Slashdot Mirror
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
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?
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
If they cheated on this test, they need to find new cheaters.
Sounds familiar...
--
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!