Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#231

Post by steveeq1 » Wed, May 23, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

zaksoup wrote: post #122

fixermark wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable people can disagree on the definition of "unreasonable," however. Is it "unreasonable" for the Amber Alert system to co-opt the eyes and attention of ten thousand citizens around a kidnapped child? Hard to say. Most people seem to think 'no.' If that system could co-opt camera feeds instead of human attention, we could get most (all?) of the benefits of the existing Amber Alert without having to burn civil…

This is such a fascinating and interesting question. I highly recommend reading the book 'Automating Inequality'[0] if you haven't already. My initial reaction to this question was 'I certainly would prefer groups of humans making collective decisions over an opaque, proprietary, algorithm'. But then I also think back to the latest internet firestorm of the woman calling the police on black barbecuers over charcoal (…

Wait, I don't get it. Someone was using charcoal as opposed to, say, wood? So what? Is that a fire hazard or something?

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#232

Post by all_blue_chucks » Wed, May 23, 2018, 12:56 AM UTC

wooter wrote: post #220

all_blue_chucks wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has no access to that data without due process mediated by a judge. That is not the same as continuous surveillance.

Snowden proved this was false.

They still need warrants to get information on specific people.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#233

Post by gitgacutils » Wed, May 23, 2018, 1:29 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #12

Why? The surveillance is there. I used this with some personal video surveillance to identify some thieves who were casing driveways to find cars to get into. Instead of wasting hours looking at footage, I was able to give the police excerpts that helped them identify the perp. Also, because of the circumstances and footage, they were able to charge him with a more serious crime than petit larceny, which means he won…

Monitoring heavy trafficked interstate corridors is one thing. This is entirely a different. Amazon/tech is at a point where we could get blanket surveillance on most streets, in our homes, in our offices, etc. It's the difference between monitoring areas/locations and monitoring people ( us ).

But I agree that the pandora's box has been opened and there is no going back.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#234

Post by p0rkbelly » Wed, May 23, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

sadamznintern wrote: post #172

amzn-throw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> backed by a team surely comprised of at least hundreds of top Amazon engineers, was so slow and inaccurate. You'd be surprised. Many many AWS services are launched by a single 2-pizza team (8-10 developers). It's in Amazon's DNA to act like a startup, ship something quickly, collect feedback, then iterate, and scale. Rekognition will get much better in time.

Also, for the record, AWS is hardly top of the industry in terms of talent. It's not Google or Facebook. I've never heard of an ML researcher joining Amazon when they could have joined Google/FB/Apple.

I've known plenty of people that have left Google/FB/Apple for Amazon. And I know plenty of people who have left Amazon for Google/FB/Apple. The biggest tech companies are quite incestuous. Some people do thrive in one environment, some in others. They all pay top dollar.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#235

Post by sean2 » Wed, May 23, 2018, 1:32 AM UTC

nighthawk1 wrote: post #229

confounded wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is a criminal. You commit multiple crimes a day if you're like most people. More importantly, pretty much everyone has a driver’s license or other government issued ID, and in most states, the police have access to your mugshot from that. The criminality can be figured out later. The problem is real time surveillance of the entire population.

As in ww2 Germany they said: give me the man and I’ll give you the crime.

"Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."

To be pedantic, it was Lavrentiy Beria[1] who is credited with that statement[2]; So it was a WW2 Russian Sentiment. Though Stalin-ism is also an example of a surveillance state government that was known for being unpleasant.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria [2] http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1137804

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#236

Post by volgo » Wed, May 23, 2018, 1:39 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #12

Why? The surveillance is there. I used this with some personal video surveillance to identify some thieves who were casing driveways to find cars to get into. Instead of wasting hours looking at footage, I was able to give the police excerpts that helped them identify the perp. Also, because of the circumstances and footage, they were able to charge him with a more serious crime than petit larceny, which means he won…

It's funny how many people come out in defense of Amazon, compared to when it's done in China. It really reminds me a really wise saying I heard somewhere, that nothing is really sinister or even when it's happening in your own backyard :)

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#237

Post by gazarsgo » Wed, May 23, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

mrobot wrote: post #104

weaksauce wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it’s cliche to bring up in these examples but there was an unintended negative outcome to Germany requiring people to register and pay some of their taxes to their church before ww2. The Nazis used that information to collect up and brand Jewish people and ultimately kill them. It is hard to imagine this tech will solely be used for good forever.

Los Angeles police already use gang databases to fault people for being in the "wrong" part of the city based on their database entry. This stuff is gonna turn into some kinda crazy 21st century internet apartheid.

if only there were a hero among us who could free us from our database driven shackles

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#238

Post by rtpg » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:15 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #190

zipwitch wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the advancement of technology changes the impact of certain classes of surveillance and tracking. Existing law is based on a balance that no longer exists. Bruce Schneier has a nice essay on this and license plates: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2007/01/on_police_s... In short, having a unique id and database of car owners may be okay when the police need to manually look up information. But when t…

I don’t disagree with you. My point isn’t that pervasive surveillance is great. It’s that if you’re allowed to have cameras everywhere, why would you limit useful processing of the data? How do you regulate it? If you can’t hire Amazon to do LPR or facial recognition, can you pay a guy to recognize people walking down the street and note their patterns? Do you license/permit camera placement?

There's a supreme court case that's about this.

The feds had thermal cameras hooked up to a helicopter, flew over some guy's house, saw thermal signatures looking a lot like someone growing marijuana.

Supreme court threw this out as a warrantless search because people are allowed an expectation of privacy against tech that "everyday people" don't have.

IANAL, but if you don't buy this logic, then search warrants are mostly limited by tech? Like if the gov't invented binoculars that could see through walls, does that mean they could just look into your house without a warrant?

The search warrant is about intent and expectations. And while "police officer checks records manually of a person" is kinda expected, "police officer x-rays an entire crowd instantly" seems a bit less so.

We _do_ put up signs about cameras, and there's rules about recording phone conversations too. It sure feels like there's case law around a lot of this.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#239

Post by schrodinger » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

syshum wrote: post #128

fixermark wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the opinion will vary from person to person, but if this is a 1984 dystopia, then Orwell over-hyped the downsides to a 1984 dystopia. (... I don't actually think it's a 1984 dystopia, mind ;) ).

It is sad that people have the delusion they are really free, unable to see they are actually in a guided cage. I am sure there were many in Oceania perfectly content with their life, thinking they were free because they never butted up against the edges of their cage, they never tested the limits of their "freedom", they were "respectable" citizens doing as the government said

What edges of your cage do you bump up against?

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#240

Post by candiodari » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:47 AM UTC

hetspookjee wrote: post #161

candiodari wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which is done as a matter of course in many countries. Hell, the Netherlands does this for all cars, always, "to send speeding tickets". They are scanning and identifying all cars, whether or not they have reason to suspect anything. This will be a constant in the future. It has everything government wants : a gross grab of power, vast potential for abuse, and it saves a little bit of money ! What more could you…

Not necessarily. The cameras the roadmanager (rijkswaterstaat) use to view the busyness of traffic are still out of reach for law enforcement. They could use those cameras for a whole lot of more money if they were allowed.

Weird, I've read in the news multiple times that these cameras "accidentally" caught some sort of criminal. From people wanted by the Dutch IRS to people "running from youth services". They were particularly proud of catching those people running from youth services when they ran unannounced, and before they hit the border.

You see, apparently youth services has a problem that once across the border all the "crimes" like having a teacher pissed off and report you to youth services or having your parents divorce, which according to the Dutch should lead to a child's incarceration are not actually crimes once you cross the border. You see, they feel the need to increase the safety feeling of children with divorced parents, by having the police violently (search on youtube) abduct them, then dumping them locked up in a "group", ie. a set of adults who don't care about them at all (not professionals, of course, those are expensive. No, the normal people they come in contact with come without so much as a high school degree), with total and complete power over them. But then night comes, and those adults abandon the group entirely, so the kids are totally at the mercy of older kids or just the more violent kids in said group. Needless to say, the rate at which rapes and sexual assaults happen in this environment is "somewhat" higher than in normal society. Oh and why does the Dutch state do this ? To make the child feel safe ! Sadly, that's not a joke.

Sadly, if you were a lawyer, you are now to advise that if you're trying to keep kids away from those services, you need to either rent a car (not sure if they surveil that yet), or you need to physically assault the police (you laugh, but that's exactly what immigrant communities are doing in Rotterdam and that's (granted, a small part of) the reason why they're doing it. The alternative in some cases is giving up their kids to these monsters. Again the government responds, not, of course, by fixing their own problem).

Because of these sorts of things, most of the neighboring countries have become appalled at this behavior and refuse to cooperate in all but the worst cases, so naturally they're fixing it : the fix for that problem is employing high pressure tactics to get other police forces to cooperate and mass-surveillance on their own people.

They are actually proud of this. Seriously.