Face-Swapping Software To Protect Privacy

(0d0 writes "Some researchers at Columbia University's Computer Vision Labratory have developed software to automatically replace faces in batches of photos. Practical applications include protecting the identities of people in Google's Street View, coupling it with a digital camera's burst mode to create a perfect group photo, or protecting the identities of witnesses or law enforcement and military personnel. Other links to coverage include Boing Boing, American Public Media, and New Scientist."

Comments

Re:WTF!!?!

[Coopjust]

It's unnecesary to use a TinyURL in this instance (I don't have any idea why the submitter would), but you can hop on TinyURL and have a cookie set to preview all TinyURL links (or get Greasemonkey scripts to change all tinyurl.com requests to preview.tinyurl.com, which isn't as easily wiped like a cookie).

That link goes to http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/publications /pdfs/Bitouk_SIGGRAPH08.pdf

Maybe slashcode could be modified to have an option to resolve all TinyURLs to original links and to edit the submission accordingly automatically. I'm sure slashdot's servers wouldn't care if they found out that a TinyURL redirected to goatse...but it would help the readers.

Re:WTF!!?!

[unfasten]

Or you could (or maybe slashcode can be modified to?) replace the 'www' in http://www.tinyurl.com/6ehog5 with 'preview' to make: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ehog5

Though I agree, it is a little weird to use a tinyurl for that link.

Re:Google StreetView does this already

[damiam]

Dude, no offense, but did you read the statement you linked to? Google has a simple process for removing imagery from Street View, which the property owners chose not to use. Google's not fighting to keep the photos up (since they would have happily taken them down if asked, and I think they might have done it anyway by now); they're fighting to avoid having to pay damages. It's hard to see how any damage was caused, since photos of the same house from street level were already publicly available online through their realtor's site (as well as satellite imagery, etc.), and the house is on a street that is not clearly marked as private.

Sure, Google probably shouldn't have taken the picture in the first place, but it's hard to argue that this is the beginning of some nefarious plan to start indexing the world's private property. One of their drivers made a mistake, drove down a private lane that was not clearly marked as such, and now they're trying to avoid paying large sums of money to a couple who suffered no real damages and are clearly not acting in good faith.