Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Creepier By The Minute: Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing Choices

macgasm.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–46 of 46 posts

Re: Creepier By The Minute: Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing Choices

#41

Post by Samuel_Michon »

shurcooL wrote: post #40
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a red LED, many people will not recognize Google Glass as a video capturing device. And if this product takes off, what's a person to do if he doesn't want to be recorded and tracked? Imagine sitting in the subway or at Starbucks around 10 Glass users.

Just for argument sake, what's the difference between being recorded on video or being watched by someone's eyes? If you don't do anything noteworthy, no one is gonna care to re-watch that video. How many hours of youtube videos already go unwatched today?

I don't think video capture is the problem, it's bigger than that. Google Glass has hardware for not only capturing video (like CCTV does), but also audio, timecode information, and GPS coordinates. All that data combined, linked to the user's Google account, that makes for a data mining wet dream.

I wasn't suggesting humans will be looking at all the footage like with CCTV monitoring, Google has millions of servers to do that. It already analyzes the content of each and every YouTube video -- it provides automatic closed captioning, translations, it recognizes soundtrack and links to music stores, it displays ads depending on the video content, etc etc.

Re: Creepier By The Minute: Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing Choices

#42

Post by shurcooL »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #41
shurcooL wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for argument sake, what's the difference between being recorded on video or being watched by someone's eyes? If you don't do anything noteworthy, no one is gonna care to re-watch that video. How many hours of youtube videos already go unwatched today?

I don't think video capture is the problem, it's bigger than that. Google Glass has hardware for not only capturing video (like CCTV does), but also audio, timecode information, and GPS coordinates. All that data combined, linked to the user's Google account, that makes for a data mining wet dream. I wasn't suggesting humans will be looking at all the footage like with CCTV monitoring, Google has millions of servers…

All right, I hear you. If the concern is that there will be automated algorithms looking through the video/GPS/etc. data, that is way more plausible of a concern.

So let's suppose the best case scenario for Google. Suppose they have all the access to 24/7 video, GPS data, facial tracking, etc. basically as much information as can potentially be gathered. And suppose they have all the computational power needed to process it in any realistic way they desire.

Can you suggest in what ways that might be bad for me? So perhaps Google can target me with the most relevant ads out of all ads. Is that a bad thing? I wouldn't mind seeing relevant ads rather than irrelevant ones anyway.

But what other hypothetical problems could come out of this?

I can imagine if I were a criminal and tried to hide something from others, then this would be a concern. But suppose I don't have much to hide, only personal private stuff (which, if exposed, wouldn't be much different from any other person's personal private stuff).

I'm interested in hearing what people have to say about this.

Re: Creepier By The Minute: Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing Choices

#43

Post by Samuel_Michon »

shurcooL wrote: post #42
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think video capture is the problem, it's bigger than that. Google Glass has hardware for not only capturing video (like CCTV does), but also audio, timecode information, and GPS coordinates. All that data combined, linked to the user's Google account, that makes for a data mining wet dream. I wasn't suggesting humans will be looking at all the footage like with CCTV monitoring, Google has millions of servers…

All right, I hear you. If the concern is that there will be automated algorithms looking through the video/GPS/etc. data, that is way more plausible of a concern. So let's suppose the best case scenario for Google. Suppose they have all the access to 24/7 video, GPS data, facial tracking, etc. basically as much information as can potentially be gathered. And suppose they have all the computational power needed to pro…

Google controls much of what web users see. Not only through its general search engine, also through YouTube, Google News, Blogger, and its many other sites. Google decides which results are shown and in which order. They have the power to change public opinion, one person at a time, without anyone noticing it's happening. The more information they know about you, the easier it is for them to manipulate you.

"The problem with social search and personal results is that it biases the results based on the perspective of your friends. If I had a lot of friends who worked for Chrysler and I asked them to name the best car on the road, chances are they’d pick a Chrysler car. But if I asked the general public, I’d probably get a different response. It’s like that old joke Democrats use to tell after the 1972 election, ” I don’t know how Richard Nixon got elected, all my friends voted for George McGovern.” I’m sure many Republicans felt the same way after the 2008 election." [1]

Oh, and "I have nothing to hide" is a well known fallacy. [2]

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/01/13/how-and-wh...

[2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=i+have+nothing+to+hide

Re: Creepier By The Minute: Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing Choices

#44

Post by shurcooL »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #43
shurcooL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All right, I hear you. If the concern is that there will be automated algorithms looking through the video/GPS/etc. data, that is way more plausible of a concern. So let's suppose the best case scenario for Google. Suppose they have all the access to 24/7 video, GPS data, facial tracking, etc. basically as much information as can potentially be gathered. And suppose they have all the computational power needed to pro…

Google controls much of what web users see. Not only through its general search engine, also through YouTube, Google News, Blogger, and its many other sites. Google decides which results are shown and in which order. They have the power to change public opinion, one person at a time, without anyone noticing it's happening. The more information they know about you, the easier it is for them to manipulate you. "The pro…

Fair enough, those are some valid points.

But if Google does try to manipulate people in significant ways without them knowing, eventually it will get out and people's trust in Google will be broken. That's why I don't think they'll risk doing it.

I mean, for instance, if they try to steal your credit card info by reading your emails and steal money from you. If they pull something like that off, it may work in short-term but definitely not in the long-term.

If they do, they can only get away with manipulating people once.

Of course they can manipulate in a smaller scale, in small and harmless ways (by showing you more ads of competitor A vs. competitor B), but I think we all accept that as it is already true today. By helping me find what I'm looking for faster, they're manipulating me into saving time.

So if Google ever betrays my trust on a large scale, I will stop using them.

I tried reading the [2] article and despite its length, I couldn't find very good arguments. I agree it's bad if the government knows more about you without you knowing about them or what they know. But if everyone knows everything, that's something I'm less concerned about.

If you really want to take a naked photo of me, I would ask "why would you want to? Seriously?" Even if you put it online for everyone to see, chances are no one will care. There's 6 billion other people who also have naked bodies.

Re: Creepier By The Minute: Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing Choices

#45

Post by Samuel_Michon »

shurcooL wrote: post #44
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google controls much of what web users see. Not only through its general search engine, also through YouTube, Google News, Blogger, and its many other sites. Google decides which results are shown and in which order. They have the power to change public opinion, one person at a time, without anyone noticing it's happening. The more information they know about you, the easier it is for them to manipulate you. "The pro…

Fair enough, those are some valid points. But if Google does try to manipulate people in significant ways without them knowing, eventually it will get out and people's trust in Google will be broken. That's why I don't think they'll risk doing it. I mean, for instance, if they try to steal your credit card info by reading your emails and steal money from you. If they pull something like that off, it may work in short…

I think we have different world views.

You seem to think that all criminals will be caught eventually, that the truth will prevail (in a timely fashion), that information wants to be free, that people are smart and that they care, and that they will revolt if they see injustice. Perhaps you even think that governments and publicly traded corporations are benign in nature.

I believe none of that (anymore).

I've organized and participated in dozens of protest rallies (for instance: I joined 1 million protesters at a rally in Florence [1]), joined boycotts and picket lines, was a member of a labor union, served in the city council, organized political campaigns, wrote for activist magazines.

I still try to spread the message of equality, solidarity, human rights, and pacifism, education, health, and safe foods. The sad truth is that most people just don't care too much. And it's not just that they don't care about others or society at large, they don't even care too much about their own basic rights.

How else to explain that we still have the same broken financial system that caused our current economic crisis (6 years running!). Why we still have the PATRIOT act, the TSA, Guantanamo, the War on Drugs, various wiretapping laws, etc. Why there's no mass outrage when a corporations lies and cheats, when they leak your personal information, or when it refuses to pay its taxes.

I'm saddened by all of this, and I see it getting worse, not better. People are signing their liberties away, bit by bit.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Social_Forum#First_ESF

Re: Creepier By The Minute: Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing Choices

#46

Post by meej »

beatpanda wrote: post #11

Who's working on technology like this, and why? And why isn't it self-evidently bad to the people working on it? I think a code of professional ethics around software engineering is long past due. Journalists started doing this in the 20s[1] after a series of events, including the Spanish-American war, made the awful potential of ethical lapses in journalism obvious to everyone.[2] We can't continue to maintain the r…

"I think a code of professional ethics around software engineering is long past due."

I can think of several existing codes of ethics that might apply to software engineering.

For starters, the ACM Code of Ethics was adopted over 20 years ago. http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics

The IEEE Code of Ethics dates to 1963, which is when AIEE merged with IRE. http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

IEEE's Computer Society also has its own code of ethics, adopted jointly with the ACM in 1999. http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/resources/c...

Finally, there's the Obligations of the Order of the Engineer, which has been around since 1970. http://www.order-of-the-engineer.org/?page_id=6

NCSU's Ethics in Computing website has links to most of these, and more. http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/basics/codes/

My own experience in the software industry is that professional society membership and conference attendance is relatively rare, especially when I compare it to other fields I have exposure to, like the library world, where membership in at least one professional society is de rigueur. I wonder if the problem is not a lack of a code of professional ethics but rather a lack of exposure to them?

Post reply on HN