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Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

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Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#101

Post by TeMPOraL »

bigiain wrote: post #72
sp332 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder... Sometimes I suspect my early morning public transport "if you don't turn that stupid ringtone down I'm gonna stab you in the face" self is closer to my "truest expression" than my "look at me having fun being the life of this party" social media fake-self...

OTOH my tram "oh I'm so sleepy I'm afraid I'll miss my stop" face is further from my "true self" than the Facebook photos of me making stupid shit with duct tape or standing in front of a radio telescope dish, or showing off a Lisp book.

So I think it cuts both ways.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

possibility wrote: post #100
TeMPOraL wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I keep trying to figure out why this feels so wrong and creepy. And I'm trying to figure out why this apparently feels so wrong and creepy to so many commenters here. I don't feel any of that. As far as I'm concerned, it feels... totally normal. Maybe I'm wired wrong or something, but I really don't see anything weird or creepy about learning from publicly available datasets (AKA observing your surroundings?). Nor…

I think that posting the pictures online like that is actually what's creepy. The matching almost has nothing to do with it. For instance, if he just had the subway photos, or he just had the profile pictures, it would give me a creepy feeling. It feels like an invasion of privacy. Here we even have laws that say you cannot publish someone's picture without their consent. Russia does too. https://commons.wikimedia.or…

Ah yes, I agree. Posting someone's photo without permission feels totally wrong to me too.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#103

Post by egjerlow »

imaginenore wrote: post #75

I don't believe these claims. These photos are matched too well, and I suspect he did it manually. Some of the train photos are so bad, there's no way they got automatically recognized. Not to mention the resources you would need just to get the data on 280 million users, let alone train a neural net on it, and make it work with a 70% success rate. I think it's a viral way to get app installs. The app reviews are rea…

I agree that this seems very far-fetched. From what I know about facial recognition (admittedly very little) for an algorithm to be able to recognize these profiles in such different conditions as displayed in the article seems very unlikely.

Incidentally, is there anyone who could ELI5 how picture data like this is treated in order to run these algorithms on it?

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#104

Post by TeMPOraL »

type0 wrote: post #49
yolesaber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or normal people who, like me, can't connect names to faces without at least several interactions with a person in a short interval of time.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#105

Post by TeMPOraL »

prohor wrote: post #7

So, you can no longer assume being anonymous when walking down the street. If your random photo is matched with your profile, you can be basically fully identified anywhere. With all those cameras everywhere, you could be fully tracked.

You could never assume that. The only thing that gives you anonymity on a public street is the fact that you're not interesting. Since most people walk mostly the same paths all the time, it's pretty much guaranteed that if you suddenly started to do something weird, at least some people on the street would recognize you and could - in principle - figure out who you are.

Also consider that your local grocery store clerk probably knows your eating and drinking habits better than you know them yourself.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#106

Post by akerro »

amelius wrote: post #52
foltz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long before anti-facial recognition makeup, hair, and accessories becomes fashionable? https://cvdazzle.com

Or how long before everybody starts wearing burqas? Islamic women are ahead of their time :)

or before burqas become illegal like in some Europeans countries where men were wearing burqas to slither into woman only areas.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#107

Post by akerro »

blakesterz wrote: post #3

I 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.

Because you don't want this: https://www.aclu.org/ordering-pizza

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#108

Post by djhn »

AlexC04 wrote: post #39

The first thing that struck me (After I got over the whole, creepy/horror/revulsion thing) was how much more fun people seemed in their social media lives. Rather than seeing this as an exposition of "people on social media are so much more bland than they appear" I found myself feeling "people on the subway are so much more beautiful and interesting in their 'real life'" I feel like that might be backwards from how…

Don't ignore the advantage of having been taken by a professional photographer, who maybe even specializes in portraits of people, with a high-quality lens attached to a high-quality body.

Re: Russian photographer matches random people with social network photos

#109

Post by xerophyte12932 »

AlexC04 wrote: post #39

The first thing that struck me (After I got over the whole, creepy/horror/revulsion thing) was how much more fun people seemed in their social media lives. Rather than seeing this as an exposition of "people on social media are so much more bland than they appear" I found myself feeling "people on the subway are so much more beautiful and interesting in their 'real life'" I feel like that might be backwards from how…

You are right, I saw this as that as well. Someone who looks bland may actually have a very fun and colorful life. That's an important lesson here.
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