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Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

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Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#61

Post by btbuildem »

bilbo0s wrote: post #11
Santosh83 wrote: post #2

It is not the technology that is dangerous but the scale and manner of its deployment. Patented, opaque, closed source, championed by mega-corporations closely allied with powerful governments, entirely beyond the analysis or oversight of the vast majority of citizens, completely connected realtime to various other systems, automated, eternally slurping up data for indefinite storage... these are the real concerning…

> society will get sharply stratified into the 'watched' and the 'watchers' and the latter will get access to nearly limitless data and power... Don't kid yourself, even the 'watchers' will be 'watched'. The people bringing all these systems together will not be your local yocal Barney Fifes. They will be professional and highly intelligent technical teams whose members have likely studied little other than security…

And who watches these specialized, intelligent watchers? Another, "higher caste" of more specialized, more intelligent watchers?

The more likely scenario is that this line of work would likely attract creepy antisocial perverts who like to watch, and love to exert authority -- essentially the people we would like to keep as far as possible from this kind of technology.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#62

Post by JohnFen »

whoisjuan wrote: post #31
jbigelow76 wrote: post #27

Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing their home. This has to be the worst part of it, if you've ever been part of a suburban neighborhood that uses NextDoor as a community tool you'll know that Ring doorbell videos of "others" crank the pearl-clutching paranoia of bored homeowners up to 11. The comme…

I get why this could be problematic under the wrong context. But if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option. This is not because I'm paranoic and I think right away that anyone showing up to my door will murder or rob me, but because s…

"if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option."

This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I fear these systems. A world where this is common is a world where it's no longer safe to take a stroll through your own neighborhood.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#63

Post by pdkl95 »

whoisjuan wrote: post #31
jbigelow76 wrote: post #27

Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing their home. This has to be the worst part of it, if you've ever been part of a suburban neighborhood that uses NextDoor as a community tool you'll know that Ring doorbell videos of "others" crank the pearl-clutching paranoia of bored homeowners up to 11. The comme…

I get why this could be problematic under the wrong context. But if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option. This is not because I'm paranoic and I think right away that anyone showing up to my door will murder or rob me, but because s…

> I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option.

Most people would use that option if they had the opportunity; tracking potential troublemakers has obvious benefits. The problem is you are not being given the option "to track [a] person". You're being given the option to record video and apply an automated tool to identify "likely faces" and as way to compare those images against a local database using a definition of similarity that is poorly specified[1], extremely complex, and opaque/unexplained. Jumping right thinking of this as "tracking a person" ignores the many layers of metaphor shear between the desired goal and what the actual implementation does.

Metaphor shear is what you experience when you realize that interface doesn't match what is actually happening. The metaphor was lost somewhere in the hundreds of layers of abstraction connecting input to output. The map is not the territory. Efficient and powerful tools are very useful, but they also let you efficiently shoot yourself in the foot in powerful new ways.

Since metaphor shear is about the error between an expected ideal and actual measured reality, it compounds across layers of abstraction similar to how experimental error loses precision with each calculation. Any particular layer of abstraction is probably fine in isolation, but the interface metaphor loses significant digits as more and more layers are added.

If intellectual labor is going to be surrendered to a device, we need to be very clear and specific in what we are surrendering and what the device is expected to do.

(Video essayist Kyle Kallgren does a much better job of explaining[2] the problem of metaphor shear, using examples from sci-fi [Black Mirror, HHGttG, R.U.R.])

[1] poor in the context of trying to track someone. I'm sure the face matching algorithm is very well specified with respect to matching images of faces. The poorly specified part is when "matching images of faces" becomes "tracking someone" (what does "tracking" mean? How are probabilities about matching faces mapped to identifying "that person"?)

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr9_DcO6G3A

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#64

Post by mc32 »

I'll tell you what:

1. No question this raises concerns about the system pinging authorities as someone who has been flagged in the system is detected.

2. This will sell like hotcakes with people who are on NextDoor. Everyday there is an alert about a burglary, stolen packages and people snooping around their properties. These people are very likely to approve sending any images/video of interest to police. (Right now it's very mechanical, scroll through video, capture and send --people will put out requests for footage very often).

I think the only thing we can do is call for strict regulation on its use. It's gonna get deployed and it's gonna get used.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#65

Post by gambler »

Shivetya wrote: post #60
drb91 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is paranoid to think that the people outside your house want to rob or kill you. It is not paranoid to see that the “wrong context” is just a matter of time.

There is no more paranoia in having a camera security feature than locking your door. if people are checking out your house repeatedly then you might have a problem so a precaution is fine. considering that it is easy to surf news sites and find video captured by home surveillance systems showing people taking packages, trying to get in, or having broke in, it is not unreasonable to install such a device. the issue i…

There is a huge difference between locking your door and setting up a CCTV system at your house. Locking doors (in normal residential areas) is mostly a signal of intent. You signal to everyone you don't want them entering your house, unless you've given them permission/key. It also sets things up so that no one can enter your house and then claim they didn't know you didn't want them there. Thirdly, it sets thing up so that people who want to enter your house without a key will have to act in an obviously suspicious way. If someone breaks a window or starts breaking your door with an axe, any neighbour or passer by will know something weird is going on. None of this applies to CCTV systems.

>considering that it is easy to surf news sites and find video

This is confirmation bias in action. You need statistics on your residential area to make decisions around home security.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#66

Post by eli »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #27

Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing their home. This has to be the worst part of it, if you've ever been part of a suburban neighborhood that uses NextDoor as a community tool you'll know that Ring doorbell videos of "others" crank the pearl-clutching paranoia of bored homeowners up to 11. The comme…

I had the same thought. There was a situation where business owners (and police!) were using a group messaging app to share photos of "suspicious" people in an upscale retail area. It of course became mostly a way to track black shoppers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-secre...

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#67

Post by gambler »

jklinger410 wrote: post #41
nepeckman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it gets more problematic when the data is shared and human judgement is eliminated. What happens if someone is lost in a neighborhood and accidentally displays "suspicious" behavior in multiple locations? They are then logged in a database as a suspicious person and potentially pointed out to law enforcement as a suspect without any chance to explain themselves. I don't think this technology would be quite as…

>What happens if someone is lost in a neighborhood and accidentally displays "suspicious" behavior in multiple locations? They are then logged in a database as a suspicious person and potentially pointed out to law enforcement as a suspect without any chance to explain themselves. Where is the issue here? That we provide suspicious activity reports, or that our police SEEMINGLY can't reliably deal with those reports?

The problem is giving police so much information that they can pick and choose what to act upon to justify their goals that have nothing to do with what have been reporter.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#68

Post by [deleted] »

whoisjuan wrote: post #31
jbigelow76 wrote: post #27

Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing their home. This has to be the worst part of it, if you've ever been part of a suburban neighborhood that uses NextDoor as a community tool you'll know that Ring doorbell videos of "others" crank the pearl-clutching paranoia of bored homeowners up to 11. The comme…

I get why this could be problematic under the wrong context. But if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option. This is not because I'm paranoic and I think right away that anyone showing up to my door will murder or rob me, but because s…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#69

Post by pdkl95 »

SCHiM wrote: post #20
ep103 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYPD was using this during Occupy. Everyone complained that Occupy lacked organization. But what was happening on the ground was that the NYPD was identifying who potential leaders were by using face recognition technology and (we believed) cell phone tracking to identify people who consistently showed up to different meetings. They would then use the same face identification technology to pick these people out of cr…

I have never heard of this, do you have references to this? If this is true, and even if you (or someone) made it up but it is a practical possibility, then it has truly horrific consequences for social organization and the peaceful transition of power (democracy). I've written about that before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110645 This is bad. If you take away more and more ways to (relatively) peacefully…

Variations of this tactic (disrupt the leader before they create a useful coalition) used to be called COINTELPRO[1]. The methods used changed as technology changed, but the core tactic is still used in many places. GCHQ even has an entire department dedicated to this type of disruption: JTRIG[2].

> then it has truly horrific consequences for social organization and the peaceful transition of power (democracy).

Snowden tried to tell everybody that. I recommend reading the actual documents in [2]; they paint a very clear picture about the tactics being used.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#Intended_effects

[2] https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#70

Post by gambler »

helloworld2212 wrote: post #29

I'm quite surprised here to not have seen anyone point out the way these patent games typically work inside of a big company. Often a company is motivated to increase their IP portfolio. In turn they motivate their engineers by offering lucrative bonuses for each patent filed. At my last company we played this game and it was roughly $3k per patent. In general, out of the huge number of patents that get filed in a bi…

>let's maybe save the outrage until they announce that they are actually going to build this thing and deploy it in the real world?

By that time someone will make "the train had sailed" comment. I.e. claim that nothing can be done, because consumers had spoken and the technology is already being deployed en mass.

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