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Your Face Is Not a Bar Code
Phil Agre has a solid essay opposing automatic face recognition systems in public areas. These uses are only going to increase, because the technology is cheap (enough) and appealing to authorities everywhere; it's good to have some arguments to hand for opposing the spread of the cameras.
Just because law enforcement would like to use it for catching criminals doesn't mean it can't be used for good.
... :P
Think about it- Similiar to Gates's house- walk into a room, machine recognizes your face (instead of the pin) and changes your pictures on the wall to suit.
Authenticate your identity online to prevent fraud (although, some Celebs might have trouble with that... 3 million elvis's
Search your high school yearbook- search old newspaper clippings...
And.... catch some known pedophile that's broken parole.
It's a great technology for those who don't run afoul of the law... but... the power and lack of regulation are very worrying.
Automatic surveillance would release police resources, which are currently being stretched to the limit, to more useful purposes like responding quickly to emergencies.
It's surprising to see how anti-law enforcement the /. crowd really is. The only thing that's keeping you, your families and your property safe is a robust law enforcement system. Without law enforcement your precious computers and consoles would be stolen in no time.
And in things like this where having the same earlobes and chin as someone will get you taken down in a public place..... well, I wouldn't want it to happen to me.
These devices scan your face to determine bone structure, so facial hair, glasses, or anything else on the surface wont make a difference. The secret to defeating facial recognition systems is to either break your jaw and have it reset in a different position (not recommended) or to put things in your mouth (fill your cheeks and lips) that alter the structure of your face.
Reality has a liberal bias
Ager's core assumption is that liberty is a vital attribute of the individual. Even John Stuart Mill did not go so far. JSM was willing to concede the right of the government to take preventative measures, especially in a society so overcome with crime that entire neighbourhoods resemble a different, much more dangerous nation than the rest of the city they are in.
If you relax for a moment, the belief that individual liberty is a universal right -- an assumption that has by no means been proven fait accompli, you will see that these camera's provide an a priori benefit to society. Criminals cannot wander free in our streets and malls with these around.
Let's stop and think about the children for a second. I believe that if we as a free society were to register all known pedophiles in a national database with pictures, this system could ipso facto provide massive benefits for the endangered young of our nation.
I can not in good faith oppose pro bono publico a system which almost guarantees safety for my children. I do not trust the mettle of anyone who does not agree with this.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
Sadly, the same biometric mechaisms which will make transactions over the internet completely secure will also make it impossible for people to hide outside of their own homes (and many governments will try to put them inside as well.)
Since surveillance cameras are cheap, can be unobtrusive, (can you tell me where the cameras are around you?) always there and always on, the powers that be will use them to implement surveilance that's just as pervasive.
Since these cameras will be installed in community owned spaces surveying community owned property, you'll have absolutely no say in the matter.
In fact, the excuses will be that the surveilance is mandated and demanded by a responsable community.
I hear Ted Kazinski's cabin is for sale.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Totalitarianism in this century is going to be a lot easier because the government won't have to employ tons of informants and security service personell. They can just use face recognition to watch everybody and find out who the dangerous people are or who the leaders of insurgencies are and then locate them and eliminate them efficiently without disrupting the daily lives of everybody else. Running a good security service was possible in low tech times but was a tremendous economic drain on any totalitarian country and required executing a lot of uneccessary people just to keep people on their toes.
We are seeing this put into practice, for better or for worse, in Israel. Let's ignore completely who's right and who's wrong in the whole thing (I don't want to get off topic). The Palestinans are still low tech and have to rely on generalized terror of the old inefficent kind that brings a lot more condemnation on them then they would like because it often kills people who are not involved in the conflict per se. The Israelis on the other hand have very good intelligence, possibly even face recognition that lets them locate leaders of insurgency groups and meticulously pick them off.
So in the future the world will enter an era of permanent stablity, for worse no doubt, because if you get out of line you can be effciently eliminated.
The only solution I can see to this is to put this kind of technology into the hands of civilians. Put together a big network of civilian owned face recognition systems and feed into them the faces of politicians and then watch what they do.
things are really starting to get tight. All of these stories about traffic cameras, facial recognition and monitoring cameras just go together too well. It seems like you can believe in one of two things:
1. This gradually closing surveillance net that will be able to track you anytime you leave your house is a result of the unwitting acts of many legislatures/public officials which result in "skynet". or
2. This really is a "boil the frog" approach by government to keeping tabs on everything. IOW, they really *are* out to get you.
I think that it's probably the first but the end result is the same. More people need to make their voices heard on this type of stuff. We here in America, in general, seem to depend on the media to out this kind of stuff but we should not be so lackidasical (sp?) about it. This really is important. Oh, btw, the "traffic management" cameras are just stupid. A highway isn't like a train where you can divert trains onto extra tracks. There just aren't any extra 6-lane highways laying around. Sure, you might "divert" traffic from the highway to surrounding streets but what do you think will happen when 6 lanes of traffic gets "diverted" to a 2 or 4 land suburban avenue.......
What are you talking about! Of course your face is a bar code, its just that we don't like toy hink of people that way. But we do it every day. A bar code is ment to help distinguish products in an efficient manner. When we meet someone we look at their faces (most of us do anyway) and the next time we meet them we recognize the code/face. There are other solutions that would enrage you more, like real bar codes. Are we willing to give up our privacy to be protected? Yes. Are we going to get over it eventualy? Yes. Are we going to let the government get away with something worse? Yes. Why? Because they will try to introduce something else, and someone will yell "We put up with the cammeras, but not this!" And that will show we have come to live a little bit less.
Would you rather they say its imposible, we all look alike?
When talking to some of my friends about privacy issues, even some of the computer geeks (I mean this in a good way) to do not have too many concerns about privacy and that kind of stuff, like they don't expect to have any. Sounds like one of those things where everyone will only miss it when it's gone.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Hey, why don't they combine this with the universal individual ID number (mentioned in a previous recent slashdot article) and somehow implant the code in peoples foreheads!? They could make it manditory for rich and poor alike!
You're Just Jealous Because The Voices Are Talking To Me.
wear a mask or a face covering when your outside? Granted it's a little extreme, but I don't think it's against the law...
Not much to worry about if you're not a criminal. I'd feel safer with this kind of thing around. Guess /. is full of criminals.
One possible way to defeat these systems is to have everyone wear halloween masks in areas with these cameras. It's tough to figure out who is who if we all look like Richard Nixon. Perhaps citizens in areas with these systems can organize a protest by walking around these areas with masks on. If someone will pay for airfare to Tampa plus hotel accomidations, I'll make some time to come down there and take part in such a protest.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
I thought the fascists running the CIA and the FBI and the NSA and the DEA had a long term plan to tatoo barcodes on everybody's forehead they could get away with.
B.
trying to stop a piece of software is ridiculous. (DMCA?) Its inevitable that information will become easier to collect. Society is becoming more transparent and that can be a good thing-
read some David Brin
Salon also had this to say
You know in all of my days dealing with all kind of people, the people I fear the most is law enforcement.
Sure, you can say "you should have nothing to fear if you aren't doing anything wrong." but that is the problem. Sometime you have to fear when you haven't done anything wrong. In some places you will be hounded becuase you're a white man in the black part of town. Other time, you're get pulled over becuase you drive a red car. Then you get a gun pulled on you and your life treated becuase some pig "don't like your kind."
It's like i was saying the other day to a friend "you have nothing to fear but cops." Think about it, when someone robs you, you have to right to fight back. If you fight back to a cop, they can kill you. Oh sure, it not all that bad, until you had a gun pointed to you by the protector of the law knowing his buddy would go right long with the story that you resisted assest. And you might make news, and you know what? People are going to say "yeah he should've been shot." Then media pumps the crime like every person walking around is a rapist, like everybudy is just waiting to rob you blind, or jack you when ever they get a chance.
I know there is crime, and I think it's bad, but when the police turns to law abidders and make crimes, that is where I draw the line.
The journey is better then the end.
A security guard recognises a criminal from a mug shot on one of his cameras. He might be right, or mistaken. He'll have to check to be sure.
A piece of software flags a person as a criminal. It might be right or mistaken. It will have to let the security guard check it out to be sure.
The only difference is now one guard can handle more cameras better. The same with finger print software. You can check more fingerprints faster. The crime labs have used those for years. A human eye must still be the ultimate authority, the computer narrows the field a bit.
-Bocaj
I'm sick and tired of pedophagia being used as the excuse for every oppressive measure adults use on each other.
Face it, statistically, pedophiles are a small and far less dangerous segment of the community that used car salesmen who sell defective Detroit Iron to mentally defective sixteen year olds (who then go to a bar to celebrate their rite of passage into the adult community by drinking until they hurl and then weave their way home.)
YOU care about your kids. Great! YOU watch over them and trust that they will have enough sense to scream and kick. (You have taught them to do that or did you abrogate that responsability too?)
I care about your kids the same as you care about mine. Neither of us really gives a rat's-ass. Its an SEP (Somebody Else's Problem.) (That's why terrorists are never effective. If you can walk away you DO or you died and aren't terrorized anymore.)
By the way "pro bono publico" is Latin for "for the greater good" (implying 'not for profit.') You'd do a better job of that by getting the drunks off the street.
As for the hookers, pimps, dealers, thieves, purse-snatchers and lawyers. we'd be better off without them too.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Another alternative would be to figure out how to send an electronic signal of someone else's bone structure into the camera eye of the facial recognition device, perhaps with the use of an altered laser pen-like device.
Admittedly, this is all fantasy and science fiction. But I don't think speculation hurts us at this point.
I am not a lawyer. Do not take my words as legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult an attorney.
Couldn't I copyright and trademark my own face?
The authority (especially commercial interests) that copied my face and input it into their recognition system would be accountable under copyright laws.
I should have total rights to my image and likeness. Selling a digital depiction of my face at $500,000 a copy could get quite expensive.
... but you can't stop shit from coming out of it.
The author of the article is probably right that it is not pertinent for government accelerate the trend towards automatic recognition at this point, but the just the topic betrays a dangerous fallacy in his reasoning. If it is possible to use your face to identify you (and it is, of course, we evolved that way) then your face is, for all intents and purposes, a human barcode. You can throw a fit and argue all you like about how horrible that is, but by denying the simple inevitable truth you will just be making your situation worse.
Your ass is a shit hole, and your face is a bar code. Get over it, and start from there. The right thing to do when technology starts infringing on our integrity and liberty is not to fight technology, because that is futile and stupid, but to develop technology that evens the scale, or to compensate by other means.
In this case there is no need to develope new technology, masks have been around for some time. If you are not willing to pay the price of inconvience of wearing masks in public, then you do not deserve your freedom. The true infringement on liberty is, of course, when somebody tells you that you cannot use a mask (just like Carnivore is not an issue, while bans against encryption are crimes against humanity).
As for compensating, the best way to compensate against a loss of privacy is to decrease the amount of power over you that you grant to others. As governments are able to track us better, we need to make sure that the amount of power we grant to them decreases accordingly.
They actually spend a lot of time beating us down. Here in NY, USA we have zero tolerance for seat belt offenders, with police roadblocks for enforcement. In USA the Federal Gov't has most law enforcement spending a majority of their time chasing victimless criminals like pot smokers.
Ask yourself how much you will like the new "law enforcement" tool when it is used to beat you down? Your kid took a spin on his bike without a helmet, so you have endangered his welfare and are arrested. You or someone who looks like you are seen buying wine regularly so you must be watched closely just in case you happen to drive drunk. You or someone who looks like you attend a Libertarian conference so you deserve a little extra harassment just for being different. You look a lot like a real badguy so you and your family are held at gunpoint will you get arrested every time you go into a public place.
Kevin
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
Of course it doesn't make headlines because that's what they have been employed to do. Additionally these civil servants were not drafted into law enforcement they chose that career track. Don't give me that cr4p.
Eres puto...soy cabron...
...To advance the control of public opinion and to research and expand the understanding of how to manipulate the human psyche, individually and collectively. Today this agenda includes the microchipping of people and their permanent connection to a global computer.
This is a line from this site here, and a quote from a book by a certain David Icke. I was pretty sure the bit about microchipping was pretty far-fetched.
I'm not so sure now, at least conceptually speaking. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. The desired end it would seem, can be achieved by tracking individual's movements coupled with thought manipulation through popular media.
You're using her as bait, Master!
I can't really say that i like the idea that i could be under surveillance of this type in a public place, but i DO see how it can be of great value to protecting public interests, such as catching dangerous criminals.
This is why i think that some laws should be placed to guide the use of this technology.
First of all, it should be available to ONLY law enforcement. Using this technology in bookstores, malls, etcetera, is wrong, this allows corporations to use this for their own profit, most likely at the customer's expense (we all know how trustworthy corporations are).
Second of all, if a known criminal is identified by this system and apprehended, s/he should have to go through a proper identification process before anything further occurs. This *should* go without saying, but if it isn't explicity stated in the law then i can imagine many occurrances of "mistakes" leading to some pretty uncomfortable situations.
--- it's pelvis to be cube
Have some respect for the men and women who are doing a dangerous job.
I wonder if you paintes stripes on your face if it screw the system up. aka, how a zebra uses stripes to confuse a Lion...
1. paint black/white zig-zags on face. I think this would make it hard for the reginition software to figure out where the edge of your face was.
If societies were built upon the concept of "natural justice" (ie. what Jane and Joe Median think is right) we'd be living in a barbaric eye-for-an-eye society.
The concept of right and wrong is so complex that it really cannot be trusted to laymen and -women. If it really were that simple, we would have had a perfect society a long time ago.
disagree. It seems that ever and anon, everyone on /. thinks that the way to get even with "the man" is to hack something together (or apart) in order to challenge them. In my mind, that's wrong. The way to challenge the man is to undo what's fucked up to begin with.
For instance, your municipality installing cameras? If you feel strongly about it, What are you gonna do - walk around with a fucking mask on? The way to fight that problem is by getting the camera's pulled out and sent to England, where they love them. Putting a mask on or shooting the damn things doesn't do anything to rectify the erosion of our liberties. Sooner or later the man is going to be able to get what he wants and it will be by utilizing several technologies. In your scenario, you won't be able to walk out of your house without a mask, voice encoder and a cape.
Also, this isn't about "fightig technology". It's about maintaining our liberties and making our governments do what we want them to do. Even those who are so lazy that they don't care about this stuff will sit up when the first story comes out about how the technology was used by a bank to catch a deliquent customer (or something similar).
and power to beat people down.
I have had personal encounters with police:
- pulled over and harrassed for running a yellow light at 4 AM on my
way home from work. I was assumed to be drunk. And was allowed to
procede with a $50 ticket for a marginally loud exhaust.
- pulled over and harrassed for "eratic driving" on my way home from
work at 11:30 pm. Assumed to be drunk. Questioned for 10 minutes.
Finally released after volunteering to take the breath test.
- Obnoxious police officers directing traffic during a parade.
Office refused to let some cars pass even after 10 minutes of waiting.
- Obnoxious police giving me a ticket for a loud muffler when he SAW
the exhaust damage happen right in front of him.
When a cop pulls a car over for running a yellow light, or for not coming
to a comeplete stop at stop sign, in a sleepy rural one light town at 4
AM, when there is no else around, he is doing one thing and one thing
only. He is being obnoxious.
Police are people. Some good and some bad. Most people are
not pure. I don't want anyone to have anymore power over me than
absolutely neccessary. The bad things I hear and see, and have experienced
have soured me.
Kevin
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
Is anyone else struck by the similarity in argumentation for creating DMCA and that for limiting face recognition?
Parts of DMCA were written because those with the power to do so believed people couldn't be trusted with technology. In that case the technology to break copyrights and hence illegally spread copyrighted material.
Now we are sitting back and use the same arguments ourselves that we can't trust the people in charge to make reasonable use of facial recognition technology, or to limit the system in response to privacy and rights concerns.
Obviously both scenarios bring up rights issues which differ significantly, but the arguments for DMCA and against facial recognition rarely focus on these. As you might notice 5 of Arge's 7 main points against facial recognition rest on the potential for abuse or considerable privacy invasion (linking such systems to information about average people).
Perhaps this is the nature of society and we really can't trust enough people to be responsible when it comes to the oppurtunities new technology gives us. Frankly though if that's true, it says something sad about the state of the world we've made for ourselves.
Personally I feel that both DMCA and facial recognition software benefit legitimate concerns and can serve a useful purpose. If properly legislated in an enforcable way then it should be possible to strike a balance between the varying concerns. That's not to say that DMCA as currently constructed couldn't use revision or that facial recognition should grow unchecked.
Ultimately, if we are going to make arguments, then we need to be consistent. Either we accept or reject the argument that people will abuse new technologies on a wide scale. From there we decide how the issue plays out with respect to human rights concerns. Beware of people that will dismiss your concerns in one setting and then champion them in another setting. (For the record I don't know if Ager does this since I can't recall hearing arguments from him about DMCA, but I know some organizations certainly have put forth contradictory arguments when it serves their purpose.)
Yeah... I can see the system working in a crowd of 'goth' individuals.
"Sir, the identification cameras have positively confirmed that every 1 out of 2 people in this crowd is Robert Smith."
Sats can only look straight down pretty much.
More likely there will be factories mass producing cigarette sized cameras that connect wirelessly to the facial recognition network, to be sold to anyone at a low price.
I won't be able to pick my nose or scratch my butt knowing that a camera is watching me. I don't want to be walking with an itchy butt all day.
because her kids would look at the underwear section. Now we are flooded with all types of much more graphic imagery from numerous sources. It's the onward march of technology, and we have to take the good with the bad.
I find it interesting that so many people here on Slashdot are opposed to the restriction of technology that may be used for fraudulent purposes, such as copying DVD's or bypassing software security features, but seem to have no problem pushing for restrictions on other technology that may be used for such sinister purposes as "strangers calling you by name" or "shops pulling up your credit report when you walk in."
This is the Age of Information. The shape of your face is just another piece of information. If we need restrictions, we should restrict uses rather than capabilities.
Read that again: We should restrict uses rather than capabilities. Try thinking about that concept in different contexts that are important to you: facial recognition, copyright protection, encryption, decryption. Does it mean the same thing in each context, or do you change your opinion based on whether the technology benefits YOU?
I have to close with this gem from the essay: "For example, the press cannot publish pictures of
most people in personally sensitive situations that have no legitimate news value." What?! And this guy is worried about Big Brother?
Evil is the money of root.
One possible hole is that .. those of us with extremely ugly faces will cooredump the face recognition system.
[alk]
Tell me again, what's wrong with catching criminals? I'm lost here. I always thought that catching the "bad guys" was a good thing.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin.
C'mon you geeks... Think past the base application.
There's a lot more that the system could do than
just perform spot identification. Say you are
walking down the street with another "face" on
the list, now -you- get the bit set that you are
associating with known criminals, even if that's
not known to you. Now, that you are on the list,
anybody that you're seen with is a possible
associate.
The system can also be used to watch a certain
place and track who goes there. Go to a pr0n shop
that sells materials that border on pedophilia,
data mine that against your M$ passport account
that shows your net activity and that you've
got a 10 year old that also uses the machine.
Guiliy by triangulation.
I'm sure your employer would want to know that
you head to the corner bar every day after
work and stay for 2.3 hours.
After all, they have the right to protect their
profits by eliminating those with potential
"problems".
Data mining against cameras watching a poling
place on election day, correlating against the
sequence of votes cast brings up all kinds of
intriguing possibilities for those eager to
manipulate the process and influence future
outcomes.
As the software gets more sophisticated, it
could not only track you but also look at how
your image varies from your template. Eyes seem
a little red? Gait is a little unsteady?
Better set that bit and flag them for a closer
look.
Say you are a congressman and one day your
girlfriend comes up missing...uh, forget that.
This shit is as dangerous as it is inevitable.
--
How can we possibly stop the proliferation of cameras in public places?
How about voter referendum???
Voters in the state of Washington have been reasonably successful in using referendums to set law when the legislature has been unwilling to listen to constituents.
It is my opinion that voters would overwhemingly support measures to protect privacy.
I'm thinking along the lines of mandatory identifcation of all cameras. Something like a 12" wide red doughnut around each camera, plainly visible.
I'm not sure if the constitution would allow law to require this for cameras photographing public property from private property, but hopefully that too could be covered.
So what do you think? Given a chance, I think Americans everywhere would vote this shit down in a heartbeat.
You folks in less democratic countries are on your own..
I have a relative who has the same name as a criminal's alias. The criminal does not have any other identification similar to that of my relative. But whenver my relative gets stopped by an officer (typically randomly), he typically is held for several hours if not days before they realize they have the wrong man. So far, this has happened two or three times.
Now my relative went to a police station to see if there was a way to warn police stations in the area that that someone else had the same name as the criminal. He was told there was not. While face recognition systems hopefully will have a lower error rate than the odds your name will match a criminal's, you better hope you don't look like one.
fbi files show that John Lennon was monitored 24 hrs a day, including long range survelance using cameras and parabolic mikes, all his conversations and telecommunications were recorded, you can't get any more invasive than that, a few public cameras with recognition programs won't make a difference. In the long run it's no different than adding a couple more plain clothes police officers, except it's cheaper.
All you have to do is start installing these systems in the bars and restraunts around Washington D.C.
Then, put up webpages that show pictures of Congressmen and Senators out with their aides.
Wanna bet that they would start to vote differently on this kind of stuff?
As always with technology like this, the problem is the opportunity for missuse.
Advertisers for one would be very interested to know more about your mevement habits, what places you visit, etc. So there's a strong motivation by corporately lobbied capitalist nations to sell out this information. And then it will be available to stalkers, harassers, and direct marketers too.
Not that it couldn't have good uses too.
Movement patterns would help in city planning, in creating timetables for public transportation, etc. The problem is when the data has direct references to individuals, instead of being anonymous.
--PinKNoiSe
pinkNoise
Bar code: Quand il pleut il met sa barque au dessus du chien.
Perhaps the most insightful work I've ever seen on the advance of cameras is an article put out there by wired YEARS AGO.... (December '96)
Really, Wired was so far ahead of its time....
The transparent society
I defy anyone to explain why this article doesn't, in two pages or less, explain the problem and the only truly viable solution...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I think this distinction needs to be made. I'm all for law enforcement, but because it IS government, and because power naturally tends toward corruption, there necessarily have to be limits. This is one of the costs/benefits of living in a free society, depending on how you look at it.
I'm not too concerned about face recognition technology being used by the government to track me. That would require that I've done something illegal, was caught, and my mug shots are in the system. Now, I doubt a government funded system will be powerful enough to track all the mugs of all the felons in America.
What concerns me are the Commercial applications of this kind of tool. We've all complained about how Doubleclick.com and other such businesses invade our privacy by tracking our web surfing habits. Well, imagine getting a membership card to someplace like Sams or Costco. They take your picture when you get this card. These stores have cameras. These stores have affiliates. Imagine if the corporate world decided it was a good idea to use this face recognition technology to follow consumers around and find out what their shopping habits are. The camera a the local grocery store may catch you lingering too long in the baby section, showing that you likely have children, or in the frozen section next to the ice cream, showing that you likely have a sweet tooth. Or maybe that surveilance camera at the convenience store will catch you lingering by the nudy magazine rack...
If you're really worried about this technology, don't be afraid of how the government will use it. The government has limits in budget and what it can get away with. Worry about the corporations.
I think his paper is a good one, it serves to illustrate his points and he does have some good ones. However, statements like the one above show how persuasive logic fallacy can be, which is all over the document. In fact, he actually uses the term 'slippery slope' to identify the pattern, while not realizing that his argument is, in fact, a slippery slope of possibility and conjecture.
You own your own face, the government cannot afford to use this technology, we'll all just charge $500k, and then they'll stop using it. I don't think that you should even have to copywrite your own apperance.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
No group of three of more persons shall, while wearing a hood, mask, or device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, enter, be, or appear in any public place within the city of Frankfort
The Constitution of the United States of America trumps any state or local law. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from taking away freedom of association and of religion (as some women feel it's more modest to cover much of their faces), and the Fourteenth says "this goes for you too, states."
Will I retire or break 10K?
As I see oppressive laws drag us down an ever increasingly steeper slope and career politicians giving large corporations and the government more and more rights at the cost of the citizens, I say why not start fighting back? Social guerrilla warfare is simple, effective, and if done correctly a relatively low risk to the perpetrator.
I'm not talking about something as grand scale like in "Fight Club" (although that would be interesting to see...) or even physically harming a single human being, but more along the lines of doing simple things to get your point across.
Personally, if/when cameras such as these started springing up all over my hometown (which will probably happen soon), I will take the damn things out. Sure they are awesome technology; that does them no good against a rock, spray paint, a sling shot, or a pellet gun. If you are sneaky enough about it, it is not difficult to render them useless. Hell, take some wire cutters from the trusty ol' toolkit and cut the cable.
Social guerrilla warfare does not necessarily have to be what many politicians would call "terrorist activity", it could be something as harmless as a sticker campaign. Go to www.stickernation.com and order some stickers that say something like "F**k the DMCA" or something of the sorts, then give them out and stick them everywhere. The list goes on and on of stuff you can do to give the system the finger and try to make a change (sending back empty "postage paid" envelopes from credit card companies comes to mind...), but I'm sure you can think of some on your own.
The bottom line is this: whether you want to admit it or not, YOUR rights are being burned at the stake; with greed as the logs for the fire and the governments and large corporations being the fire starters. History has proven that once a society gets complacent and the lawmakers are career politicians whom are fueled by personal gain, the governmental system becomes a machine whose only function is keeping the citizens in line while the controllers of the machine gain power and wealth. If you do not believe this, you really need to get in a history class ASAP. The Romans come to mind... the only difference is instead of bread and circus we have fast food and "Reality TV".
The only way to stop a machine is either cut off its fuel supply, disable the operators, or throw a monkey wrench in it. If you let it continue, it will only run right over you if you let it.
Or we could just remain complaint as cattle and be watched like a bug in a jar until we become hamburger...
A little revolution...is a good thing. - Thomas Jefferson
The concept is identical; only the technology has changed.
What difference the database created with one than the other?
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
Wow! You USians aren't on the slippery slope leading to fascism... you're there. If this had been practiced in the old USSR twenty years ago, USian politicians would have been trumpeting the dangers of Communism ergo 'Big Brother' and building more missiles.Now there seems to be a disconcerting number of you who think this is OK because it's just for criminals... and this in a country that seems to be rapidly criminalizing a HUGE proportion of their citizens.
As a matter of interest, you folks that agree that facial recognition software is Ok should look up the definition of 'psychopath' in a dictionary, and then ponder how many cops, politicians and Corporate CEOs you know that DON'T fit the profile.
Scary eh?
We certainly have our share of dipshit pols and CEOs here in Canada, not to froget the pscopaths in power at the corporate, judicial and governmental level, but I hope that this lust for technology to control the rest of us doesn't bleed across the border or it'll soon be time to build the Great Wall of North America... or failing that, to head for the mountains.and settle in for a long battle.
This is just one more reason why I will never, under any circumstances, ever visit the US again. Me and Dimitri.
The only question is whether people are aware enough to realize what is happening around them and are brave enough to stand up to our "democratic" government.
Suppose that Joe Blow bears a strong resemblance to John Doe (according to whatever algorithm these facial-recognition systems use), and John Doe is a wanted criminal. Isn't it likely that Joe Blow is going to be the target of a lot of false positives and a lot of unwanted (but perfectly legal) harrassment? In other words, maybe your average citizen won't be bothered by this too much, but maybe a hapless few unfortunates will be "approached" by law-enforcement types every time they go out in public. Which means that CERTAIN people would be "inconvenienced" by this system much more often than most, just because of the genetic draw. If I happen to look a lot like the next Timothy McVeigh or Osama Bin Laden that comes along, I'm gonna spend an awful lot of time trying to prove my innocence to the cops when these systems flag me. Sure, it won't happen to MOST people. But I feel sorry for those unfortunate enough to have that bad kinda luck.
I hate to say it, but to me, this just seems like the flipside to "information wants to be free." For example, copying mp3's is so easy, it seems insane to try to criminalize it or stop it. I fear that this technology will only get better until false positives and false negatives become exceedingly rare. And when that day comes, obviously those arguments against the technology won't work anymore. (And believe me, that day will come.) When this stuff becomes TOO easy and cheap to put into use, it will be impossible to stop. Just like surveillance cameras in convenience stores. Even if the Government doesn't do it, our corporate overseers will. What's to stop malls, convenience stores, movie theaters, restaurants, supermarkets, etc. from putting these systems in themselves? Public opposition? Look how well that's worked in stopping the surveillance cameras. People WANT this stuff, coz it makes them feel SAFER. (They truly BELIEVE the fiction that "you have nothing to fear if you've done nothing wrong.")
I remember how upset I was when Caller-ID first came out. It felt to me like a horrible invasion of my privacy. But, whether I like it or not, it's not going away. And I just gotta learn to live with it.
But I just wonder if those in favor of these systems would think so highly of them if they were being implemented in countries like China, to nab political prisoners (or Falun Gong members), or Afghanistan, to nab Christians, or Iraq, to catch "enemies of the state."
I believe that only those laws which are perfect should be perfectly enforceable.
The shear scale and powerful of the Federal, State, and Local governments is the main reason why we're worrying about this, by the way. Power corrupts absolutely, and power comes from only from the consent of the governed...or the barrel of a gun.
We've been on the slippery slope for years. A "crime" is not something you commit against your fellow man, it's a beaurocratic catch-all term for anything that it was once politically expedient to outlaw. Possessing MDMA can get you 10 years, and no lawmaker ever voted on that ... MDMA was just lumped in with other drugs that people in power didn't like and/or their corporate constituents couldn't compete with. No Constitutional amendment started the Drug War, which both started and ended Alcohol Prohibition. We have been lawless for a long time and are getting more and more lawless with each new law that is passed. There's no underlying tenet that explains why hemp is so illegal and the alcohol, tobacco, and Nylon(TM), Valium(TM), etc. that has replaced hemp for most people is not. Valium(TM) is more addictive; Nylon(TM) is not environmentally responsible. Nobody dies from smoking pot and yet doing so alone in your house is a very dangerous act solely because your fellow man will send in cops to commit you to prison where you will be raped and tortured.
... they just offended an aristocrat or religious leader's sensibilities is all. They did something "heathen" and they went to jail for it. At the same time, we all pretend that the Constitution is actually followed ... we pretend that all of our laws are Constitutional when it is plain that very few actually are.
The number of people who celebrated freedom at Woodstock in 1969 is dwarfed by the number of people who were ruined by Prohibition and the Drug War in the 20th century. The US puts more people in prison than any other country. The majority of prisoners are there for consensual crimes
Is there any legal requirement stating a person must be unmasked when entering a business establishment?
/. know how it goes, but I never suggested it!
Individuals typically have the right to wear anything they like--to cover whatever body parts might offend, or to uncover them as they please. Can we assume a person may choose to not be videotaped when entering a business which has cameras? While I've seen signs stating video taping is in progress, I have never seen anything stating you waive your right to remain unidentified. I mean, sure, they're alerting you to the fact that there's cameras, but you never signed anything and they never stated you could not enter unless you were identifiable by video.
Perhaps the next Big Thing(tm) could be long, face-obstructing hats...
If nothing else, it might be fun for a weekend dodge to visit a store with a mask on in protest of video cameras. Should someone actually *do* this, let
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
In your example, the officer "network" of people in uniform on streetcorners isn't expandable into a highly abusive system.
Facial recognition from public cameras is VERY expandable. Both by adding new cameras to the system, and by tying in feeds from existing non-government security cameras.
That system can then be used to track movements of individuals on as large a scale as one would like to build (local, regional, national, global).
Officers with notebooks don't have that same danger.
Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Just because police departments want it, I don't consider that any better recommendation than anyone else's. Less, even. The only time my computer was involuntarily removed, it was the police that did it.
(Posting anonymously per attorney's advice.)
If the government wanted to track everyone in the country using facial recognition, they would have to buy a lot of powerful computers. If the government wanted to track everyone in the country using physical surveilance, they would have to hire a lot of operatives. Ultimately, the former avenue will turn out to be more fiscally and logistically prudent, but we can't fault the government for frugality.
This point is ridiculous. The same issue exists will all current forms of identification: there is a probability of misidentification associated with the identification method. If a fingerprint says you were at a crime scene, your defense attorney will call a scientist as an expert witness to state that the technology is XX.XXX% inaccurate. Same with DNA, witness identifications, etc. The process of "explaining away" digital face recognitions identifications is no different, and the possibility of misidentification no more alarming. BS. All over Britain, for instance, you'll find signs that say, "This area monitored by CCTV." That's effective notice as far as I'm concerned. The average citizen there knows what a CCTV camera does and is capable of, just as the average citizen will become familiar with facial recognition technology if it becomes pervasive. (I think it's reasonable to demand that the capabilities of the system be publicly available.) We can only debate the propriety and legality of the technology in countries that protect privacy. The technology will advance and cheapen to the point where it avails the government of Evil Country X regardless of American civil liberty law. I really don't think the Chinese government bases its surveillance decisions around what happens at the Superbowl.Of course, if the US chose to oppose widespread deployment of facial recognition technology, then it would have a moral high ground from which to decry Chinese human rights abuses. This works in China because the US holds a carrot of cash and commerce that allows it to exert influence on Beijing. In North Korea, Iran, and a whole lotta other countries that couldn't care less above American notions of morality, the opposition would gain nothing.
I'll close by mentioning that in the country I live in (the United States of America), my identity is not private when I'm in public. I am required by law to carry legal identification with me at all times when in public, and am required to present it to any police officer who asks to see it. If a cop asks to see my ID 50 times an hour, I would consider it harrassment and grounds for a civil suit. But (again, IANAL) I consider the harrassment to be a result of the repeated interaction between me and the cop; if the cop were to establish my identification once and then tell all his cop and robot buddies, "Hey, this is Steven, he looks like this, keep an eye on him," I wouldn't have grounds for complaint. (This obviously links back to the operative surveilance scenario mentioned at the beginning.)
A few years ago the cops knocked on the door of my apartment (I wasn't there at the time). My roommate Aaron was playing his stereo loudly, and the cops wanted to cite him for a noise violation. (In Santa Barbara, California, a noise violation is an infracation, so you can't be put in jail for it.)
The cops asked for ID, and Aaron, being the leftist cop-hating fellow he is, tore a square off from a piece of paper, drew a picture of himself on it, wrote his name underneath, and handed it to the cops. The cops arrested him (in his own home), and were within their rights. This is what erroneously led me to believe that you had to carry ID and present it upon an officer's request.
In actuality, he was arrested and thrown in jail because he was being charged with an infraction and failed to supply ID. This is legal; the only reference I can find is in the second incident (towards the bottom) on this page from Copswatch. This means that if you litter or jaywalk and are unable to provide legal ID, you can be thrown in jail.
I'd be interested to have someone confirm or gainsay that ID is required in Italy, France, or other countries.
Also, it's worth mentioning that many/most college campuses require students to carry ID at all times and furnish it upon request (this I'm sure of; a google search corroborates).
....I was stopped at gunpoint and hassled by the FBI in front of family, friends, and TV because a big zit made me look like a ten-most-wanted dude.
Stocked up on Clearasel like mad the next morning.
Table-ized A.I.
Just wear a pair of Groucho Glasses!c li ent=googlet&q=%22Groucho+Glasses%22&btnG=Search&si te=images
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Just wear a pair of Groucho Glasses!c li ent=googlet&q=%22Groucho+Glasses%22&btnG=Search&si te=images
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Looks to me like the systems supporting public
face recognition systems qualify as targets for
public spirited hackers.
our local city government has been in the habit of putting up camera's everywhere around here. I finally decided enough is enough when i found one in a public washroom.. so i devised a simple solution. a laser pointed at the camera for more than a couple of seconds has proven very effective. the results are quite tangible, I laze an offending camera, and the next morning the repair crews are replacing it the next day.. (im surprised they haven caught on to what has been killing their cams)
I hope the fag that took the photo that's at http://www.goatse.cx burns in fucking hell right alongside you, Taco Fucker...