banner every time you click a link on a web page taking you to a third party website, because they are going to be able to run javascript code on your computer? As long as the plugin is clear that they are using a third party service that will recieve your images, I think it is fine to leave it at…

A link shouldnt get a pop up but, if running JavaScript had required at least a one-time user approval for each individual script link from the day off it's inception, the web would be a much friendlier place.

Do you really think so? I think in practice, if every website you visited made you click 10-50 pop ups the first time you went to the site, people would start to blindly click without reading, and it would be even easier to slip a malicious pop up request by a user.

While you might want to believe that a user would actually think about what they are accepting, reality is almost all don't. Even the more security minded people among us will start to get numb to the requests. Only the most paranoid would pay attention to all of them, and those people are probably already doing things that would make that sort of pop up redundant.

I think this is a very common trap we fall into, where we want to provide MORE warnings to people and let them use their judgement. However, there is such a thing as 'alert fatigue'.

In California, companies that produce carcinogens took advantage of this aspect of human nature; when California wanted to place warning signs about cancer causing substances, they realized they couldn't win the fight against the warnings. Instead, they fought for MORE warnings; they wanted warning signs for even very slight risk carcinogens. They knew that if the signs were EVERYWHERE, people would stop paying attention to them.

It worked. Basically every building in California has a warning that 'substances known to cause cancer or birth defects are present'. Since every building has the same warning, I have no way of knowing which ones are ACTUALLY dangerous.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#89

Post by jasonkostempski » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 3:02 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #88

jasonkostempski wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A link shouldnt get a pop up but, if running JavaScript had required at least a one-time user approval for each individual script link from the day off it's inception, the web would be a much friendlier place.

Do you really think so? I think in practice, if every website you visited made you click 10-50 pop ups the first time you went to the site, people would start to blindly click without reading, and it would be even easier to slip a malicious pop up request by a user. While you might want to believe that a user would actually think about what they are accepting, reality is almost all don't. Even the more security minde…

No, I don't expect most users would care. Most users wouldn't care if sites could execute native code as root on their machine. I think, if there was a prompt, content providers that cared, even a little bit, about presentation would think real hard before introduction that prompt. The way it works now, providers very rarely think twice about adding it. And I think ad networks, trackers and all the other useless, JS based, user hostile tools of the web, would have a much harder time convincing site owners to drop in a snippet of JS when there were actual consequences for doing so.

However, I don't believe for a second, without some kind of law, punishable by death, a requirement like that would have lasted. It would take only one browser to default "Never prompt for permissions to run JavaScript". Typical users would flock to it (because sites would say they only work with it) and compliant browsers would have to copy to compete. Users ruin everything.

Re: Show HN: Copyfish – Extract text from images, videos or PDF

#90

Post by RhodesianHunter » Fri, Jun 23, 2017, 12:10 AM UTC

asenna wrote: post #63

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #27

Semi related: I would love to see someone do a comparison of the various OCR APIs on speed, accuracy, and cost.

Same here. Was just researching on this. Not sure if I should go with an open source OCR engine or one of these APIs

Doing it yourself with Tesseract is pretty hard (time consuming, error prone). It's something I would only consider doing once my project was build, viable, and the costs of an API were an issue.