Another corollary of this is that if you take a good image of someone else, you can build a model of it (sometimes automatically), and you can map it on to your face and appear as them digitally. I've built tools like this that even let you do it live in the browser using this library https://github.com/auduno/clmtrackr/
Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
41–50 of 135 posts
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#42The artist (or the article) suggests that the pictures he took on the metro are the 'real' person, whereas the pictures on the social site are the 'ideal' person. I'm not so sure. I think its very possible that the person in the social network photographs is actually far closer to the person they really are than the photo of them riding alone on the subway.
I thought exactly the same - and the photos chosen for the article don't really back up the point either. The pairs look like the same "person" to me, not one real and one fake. Anyway I don't know anybody who busts out their truest expression of self to ride the subway.
> The pairs look like the same "person" to me, not one real and one fake.
I seem to be alone in this, but... they don't even look like the same person to me. Do we have any confirmation that the pairs show the same person? About 10 million Russian men look like the guys in the second pair of photos.
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that there are public images with your face in them and name connected to them, that can be searched by a neural net... Yes.
No need for the images to be public. A police state could match images taken by street CCTV to e.g. the drivers license database and track the citizenry in real time. You could easily reduce the search space to match a face taken by a CCTV camera by using cell phone location data to limit it to people in the general area...
A police state has always been able to do this. Of course it gets easier by automatic face recognition and the possibility of sharing databases over long distances etc.
The difference from before I guess, is that it's less in your face, and can thereby happen without people noticing as easily.
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#44I don't see why this can't be done in real time. Point your phone towards a person in a cafe and immediately figure out her name, age, maybe relationship status, social class, augmented reality style. 5 minutes later accidentally bump into her .. and start a conversation, armed with lots of private info about the person. Or even more basic - thieves picking their targets - is this woman's purse likely to contain a lo…
Take a look at this video by Jack Vale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqeOnfQmZPY
He stalks people on social websites and then strikes conversations with them.
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long before anti-facial recognition makeup, hair, and accessories becomes fashionable? https://cvdazzle.com
That doesn't seem like it would work at all. The makeup and hair styles suggested would make you stand out even more! Sure, 1990s-style facial recognition won't work as reliably, but surely today's systems would flag you right away!
I haven't tested it myself but according to CVdazzle it works. So the next question is how long before facial recognition technology overcomes efforts to confound it. Or how long until legislators get involved.
Yes the looks are ridiculous, but most fashion starts out that way. People often look for ways to stand out and being "retro" could enhance the cool factor.
What does someone care if a mugger's facial recognition software "flags" them? And who exactly is being flagged? And if a security surveillance system flags you what is the consequence? Who does that consequence apply to?
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Provide images to the public" isn't what people do; they provide images to a limited audience, either unwillingly (you can't walk around outside without creating some kind of image, it is not a willed action) or with people they know or expect to know them (online). It's technology which has converted this limited audience to a universal concept of "public".
In many cases it is a willed action though. The images in this article are quite probably uploaded by the people themselves. I don't know exactly how privacy settings work on VKontakte, but from what I've seen most images seem publically searchable. Now tell me how uploading things to such a database is not a willed action. I agree with you that there is the possibility of someone else taking such images of you and e…
People don't "upload things to a database", though, that's the point. They don't go to their photo app and think, "self, I'm going to upload this image to a global searchable database now". Rather, they think: "Steve and Mary would have liked this restaurant dish", or "I'm going to try and make my friends jealous of the great holiday I'm having".
Because people don't own their own clouds, or have privatized social networks, they are forced to upload things into databases that others control. Who controls the privacy defaults typically have the most control over where the data flows thereafter. And it's all out of the user's hands; they weren't given a choice, not a real one, because the incentives for the system lead you to accept the lack of control, or spend your life neurotically trying to keep a lid on everything, or live as a technological recluse. There's no other way to live today.
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion you still can. What makes this possible? You need a database linking images to names, as well as the face-recognition data. People are freely giving away the images for the database linking it all to further personal data. If they did not do this, creating such a database would still be a massive surveillance effort, albeit probably still possible if someone really wanted to do it and had the sufficient…
Various businesses have a "take pictures of customers" policy. Medical offices are one example, due to insurance fraud they say. They typically don't ask. They simply tell the customer that they are about to take a picture and it is over before they know it. When I spot such a camera I stand to the side so they have to ask me to move in front of the camera. Which is when I politely refuse to participate. They don't l…
> "take pictures of customers" policy.
Even gym memberships require this in some places. Soon one would need to provide facial 3D scan just to buy groceries.
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#48I don't see why this can't be done in real time. Point your phone towards a person in a cafe and immediately figure out her name, age, maybe relationship status, social class, augmented reality style. 5 minutes later accidentally bump into her .. and start a conversation, armed with lots of private info about the person. Or even more basic - thieves picking their targets - is this woman's purse likely to contain a lo…
How long before anti-facial recognition makeup, hair, and accessories becomes fashionable? https://cvdazzle.com
Holy moly, that's a very curious side effect of technology on culture.
Crazy cyberpunk look necessary to avoid computerized detection.
I can see this being the norm or strictly banned in the future.
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#49This is one of the cool features people have discussed for the past 20 years for wearable computers. I was hoping it would come to fruition with Google glass until Google got all weird about facial recognition on glass (and subsequently glass as a whole). On one side it is creepy, on the other it would be nice to have your digital assistant suitably remind you the name of the person who is walking towards you and rec…
I personally would be pretty disgusted if someone used it on me. If someone doesn't remember my name or their last interaction with me, maybe it's for the best. The last thing I need is people faking nice and friendly after they just scanned me without my consent.
But this could be useful for someone with Alzheimers, or maybe a teacher that needs to remember his pupils.
Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos
#50I keep trying to figure out why this feels so wrong and creepy. You're in public, you can't avoid some random person from taking your picture. You have a public profile, you post pictures of yourself there, in public. But some how this feels... wrong, why is that? Something about the surprise of it? It feels like a surprise, it feels like something that shouldn't be so easy.
I think it feels wrong because for all of human history a person could take for granted a degree of anonymity while among strangers, and more and more that seems to be no longer the case. Forever, if someone recognized you, chances are you recognized them. People were either within some extended social circle or they were not, and this social circle was face-to-face. Now, we have something of an arms race going on wi…
What if this is actually hypersocial instead?
Given enough information, everyone could approach cold reader's peak performance at a glance with additional biography. Sort of creepy - mostly because you can use such information to manipulate people.
But like any knowledge it can be used to break ice, strike interesting conversations and broaden one's circle of acquaintances. Or it could be used to build new tribalism.
The most problematic part is being able to cut loose and erase the past. This used to be much easier in the past - you just moved far enough and most everybody didn't know what you did.