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Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

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

#141

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

arkh wrote: post #112
drawkbox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I think that is the big issue we will see and have seen recently. Surveillance tools are better than ever in history. Many times, laws were created as deterrents to some behavior, that maybe shouldn't be laws, because it wasn't easy to nab everyone doing it. Back then cops, judges and more weren't as locked into f…

Most vague laws have been created to be enforced on some specific population. Now that they could be automatically used against anyone the ruling population which was not supposed to be affected is starting to question those laws. It is OK when mostly blacks, youngsters and poor people get jailed for jaywalking; not so much when upper middle class people are. That's what a cynical person like me can take from your ar…

I don't think that's a road we really want to go down. Laws exist to solve problems, not persecute minority groups.

I have heard white supremacists use this logic to say that DUI laws unfairly target white people, because in major cities maybe white people have cars and the minority populations use public transportation. You could also use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people.

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

#142

Post by CptFribble »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #127
deadbunny wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like 0.01% decide to lock up 100% of their political opponents supporters. The War on Drugs was started by Nixon to target hippies and blacks, those who supported his opponents. I can imagine a War on X being brewed up by either side to do the same if they have the means to automatically enforce it.

Having recently read a lot more literature about the big picture social issues in the US from the 30 through the 70s the late '60s and early '70s was a time of stupid groups reacting to other stupid groups with tragic consequences. The militant leftists and their bombs, the hippies and their antiwar stuff, the racists, the FBI/government and it's BS, the black power groups and their violence, they all were reacting t…

No, the War on drugs was specifically racially and politically motivated to help Nixon and his party. I don't have it at the moment, but there are tapes of Nixon and one if his advisors talking about this openly.

The guy who ran the beta version of the DEA at the time specifically used "marijuana" instead of the more common "cannabis," because he hated Mexicans and wanted to make people associate pot with an unpopular minority.

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

#143

Post by verall »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #141
arkh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most vague laws have been created to be enforced on some specific population. Now that they could be automatically used against anyone the ruling population which was not supposed to be affected is starting to question those laws. It is OK when mostly blacks, youngsters and poor people get jailed for jaywalking; not so much when upper middle class people are. That's what a cynical person like me can take from your ar…

I don't think that's a road we really want to go down. Laws exist to solve problems, not persecute minority groups. I have heard white supremacists use this logic to say that DUI laws unfairly target white people, because in major cities maybe white people have cars and the minority populations use public transportation. You could also use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people.

Not really true. Many laws still on the books in southern states were created _explicitly_ to persecute minority groups.

You couldn't use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people because there isn't evidence that enforcement of insider trading is uneven, whereas there is evidence that enforcement (and sentencing) for loitering, jaywalking, and drug laws are biased against minority groups

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

#144

Post by arkh »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #141
arkh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most vague laws have been created to be enforced on some specific population. Now that they could be automatically used against anyone the ruling population which was not supposed to be affected is starting to question those laws. It is OK when mostly blacks, youngsters and poor people get jailed for jaywalking; not so much when upper middle class people are. That's what a cynical person like me can take from your ar…

I don't think that's a road we really want to go down. Laws exist to solve problems, not persecute minority groups. I have heard white supremacists use this logic to say that DUI laws unfairly target white people, because in major cities maybe white people have cars and the minority populations use public transportation. You could also use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people.

And you have the opposite thing with the war on drugs: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...

> "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

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

#145

Post by fenwick67 »

CptFribble wrote: post #142
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having recently read a lot more literature about the big picture social issues in the US from the 30 through the 70s the late '60s and early '70s was a time of stupid groups reacting to other stupid groups with tragic consequences. The militant leftists and their bombs, the hippies and their antiwar stuff, the racists, the FBI/government and it's BS, the black power groups and their violence, they all were reacting t…

No, the War on drugs was specifically racially and politically motivated to help Nixon and his party. I don't have it at the moment, but there are tapes of Nixon and one if his advisors talking about this openly. The guy who ran the beta version of the DEA at the time specifically used "marijuana" instead of the more common "cannabis," because he hated Mexicans and wanted to make people associate pot with an unpopula…

One reference is upthread:

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...

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

#146

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

verall wrote: post #143
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a road we really want to go down. Laws exist to solve problems, not persecute minority groups. I have heard white supremacists use this logic to say that DUI laws unfairly target white people, because in major cities maybe white people have cars and the minority populations use public transportation. You could also use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people.

Not really true. Many laws still on the books in southern states were created _explicitly_ to persecute minority groups. You couldn't use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people because there isn't evidence that enforcement of insider trading is uneven, whereas there is evidence that enforcement (and sentencing) for loitering, jaywalking, and drug laws are biased against minority groups

That's a good point. I should have been more clear. When i said "that's a road you don't want to go down", I don't mean to say no laws have been created that don't have racial bias. That's definitely a problem, especially in the South.

But I have a problem with arkh's assertion that... >> Most vague laws have been created to be enforced on some specific population.

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

#147

Post by braythwayt »

gamblor956 wrote: post #134
braythwayt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we had arrested everyone that used cannabis half the > country at least would have a record. That idea seems deeply troubling if you're a White American. Meanwhile, this is the daily reality of Black Americans, because the police have been systematically enforcing these laws against people of colour. Now we face a world where that same disproportionate enforcement may be applied to Democrats, or the young (who d…

Blacks and Latinos are already overwhelming Democrats... And the overzealous law enforcement is usually at the hands of Republicans. Not sure why you feel the need to throw political affiliation into the conversation.

Consider a hypothetical police officer who is against "leftists" (the police officer's definition is all that matters, not ours).

Right now, said police officer can and does enforce laws disproportionally against Black Americans because to the police officer, they're all leftists.

But if we give the police officer access to all sorts of profiling information about humans, when making a traffic stop, the police officer can be extra-zealous about performing a search if the person is profiled as being a "leftist."

The point is, prosecuting people for their political views has existed for some time, but it didn't scale well. Now it will scale extremely well, up to the point of wearing glasses and tagging people with certain social profiles in real time.

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

#148

Post by dalbasal »

chr1 wrote: post #138
rtpg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a strong idea, but what if we just outright say that face recognition is unethical? I have a hard time finding any use that is positive for society. Advertising and surveillance. Given that, what if we try to convince as many people as possible to not research this tech, nor work for any company working on this. You wouldn't work for a weapons manufacturer, maybe the same metrics need to be applied to adtech…

You can't make people forget technologies you don't like selectively. The more we advance in adjacent technologies (like in autonomous driving) the easier it will become to advance in face recognition, to the point where just a tiny group of people can develop it. Fighting technology with artificial bans have never worked, and privacy or ethics based arguments won't work now either. The only hope is better technology…

Well... the ban on using nuclear weapons has worked so far. The ban (to the extent it exists) on using unwarranted digital data dragnets in civilian policing has at least limited its use some.

Not that I disagree with the larger points, it's an uphill fight.

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

#149

Post by dsfyu404ed »

RepressedEmu wrote: post #132
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what comes up when the police run a plate. The only difference is facial recognition vs numbers and letters. Querying for more invasive information such as medical history, sexual orientation, online accounts, "undesirable people" they are acquainted with) is a simple as a DB connection string and a select statement.

Except that not everyone has a license plate but everyone has a face. So its a much bigger intrusion.

License plates are much more unique than faces and they do not change over time and you can't put a hat and sunglasses on them. What they lose in quantity they make up in quality. They are a much bigger intrusion but for a large majority of the population instead of literally everyone. The difference isn't very meaningful from a surveillance POV since you can build shadow profiles.

Two can play at the "I don't care about your problems because they don't affect me" game.

Some people live in rural areas with little to no government infrastructure that can be used for dragnet surveillance. They don't have to care about the government tracking faces with the subway security cameras.

That's a dumb game to play. Dragnet surveillance is bad in all forms.

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

#150

Post by rtpg »

chr1 wrote: post #138
rtpg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a strong idea, but what if we just outright say that face recognition is unethical? I have a hard time finding any use that is positive for society. Advertising and surveillance. Given that, what if we try to convince as many people as possible to not research this tech, nor work for any company working on this. You wouldn't work for a weapons manufacturer, maybe the same metrics need to be applied to adtech…

You can't make people forget technologies you don't like selectively. The more we advance in adjacent technologies (like in autonomous driving) the easier it will become to advance in face recognition, to the point where just a tiny group of people can develop it. Fighting technology with artificial bans have never worked, and privacy or ethics based arguments won't work now either. The only hope is better technology…

It's not about artificial bans. It's about having a social compact so that only the most incompetent/"unethical" end up working in it.

Even when the tech is known, if you aren't good at software development then the projects will have difficulty.

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