Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests • Hacker News Board

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#171

Post by sukilot » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

adge wrote: post #169

ALittleLight wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article just has these people loosely connected or "active" in the protests. One of them attended the protests, one launched a tear gas canister back at the police, one's mother attended the protests, etc. These aren't the main organizers or leaders dying mysteriously, but rather random attendees dying. Is this more or less than the number of attendees we would expect to die based on Ferguson homicide rates and a…

All of those mentioned in the article were not just attendees but community organizers. Do some drake equation style math on the back of an envelope: What percentage of young people will die in a given year? What percentage of those will happen to be community organizers? What percentage of those will die by being shot in the head in a car that was then set on fire to annihilate forensic evidence? Doesn't take too ma…

No one has done the math, though.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#172

Post by ixtli » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #159

asutekku wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll just play the devil’s advocate, but when have peaceful protests ever helped the cause? Those are forgotten as soon as they are over.

Indian independence? Martin Luther King?

Ghandi is the face of that movement but was just the tip of what was a very bloody revolution. It is important that we think the movement was "non-violent" such that we can point to it to dissuade people from challenging the status quo in a material way.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#173

Post by norrius » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

NightlyDev wrote: post #120

Ansil849 wrote: post #119

Some tips to maximise user privacy while deploying this tool: 1) The code, for now, runs locally. This is good. To avoid the possibility of the code being tampered with at a later day (for example, it could be modified to send copies of the image to a server), download the webpage and use the saved copy, not the live copy. 2) Do not use the blur functionality. For maximum privacy, this should be removed from the app…

"There are _a lot_ of forensic methods to reverse blur techniques" Any examples? You can't reverse it if the data is gone.

If you do something really simple like a Gaussian blur (which is a type of convolution), it might be possible to find the inverse convolution (de-convolution) and restore the original image with some accuracy.

One method is the Lucy-Richardson deconvolution [1], which is an iterative algorithm, and here [2] is the best practical example I could find right away. Unfortunately the text is not in English, but the illustrations and formulae might be enough to give some intuition of the process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson%E2%80%93Lucy_deconv...

[2] https://habr.com/en/post/136853/

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#174

Post by coolspot » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

ixtli wrote: post #170

anonymousiam wrote: post #152

Timely article, but what about violent criminal activity during protests? Peaceful protests are wonderful and have been very effective throughout history. The protests we've seen for the past few days are not helping anything. Yes, people are angry at the criminal behavior of the police officer/murderer, but manifesting that anger by destroying property, looting, injuring, and threatening others, is only going to jus…

All you need to do is watch videos of protests anywhere to see cops aggressing on protestors, shooting people on their lawns, arresting and shooting reporters for major news networks on camera. When people are aggressed upon by armed security forces in other countries I'll bet most dont take the side of the people with the guns, so why now?

There are examples of pure looting. E.g. The Grove in Los Angeles: https://youtu.be/hpXdXLaJhKE

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#175

Post by sukilot » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

frootloops2 wrote: post #104

adge wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many organizers of protests in Furguson, peaceful or otherwise, have since been found murdered in ways that suggest they were literally hunted down and killed for their involvement. Multiple have been found shot through the head in burned out cars to destroy all evidence. If they broke the law it still does not merit being executed in the street. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tie... ) In…

Respect to NBC for reporting the African American male victims of homicide (50/65) but not the culprits (14/15). Sometimes the "other side of the story" (as White Supremacists would say) does NOT need to be heard. Not now.

I don't know what your cryptic numerology means, but victims and killers are different categories and can't be directly compared, and being victim of a homicide has a much smaller personal-choice component perpetrator.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#176

Post by sukilot » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #71

adge wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many organizers of protests in Furguson, peaceful or otherwise, have since been found murdered in ways that suggest they were literally hunted down and killed for their involvement. Multiple have been found shot through the head in burned out cars to destroy all evidence. If they broke the law it still does not merit being executed in the street. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tie... ) In…

Isn’t the point of civil disobedience that you know what you’re doing could have consequences? All I’m hearing is “we should let people trash entire cities and not be held accountable.”

You're saying is that people should expect and accept to be shot in the head when they commit civil disobedience? Really?

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#177

Post by DenisM » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

jsaxton86 wrote: post #41

hirundo wrote: post #13

The protests were sparked by the lack of accountability of the police resulting in police brutality. The violent people among the protesters are subject to the same incentives. The more they expect to be held accountable, the more likely they will refrain from violence. Anonymizing photos of the violent ones is therefore likely to support their actions by making accountability less likely. To scrub ethically, limit i…

I agree, and I'd go a step further and say that if you destroy evidence of someone burning my city down or looting, you're an accomplice to that crime.

I believe you were looking for this term: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/accessory_after_the_fact

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#178

Post by sukilot » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

briefcomment wrote: post #45

adge wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many organizers of protests in Furguson, peaceful or otherwise, have since been found murdered in ways that suggest they were literally hunted down and killed for their involvement. Multiple have been found shot through the head in burned out cars to destroy all evidence. If they broke the law it still does not merit being executed in the street. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tie... ) In…

When I hear your first point, I consider the possibility that these are not retaliatory murders, but rather ways to keep something secret. If there was an agenda behind these riots organized at a higher level than these leaders, similar to what is being suggested by some during these current protests, and those higher level organizers wanted to keep the agenda or those who set it hidden, it could explain why lower le…

Here's the thing about "black swans". If you ignore "white swans" in your hunt for black swans, you're going to miss a lot more swans overall.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#179

Post by jariel » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #114

hangphyr wrote: post #106

The timing of the release of this tool seems a bit innapropriate, given the state of rioting in a few US cities now. It's going to be incredibly draining on law enforcement in the US for a few years to identify and prosecute criminals involved in riots. Most victims already who have lost their homes, their businesses, and even their loved ones will mostly likely never see the criminals brought to justice given the sc…

What about identifying the police who are breaking the law? Not just the ones attacking peaceful protesters, but the agents provocateur? Peaceful protest is being squashed and de-legitimized. This is the flowering of fascism.

"Peaceful protest is being squashed and de-legitimized. This is the flowering of fascism."

This is really not true. The protests turned quickly into riots and the more heavy-handed police tactics literally started only days later.

The rioters burnt down a police station for gosh sakes.

There are no 'protetors' clashing with police in a violent way. I think decent folks move on after curfew.

It's the adventure-seeking rabble, those out for some photos, who want to see the action first hand, who might want to light something in fire. The people not dispersing at curfew I don't think are ideological or protesters in any sense of the word. It's just youth in antagonism for every and all reasons, as old as time.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#180

Post by jsaxton86 » Sun, May 31, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

augustt wrote: post #67

blotter_paper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you stop an EMT from checking the pulse of somebody who your co-worker has been choking to death for minutes? Does that make you an accomplice, too? If your city charged these cops justly then nobody would be burning it down; cure your disease and the symptoms will go away.

Yup, I'd love if we were able to be a unified front and collectively say the mayhem will not stop until all four involved are charged. And if they're not convicted... 1992 will look like a joke.

This whole situation sucks because most people are rightly outraged about police violence, but their anger is totally misdirected. These businesses had nothing to do with the death of George Floyd.

I live in Portland, Oregon now. Without going into too many details, we have an expensive pension program. Many feel that the pension program is too generous, and there has been a lot of thought put into how we can fully fund both pensions and everything else. Last year there was a bill in the Oregon Senate (SB1049) that proposed some modest changes to how pensions work. It passed with bipartisan support, and the public unions went nuts. They said they'd never support a candidate who voted for SB1049.

Last month we had our primaries. The most important primary was the Democratic primary for the Oregon Secretary of State. If the governor were to step down for any reason (to take a cabinet position in the Biden administration, for example), the SOS becomes governor. Someone who opposed SB1049 joined the race at the last minute, got over half a million dollars of union money, outspent her candidate, and won the election.

This is just one of many examples. Even though the unions are only spending a couple of million dollars per year in Oregon, they're really smart about it, and as such, they get what they want. In the Secretary of State race they hit a home run. For half a million dollars, they pushed their preferred candidate through and sent a message that if you oppose them in any way, it will be a career limiting move.

The reason I mentioned that is because I think it is a good contrast to what we're seeing today. With smart leadership, we would have a better chance of solving this problem. But people are enraged and not thinking clearly. And there's no reason to believe that these riots are going to be more successful than the Baltimore riots, the Ferguson riots, the Oakland riots, or even the Rodney King riots.