Slashdot Mirror


NSA Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images

Advocatus Diaboli (1627651) writes "The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents. The spy agency's reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency's ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed."

12 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Re:failure of scope... by olsmeister · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oddly enough, they often do.

  2. Re:Porn database! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ah, so that's why they're developing technology to recognize facials?

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  3. 1984+100=2084 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think George Orwell's classic 1984 needs an update... Any bids from the rest of you /. reading cellar dwelling SciFi nerds on what 2084 will be like? Will our kids and grandkids have micro drones hovering about them, recording their every utterance and their every move and reporting it to private corporations and/or christian conservative ayatollahs in Washington? Will people be walking around with masks to avoid the omnipresent surveillance society? Will masks even be legal? In the UK hey've already entertained the idea of banning hooded garments because they enable you to hide your face from CCTV.

  4. Re:failure of scope... by seven+of+five · · Score: 3, Informative
  5. Reciprocal approach by BSAtHome · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why not start spying on the spies and publish every single move and action they make. Follow the spies by spying on them and publish the results. Not only celebrities are public goods, the spies who collect information should be must be as transparent as they live on and deal in public goods. What is good for the goose...

    1. Re:Reciprocal approach by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why not start spying on the spies and publish every single move and action they make. Follow the spies by spying on them and publish the results.

      Because they will put you in PMITA prison for interfering with law enforcement or obstructing an investigation or some other bullshit. You can't use their techniques against them, those techniques only work when you have the upper hand.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  6. The web is not the internet by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    NSA Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images

    The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts

    Intercepted communications aren't "the web."

    emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences

    Apart from social media (largely), none of those things are "the web."

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  7. Hey, just like Facebook by dingen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's funny how little difference there is between what Facebook's servers are doing and the NSA's. I wonder who has more info on you.

    --
    Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
  8. Re:And GCHQ was watching intimate skype videos ow- by camperdave · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you don't want someone else to see it, don't send it.

    Pray tell, how do I get someone to not post pictures of me?

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  9. Re:failure of scope... by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why? Did your Skylark throw a rod?

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  10. Re:Color me by Travis+Mansbridge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    GCHQ, NSA, and their equivalent agencies in Australia, Canada and NZ are all members of the "five eyes" spying group also known as ECHELON. Any time a law might restrict one from spying on citizens of their own country, they just have another member spy for them and hand over the info.

  11. Re:Color me by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3

    Why do you think that contradicts his statement? Take a look at how much funding GCHQ receives from the NSA - it's a significant amount of their total budget and has led to some concerns that they act more in the interests of the US than UK.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News