The end of public anonymity

[Blade404]

This has to be one of the scariest technology reads in a while.. 

 

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It - nytimes

 

Quote

Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

 

The potential for mis-use here is too huge for me to even begin to contemplate.. its the stuff that should be left as a Hollywood movie plot, not in the hands of a Startup..

Edited January 21, 2020 by LogicalDrm
Added quote box

[Fnige]

yaaaay

^/s

[ARikozuM]

15 minutes ago, Blade404 said:

its the stuff that should be left as a Hollywood movie plot, not in the hands of a Startup..

Hollywood now has access to millions of actors. 

[TempestCatto]

So when you lock eyes with that person at the mall or on the train, and you just have one of those "I've never seen you before in my life, but let's get married" moments, you can just sneak a pic of them and find out who they are, where they live, and what they like. Then you can set up some romantic date, and either message them or just drive to their house, pick them up and swoon them off their feet. Next thing ya know, you're signing your 3rd child support check for the month with the cockroaches have a luau in your bathtub.

[Arika]

bold of them to assume there are pictures of me on the internet

[sazrocks]

47 minutes ago, Caroline said:

What will the people that always comment "china/russia bad" on posts about this tech have to say about this?

 

pick one

• They do it to prevent terror attacks
• It's for national security
• The government can prevent (pick any crime) by detecting it before it's commited
• If you have nothing to hide then why worry?
• It's ok if it's public

How about

• This is bad, regardless of who is doing it

[ARikozuM]

56 minutes ago, Caroline said:

What will the people that always comment "china/russia bad" on posts about this tech have to say about this?

 

pick one

• They do it to prevent terror attacks
• It's for national security
• The government can prevent (pick any crime) by detecting it before it's commited
• If you have nothing to hide then why worry?
• It's ok if it's public
• it's all for competition in the free market

Fixed that for you.

[DKL]

So they took the evil half of the TV show Person of Interest and copied it by the book. 

All they need is to feed the ai their own governments data (if they aren't already) and boom, we have an ai with unrestricted and unknown power over the government. What could possibly go wrong? 

[melete]

8 minutes ago, Caroline said:

They'd never say that

This is bad, regardless of who’s doing it. 

[JoshQM]

Evey time I look at the news I feel like i'm being sucked into a super shitty Black Mirror episode.

iTs OkAy BeCaUsE i HaVe NoThInG tO hIdE

[mr moose]

where did people think all this technology was going?  Seriously if you thought this would never happen or will never happen then you are not looking very hard at humanity.

 

 

Technology will either bury us or or make our society a utopian shangri-la.  Either way we will lose all subterfuge on the way. 

[Worstcaster]

39 minutes ago, DKL said:

So they took the evil half of the TV show Person of Interest and copied it by the book. 

All they need is to feed the ai their own governments data (if they aren't already) and boom, we have an ai with unrestricted and unknown power over the government. What could possibly go wrong? 

They might.  Some of the DMVs have been selling data.

 

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/ca-dmv-makes-50m-selling-personal-data-report-says/2202432/

[Shreyas1]

Oof looks like everyone who cares about privacy is going to have to wear a mask in public from now on

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

bold of them to assume there are pictures of me on the internet

I've never shared any of the pictures I've taken with the hidden camera I installed in your shower, I promise!

[DKL]

3 minutes ago, Worstcaster said:

They might.  Some of the DMVs have been selling data.

 

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/ca-dmv-makes-50m-selling-personal-data-report-says/2202432/

They also are already uploading their own photos from crimescenes etc. to compare. Thus feeding it increasingly greater data overtime regardless 

[mr moose]

I wonder how this goes with privacy in Australia?   What with copyright being as it is I see a large grey area.

 

[Arika]

14 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

I've never shared any of the pictures I've taken with the hidden camera I installed in your shower, I promise!

 

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Blade404 said:

This has to be one of the scariest technology reads in a while.. 

 

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It - nytimes

 

Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

 

The potential for mis-use here is too huge for me to even begin to contemplate.. its the stuff that should be left as a Hollywood movie plot, not in the hands of a Startup..

Facial recognition has it's uses, but this is one of the most evilest things humans have gone into next to landmines (which indiscriminately kills.)

 

Something can be considered evil if it indiscriminately makes no distinction between good and evil uses. This is why AI and Social media end up being used for evil, quite a bit. But by themselves, a human has to direct it to be evil.

 

Facial recognition allows law enforcement (in theory good) and marketers (very evil) access to peoples identities like never before. Not only that, it allows one to go on a fishing expedition. So say you've done nothing wrong, then one day you're in the right place at the wrong time. The cops show up at your door, accusing you of being a co-conspirator in some crime that you weren't even aware was happening. All because the AI driving the facial recognition can't tell the difference between perpetrator and witness.

 

Like, I personally think facial recognition can be used for good, but it needs to be operated at a municipal level at most and law enforcement/first responders should only be able to use it to identify victims and perpetrators, not witnesses. If a witness wants to come forward, that should be their prerogative. If you operate it at a state/provincial/federal level, or an international level (eg interpol) suddenly those weed possessions may as well be a red notice. If Law Enforcement decides someone is a wanted terrorist and wants global cooperation, that needs to be opt-in by the municipalities who have the technology. LEO's really need to a good reason to "fish" for a facial recognition hit (eg active shooter event) and can't just dragnet looking for people committing crimes as though they were operating a pre-crime operation. 

 

Which brings up the other half of the argument. How do you stay off the radar if you don't want to be tracked?

1. Never go outside

2. Wear heavy clothing like you're going skiing.

3. Hide your hair and ears with hats

4. Apply makeup and removable piercings when you do have to show your face.

 

Tangent to that. Don't get a passport, don't get a drivers license, and don't take selfies.

 

And so forth. It also makes people who do the above even more suspicious. 

[FezBoy]

2 hours ago, Caroline said:

What will the people that always comment "china/russia bad" on posts about this tech have to say about this?

 

pick one

• They do it to prevent terror attacks
• It's for national security
• The government can prevent (pick any crime) by detecting it before it's commited
• If you have nothing to hide then why worry?
• It's ok if it's public

As one of those people:

Tech like this, along with many other reasons, is precisely why I say "China/Russia bad." If it starts being used on any scale in the United States, or any country for that matter, I will say "China/Russia/United States/etc. bad"

[DKL]

58 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

 

Which brings up the other half of the argument. How do you stay off the radar if you don't want to be tracked?

1. Never go outside

2. Wear heavy clothing like you're going skiing.

3. Hide your hair and ears with hats

4. Apply makeup and removable piercings when you do have to show your face.

 

Tangent to that. Don't get a passport, don't get a drivers license, and don't take selfies.

 

And so forth. It also makes people who do the above even more suspicious. 

Even if you do that, there's cameras where you bought that hat/clothing/makeup etc.
They can track the clothing combination. Because AI.

[Master Disaster]

You all should know how this goes by now....

 

New start up makes scary new tech, the public rages, the corporations don't care. They demo the new tech, corporations get interested then Alphabet buys them for $1B despite them not even having a fully working product and incorporates the tech into Deepmind. We never hear about it again. The End.

[kirashi]

4 hours ago, Blade404 said:

This has to be one of the scariest technology reads in a while.. 

 

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It - nytimes

 

Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

 

The potential for mis-use here is too huge for me to even begin to contemplate.. its the stuff that should be left as a Hollywood movie plot, not in the hands of a Startup..

Samaritan wants to know your location. (Unless Root gets to you first - then you best wish you were dead.)

[Kisai]

39 minutes ago, DKL said:

Even if you do that, there's cameras where you bought that hat/clothing/makeup etc.
They can track the clothing combination. Because AI.

Nah there are ways around that. 

 

But there is "trying not to be tracked" and then there is "trying to operate anonymously while you crime"

 

You don't want to be tracked if you explicitly want to shop for things that are embarrassing, like sex toys. Versus, trying to purchase anonymously weapons and drugs that would land you in jail.

 

If you're just trying not to be tracked, stores will accept straight cash, even if you go into the store dressed like a clown. I doubt the same will happen inside a store selling weapons.

[realpetertdm]

I am so fucking glad that the only picture of me on the internet is on my private Instagram account.

 

Also, not to get political, but

Quote

In addition to Mr. Ton-That, Clearview was founded by Richard Schwartz — who was an aide to Rudolph W. Giuliani when he was mayor of New York — and backed financially by Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist behind Facebook and Palantir.

Very interesting.

[Guest]

I think you could look at this one of two ways. 

 

1) Complete violation of privacy, someone you have never heard of accessing photos, videos, online information everywhere. 

 

2) Complete privacy online - you know exactly where all your online information and content is - you know where to delete it.