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Fugitive Child Sex Abuser Caught By Face-Recognition Technology
mrspoonsi sends this BBC report:
"A U.S. juggler facing child sex abuse charges, who jumped bail 14 years ago, has been arrested in Nepal after the use of facial-recognition technology. Street performer Neil Stammer traveled to Nepal eight years ago using a fake passport under the name Kevin Hodges. New facial-recognition software matched his passport picture with a wanted poster the FBI released in January. Mr Stammer, who had owned a magic shop in New Mexico, has now been returned to the U.S. state to face trial. The Diplomatic Security Service, which protects U.S. embassies and checks the validity of U.S. visas and passports, had been using FBI wanted posters to test the facial-recognition software, designed to uncover passport fraud. The FBI has been developing its own facial-recognition database as part of the bureau's Next Generation Identification program."
There's been a lot of 1984-esque technology stories of late, each of which has been tied to catching a child predator.
The tinfoil crowd sees this as how "the man" intends to deliver all of these intrusions to us -- by showing how they stop kid touchers.
Me? Meh. Neat that we're cross-referencing FBI wanted posters against passports. Seems a good use of the technology -- better than tagging people on Facebook automatically, I guess.
Definition: they've been using it for 5 years.
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If you can't hide in Nepal, where can you hide?
Friends and Greetings,
What is this be a 'magic shop'? It is a thing most unknown to your friend, Srinivas. We have magicians of the street in India but I know not of what be a 'magic shop'. How can it be that magic spells are on the vend in a shop of the market?
Friend of You All,
Srinivas
The biggest limitation of analytics is the reliance on data already in the system with the appropriate metatags. The only solution is to let the computer import its own data.
Scanning travel documents for hits in criminal (or other databases) is yet another case of data being re-purposed for uses other than the original intent. It is the same problem I have with things like Visa selling lists of what people pay for using a Visa card, Verizon selling a list of what addresses I travel to and what websites I browse and my pharmacy selling my prescription information.
Repurposing of data for unrelated uses is deeply corrosive to the trust that society needs to function. It keeps us all metaphorically looking over our shoulders, wondering in the back of our heads just how this information generated by going about our normal every-day lives might end up harming us. Even if one in a million times it helps catch a pedo, that still doesn't justify the damage it does to a free society.
There will always be crime, even in the most authoritarian of countries. But copious amounts of dignity and privacy are necessary for a healthy society - when you constantly have to second guess yourself it makes you less willing to be open and honest with others, makes you less willing to take risks, to be unconventional. Just compare the amount of creative development in the west to that of the USSR in the same time frame, or even North Korea now. Every time a database is repurposed, our society gets a little bit less robust.
I'm thinking plastic surgery, big sunglasses, floppy hats and long hair might be in high demand too.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Was for juggling balls before they dropped
Plot Twist: Kevin Hodges isn't the guy. He just looks like him. Oh well, he's going to prison for life for looking like a child predator. (Hopefully there are safeguards against this.)
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
There was an episode of Law and Order or Criminal Intent or one of those shows where they found DNA evidence, but near the end of the show, right as they were about ready to make an arrest, they realized the suspect had an identical twin who they couldn't rule out.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They sell all the 'illusionist' toys, as parent describes, plus costumes, stage makeup, etc.
Basically they're a one stop shop for 'theatre' style magic, halloween costumes, etc. Maybe even ventriloquism dummies.
The items available vary by store, local interests, etc.
Hope that gives some idea of what they carry. It's really a sort of 'you have to see it' type store, but not a magic in the mystical sense type of place.
It would be useful if you got your facts straight. Homosexuals are about 10% of the population; many just have not come out of the closet. And being homosexual does not increase your chances of being a pedophile. In fact, most pedophiles who prey upon boys are straight, and some of them are women.
Now if we can just catch fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski, who was convicted of his heinous crimes but fled the country before sentencing.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
What frustrates and upsets me is that before Snowden, I would have looked at this as a fluff piece about technology, with some mild nagging doubts about how it could be misused.
Now I see them as NSA whitewashing propaganda, with mild nagging doubts that maybe the original poster had no agenda and it really is a tech fluff article.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Feminist police state.
Old testament allows men female children.
(One example: Deuteronomy 22 28-29, in hebrew)
Are they saying US has no central database of all valid passports and the only way to uncover fake one is comparing some photos?
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Or makeup: http://cvdazzle.com/
John
Or push knives. Eventually men fight back.
See that gay guy in NY that was on "The hunt"
So some bloke meets a girl for a date not sure if she's under age or not. His reward: the stigma of being a child predator and an ankle bracelet.
Some repair man preys on mentally ill elderly folks and harrasses them until they pay him exhorbitant rates. His reward: praise for being a good business man.
The ethics of this world are fucked up!
counting your chickens before they hatch there mr convenience
Are we on the path to a world were even our state of mind will be on trial?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Considering how many criminals have not been caught yet I don't agree.
counting your chickens before they hatch there mr convenience
This is a complete non sequitur
In fact, most pedophiles who prey upon boys are straight...
Mack and John were eating lunch at the truck stop when a man John didn't know strolled by the table and said to Mack, "Hey Cocksucker."
"What's that about, bud?" John asked his friend.
"I've been a truck driver for thirty years and no one ever referred to me as Mack the trucker. But you suck ONE dick!"
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If they trot out the child abusers (usually carefully selected so that nobody has any sympathy), what is actually announced is really bad for individual freedoms. Expect this to be used against you on a traffic ticket in 5-10 years or to identify people participating in lawful demonstrations. That is a sure way to a police-state and that one is universally followed by totalitarianism some time later.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Simplistic and your numbers are badly off.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Now I dont know the whole story, or frankly any of it, but if he was not tried he is not convicted
but who cares big brother caught a pedo, rejoice and go to sleep!
The problem with tin foil hattery is that it usually fails both Occam's razor and Hanlon's razor. You, in contrast, aren't really thinking at all. Walk with me.
Of course they'll be using "(alleged) (child) sex offenders" first, as it's a touch (oh the awful puns) less worn than "terrism!!1!", so makes for good headlines with the "the government must do something!" crowd. Seems good use of tech, right? Now try again, and start to think this time. What will it mean in the long run?
For the thing is that with every bit of tech and every database link, the law enforcement complex is building a veritable machine to go after people. I'm putting that wrong. To positively hound you everywhere you go. To make every step you take a "point of contact" at which they can at least track, and maybe apprehend you. Even the photo on your driver's licence is a convenient source to seed the database, maybe the security footage taken when accessing ATMs would be too. Why not have ANPR cams take a bigger picture and do facial recognition too? Let's tap all the public and private CCTVs we can and feed that to the recognition software too. Let's slurp in credit card data (with name attached) in real time and match against watchlists. Your name, your fingers, your face becomes a weapon to be used against you. Presumably this will only be used against bad people, the very worst, at first. But the rub isn't in that they're going after (allegedly) bad people, it's in that "at first". Where does it stop?
The answer, as we've seen before, is that it will not stop. At all. They'll expand until at some point your biometrics will be collected at every street corner and will flag you for as simple an infraction as jaywalking or swearing. Hey, maybe we can even make it "convenient" for you and auto-deduct random fines from your fine account with the government. Then couple it with your bank account (already the case in some countries) so the government can help itself at need. And oh does the government have money needs. Go over this once again slowly, and see how this is a fairly natural progression when seen from the bureaucrat's perspective. For it isn't your perspective and your values at play here, it's the government's, the bureaucrat's. Just add time and we'll get there.
There's also the problem that the justice crowd is very hard put to have "results" to show for all the budget they're burning, which puts more emphasis on "obtaining convictions" than it does on "doing justice". Just two examples are Aaron Schwarz and Alfred Anaya. The worst thing is that the justice department is unable to see the problems with this approach and so is busily finding ways to expand it. It makes for potent seasoning to this already onerous mix.
Add it all together and you get a world I wouldn't want to live in, with or without tin foil hats.
Be careful what you ask for. In their minds "better execution" means "more convictions". I think telling them to "do better" will not cut it, putting it mildly.
I for me think that the US government needs cleaning up to the point that several complete agencies complete with accompanying bodies of law need to go. And it must cut deeper even than that, since there are multiple government/industrial complexes at work, and the commercial interests are actively opposed to such cleaning up.
Yet cleaning up must happen one way or another: The alternative is a complete breakdown--perhaps later, perhaps sooner. The question ultimately is how much of civilisation will survive the cleaning. I say less bloodshed gives better chances in business even if it means switching industries, but oligarchs tend to not be able to see beyond what they already have and how much they appear to stand to pile up on top.
Some numbers:
According to wiki about 3.8% of the U.S. population is gay, but the % of men that is gay is not mentioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In any case, the original poster seems to be ignoring the possibility of female pedophiles.
All the debate has been about 1984 big brother type stuff. Am I the only one who is wondering how the heck he managed to get a hold of a fake passport and use it at a US embassy for YEARS without being caught? I would think the FBI would be routinely cross-checking all photos from passport applications/visa applications against all known databases (mug shots, driver licenses, etc) and kicking out anything that does not match. Maybe TV has me thinking the technology is much more advanced than I thought.
Honest question:
What's the difference with a criminal walking in public and being identified by some person who notifies the authorities VS. a criminal walking in public and being identified by a camera using face recognition software which notifies the authorities?
There are no cameras in our homes watching us. There are no cameras in the bathroom watching us. No cameras where there's a reasonable expectation of privacy...
I just don't get the argument that a camera scanning my face in public is the "government assuming I'm a criminal and treating me like one" and a stranger scanning my face with his eyes (though maybe creepy) isn't assuming I'm a criminal.
I'll admit I have an uneasy FEELING about the practice, but I haven't found a reasonable argument AGAINST it in public places.
If you enable perfect surveillance, then the result - "police without blindfolds", as well as employers, potential employers, competitors, secret national police, secret and not-secret corporate police (ever wonder about how Apple's security forces seem to have worldwide power and mobility?), marketers, your neighbors, your family, friends, enemies, and Scientology's and Moonies' covert operations getting their "blindfolds" removed - will be a world where everyone is a criminal, and the only recourse you have is that no one cares enough about you to look to see what you've been up to. A world of sheep, a pack of fat domesticated farm animals watching videos. (Better not be unlicensed video, criminal!) If you've not committed a crime, you've been in a coma. And they'll just add new laws if they really want to get someone. But bet your ass the Bushes and Cheneys of the world will be utterly off the police and media radar. Rich people don't commit crimes, statistics show. Only troublemakers and poor people. And oh, yes, Ferguson. Imagine how future Fergusons will play out with perfect surveillance. Notice how the cops in Ferguson don't have video cameras on their vehicles, and how they trash cameras pointed at them? That's the future, kid. Blindfolds on US; never, ever on the cops.
This isn't some camera on a street-corner watching your every move, it's a comparison between a wanted posted and the passport database. It's a legitimate use of the technology without being overly invasive.
On the other hand, I wonder how the guy managed to get the passport in the first place. Was "Kevin Hodges" a real person (perhaps deceased) whom Stammer stole the identity of?
At some point, a difference in degree can become a difference in kind.
The difference here is that the cameras with face recognition software are not doing at all the same thing as the passer-by who happens to spot someone who looks like a wanted criminal. They're not just saying that they've seen someone they suspect is a criminal at this location, right now. Instead, they're constantly capturing and recording data that could (which means: almost certainly will at some point) be stored and correlated to provide a very detailed picture of the movements, not just of our suspect, but of each and every one of us, every time we set foot in a public place.
In doing so, the state is in fact treating you like a criminal, no differently than if they had an undercover policeman staking out your house, following you and taking notes every time you stepped out the door.
Is that the sort of world you want to live in? Who can be trusted with that kind of power?
Because that is not what's going to happen. Every face seen by the software will be stored with time and location data. Such data is easily abused. Stalkers can always find their victims, buglers will know which houses are empty and the best times to rob them (without having to physically stake out the area), and blackmailing becomes so much easier. Person XXX was logged at the school parking lot at 8pm. The only event there is a gay support group... Government can/will come to too many incorrect conclusions about people. Person YYY took his family to McDonalds while a known drug dealer was also there. Two days later person YYY was within a block of 3 other drug dealers. We're going to hold person YYY in jail for a day of questioning and a extensive search of his vehicle or maybe raid his house in the middle of the night. He's probably their supplier.
You were seen outside your house at 4:30pm. At 4:50pm you're tagged at the supermarket. The distance dictates travel time should have been 30 minutes, you must have been speeding. Ticket automatically issued.
Criminals also can't redeem themselves. Make a mistake once and you're labeled for life. Commonly available and good facial software will allow anyone to download a list of publicly available photos of criminals (which will also include a lot of those questioned by police and later released). You, your restaurant seater, the guy interviewing you for a job, or anyone else will be able to match you up with the database. If it's a match "we don't want your kind here".