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

Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 102 posts

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#81

Post by ams6110 »

tim333 wrote: post #79
sveme wrote: post #18

Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that. Normal people without any criminal, terrorist or activist intentions will be victims of this massive surveill…

>Someone that does not want to be tracked ... will always be able to do that. I'm sure the Russians doing the Sailsbury attacks didn't want to be tracked by cameras but they were. If top Russian agents can be then probably most other people can be too. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/salisbury-novich... >the ultimate aim of these ubiquitous surveillance systems isn't really reducing crime, but social engi…

Technology to produce fairly convincing fake videos is already mainstream, and will only get better. For how much longer will video "evidence" be considered proof of anything?

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#82

Post by tim333 »

paganel wrote: post #30
zhte415 wrote: post #10

"Yes we can so this", technically, facial recognition is now there. "Why are we doing this?" Singapore is an already incredibly safe place with pride in the effectiveness of the rule of law. The screenshot, as captioned: > SenseTime surveillance software identifying details about people and vehicles runs as a demonstration at the company's office in Beijing, China, October 11, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo Im…

Am European citizen, I don’t care for Singapore and I won’t plan to visit it any time soon because 1) they’re too expensive for what they’re offering as a tourist destination and 2) they’re a police State. At the same time one of my closest friends has included it as part of his “potential places to emigrate as an IT professional”, so it looks like some people plain don’t care about the type of stuff described in thi…

Also European, this year at any rate. I rather like Singapore. 1) yeah sure, it's #3 in the world by per capita PPP GDP hence not cheap, though it's a good travel hub if you want to hang out in Asia. It's also probably the only country in the world where the leader wrote a Sudoku solver in C++ 2) It's not a police state in the usual sense of the term. See https://www.quora.com/How-do-Singaporeans-feel-about-living-... for example or talk to anyone who lives there.

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#83

Post by tim333 »

ams6110 wrote: post #81
tim333 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Someone that does not want to be tracked ... will always be able to do that. I'm sure the Russians doing the Sailsbury attacks didn't want to be tracked by cameras but they were. If top Russian agents can be then probably most other people can be too. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/salisbury-novich... >the ultimate aim of these ubiquitous surveillance systems isn't really reducing crime, but social engi…

Technology to produce fairly convincing fake videos is already mainstream, and will only get better. For how much longer will video "evidence" be considered proof of anything?

I guess most evidence can be tampered. A lot of CCTV footage is no good as evidence because it's too fuzzy but if you can figure who did it then you can get other kinds of evidence, stolen goods etc.

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#84

Post by c0nfused »

zabana wrote: post #78
sveme wrote: post #18

Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that. Normal people without any criminal, terrorist or activist intentions will be victims of this massive surveill…

Genuine question, what is a terrorist ? It seems to be a very fluid definition these days. Anybody can be deemed a terrorist by any establishment. Also, this kind of thinking reinforces the whole "Well, I don't mind being watched by government agencies because I have nothing to hide" reaction, and it's quite frankly worriying. I'm open to discuss this further though

The generally accepted definitions center around the use of violence to incite political change or polticial pressure by nonstate actors. Word in varies but that's the general gist.

I know that the word gets thrown around a bunch, but it's a pretty simple idea. There is some controversy about if a state can be a terrorist, but typically we just call it state sponsored terrorism and move on.

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#85

Post by Hnrobert42 »

tim333 wrote: post #79
sveme wrote: post #18

Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that. Normal people without any criminal, terrorist or activist intentions will be victims of this massive surveill…

>Someone that does not want to be tracked ... will always be able to do that. I'm sure the Russians doing the Sailsbury attacks didn't want to be tracked by cameras but they were. If top Russian agents can be then probably most other people can be too. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/salisbury-novich... >the ultimate aim of these ubiquitous surveillance systems isn't really reducing crime, but social engi…

1. The correlation between surveillance increase and crime decrease does not prove causation. 2. As noted in the article video survelliance is not the same as facial recognition. The latter is far more powerful.

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#86

Post by Hnrobert42 »

isostatic wrote: post #50
philliphaydon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many openly gay people in Singapore. I'm glad weed is banned, as is every other drug. Malay people are not stigmatized in Singapore. I would quite literally live in any Asian country before choosing any Western country. But hey, each to their own right?

> I would quite literally live in any Asian country before choosing any Western country. You'd choose North Korea over Sweden?

Dont feed trolls.

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#87

Post by anoncoward111 »

rorykoehler wrote: post #80
anoncoward111 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malays can be denied permanent residency permits even if they are married to a Singaporean citizen. My ex is Singaporean and I (white American) was denied work permit, so I researched it intently. We were considering marriage until we saw the thousands of Malays who were unsuccessful despite marriage. Really hidden and heartbreaking. And that's just one example of Han Chinese racism

Sorry but that isn't remotely the experience I have witnessed. Singapore is about hard cash. Nothing else comes into consideration.

I mean, why should hard cash have anything to do with the right to live and work in Singapore?

The US isn't the most awesome country in the world but marrying a foreigner at least conveys them basic rights like residency and work permit. I mean, residency! What is a marriage without residency?

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#88

Post by greendestiny_re »

Black-box attacks using specially crafted glasses that can mess up the facial recognition software already exist, leading to invisibility and/or misclassification.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sbhagava/papers/face-rec-ccs16.pdf

"In this work, we show how to perform invisibility attacks while attempting to maintain plausible deniability through the use of facial accessories. We defer the examination of the physical realizability of these attacks to future work."

"In this paper, we demonstrated techniques for generating accessories in the form of eyeglass frames that, when printed and worn, can effectively fool state-of-the-art face-recognition systems."

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#89

Post by anoncoward111 »

mediumdeviation wrote: post #22
anoncoward111 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet crime still does occur, and lifestyle choices are severely punished by jail, death, loss of career and loss of residency. And by lifestyle choices I mean being gay, smoking weed, or being Malay. I would quite literally live in any Chinese city before chosing Singapore. At least China would be cheaper.

> I would quite literally live in any Chinese city before chosing Singapore. At least China would be cheaper. No you won't. However bad you imagine Singapore's police state to be, China's is several order of magnitudes worse. Singapore doesn't block most Western social network, media and file sharing sites. Singapore doesn't ban memes from social networks because they make their leader look bad. Singapore doesn't dem…

I was shacked up with a girl in Harbin for 250 a month for the two of us, which is like an 87% discount compared to Shanghai and NY, I definitely agree.

But, I didn't go to Harbin for a squeaky clean experience. I went there for its grime and cheapness, and I felt the surveillance was tolerable for the price.

Singapore is like a Chinese Miami. For the price, I'd just go to Miami or Brisbane.

Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

#90

Post by acct1771 »

isostatic wrote: post #50
philliphaydon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many openly gay people in Singapore. I'm glad weed is banned, as is every other drug. Malay people are not stigmatized in Singapore. I would quite literally live in any Asian country before choosing any Western country. But hey, each to their own right?

> I would quite literally live in any Asian country before choosing any Western country. You'd choose North Korea over Sweden?

Well, that's the easiest flame-war ever.
Post reply on HN