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Image Scrubber: tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests

everestpipkin.github.io

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

#41

Post by jsaxton86 »

hirundo wrote: post #13

The protests were sparked by the lack of accountability of the police resulting in police brutality. The violent people among the protesters are subject to the same incentives. The more they expect to be held accountable, the more likely they will refrain from violence. Anonymizing photos of the violent ones is therefore likely to support their actions by making accountability less likely. To scrub ethically, limit i…

I agree, and I'd go a step further and say that if you destroy evidence of someone burning my city down or looting, you're an accomplice to that crime.

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

#42

Post by est31 »

fnord77 wrote: post #32

was thinking about a way to do this for live stream video. I think it is doable but would probably cause too much battery drain on the device.

You could stream to your computer at home and then to the world. But it's weird that the live streaming websites don't offer it as feature.

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

#43

Post by blotter_paper »

hirundo wrote: post #13

The protests were sparked by the lack of accountability of the police resulting in police brutality. The violent people among the protesters are subject to the same incentives. The more they expect to be held accountable, the more likely they will refrain from violence. Anonymizing photos of the violent ones is therefore likely to support their actions by making accountability less likely. To scrub ethically, limit i…

The more that protestors refrain from violent property destruction, the less likely it becomes that the three cops who were accessories in the murder of George Floyd get charges brought against them. Burning down one precinct got one cop charged (albeit with a 3rd degree); I would really love to see the other three charged, even if it requires some anonymous protestors to light up three more precincts. I'd gladly trade in police destroying citizen lives for citizens destroying police property.

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

#44

Post by iNate2000 »

blhack wrote: post #37

The protests are being live-streamed on Facebook, twitch, YouTube etc. So while they is interesting, it is ultimately useless. The data is already out there.

And anyone who wants to gather intelligence can simply take their own photos and videos.

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

#45

Post by briefcomment »

adge wrote: post #31
hirundo wrote: post #13

The protests were sparked by the lack of accountability of the police resulting in police brutality. The violent people among the protesters are subject to the same incentives. The more they expect to be held accountable, the more likely they will refrain from violence. Anonymizing photos of the violent ones is therefore likely to support their actions by making accountability less likely. To scrub ethically, limit i…

Many organizers of protests in Furguson, peaceful or otherwise, have since been found murdered in ways that suggest they were literally hunted down and killed for their involvement. Multiple have been found shot through the head in burned out cars to destroy all evidence. If they broke the law it still does not merit being executed in the street. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tie... ) In…

When I hear your first point, I consider the possibility that these are not retaliatory murders, but rather ways to keep something secret. If there was an agenda behind these riots organized at a higher level than these leaders, similar to what is being suggested by some during these current protests, and those higher level organizers wanted to keep the agenda or those who set it hidden, it could explain why lower level leaders are being picked off.

Edit: For those downvoting, is there a problem with considering this possibility? I think it's incredibly unlikely, but ignoring black swans can one day come back to bite you. Ideally, everyone should be aware of the theories out there, however ludicrous, on the off chance that they are correct and require critical and swift action.

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

#46

Post by im3w1l-alt »

klyrs wrote: post #33
ibrarmalik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can deconvolution create new data? I thought it was just a way to upscale images.

If a blur filter uses a convolution, then it's invertible through a deconvolution.

There will be some information loss from edge effects and quantization noise. But mostly invertible.

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

#47

Post by chaps »

symisc_devel wrote: post #29
shivekkhurana wrote: post #5

I recently found myself in a position where I had to blur a ton of faces from multiple pictures (about 100/day). It’s really tedious to do it manually and something like OpenCV shines. We found a repo [1] with python code that automatically detects and blurs faces. This script was one of many, except it had a very high accuracy. Over 90%. Removing exif data is a great idea. [1] github.com/telesoho/faceblur

There is also the PixLab API which let you automatically apply a blur filter for each detected face or any other target regions you want using only two Rest API endpoints. Python: https://gist.github.com/symisc/6ecdea76ba0d33d73ea7f23cade0d... PHP: https://gist.github.com/symisc/d54808915093e5375fdcb841e4365... Docs: https://pixlab.io/cmdls

Uploading images to a blurring service is probably a really bad idea. At least OP's link does it in-browser.

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

#48

Post by andrewprock »

elliekelly wrote: post #16
shivekkhurana wrote: post #5

I recently found myself in a position where I had to blur a ton of faces from multiple pictures (about 100/day). It’s really tedious to do it manually and something like OpenCV shines. We found a repo [1] with python code that automatically detects and blurs faces. This script was one of many, except it had a very high accuracy. Over 90%. Removing exif data is a great idea. [1] github.com/telesoho/faceblur

I’m reminded of a reddit thread a while back about the US government paying a large sum to create an “unblur” function for photoshop. Someone in the comments was able to rotate and flip a photo and use the photoshop blur tool to effectively undo a blur for free. Perhaps it’s better to remove the section of photo with a person’s face instead? Or draw a shape over their face and flatten the image? It seems to me as lon…

In the case you posted, the image is not blurred. Instead pixels are simply moved from one location to another via the "swirl" effect. Very little pixel information is lost in this process, and if you can recover the position transformation, you can easily undo it.

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

#49

Post by wiml »

dabei wrote: post #7

Nice. The most identifying EXIF data is probably the GPS location. What else have to be scrubbed?

There's data like the camera model which can be used for de-anonymization. Though, if de-anonymization is a concern in your threat model, you need to worry about sensor noise providing a unique fingerprint:

   http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/Research/double.pdf
   http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/Research/EI7254-18.pdf
If you're worried about attracting that kind of attention, use a burner device.

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

#50

Post by Fezzik »

adge wrote: post #31
hirundo wrote: post #13

The protests were sparked by the lack of accountability of the police resulting in police brutality. The violent people among the protesters are subject to the same incentives. The more they expect to be held accountable, the more likely they will refrain from violence. Anonymizing photos of the violent ones is therefore likely to support their actions by making accountability less likely. To scrub ethically, limit i…

Many organizers of protests in Furguson, peaceful or otherwise, have since been found murdered in ways that suggest they were literally hunted down and killed for their involvement. Multiple have been found shot through the head in burned out cars to destroy all evidence. If they broke the law it still does not merit being executed in the street. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tie... ) In…

For those who do not click through to the article: “Police say that there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests”.

From my time in Portland, working at the courthouse as a court clerk during the Occupy movement, when hundreds of transient “protesters” camped out in the park, it is not surprising that some of those folks would OD or end up dead for reasons entirely not related to protesting but instead related to their unfortunate life circumstances. I do not know if the same is true of Ferguson, but the article does not seem to provide any evidence of calculated retaliation against protesters.

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