Slashdot Mirror
FBI Plans Nationwide Face-Recognition Trials In 2012
hessian writes with this excerpt: "The FBI by mid-January will activate a nationwide facial recognition service in select states that will allow local police to identify unknown subjects in photos, bureau officials told Nextgov. The federal government is embarking on a multiyear, $1 billion overhaul of the FBI's existing fingerprint database to more quickly and accurately identify suspects, partly through applying other biometric markers, such as iris scans and voice recordings."
LOL!
FaceBook Inc.already have that? Ah you mean the other FBI...
I think, therefore you are.
...investment in plastic surgery practices has soared!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Like how our society has turned into a culture of unrestrained power? Yeah, me either.
Burqahs gonna be fashionable in 2012.
How do you activate a nationwide search in only select states?
Many states have already had this internally, so its logical to extend this nationwide since we don't have "hard" borders between states, from a technology standpoint. Next logical step will be linking up all the nations street corner and red light cameras with this database as a pre-emptive measure to find people.
Not that i agree with any of this morally, but its logical in the pure technical sense.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I know this usually evokes the usual sleuth of comments about big brother and 1984 that seem like isolated incidents or only something slightly worse. But hours ago didn't I just read about GPS in your phones to be mandatory in several years too? Oh don't concern yourself good citizen, this is for your safety, its an upgrade to the 911 system to better assist you in times of need!
I just don't understand, why haven't you revolted yet? It seems every single day new laws or amendments to your great constitution by the sheep herders are introduced and yet all that happens is a Slashdot article, some American rights groups might make a fuss large enough to be covered by absolutely no one.
In the end the way it plays out is usually:
"Oh shit! Big Brother is completely eroding our civil rights"
"Yea I know, its so evil"
"Who's going to do something about this?"
"..."
"..."
It just seems from an outsiders perspective to the US of A that all that happens is its announced your rights are going to be shat on, and literally nothing else happens, even those of you who completely agree with each other, and/or that something most be done, sit around with a thumb up your ass.
That's all you need to know.
Did I just imply that this entire "initiative" is nothing but a smokescreen for raking more cash through the hands of the elite who control the business of government?
You're god damn right I did.
What we really need is an open source equivalent of this. Just create a database and some FOSS software, and then everybody can go scan their old high school yearbooks and suddenly Big Brother can't do anything you can't do.
Databases owned by Government, Credit Bureaus, and Background Check companies are all coming whether you like it or not, and nobody is going to stop them.
While we're at it go ahead and create a place for people to post stuff like "person ABCD-12345 was seen at GPS coords 12.23,12,34 at timestamp..." and now everything everybody does (from your annoying neighbor to the CIA) is open for the world to see...
They need this for when the Pre-Cogs start up, How else are they going to identify you when they come in to arrest you for that little embezzling you were considering.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
[Thomas E. Bush III, who helped develop NGI's system requirements when he served as assistant director of the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services division between 2005 and 2009, said] said, "We do have the capability to search against each other's systems," but added, "if you don't come to the attention of law enforcement you don't have anything to fear from these systems."
I'm going to quote an old post from the "DMCA Abuse Widespread" article:
It is inevitable that once the capabilities are present, they will be abused.
The scale of the abuse is only limited by how much money the government is willing to spend on auditing and enforcement.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The government and anyone with money can effective ignore the right to privacy, technology gives lots of tools to simply collect lots of data on anyone. Next up, is the ability of common people to use technology to end the privacy and secrecy of the authorities. The privacy laws remain the same, but every day it becomes less possible to enforce any of it.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I wonder how many people are going to get hurt or killed on a "mistaken identity", kinda, sorta doubles "Wanted" with trigger happy police.
Programs like CSI are a mild source of amusement to me. These films run a partial fingerprint through an apparently flawless database and hey presto, a match that stands up in court. Fantastic. Also total nonsense.
Especially a partial will throw up a whole LIST of possible matches, not one unique one. Even if you have two full fingers you get more than one, and that is a simple function of the resolution with which these biometrics are measured against the volume of data that is being matched - you WILL get duplicates.
To illustrate: use hair color as a biometric. If your database has more than 5 people you're sure to end up with duplicates - there are only so many different colours.
Here we are again heading for disaster. Apart from the fact that we'll again end up with a database that is just BEGGING to be abused by all and sundry (I'm starting to suspect that these days that abuse is actually a goal rather than an issue worth avoiding) we well again end up with lots of false positives. Face geometry isn't exactly perfect, as people using Farcebook must have already found out (yes, Facebook does a biometric scan on *every* picture you upload - not just the ones you tag), yet again it's sold as *the* solution. Even more astonishing is that they find buyers who still believe that (well, OK, maybe after a certain amount of "encouragement").
The reason it works for the Israelis is simple: people have a much better ability to combine various sense mechanisms when properly trained. Trained people and dogs are in my opinion a *LOT* harder to fool than any machine, however expensive. What's more - it's actually cheaper.
But hey - it was never about security anyway, was it?
It's just another ploy to sell some useless kit..
Insert
Stopping Terror - A New Perspective on Freedom
When one maniac can wipe out a city of twenty million with a microbe developed
in his basement, a new approach to law enforcement becomes necessary. Every
citizen of the world must be placed under surveillance. That means sky-cams
at every intersection, computer-mediated analysis of every phone call, e-mail,
and snail-mail, and a purely electronic economy in which every transaction is
recorded and data-mined for suspicious activity.
We are close to achieving this goal. Some would say that human liberty has
been compromised, but the reality is just the opposite. As surveillance
expands, people become free from danger, free to walk alone at night, free to
work in a safe place, and free to buy any legal product or service without the
threat of fraud. One day every man and woman will quietly earn credits,
purchase items for quiet homes on quiet streets, have cook-outs with neighbors
and strangers alike, and sleep with doors and windows wide open. If that
isn't the tranquil dream of every free civilization throughout history,
what is?
- Anna Navarre, Agent, UNATCO
it will either work poorly, or will be scrapped.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
it's Guy Fawkes! Again!
The last time they tried something like this it turned into a complete clusterfuck, e.g. revoking the drivers licenses of innocent people due to similar names and facial features.
And their solution to the problem is to implement another project which could backfire even worse???
Hasn't that become a common technology already? They use it at the Montecito Casino at Las Vegas. And Jack uses it at the CTU all the time.
If it turns out anything like Virtual Case File http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Case_File ,
we have nothing to worry about. Actually half serious.
i wouldn't get so scared, most likely the technology is garbage and barely works at all. just another waste of tax payer money.
That's actually worse, because you're walking down the street and suddenly find a pack of cops with guns drawn shouting at you because they've been told you're an armed robber who doesn't even look remotely like you.
Michigan, Washington, Florida and North Carolina
Speaking of Facebook.....
I recently took a trip to DC, did the tourist thing. Got a bunch of pictures of my daughter and wife at the Lincoln Memorial standing next to Abe himself.
Got home, and uploaded a couple of the photos to my account. Get this.. the auto tagger kicks in, and suggests one of my buddies as the _face of Lincoln_ . I kid you not /. The software zoned in on the statue and thought it was close enough to be my buddy.
He was thrilled, But he also said the same thing you're all thinking reading this: " The police better not start using that anytime soon."
Huh?
I chuckled several times, thank you Mr troll, maybe in post-Taco /. trolls will start to deliver again.