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TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

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Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#111

Post by cmiles74 »

Ntrails wrote: post #101
cmiles74 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, I don't believe we have much, if any, concrete evidence that pervasive surveillance makes anyone safer. What little evidence exists is self-serving and sounds more like advertising then anything else. These surveillance organizations cost large amounts of money and produce nothing but large backlogs of data that no one has time to analyze. In my opinion, that only makes it more likely that this data will be m…

You'll never seen concrete evidence. Nor is it in anyone's interests to offer it. You have two choices, one at each extreme. You can assume: - Everyone working for "agencies" do so with no regard for their stated goal and are simply interested in their own personal gain. - They're genuinely intending to prevent incidents of "crime" and are relatively disinterested in the maintenance of your privacy. I find the latter…

I strongly disagree with the idea that revealing ways in which pervasive surveillance provides us all with greater safety will somehow nullify that very benefit. This is clearly a simple and straightforward way for those who are performing the surveillance to excuse the fact that they are not, in fact, saving us from anything at all.

To be honest, the only way I might even consider that this kind of surveillance is helping would be to see some concrete examples of them literally saving lives.

I do not believe that those performing the surveillance do nothing, on the contrary, I believe they may be responsible for any number of harms (leaking private information, having that information stolen, becoming a party to blackmail, etc.) But I certainly do not believe that they are making any of us safer.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#112

Post by gerbilly »

otakucode wrote: post #89
sho wrote: post #4

> (Every government on earth) plans to use face recognition to track (everyone) through airports Fixed it for you. I know for a fact at least 2 asian countries which are either actively using or trialling this, and not just at airports. Both already have fairly comprehensive facial recognition DBs of their citizens (smile for your driver's license picture!) I've also heard anecdotal accounts of people who stay too lo…

The tech is not there, actually. Facial recognition is absolute garbage. It borders on being completely useless even in ideal circumstances. Airports might have a slight advantage since they have a list of people they expect to be present (people with upcoming flights) and such, but in my experience systems like what the TSA uses are obstinantly terrible. They most likely have a commercial product purchased from some…

> Facial recognition is absolute garbage.

The problem is that people believe it isn't garbage and give it more credibility than it deserves.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#113

Post by sitkack »

otakucode wrote: post #89
sho wrote: post #4

> (Every government on earth) plans to use face recognition to track (everyone) through airports Fixed it for you. I know for a fact at least 2 asian countries which are either actively using or trialling this, and not just at airports. Both already have fairly comprehensive facial recognition DBs of their citizens (smile for your driver's license picture!) I've also heard anecdotal accounts of people who stay too lo…

The tech is not there, actually. Facial recognition is absolute garbage. It borders on being completely useless even in ideal circumstances. Airports might have a slight advantage since they have a list of people they expect to be present (people with upcoming flights) and such, but in my experience systems like what the TSA uses are obstinantly terrible. They most likely have a commercial product purchased from some…

They should require voxel video of a subject going through various motions as part of the passport photo and or checkin process. Maybe updated automatically when you get your boarding pass. Have the user repeat various lines from a teleprompter while a time of flight camera records a 3d scan of their face. If the lines to be repeated are well crafted enough, the eye dilation and pulse response should determine if they are patriotic enough.

Could automate much of the TSAs job.

I never understood why they don't OOR (optical object recognition) the items going through the xray scanner.

[0] Emotions via Eye Tracking http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.492...

[1] Eulerian Magnification http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#114

Post by sitkack »

rtkwe wrote: post #94
otakucode wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech is not there, actually. Facial recognition is absolute garbage. It borders on being completely useless even in ideal circumstances. Airports might have a slight advantage since they have a list of people they expect to be present (people with upcoming flights) and such, but in my experience systems like what the TSA uses are obstinantly terrible. They most likely have a commercial product purchased from some…

Making it slightly easier is that they have multiple points where a person is matched with a name during their time in the airport. With that and good enough coverage they could make the recognition better with continuous tracking. Even without an explicit name attached to a person just knowing all the places a person has gone could be useful for flagging 'weird' behavior.

How about using a VR display to give them a mediated representation of the world that constrains them to the allowed route? Put on the helmet and walk forward, looks like I was wandering down a beautiful meadow when I am really just walking to my gate. Objects would enter the VR world that you would need to avoid in the real one.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#115

Post by sitkack »

blaze33 wrote: post #64
skate22 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your "right" to privacy starts conflicting with your "right" to safety, something has to give.

> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Quotes aren't arguments. They are quotes, and often sound like an appeal to authority. And it is further weakened by the weasel words _essential_ and _little temporary_.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#116

Post by sitkack »

berbec wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> outright evil (alleged organ harvesting of death row inmates in China) Why is this necessarily evil?

While if done properly, this isn't in and of itself evil, it leads to a slippery slope. Larry Niven wrote stories of a future where the organ banks were always empty, and the population voted the death penalty in for lesser and lesser crimes. The tale I recall has a man trying to escape from his capital trial for running a red light.

They wouldn't be red lights anymore, they would be organ donation lights.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#117

Post by sitkack »

mortenjorck wrote: post #83
AJRF wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those immigration turnstiles at gatwick are terrifying. I went through it recently and the person beside me put their passport in the wrong way (they put the wrong page in) and an alarm blared out, everyones turnstile locked and armed guards came over to the person only to tell them to put the page in the right way.

Now that is dystopian.

Where is this Heinlein theme park?

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#118

Post by joshvm »

johansch wrote: post #85

I always wondered if those passport scanners/photo booths/turnstiles at e.g. Helsinki airport has a human somewhere that decides if your face matches your passport or not. Does anyone know?

I believe it's automatic with human oversight. In the UK there's always an officer or two watching the feeds from each of the electronic gates. Whether they're actually confirming each match, or just checking for outliers, I don't know though.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#119

Post by Carhughes »

Yeah, not happy about Big Brother intruding even more here. I hate to say it but why can't they do face recognition on more likely suspects visiting ISIS strongholds and regions. Instead they want to vacuum hose all Americans in a wide dragnet. This is BS.

Re: TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports

#120

Post by rtkwe »

logfromblammo wrote: post #107
rtkwe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This it [0]? Googled "short story masks reputation economy musical instrument", it's pretty good at finding seemingly super obscure, usually through someone else describing it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12632596-the-moon-moth

Yes, that's the one! But it was just text, not a graphic novel. It must have been in my Jack Vance e-book.

Found a text only version too. Don't have the graphic novel to know how close it follows the text.

http://www.unexploredworlds.com/RealPulp/htm/rpulp145.htm

edit: Huh there's a weird repetition in the middle it looks like, unless there's two almost exactly identical passages.

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