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The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

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Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#101

Post by mjwhansen »

secretsatan wrote: post #72
mjwhansen wrote: post #22

very thought-provoking - people think only a portion of what they’re doing is shared, but government sees all

These are probably privately owned cameras, which are far more widespread, i don’t think governments have what meta has on you. I’d go so far as saying, hand wringing over government surveillance has served as a smokescreen over the proliferation of private surveillance. Not that i want to advocate for government surveillance, just that, in my experience, people who worry so much about it seemed to have entirely miss…

These are traffic cameras

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#102

Post by python273 »

> OMG that's the most terrifying thing I have seen in ages.

Too late.

NTechLab scraped vk.com (Facebook-like Russian social network) profile photos and were running a public website "FindFace" that allowed to find profiles by photo of a face. They provide services to Russian government, e.g. it's used to find people from protests. Also FindFace was used to find and harass webcam models.

https://www.businessinsider.com/intel-spacex-philip-morris-l...

> Intel, SpaceX, Philip Morris, and dozens of other US companies were in a leaked database of users for a Russian facial recognition company

> The NTech Lab user list, which was shared with Insider by an anonymous source, includes more than 1,100 entries, with businesses and government agencies from more than 60 countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FindFace

> In 2017, NtechLab face recognition algorithms were built into the Moscow city video surveillance system operated by the Moscow Department of Information Technology . The system uses the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to find correspondences to it on video. The alleged use of the system is the search for criminals and the fight against terrorism.

> In 2022, NTechLab was accused of assisting the Russian and Belarus government by tracking thousands of political activists which led to their unconstitutional detentions and arrests.

> In 2016, FindFace generated controversy because it was once used to deanonymize Russian pornography actresses and alleged prostitutes. These efforts were organized by users of a Russian imageboard Dvach who claimed that women in the sex industry are “corrupt and deceptive”, according to Global Voices. In addition, FindFace has been characterized as a major step in the erosion of anonymity.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#103

Post by bearmode »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #92
JohnFen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the influencers. It's about the rest of us, and how pretty much anybody can do this sort of thing with anyone for any other purpose. It's just another piece of evidence that we really are living in dystopian times.

If you don’t want your pictures to be seen, don’t post them. It’s really not that hard.

And the people in the background?

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#104

Post by personjerry »

python273 wrote: post #102

> OMG that's the most terrifying thing I have seen in ages. Too late. NTechLab scraped vk.com (Facebook-like Russian social network) profile photos and were running a public website "FindFace" that allowed to find profiles by photo of a face. They provide services to Russian government, e.g. it's used to find people from protests. Also FindFace was used to find and harass webcam models. https://www.businessinsider.co…

Yeah Facebook was doing facerec for a WHILE with a LOT more data:

https://about.fb.com/news/2021/11/update-on-use-of-face-reco...

That's different than LOCATING random people through their photos though. This post is directly Mission Impossible kinda spy stuff.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#105

Post by MisterTea »

JohnFen wrote: post #69
MisterTea wrote: post #32

This is why I have no social media accounts. No one knows what I am up to. No one knows where I have been. No one can find me. Do not track is now a lift style.

Do you use a credit/debit card? Do you pay utility bills, rent or a mortgage? Do you carry a cell phone? Do you drive a car? If you said yes to any of these (and many more!) then you are not invisible at all.

This is in response to broadcasting everything you do on social media. This is not hiding from determined actors targeting you.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#106

Post by netsharc »

secretsatan wrote: post #73
bmicraft wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The instagram photos are most likely not posted exactly when they were shot but some time after. Also, even if they post a rough location there is no guarantee that they would show up on any particular cam. I'd image the ai has to go through a very large amount pictures and cam footage to find one where the influencer shows up on a cam some time before it was posted.

The metadata of the image would reveal the actual time taken over when it was posted

Instagram surely strips the camera metadata from the image served to the viewers, including the time taken. Imagine the outcry if it "leaked" the geolocation of a teenager's bedroom.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#107

Post by mclightning »

Not gonna lie, I thought of this becoming possible with advent of AI & constant stream of social media posting.

You could also the reverse and find social media posts from the CCTV footage, to capture some passerby's face at a higher resolution.

We are living in dystopian times.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#108

Post by bradknowles »

lilsoso wrote: post #78
jrockway wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite part of the pandemic is it being socially acceptable to wear a face mask. I enjoy the break from surveillance.

Masks increasingly help less and less, for example see: https://www.datasciencecentral.com/sunglasses-and-face-mask-...

The facial recognition is not the real problem.

The real problem is things like gait recognition. Most people already cover some or all of their hips, legs, feet, etc.... But it's hard to hide the way that you walk, regardless of what clothing you wear. And even if you can fake it for a short period of time, it's hard to be consistent about how you fake it over a long period of time.

When you can accurately identify the person who is completely covered head to toe, then it becomes a lot harder to hide.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#109

Post by Breza »

tomatocracy wrote: post #39
jcims wrote: post #16

Reminds me of this RadioLab episode about a company that loiters over areas with a high resolution imaging platform that allows them to 'rewind' from the scene of a crime to see where the suspects came from: https://radiolab.org/episodes/update-eye-sky The company in question: https://www.pss-1.com/

It also made me think of this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671 All of these are good illustrations of the idea that by putting multiple data sources together, even "anonymous" data sets can be de-anonymized surprisingly easily.

I'm working on a project to study Reddit data to see how many users have unique footprints. I'm only looking at the subreddits where people participate. If you participate in at least five subs, you're probably the only person with that unique combination of subreddits.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#110

Post by leobg »

marktolson wrote: post #84

I highly doubt AI is being used here to match up the Open Camera footage with the instagram pic. Identifing humans as an object within a frame is trivial. Identifying individuals requires a considerable amount of custom training which is more than what is available from an instagram pic and a few video frames. I'm not saying it can't be done, it's just not that easy. I'd bet $100 bucks that most, if not all, of these…

Have a look at pimeyes.com. A single picture is enough, often even with sunglasses. Though that site requires input photos of slightly better quality than what you would be able to get from surveillance webcams. Then again, try it often enough, and use AI enhancement/upscale, and perhaps you can just use the site to replicate the project.
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