Original link https://geospy.ai/. Pretty scary stuff, I took a picture of one tree, got pinpointed to 4 km.
Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#22[deleted]
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#23So, someone, probably a group, made the effort to build a system that can infer location from a picture. The negatives are obvious. What possible beneficial uses can it have?
Investigative journalism like the OSINT based researches conducted by bellingcat would be one example, as long as the AI results get doublechecked for accuracy.
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#24I plugged in satelite view of pacific islands and it's giving random guesses. I used some of the source images listed on the bottom, one's with properly labelled island name, and it's still giving random guesses. Random streetview shots seems to guess countries correctly so far, or at least region with similar construction. But that still means being (confidently) off by 1000s of km.
Satellite view? This is about street-level photos… I don't think you would mix these two things in the same model, it'd just dilute the capabilities on both.
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#25Aren't there GeoGuesser types who can do this without a model? Some knowledge of vegetation goes a long way.
Yea but I guess AI makes it cheaper and more available. Just like photoshop pros could make fake photos before AI but now anyone can do it in 5 sec with a prompt.
Scalability and ease of use are the scary factors here. The barriers to getting involved with geoguessing were certainly a threshold for some people with bad intentions. These have now been removed or are considerably lower.
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#26It's astounding that a vision model can do this.
When it comes to the fact that this is possible at all following various geolocation and OSINT accounts has had a quite sobering effect on me quite some times me ago.
I would like to point out josemonkey particularly, because he really explains the process very well. By and large I think it is first and foremost a fairly tedious task, but doesn't require any access to special services or special skills. Of course the vision model could change the tedious part.
Overall I think what the OSINT people do and what the vision model from the article simplifies is entertaining, but ultimately not super relevant, because reality is more like xkcd 538[1].
Most people have a device on them that in some way reveals their location more or less accurately. Location data in the grand scheme of things is a commodity for quite some time already.
While I think it is worth fighting that, I guess pragmatically we should all live under the assumption that our location is public information.
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#27This is indeed scary as hell. Tried it with a photo of the beach that could be any (sub)tropical beach in the world. Tt guesses Egypt and placed the marker about 100km away from the actual location.
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#28So, someone, probably a group, made the effort to build a system that can infer location from a picture. The negatives are obvious. What possible beneficial uses can it have?
Investigative journalism like the OSINT based researches conducted by bellingcat would be one example, as long as the AI results get doublechecked for accuracy.
CIA carveout
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#29I plugged in satelite view of pacific islands and it's giving random guesses. I used some of the source images listed on the bottom, one's with properly labelled island name, and it's still giving random guesses. Random streetview shots seems to guess countries correctly so far, or at least region with similar construction. But that still means being (confidently) off by 1000s of km.
Speaking of Street View, the person who stalked a Japanese idol through her eye reflections [0] also used Street View.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/stalking-suspect-allegedl...
Re: Just got doxxed to within 15 miles by a vision model, from only a single photo
#30I plugged in satelite view of pacific islands and it's giving random guesses. I used some of the source images listed on the bottom, one's with properly labelled island name, and it's still giving random guesses. Random streetview shots seems to guess countries correctly so far, or at least region with similar construction. But that still means being (confidently) off by 1000s of km.
Satellite view? This is about street-level photos… I don't think you would mix these two things in the same model, it'd just dilute the capabilities on both.
It identified aerial shots of hawaiian islands, prince edward island, cuba and most of the commonly "known" islands with distinct shapes fine. At least much more consistently than random street level views I've thrown at it, where description seems sensible, in as much as a good geoguesser can descripe their rationales.