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Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

everestpipkin.github.io

261–270 of 410 posts

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#261
post #233

Some tips to maximise user privacy while deploying this tool: 1) The code, for now, runs locally. This is good. To avoid the possibility of the code being tampered with at a later day (for example, it could be modified to send copies of the image to a server), download the webpage and use the saved copy, not the live copy. 2) Do not use the blur functionality. For maximum privacy, this should be removed from the app…

A replacement for blur could just be black boxes. Seems easy and safe enough.

Make sure they are 100% opacity. A lot of people mess this up and use 90% opacity or similar and the original image can be revealed by messing with the color levels.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#262

Some tips to maximise user privacy while deploying this tool: 1) The code, for now, runs locally. This is good. To avoid the possibility of the code being tampered with at a later day (for example, it could be modified to send copies of the image to a server), download the webpage and use the saved copy, not the live copy. 2) Do not use the blur functionality. For maximum privacy, this should be removed from the app…

I opened https://github.com/everestpipkin/image-scrubber/issues/5 to discuss how to encourage people to use this tool responsibly. Please contribute your knowledge!

Do you really think that altered in any way images without any exif can hold someone accountable? Even videos can not be trusted nowadays.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugly but beside the point. Why arent the police protecting these businesses, if looting is such a concern, rather than instigating peaceful protestors? Besides, these businesses are all insured; Im certain that Apple and Luxottica, some of the richest companies in the world, can write off the loss. By contrast, nothing will bring back George Floyd, let alone the countless black people afflicted by police brutality th…

I'm pro-protest and pro-police-accountability-reforms, but some of your logic fails. > Besides, these businesses are all insured Some of them are. But having to claim on insurance is an expensive proposition that eats into profit margins (which is extra difficult in the middle of a worldwide depression). > Im certain that Apple and Luxottica, some of the richest companies in the world, can write off the loss. Most co…

Yeah, and insurance isn't going to cover the lost income whilst rebuilding - if it even covers rioting at all. For example, America's oldest indie sci-fi bookstore was torched as part of the riots, totally destroyed, and the owner isn't expecting to get a single cent from insurance due to the exclusions: http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/index.shtml

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#264
Regarding metadata: Considering windows already lets you strip metadata from images directly from the properties menu, is there anything this tool or other metadata stripping tools do that goes beyond what windows offers? Is it risky to rely on the built-in tool?

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#265
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I opened https://github.com/everestpipkin/image-scrubber/issues/5 to discuss how to encourage people to use this tool responsibly. Please contribute your knowledge!

Do you really think that altered in any way images without any exif can hold someone accountable? Even videos can not be trusted nowadays.

AIUI this is mainly to be used by news publications, which need to continuously build their credibility regardless, rather than as evidence in a courtroom.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#266
post #258
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more they expect to be held accountable, the more likely they will refrain from violence. The thing is people are already being held accountable for their skin tone, and the likelihood of changing your behavior when you have lived your entire life in an environment of constant oppression for fear of being identified in a protest is marginal, specially during catharsis, otherwise you wouldn't see for instance pe…

> The thing is people are already being held accountable for their skin tone, and the likelihood of changing your behavior when you have lived your entire life in an environment of constant oppression Actually, a lot more whites are killed by cops than blacks. And before you say that's because there are more white people than black people, blacks represent only 13% of the population but commit 52% of the crime. So, y…

Your first link shows: more black people are killed per-capita by cops than white people. Y Your second link shows: Black people are more likely to be convicted of homicide than white people.

You've made a number of unfounded leaps on top of that: That "Black people commit 52% of crime." This is wrong in several ways. You're assuming that conviction rates accurately represent rates of crimes, and also that "all crime" has the same statistics as homicide. But instead, we see that black people are convicted of only 27% of overall crime. That's including the fact that certain categories are known to be racially disparate in conviction and sentencing - e.g. white & black people use marijuana at approximately equal rates, yet black people are nearly 4 times as likely to be arrested for it. That the people killed by cops were all committing a crime at the time. I don't have statistics on hand for this, but a well-known counterexample is Tamir Rice.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Getting away with” Who is getting away with what? They are under arrest right now. Or do you want them dragged through the streets?

> They are under arrest right now. One of the four officers is charged. With a lesser charge than some are calling for (third-degree instead of first-degree murder). I don't think the other three officers are under arrest right now. Some people regard them as involved and getting off too lightly so far.

To clear up a minor confusion judging from replies, I wasn't describing my own views. I was summarising some facts, in response to the person who said they are already under arrest and asked what else did people want.

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#268
post #249
post #239

Really weird that nobody in the thread is pointing out that this is basically a website that says "give me your photos, specifically from protests, which have details that you want to keep private". It doesn't matter that it theoretically all happen in the browser. You can serve different versions to different IPs etc. Every heuristic in me would be screaming don't use that if I would have a need for such tool.

It's a simple static site with no server involved. Everything happens client side. You could turn off your internet while you're using it if you wanted to make sure no data is exposed.

Would a service worker running in background be able to upload your sensitive data once you are back online?

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#269
post #249
post #239

Really weird that nobody in the thread is pointing out that this is basically a website that says "give me your photos, specifically from protests, which have details that you want to keep private". It doesn't matter that it theoretically all happen in the browser. You can serve different versions to different IPs etc. Every heuristic in me would be screaming don't use that if I would have a need for such tool.

It's a simple static site with no server involved. Everything happens client side. You could turn off your internet while you're using it if you wanted to make sure no data is exposed.

True, but it's only safe if you do that. You have to either inspect the code every time you use the site or run it locally. Until subresource integrity [1] becomes widely used & the capability to 'pin' a given script to a specific version, web applications can not be used without at least trusting the owner of the domain.

A better example is Protonmail, a secure email service. It has a nice web client and there is an 3rd party desktop/electron version of the same size called Electronmail. While both essentially run identical code, the electron version is more secure because even Protonmail insert a backdoor for a single or # of users. They would have to at least publish the backdoor in the vanilla code at which point, the maintainers of Electronmail will probably raise the alarm.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Subres...

Re: Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

#270
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The topic of the week is an extrajudicial murder committed by a team of four cops; where was our restraint in deciding the fate of George Floyd? Do these officers deserve nicer treatment than this system gave Floyd? Did Floyd deserve this treatment, too? If so, why didn't he get it?

That would be the topic of the week, if we were seeing protests. What we are actually seeing is something that is quickly approaching race riots, here is how that has happened: Local government officials pulled law enforcement, because cops are bad and protesters are good. Looting and arson cause hundreds of millions of dollars of property damage to those that have nothing to do with the purported cause of the riots.…

6 paragraphs, 0 answers as to whether George Floyd deserved the form of justice you would extend to his murders or why he got an extrajudicial execution instead.

If there weren't riots, the topic would be whether to charge the direct murderer. Because of the riots, the discussion has shifted to charging his accomplices. This is progress, but not enough progress.

And yes, I definitely want to see them convicted. If there was a video of me preventing an EMT from checking a man's pulse while my co-worker choked him to death for 8 minutes, the last 3 of which the victim was unresponsive for, I wholeheartedly believe I would be convicted of being an accessory to murder. I want the same for these cops. This isn't a grey area where the person could reasonably be innocent, we have the video of an unresponsive man being executed in broad daylight.

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