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Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

nytimes.com

31–40 of 76 posts

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#32
There’s so much emphasis of government use of these tools, but I’m a lot more weary of a world where consumers have easy access to facial recognition.

Pimeyes is a free and shockingly effective way to figure out who someone in a photo is. High schoolers have already adopted it - poke around on TikTok and you’ll see them uploading images to figure out who that athlete from another school or random stranger on the street is. It’s already here.

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#33

Clearly the countermove is to train an image generator on your face and flood the internet with fake data. Have your face appear tagged in weird remote places, with several made up names, on statues, in ancient manuscripts. Pretend to be dead, pretend to be a medieval monk, a war hero from the 1940s, a fictional character. Poison those ratty algorithm with nonsense and hide within the noise.

Scary thought:

Let's say you do this. And facial data DBs continue to grow. And eventually they become so widespread that most people are in them. And facial recognition becomes so ubiquitous that it is necessary for everyday transactions. And you can't participate in large swatches of society because you are, as far as the technology is concerned, a statue, or dead.

Far fetched? It's happening with cell phones. Many things are not possible, or vastly more difficult, if you don't have a smart phone.

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#34

I'm convinced any tool like this can only be fought by turning the tables, by using them against the people who abuse them, the owners/executives of the companies and legislators who allow the abuse.

I am starting to believe that this is, most likely, the best way out of a lot of the mess we find ourselves in, in the modern digital world. We, the laypeople, are under scrutiny in so many ways, our lives being recorded all the time. The basic asymmetry is that, on the other hand, the powerful have tools at their disposal to hide from scrutiny, and at the same time have access to the data collected on us. With well designed systems, we could remove this unfair advantage that they have, and level the playing field.

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#35
post #33

Clearly the countermove is to train an image generator on your face and flood the internet with fake data. Have your face appear tagged in weird remote places, with several made up names, on statues, in ancient manuscripts. Pretend to be dead, pretend to be a medieval monk, a war hero from the 1940s, a fictional character. Poison those ratty algorithm with nonsense and hide within the noise.

Scary thought: Let's say you do this. And facial data DBs continue to grow. And eventually they become so widespread that most people are in them. And facial recognition becomes so ubiquitous that it is necessary for everyday transactions. And you can't participate in large swatches of society because you are, as far as the technology is concerned, a statue, or dead. Far fetched? It's happening with cell phones. Many…

Good! A 0.01 - 1% failure rate and people will become very pissed off at the system, making it politically untenable. Which for a small country means cloning and poisoning the internet for 200 - 20.000 people. Not too impossible.

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#36

Clearly the countermove is to train an image generator on your face and flood the internet with fake data. Have your face appear tagged in weird remote places, with several made up names, on statues, in ancient manuscripts. Pretend to be dead, pretend to be a medieval monk, a war hero from the 1940s, a fictional character. Poison those ratty algorithm with nonsense and hide within the noise.

Or just give up on privacy in the sense you mean. Ultimately we’re all living in meatspace. I was happier when I just accepted it. I’ve been on both sides of the privacy fence — when I was in my 20s I cared deeply about not being known, as you say. But it was self destructive, and I’ve seen many people who end up as reclusive as I was. It’s fine to have privacy. And it’s necessary. But obsessing about it too much can…

> But it was self destructive, and I’ve seen many people who end up as reclusive as I was.

I won't give up; but I no longer freak out about it.

I am reclusive, apparently; at least, some friends have said so. I'm certainly not a misanthrope; I like people, and in general I trust them. But I don't trust "social media", in the Faceache/Twitter/X sense, and I've never had an account with those services. I have a couple of online accounts, and HN is one of them.

I've had one or two online-dating accounts, which I regret. If I try dating again, I'll do it organically, by joining some local interest group.

Being a "recluse" doesn't mean being some kind of hillbilly, who lives in the back of beyond, and answers the door with a loaded shotgun; it just means that you aren't desperate for friends.

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#37
post #5

Pretty sure that pretty much all of their business practices are GDPR violations. So we do have a choice - we could either end privacy, or have legislation that ends a potentially profitable startup.

So find at least one EU citizen in their database and unleash the GDPR against them?

How would an EU law apply to a U.S. company if it has no assets or operations in an EU jurisdiction?

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#38

Clearly the countermove is to train an image generator on your face and flood the internet with fake data. Have your face appear tagged in weird remote places, with several made up names, on statues, in ancient manuscripts. Pretend to be dead, pretend to be a medieval monk, a war hero from the 1940s, a fictional character. Poison those ratty algorithm with nonsense and hide within the noise.

In the long run, the only option is to privatize knowledge entirely.

Machines don't care what numbers they run, cpus and users should be blind to the meaning of app code. .exe's should be absolute black boxes by default.

When we have the techniques to privatize knowledge from machines, the desire for privatized faces and biometrics, will rise.

The entire premise for biometric tracking is that mental locks don't work (passwords, ect). It's not true.

Privatize knowledge and mental locks work fine.

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#39

Clearly the countermove is to train an image generator on your face and flood the internet with fake data. Have your face appear tagged in weird remote places, with several made up names, on statues, in ancient manuscripts. Pretend to be dead, pretend to be a medieval monk, a war hero from the 1940s, a fictional character. Poison those ratty algorithm with nonsense and hide within the noise.

In the UK the policing minister plans to 'integrate data from the police national database (PND), the Passport Office and other national databases to help police find a match with the “click of one button”' [0].

It becomes very difficult to escape mass surveillance via facial recognition if passport (and presumably soon drivers license) photos are used.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/06/mps-and-p...

Re: Clearview AI: secretive company that might end privacy as we know it (2020)

#40
post #6

1. it's from 2022 2. https://archive.ph/wmOpD

If this site is going to rely on archiving sites to allow people to read articles, perhaps you should just post the archive link to begin with.

the archive website didnt write that article nor do they fund it. Their business model might be ridiculous, but they pay their reporters using that.
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