Live data from Hacker News

The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

technologyreview.com

61–70 of 91 posts

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure how this relates to GDPR GDPR states that the lawful basis for processing of data depends, among other things, on: * the individual's explicit consent to the processing of his or her personal data. * protecting the vital interests of a data subject or another individual This violates both criteria, thus is indirect violation of the GDPR.

* Face is not considered personal data AFAIK * What the heck is vital interest ? For person playing in a movie it may as well be that everybody watch it.

* Photos of a person is personal data, particularly those that are scraped from social networks. This is pretty much the whole point of GDPR.

* Screwing up someone's life, as it is extensively desribed in the article, fits well into the definition of "vital interest".

I find it quite baffling how someone posting on HN is oblivious to the link between GDPR and the need to punish those who abuse data collected from social networks against the wishes and best interests of the users to screw up their lives.

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should pornography actors not have responsibilities for what they do? They should have a right for privacy.

How is the right to privacy being violated though? Imagine you were a stripper or porn actress, your right to privacy wouldn't preclude someone recognizing you at the strip club or video. Or suppose you went to the strip club or watched a video and then also happened to be on Facebook and saw the profile of someone you saw stripping at a strip club or in the video, matching the face and name in your head. How is the…

[deleted]

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#63
post #42

Bypassing the stupid issue of harassing actresses by likely teenagers, isn't a husband-to-be right to know about the past of his fiancee? Is the moral right of not being outed outweighing the moral right of not being deceived in a very important matter? Where is the line?

What right of the husband-to-be are you talking about?

Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception?

Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video?

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#64
post #42

Bypassing the stupid issue of harassing actresses by likely teenagers, isn't a husband-to-be right to know about the past of his fiancee? Is the moral right of not being outed outweighing the moral right of not being deceived in a very important matter? Where is the line?

What right of the husband-to-be are you talking about? Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception? Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video?

> Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception?

Yes, absolutely. Imagine you are the only person that doesn't know your fiance was in porn and you committed to her without knowing that.

> Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video?

Of course. Even though social stigma for males is lower, it has a devastating impact on their business relationships.

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#65
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What right of the husband-to-be are you talking about? Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception? Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video?

> Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception? Yes, absolutely. Imagine you are the only person that doesn't know your fiance was in porn and you committed to her without knowing that. > Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video? Of course. Even though social stigma for males is lower, it has a devastating impact on their b…

If you are the only one who doesn't know your fiance was in porn, then you are a fool or have no friends.

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#66
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What right of the husband-to-be are you talking about? Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception? Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video?

> Is failing to tell someone something the same thing as deception? Yes, absolutely. Imagine you are the only person that doesn't know your fiance was in porn and you committed to her without knowing that. > Is this supposed right symmetric? Does bride-to-be have the right to know if the husband participated in porn video? Of course. Even though social stigma for males is lower, it has a devastating impact on their b…

You still haven't actually answered the question of what "right" there is supposed to be.

If a person is afraid that their fiance might have done porn in the past, or if they care so damn much, they should just ask the person.

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#67
post #17

I'm not sure I understand the GDPR argument here. Is collecting the facial information from actors and actresses in porn movies illegal? Or was it the access of their social media accounts? Why is the tallying of what is publicly consumable a violation of GDPR?

I think this is a good question, and I’d like to know too, in specifics, not just “well, there’s personal data involved.” I’ve seen a lot of misunderstanding about GDPR and I’ve read parts of the legal code myself, and while it is clear why this software was a bad idea and how awful it might be for the actors, it’s not immediately clear exactly how this violates that law. One thought perhaps is that the porn movies,…

apparently others don't like the question either. strange, because it was just a question. i don't really have an agenda, I'm just confused.

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just download, but write yourself in a short time. And the code could be shared, and I’d guess you can build a decent system to do this in a few hundred lines. It’s a ridiculous proposition to restrict software access, akin to making it illegal to write on paper.

It's ridiculously easy to write a DoS tool. Let's make DoSing legal then.

The two aren't the same thing at all. It's legal to own guns, but illegal to shoot someone with one. It's legal to write software that opens network connections, but illegal to use said software against a target on the Internet that doesn't want said traffic.

Similarly, it's legal to write or download a neural network that is programmed for facial recognition. Same for a basic crawler bot.

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Face is not considered personal data AFAIK * What the heck is vital interest ? For person playing in a movie it may as well be that everybody watch it.

* Photos of a person is personal data, particularly those that are scraped from social networks. This is pretty much the whole point of GDPR. * Screwing up someone's life, as it is extensively desribed in the article, fits well into the definition of "vital interest". I find it quite baffling how someone posting on HN is oblivious to the link between GDPR and the need to punish those who abuse data collected from soc…

We are talking here about the law, not about ideal world to live in.

The question is if photograph is personal data according to GDPR. Here is what I found [1]:

Under GDPR Article 9, biometric data is among the special categories of personal data that is prohibited from being processed at all unless certain exceptional circumstances apply, and the definition of biometric data specifically refers to "facial images".

Any images collected, whether via photos or videos, will only constitute biometric data if “specific technical means” are used to uniquely identify or authenticate an individual.

GDPR makes an important distinction between facial-recognition data and photographs. Recital 51 of the GDPR states the distinction as follows:

The processing of photographs should not systematically be considered to be processing of special categories of personal data as they are covered by the definition of biometric data only when processed through a specific technical means allowing the unique identification or authentication of a natural person.

[1]: https://iapp.org/news/a/how-should-we-regulate-facial-recogn...

Re: The guy who made a tool to track women in porn videos is sorry

#70
post #30

Why should pornography actors not have responsibilities for what they do? I don’t agree with this part where people who 1) put their faces in pornography and 2) put their faces in social media should not expect the two things to be correlated. Especially since the technology has already existed for some time and it cannot be stopped. Are we looking for regulation here? Is that exactly what we want, going back to cryp…

You're in a relationship with someone you trust. It's enough trust that you one day let them (or maybe even ask them to) photograph or film you having sex with them (or even just nude photographs, the level of explicitness really doesn't matter.) Days, months, even years later, things end badly.

Your ex posts the photos/videos of you on Pornhub, or 4chan, or anywhere.

Someone uses facial recognition to match the photos to your social media profiles. And then you get doxxed, outed, and the photos are shared with all your friends and family.

A) Are you a "pornography actor" in this scenario, or someone who trusted the wrong person? Is everyone who has ever had nude photos or videos taken of them a "pornography actor"? B) Just because something is technically possible, does that mean it should be legal? Do the ethics or the thing ever come into play? C) Do you believe that that laws/regulations are only effective if they prevent someone from doing something, and not effective if they only punish after-the-fact? Are deterrent laws useless?

Post reply on HN