51–60 of 136 posts
The best measure would be for “good actors” (universities, government research agencies, the New York Times) to provide a free FaceApp-type app. It’s like a weekend-hackathon of work and can be prioritized by the app stores.
It's not clear what is the potential threat this specific app introduces. A nation state can easily perform facial recognition on the majority of the human race by scraping social media.
You could easily profile pictures of high ranking American officials, their parents, their children, etc.
In other words, data like this can increase your attack surface
Looks like the FBI designated FaceApp as a threat because of its crazy data policy and its Russian origin. Even though I think it's a really shady app, that's a pretty low bar.
It says potential threat, not threat, and according to this letter, the Russian government can access ISP data directly without request.
Aren't all threats potential threats, until they are actual? I dunno, maybe the FBI has a formal delineation between potential threat, threat, and . . . whatever is after that. But I doubt it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well Twitter and Facebook are American companies so it's obviously patriotic to give them your image and data. (/s)
It's certainly better than giving your face to sketchy apps from Russia or China.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The threat model is that this photo is shared with the Russian government and then the Russian government can match American citizens (or potentially people working in intelligence), and then using that in facial recognition programs. I.e. they can differentiate Americans (insert x country) from their own citizens and know who to watch more carefully. This is a legitimate threat model. I'm not sure why you think it w…
A picture, that has no good associated data about the user, is a real threat? Heaven forbid Russia figures out how to take pictures in public places
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's certainly better than giving your face to sketchy apps from Russia or China.
It's not better to have your face or other data in a database within reach of your own government. Your government has power over you, other governments do not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The threat model is that this photo is shared with the Russian government and then the Russian government can match American citizens (or potentially people working in intelligence), and then using that in facial recognition programs. I.e. they can differentiate Americans (insert x country) from their own citizens and know who to watch more carefully. This is a legitimate threat model. I'm not sure why you think it w…
A picture, that has no good associated data about the user, is a real threat? Heaven forbid Russia figures out how to take pictures in public places
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having a database of peoples picture is a huge asset for Russian intelligence. They can use facial recognition to enhance their visual surveillance efforts.
Seems like that information is already largely public just not linked publicly to your phone information.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It says potential threat, not threat, and according to this letter, the Russian government can access ISP data directly without request.
Thankfully that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. Australian government metadata requests was well over 300,000 last year, nearly 1000 requests a day all warrantless, can come from tiny local councils or horse racing orgs. Trust us, they say, there's oversight in hidden tribunals, they say.
The FBI isn't saying "normal people are at risk from FaceApp" but "US intelligence is at risk from the use of FaceApp". In the (very short) linked letter, it specifically calls out "elected officials, candidates, political campaigns, [and] political parties".
Considering all US intelligence agencies unanimously agree that Russia already attacked US candidates and political parties in the past, saying "yeah but everyone does it" is about as off-topic of a remark as you can get. To my knowledge the FBI has never publicly disclosed Australia's efforts to meddle in US elections.