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Even More Porn Image Recognition Software
Rob Pascual writes: "I thought this article was interesting. It's a review of software that analyzes pictures in email to see if they are porn. Not that it works too well, but it's interesting how it works, and has a lot of cool info on image recognition." See also this earlier Slashdot story about the same concept embodied in software from Exotrope and Eye-T, which seems mostly to illustrate how absurd it is.
In this particular case, it comes down to whether I decided to shoot in B&W or color that day.
As usual, the issue isn't what it is now, but what it has the potential to become. In as little as 10 years to two decades, we may have algs that are good enough to discern between hardcore pr0n and what most people consider to be 'art' photos. But in many cases, the line between art and pornography doesn't even exist.
I just visted a fantastic art gallery in San Francisco featuring very expensive large format laser holography. In addition to gorgeous fine art nude holograms, he also had amazing holographic prints of various sex acts in action. Closeups of oral fellatio with both sexes and other interesting subject material. I consider these prints to be extremely beautiful, capturing a freeze frame of raw human lust in a way that has never been seen before. Point being, I very much consider these prints to be 'fine art' even though if you were to see the same thing on a 2D color photograph, you might deem it to be only of purely purrient interest. The only difference is the medium used.
If I were to take some well-lit B&W's of two girls going at each other with their tongues, would it be art? Would the same thing be art if it was in color? Depending on who you are, how you were raised and where you are from, you might say that any picture depicting copulation is pornography. Others might say that sex is virulently beautiful in many forms.
A good way to define art: Does it quicken your pulse? Does it turn you on? Then it's art for you. If you consider it tasteless and it doesn't do anything for you, then it's not very artistic in your eyes.
More importantly: The whole idea of suing over email is a little ludicrous...if you are receiving pr0n images in email, who sent them? A friend of yours who accidentally put you in the CC? Does that warrant suing your COMPANY for failing to block it? Is ruffling through your personal mail looking for objectionable material part of a companies' responsibility? Do you want it to be? Does a whole company have to suffer out of fear that one or two people might be offended and lawsuit crazy? Have we completely lost out all our rights to the lawyers, who clean up on both sides of the equation?
The question is, who is writing this software, and what are their beliefs? Do you want someone else deciding for you what is 'art'? What else are they going to decide is not in your best interests to view?
---Mike
Watching the war over what combination of pixels we can look at and what combinations of pixels are 'bad' for us...
Mike Massee
Maybe the Puritans need their OWN COUNTRY. Or maybe they should become Amish and stop using the infernal Satanic computer. Then we could take all that money all that effort and all that energy and solve some real social problems. If you don't know what your CHHHHIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLDRRRREEENNNNNNNN are doing then what the FUCK gives you the right to demand that someone or something else do that for you and for everyone else as well.
Considering the no-brainer false negatives and false positives, I doubt very much that they were BSing. A red truck (from certain angles) is bad, but a blowjob is acceptable? The Mona Lisa is bad at 745 pixels across, but okay at 100 pixels across? Shrub and the Shrubette are obscene, but blatant penetration is okay?
Never attribute to malice...
Teach your kids: "C++ made baby Jesus cry."
You'd be the next dot.com millionaire.
Go where the market REALLY is.
________
So in essence, the software is saying I may not know what pr0n is, but I know it when I see it?
1. Never send the files as raw Jpegs. (PNGs / GIFs / whatever) All it takes is one overzealous network adminstrator to take a peek at the images going through their server, and it's boot up the arse time.
2. If this software works (which I severely doubt!), all you'll have to do is apply a 'negative' filter to the image, achievable in most basic art packages and/or the ppm tools. This will remove all the flesh tones, which is what these things normally check for.
3. Add cryptography to taste.
4. Get out more, your palms are growing hairy.
I'd wager they can't block this little tid-bit:
Warning! Don't click here if you're under 18 or local regulations prohibit you from downloading pr0n, even ASCII-art.
When looking at this pic, try setting your point size to 4 and make sure you're using a fixed-width font. Much more realistic.
Thus sprach DrQu+xum, SID=218745.
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
Hello? You're testing censorware! I don't believe for a second that this company wouldn't be sleazy enough to hand-check the emails getting sent through the account. All they have to do is open the emails, look at them, and (inserting a few false-positives and negatives) manually tell the software whether or not to filter the image.
This is a completely invalid test if the software is vulnerable to fiddling by the company during the test.
--
314-15-9265
I can't say I agree with this assertion (that the worse the censorware works, the better for us). As you acknowledge, the false positives (Mona Lisa == pron, Dick Armey == naughty site) are what burns us. I would have to assume, given previous censorware policies, that these services are always going to err on the side of over-censoring. If they under-censor and junior gets to see a naked woman, they end up looking pretty stupid given their claims of accuracy. No one is going to buy something that 90% of the time screens goatse.cx... :-).
No, I think we need to continue to point out that the claims these people make are not accurate, and that software is not the answer (and probably will never be the answer). The censorware makers need to be challenged -- I'm honestly shocked that they can continue to make the claims they do, given that Peacefire has proven countless times that these claims are categorically not true!
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
This may ultimately require an AI unit to do it correctly. If we do not corrupt the poor thing first with all that pr0n. :P
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This is exactly what I thought as I read this item. This is probably a good indication that someone somewhere is actually working on this.
You'd be the next dot.com millionaire.
I've just mailed my patent application to the USPTO. Now all I've gotta do is wait for the first infringment, and I can start building my mansion. :-)
If they cheated on this test, they need to find new cheaters.
Sounds familiar...
--
Everybody's complaining about how this stuff doesn't really work - but look, if the tight ass blue noses complain to the local politico that kids are looking at (shhh!), the politico makes the schools and libs buy and install product-anti-X, the kids finds holes in it and if they can keep it secret the tight ass blue noses are happy, the politicos are happy, the software company is happy, the kids are thrilled - everybody wins! The only problem is when the Mona Lisa is blocked and someone has to get an adult to manually intervene, end of problem.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Okay, send me a penny for every grand you make with this, promise?
The Right Way to block offending imagery at the sender is to make an MD5 hash of the image to be sent, and then compare it to every image ever posted to any Usenet erotica/tasteless newsgroups.
Everyone who has worked in a male-dominated office environment knows that 95% of this stuff originates from the Usenet, and that the remaining 5% will eventually end up on Usenet. So, basically this is a fool-proof way of blocking most of the stuff that gets sent, while maintaining an impressive 0% false-positive rate.
Marko Karppinen
"Johnson! What on earth are you doing with those pictures up on your computer at work?!?!?!??"
"Um.... I'm writing some new censoring software, and I was just testing it's effectiveness"
"very well... carry on. Make sure you prepare a full demonstration to present to the board at our next meeting"
"*grumble* ... dammit ... *starts coding*"
________
Unless you're in the business of distributing art (in which case, given that you're peddling in fecal-matter portraits of the Virgin Mary, Mapplethorpe's Last Supper (complete with fisting) etc.) what do you care whether or not it blocks out the capacity to email the Mona Lisa at work?
The point behind this software is to prevent people at work from sending pictures like the "Yes, you can park a Ford Expedition in me" guy on that infamous troll-loved web-site, to each other.
I don't think too many people email each other pictures of the Mona Lisa at work. Baby pictures perhaps, but many companies prohibit personal use of company email and resources anyway.
Then again, if you're sending an engineering drawing that for some reason has tons of flesh tones and it's blocked, you can always apply to the administrator to let it through.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
while (mail.new)
{
if (pron(mail.attachment)) strcpy(mail.priority, "Hella Important!");
else if (!strcmp(mail.sender, my_boss)) mail.message[1] == '\0';
mail.new--;
}
.sig: Now legally binding!