Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects • Hacker News Board

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#41

Post by anthonyleecook » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 4:57 AM UTC

danschumann wrote: post #27

jorblumesea wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize this is China, the same government that literally ground their citizens to a paste with tanks? Idk why everyone is talking about this in such impartial terms, this is a totalitarian state that has no concept of civil liberties. The idea that this is going to be used just for mere criminals is a pipe dream. Unless you classify criminals as those who disagree with the CPC. This is going to be used to repres…

"The same government that..." -- Hmm, I think government is comprised of people, and the people that did that have likely aged out. This government is like the son or daughter of that government. And this government has realized many free market principles (and certainly many other lessons). It's not the same, nor totally different. Either way, I have to talk about it impartially, as if I were contemplating its use i…

There are quite a few ways this government is similar....cases in point =>

China 'holding at least 120,000 Uighurs in re-education camps' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/at-least-12000...

Authoritarian regimes shroud their darkest features in euphemism. So it is with China’s “residential surveillance at a designated location.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/opinion/in-china-the-brut...

Huang Shike was arrested in 2016 in Xinjiang province, three months after he formed a discussion group about Muslim worship on the messaging app WeChat, according to the official website China Judgments Online https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-jails-muslim-huang-shike-...

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#42

Post by drvdevd » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:06 AM UTC

IMO the most dystopian part of this technology will be, as usual, the failure modes.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#43

Post by dang » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:09 AM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #29

danschumann wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The same government that..." -- Hmm, I think government is comprised of people, and the people that did that have likely aged out. This government is like the son or daughter of that government. And this government has realized many free market principles (and certainly many other lessons). It's not the same, nor totally different. Either way, I have to talk about it impartially, as if I were contemplating its use i…

China is a totalitarian state with lip service to the free market. No one believes China has any of the freedoms it espouses. It's about as "free market" as a ponzi scheme with zero transparency into its markets, debt, companies, etc. Generation means nothing because they select for true believers. The same people crushing people with tanks got promotions and are now running the government. Like...you're so far off f…

Would you please not use HN for nationalistic/political battle? You've posted a bunch of such comments to this thread, it's not what this site is for, and it destroys the intellectual curiosity that it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#44

Post by taherchhabra » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

I feel, once criminals realize this facial recognition thing, they will start using facemasks or some other new techniques

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#45

Post by T_D_K » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:17 AM UTC

danschumann wrote: post #22

I think we romanticize "being on the lamb". For the 99.999% of the time, if someone is a "wanted man", it's much better for society if he is apprehended. I don't see this as a threat. If, however, every innocent person were tracked, and crimes were generated based on observations ( like souped up red-light cameras for every imaginable crime ), and charges were created automatically ( and algorithmically ), that would…

From the article: "The app brings up the (scanned person's) vital information, including name, ethnicity, gender and address (..), the address of the hotel where they are staying and information related to their internet usage."

So, yes, every person is tracked.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#46

Post by Bucephalus355 » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:20 AM UTC

All these reports have the feelings of small rumblings or rumors of purges and famines that leaked out of the Soviet Union in the 30’s. The dismissal of all of them due to China’s size and growth really strengthens the analogy too.

Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I mean the definition for loitering is so broad that alone gets most people.

The ad-tech companies of the world think they are criticized now, but they have no idea the judgment history will render for some of the attitudes and practices that have been promoted regarding data and privacy. Some of this stuff is as naive as Charles Lindbergh helping the Luftwaffe because he believed airplanes would connect all the peoples of the world and promote global peace. What is it with “connecting people” and really terrible ideas?

All totalitarian governments, not being very innovative, have thrived off of inventions that have been developed elsewhere and have been bearable, and then mutated into unrecognizable monsters under them.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#47

Post by azinman2 » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:22 AM UTC

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #19

ziikutv wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally do not believe the tech is as `high-tech` they say as it is. Its not easy to get someone's bio information just from a small camera. Edit: Think some of this might be BS fluff stuff. More importantly, I do not think it would help to catch people that much other than further police's assumptions as to who is a criminal (if all they have is name, gender, address, ethnicity). Even putting that concern to th…

FaceID samples are generated from a very small camera. It’s trivial to train a CNN image classifier that can identify an individual, even when they are wearing a hat, grew facial hair, have a scar, etc

And now have that work without depth data, increase the population size from one person to 1+ billion, apply to moving video, aim for high precision and high recall, keep it battery friendly as you distribute to all police, somehow get the classifier of 1B unique people onto all these embedded devices, keep it up to date as people age, etc....

Hardly trivial.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#48

Post by jorblumesea » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:24 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #43

jorblumesea wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a totalitarian state with lip service to the free market. No one believes China has any of the freedoms it espouses. It's about as "free market" as a ponzi scheme with zero transparency into its markets, debt, companies, etc. Generation means nothing because they select for true believers. The same people crushing people with tanks got promotions and are now running the government. Like...you're so far off f…

Would you please not use HN for nationalistic/political battle? You've posted a bunch of such comments to this thread, it's not what this site is for, and it destroys the intellectual curiosity that it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So, stating the truth == "destroys the intellectual curiosity"

Sorry for intruding reality onto your discussion? If you don't want to have a real discussion why are you here? How is Chinese abuses not on topic for this discussion?

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#49

Post by meri_dian » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:27 AM UTC

Good, technology like this is good. Worrying about potential misuse of this technology is misplaced worry. Our concern is better placed on forming governments that will use this technology for the common good (whatever that is determined to be) than on the availability of the technology itself.

It's not about the technology.

It's about the will of the government.

Think about all the horrendous evils rendered upon the citizenry of early nations and empires in the distant past. No advanced technology there. Just a twisted view of right and wrong.

What this tells us is that regardless of what technology is available, a good government will do good, and an evil government will do evil. That really goes for any entity. You name it.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#50

Post by meri_dian » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 5:32 AM UTC

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #46

All these reports have the feelings of small rumblings or rumors of purges and famines that leaked out of the Soviet Union in the 30’s. The dismissal of all of them due to China’s size and growth really strengthens the analogy too. Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I mean the definition for loitering is so broad that alone gets most people. The ad-t…

You yourself are admitting that terrible evil can be done by governments without any of the advanced technology that some fret over.

It's not about the technology.

It's about the will of the government.

Think about all the horrendous evils rendered upon the citizenry of early nations and empires in the distant past. No advanced technology there. Just a twisted view of right and wrong.

What this tells us is that regardless of what technology is available, a good government will do good, and an evil government will do evil. That really goes for any entity. You name it.