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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

#51

Post by blotter_paper »

jsaxton86 wrote: post #41
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.

What if you stop an EMT from checking the pulse of somebody who your co-worker has been choking to death for minutes? Does that make you an accomplice, too? If your city charged these cops justly then nobody would be burning it down; cure your disease and the symptoms will go away.

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

#55

Post by wongarsu »

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…

Blurring isn't that good at destroying information, I think we mostly use it because it's the best looking censoring attempt.

I would pixelate the faces to be just 4x4 giant pixels. It destroys nearly as much information as blacking them out while still not disrupting the image too much

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

#56

Post by siberianbear »

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…

That wasn't really a "blur", though. A swirl like that is just moving pixels around. If know how the algorithm works, you can reverse it. Probably, it was done with a common program like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp or something. One could write a program that would just "unswirl" with various parameters and generate a bunch of images, and a human could pick out the one that looks like an unswirled image. If you can pick out the right paramaters to the unswirl, then no image information is lost.

That can't be done with a blur. In a blur, pixels are merged or averaged together and information is lost. In some cases you could sharpen it a little, but it's still not going to be as good as the original image. In a really good blur, even the best sharpen algorithm isn't going to give you something that looks like an identifiable face.

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

Fezzik wrote: post #50
adge wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bu…

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by wongarsu »

voisin wrote: post #39
adge wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is shocking and should absolutely be more widely reported as it may change behaviour of present day activists. We need an anonymizing solution for protest organizing.

>it may change behaviour of present day activists

that's exactly what the murderers want to achieve

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

#59

Post by DanBC »

siberianbear wrote: post #56
elliekelly wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That wasn't really a "blur", though. A swirl like that is just moving pixels around. If know how the algorithm works, you can reverse it. Probably, it was done with a common program like Adobe Photoshop or Gimp or something. One could write a program that would just "unswirl" with various parameters and generate a bunch of images, and a human could pick out the one that looks like an unswirled image. If you can pick…

The swirl was done with photoshop, and Interpol got Adobe to create an unswirl tool. Interpol was involved because a man had been sexually abusing children, and photographing the abuse, and he released those photographs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paul_Neil

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

#60

Post by jokit »

From Cambridge Dictionary;

Protesters: someone who shows that they disagree with something by standing somewhere, shouting, carrying signs, etc.

Terrorist: someone who uses violent action, or threats of violent action, for political purposes.

There is a false narrative out there conflating the two. Don't be fooled.

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