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TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

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Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#101

Post by Ntrails »

cmiles74 wrote: post #76
usrusr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safety is never an absolute. Imagine a world of "very-many-nines" safety, where only once in a century a person died from a violent death, planetwide: the cause of that death would be on people's minds for decades, and any measure for decreasing the chance of it ever happening again would see great support. Once we have established that safety is a relative term it becomes pretty clear that ruthless surveillance woul…

So far, I don't believe we have much, if any, concrete evidence that pervasive surveillance makes anyone safer. What little evidence exists is self-serving and sounds more like advertising then anything else. These surveillance organizations cost large amounts of money and produce nothing but large backlogs of data that no one has time to analyze. In my opinion, that only makes it more likely that this data will be m…

You'll never seen concrete evidence. Nor is it in anyone's interests to offer it. You have two choices, one at each extreme. You can assume:

- Everyone working for "agencies" do so with no regard for their stated goal and are simply interested in their own personal gain.

- They're genuinely intending to prevent incidents of "crime" and are relatively disinterested in the maintenance of your privacy.

I find the latter more likely than the former, with a mix of the two broadly probable. Given that I find it equally unlikely that they achieve literally nothing. (Frankly even if the former were the truth it seems unlikely they wouldn't prevent something at some point even by accident).

Claiming they do _nothing_ is ill founded. The more valid argument is "But at what cost?"

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#102

Post by dhimes »

avs733 wrote: post #87
dhimes wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't disagree, it's still hard to turn a blind eye to the Texas church shootings, or the Las Vegas shootings, or the NY park pickup truck slaughter. Any politician that just throws up his arms and says "it all just statistics" is likely out of a job. Privacy invasion has to be stopped by law. There is no way, currently, for a person who has public safety as a responsibility to say "no" to this kind of techno…

That is perfectly fair, but I think to a larger extent than they realize politicians drive public discourse and narrative. I'm not saying do nothing, i'm simply saying that more often than not the TSA and their methods have been shown to be utterly inept. Just because it is logistically simpler for me I bring 'contraband' on every flight I take...hundreds of flights, never even been noticed. (Most/Many) of us live in…

I'm against counting doing anything as equivalent to doing something productive.

I completely agree with you.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#103

Post by iamcasen »

sailfast wrote: post #66

Can we talk about how to hack this? Is there camera-defeating reflective make-up that I can apply before going through an airport? How does one defeat these technologies effectively so that they are no longer useful to governments?

I have only ever heard of painting actual shapes on to your face with makeup. I imagine that, whatever your technique, you will get noticed and stopped by security. Especially if the makeup obscures how your face looks compared to your photo ID.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#104

Post by JBlue42 »

Sargos wrote: post #96
sailfast wrote: post #66

Can we talk about how to hack this? Is there camera-defeating reflective make-up that I can apply before going through an airport? How does one defeat these technologies effectively so that they are no longer useful to governments?

Honestly? You can't. Even if a perfect spray did exist you wouldn't be able to get even close to half of the population to use it. It would actually be a small minority. There's actually quite a large group of people out there that support things like this. Since you could only ever get a small group to attempt this it would only draw more scrutiny onto yourself and make your life harder. It wouldn't be enough of an…

>There's actually quite a large group of people out there that support things like this.

Isn't that kind of the issue? The majority, some of whom will rarely if ever travel by airline, are fine with this crap because they somehow thinks it makes them "safer" vs terrorists.

>pat-downs

I used to opt-out up until a year ago. I felt like it was the only way I could take some small stand against the security theatre crap. They had just introduced the new 'enhanced' pat-downs - back some guy being much more firm and thorough with his touches and wiping the back of his hand across my dick 4-5 times. That sat with me (still does) and I said fuck it, the system got me, and I do the body scanner now.

Beyond the mass surveillance BS, I'd really like us to take on the state-sanctioned sexual assault that has been going on since 9/11. I've seen grannies and pre-teens patted down too. So ridiculous. Checking the private areas of citizens doesn't make this country safer.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#105

Post by TheCoelacanth »

dhimes wrote: post #75
avs733 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this statement is predicated on the violation of our right to privacy having a significant and causal impact on our safety. I am something like 100x more likely to get struck by lightning _twice_ than I am to be killed by a terrorist

While I don't disagree, it's still hard to turn a blind eye to the Texas church shootings, or the Las Vegas shootings, or the NY park pickup truck slaughter. Any politician that just throws up his arms and says "it all just statistics" is likely out of a job. Privacy invasion has to be stopped by law. There is no way, currently, for a person who has public safety as a responsibility to say "no" to this kind of techno…

> Any politician that just throws up his arms and says "it all just statistics" is likely out of a job.

They get away with that when it comes to gun control, why not with privacy too?

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#106

Post by [deleted] »

Ntrails wrote: post #101
cmiles74 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, I don't believe we have much, if any, concrete evidence that pervasive surveillance makes anyone safer. What little evidence exists is self-serving and sounds more like advertising then anything else. These surveillance organizations cost large amounts of money and produce nothing but large backlogs of data that no one has time to analyze. In my opinion, that only makes it more likely that this data will be m…

You'll never seen concrete evidence. Nor is it in anyone's interests to offer it. You have two choices, one at each extreme. You can assume: - Everyone working for "agencies" do so with no regard for their stated goal and are simply interested in their own personal gain. - They're genuinely intending to prevent incidents of "crime" and are relatively disinterested in the maintenance of your privacy. I find the latter…

[deleted]

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#107

Post by logfromblammo »

rtkwe wrote: post #98
logfromblammo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CV Dazzle did a good job of making a face look like a not-face a few years ago, but I'm not sure how well it would work today. I don't think there's any kind of make-up that would be visible to a camera, but not obvious to the naked eye, and still be able to defeat face recognition. My plan would be to create a new religion in the United States that makes the wearing of face masks and veils in public an essential ten…

This it [0]? Googled "short story masks reputation economy musical instrument", it's pretty good at finding seemingly super obscure, usually through someone else describing it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12632596-the-moon-moth

Yes, that's the one! But it was just text, not a graphic novel. It must have been in my Jack Vance e-book.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#109

Post by Tech-Noir »

mseebach wrote: post #42
zkms wrote: post #3

They already have this at Gatwick, there's security gates/turnstiles where the system doesn't let you pass until it's scanned your face and associated it with your boarding pass, and IIRC they scanned faces again right before boarding. There's also cameras scattered throughout the airport which have spinning/swirly LED rings around the lens (which look like this: https://www.hrsid.com/assets/images/art/proven-passeng…

I get the dystopian flavour of surveillance in general society -- but I don't really get why it's specifically dystopian that you are recorded by a camera while you stand in line to hand over your government issued photo ID to a government agent with pretty broad discretion to make your day pretty awful. I'm pretty sure those cameras at Gatwick are supposed to track how long the waiting time is, not to "surveil" you…

A few years ago I experienced something similar at Heathrow. According to Heathrow's website[1] it's because:

    airports that operate common departure lounges[2] must comply with
    UK Border Force conditions that are necessary to prevent any 
    circumvention of UK immigration controls. 

    This includes a requirement to capture a facial biometric for each 
    domestic passenger on entry and exit of a departure lounge in order
    to verify their identity.
[1] http://www.heathrow.com/departures/security-and-baggage/flyi...

[2] AIUI what they mean by "common departure lounge" is a lounge accessible to international and domestic passengers without having to pass fully through to arrivals and re-checking in on another flight, but I could be wrong.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#110

Post by mbroncano »

sho wrote: post #4

> (Every government on earth) plans to use face recognition to track (everyone) through airports Fixed it for you. I know for a fact at least 2 asian countries which are either actively using or trialling this, and not just at airports. Both already have fairly comprehensive facial recognition DBs of their citizens (smile for your driver's license picture!) I've also heard anecdotal accounts of people who stay too lo…

Ok, so it's fine 'cause everybody else is doing so. A perfectly mature statement, furthermore supported by anecdotal evidence.

Why on earth every single time the US government does something that is, err regretful, there's always a bunch of white nights ready to point out something of the sort 'but all the other kids do it'? Sounds like a recipe for societal disaster indeed.

What we should we at the very least considering is whether this is what we want as a society. Who knows, maybe we do - but not because somebody somewhere is/would/might do the same.

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