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Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#101

Post by germanier »

miander2 wrote: post #40
fixermark wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It honestly may be more productive to operate under the mindset of "My private information that is acquirable by a cursory examination of me (this includes face, which is obviously publicly visible) will inevitably find its way online in a way outside my control. What do I do given this reality?"

Exactly. We cannot have any expectation of privacy in public and likewise, we cannot have any expectation of privacy in online social media.

There is a fine line between "somebody who knows me (even if not personally) can recognize me on the street" and "everybody can know everything I do out in public or online"

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#102

Post by qaq »

digi_owl wrote: post #70
axx wrote: post #9

That's the thing with personal pictures online. Most people can't imagine what is going to happen in the future. People on Hacker News well understand this issue, but ask your non-computer friends and family. If you'd tell them, that you can take a picture of a random person and search that picture out of a pool of people and get their contact info (as a private company / random programmer with enough data), they won…

For me the trick seems to be to get people to treat the net as if it was downtown during high noon. Just because you are sitting there typing in your undies do not mean that what you post has the same privacy. Also the worrying bit is not so much the data, as the actions taken on their basis. Denying someone a job because they have a few photos of them enjoying a colorful drink is just the tip of the iceberg. What ab…

Do you really want to work for a place like that?

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#103

Post by DougN7 »

bduerst wrote: post #96
kardos wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's always slippery slopes and fantastic nightmare scenarios It already is a nightmare scenario for some [1]. How bad should we let things get before we try to fix them? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11721600

That HN comment you linked to is _still_ just a nightmare scenario. If you read the article, you would see that they are lying about what happened. Even your question, based on incorrect information, is implying a slippery slope.

Once the nightmare scenario arrives though, it's usually too late to do anything about it. Look how impossibly hard it is to stop the NSA from gathering all of the network traffic. I wouldn't doubt for a second that Kim Jung would use this against protesters (if North Koreans had social networking). Just this morning I heard on NPR about a group working on genetic modifications to make half-human, half-animal beings, apparently for organ harvest reasons. However you feel about that, nipping things in the bud is so much easier than trying to reverse history.

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#104

Post by jernfrost »

This is just one of many indicators that Edward Snowden is right about the importance of privacy in this day and age. With so much of our lives online, and the ability of technology to interpret that information, allowing spying agencies free pass to all your online data, is the equivalent of making it legal for them to install camera's in every room in your house and office.

There needs to be strong privacy rules and transparency on what degree spying agencies access data about random citizens.

We can not leave it completely to technology to solve this issue for us because regular users will never have the competency to understand how to secure their digital presence.

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#105

Post by adrianN »

digi_owl wrote: post #70
axx wrote: post #9

That's the thing with personal pictures online. Most people can't imagine what is going to happen in the future. People on Hacker News well understand this issue, but ask your non-computer friends and family. If you'd tell them, that you can take a picture of a random person and search that picture out of a pool of people and get their contact info (as a private company / random programmer with enough data), they won…

For me the trick seems to be to get people to treat the net as if it was downtown during high noon. Just because you are sitting there typing in your undies do not mean that what you post has the same privacy. Also the worrying bit is not so much the data, as the actions taken on their basis. Denying someone a job because they have a few photos of them enjoying a colorful drink is just the tip of the iceberg. What ab…

Who needs face recognition? Metadata is enough to kill

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/05/10/we-kill-people-based...

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#106

Post by progman »

praeivis wrote: post #2

But only if you published your photos in public. If you dont spread your photos around the web you still safe in crowd.

I think exactly the opposite is true. "Personal spamming" will probably help you. Spread your photo as much as possible, all with different names and profiles :-)

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#107

Post by dangrossman »

qaq wrote: post #102
digi_owl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the trick seems to be to get people to treat the net as if it was downtown during high noon. Just because you are sitting there typing in your undies do not mean that what you post has the same privacy. Also the worrying bit is not so much the data, as the actions taken on their basis. Denying someone a job because they have a few photos of them enjoying a colorful drink is just the tip of the iceberg. What ab…

Do you really want to work for a place like that?

Employers routinely subject applicants to personality tests, IQ tests, fitness tests for jobs that have nothing to do with manual labor (essentially age/gender discrimination), background checks, credit checks even when the job doesn't involve handling money, and yes, looking them up on social media. Do people really want to work for these places? Yes, because they need to pay their rent, and don't have the nestegg of a well-paid Silicon Valley software developer, or recruiters chasing them to offer them work.

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#108

Post by jernfrost »

benevol wrote: post #8
id122015 wrote: post #4

technology is a double edge sword. We'd better adopt a Snowden mindset.

Honestly, this evolution became obvious more than 10 years ago. Btw, Snowden is about illegal mass surveillance by the government (in collaboration with tech corporations). The app mentioned in the article however only connects publicly and legally available data (the consumer's fault).

I disagree. Then you narrow down Snowden's point in a pedantic way. Snowden is broadly speaking about privacy. The issue about government mass surveillance is of course without anybody having been aware of its extent. Citizens should have been given the chance to weight in on the usage of surveillance.

But this is along much of the same lines, in that it shows how technology enables ways of invading your privacy that you might not have thought of.

Much of the NSA invasion of our privacy is about the capabilities they get through technology. With just a bunch of dead data, it would not nearly be as chilling as when Snowden explains how they can perform sophisticated searches through all data stored about you.

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#109

Post by hack_edu »

jdimov10 wrote: post #69
hack_edu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. > Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that you expect to get downvoted. Consider the guidelines regarding worthwhile contributions next time, please. :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My comments are anything but boring.

Though you are whining about downvotes. To such an extent that you comment on your own post exclusively regarding the subject.

Re: Russia’s new FindFace app identifies strangers in a crowd with 70% accuracy

#110

Post by LunaSea »

jdimov10 wrote: post #95
LunaSea wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure I don't pretend that that mine are no accessible but this is most of the time a conscious choice. I still have privacy but I just choose what information I make public. Also for example my address is probably nowhere public because I didn't choose to publish it.

All I'm saying is, sure, privacy is comfortable and we are fond of it and we all have our insecurities, BUT... it's going away, whether we like that or not. And really, it never actually did exist. But that's okay because we should still be able to get along just fine without it (to the extent that any people on Earth ever did get along...) Moreover, I feel that we would actually be better off and able to move forwar…

What do you mean by "giving up concepts like security".

Should banks get rid of vaults and stack money on the street curbs?

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