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Setting aside the pretty debatable morality of this whole thing (lots of other good comments here to debate that), I think the real story, the interesting one,

by mabbo 10y ago

Setting aside the pretty debatable morality of this whole thing (lots of other good comments here to debate that), I think the real story, the interesting one, is that this is even possible. The tools used all exist and are basically free and easily accessible (gmaps+streetview, flight data maps, the live stream itself, etc). The people behind this are just random strangers on the internet who agreed on a cause (as strange as the cause may be). This used to be something only the CIA could do and they took longer to do it. 15 years ago, 'The Bourne Identity' was nearly science fiction! What's this look like in 10 more years, when facial/vocal recog software is just as easy, when drones are somehow even cheaper and smarter, when 5 new technologies we hadn't considered exist, when there's even more people reaching out to each other to find common causes? I'm excited/terrified to see what that looks like.

R_haterade 10y ago
The best free tool here by far is the weaponized autism, as they call it. Hundreds or thousands of bored, reasonably intelligent people united toward a common cause. And they're the sort of people who wind up on /pol/, so generally they're of a sort that develops an obsessive interest in some (or many) esoteric topic(s). To your speculation here: > What's this look like in 10 more years, when facial/vocal recog software is just as easy, when drones are somehow even cheaper and smarter, when 5 new technologies we hadn't considered exist, when there's even more people reaching out to each other to find common causes? I would state that the singularity has already reached us. The next steps will simply be better organization and better interconnects between computing nodes. (people)
- R_haterade 10y ago
  Should also state that the relatively democratic, even anarchic nature of 4chan posting is the single best mirror of my own thought processes I've encountered in my time on the internet. (Maybe a little less porn gets posted in my brain, but you get the picture.) While it has its flaws, I think it's really a great way to mimic some sort of collective consciousness.
- rbanffy 10y ago
  For some values of "intelligent". "Capable" would possibly be a better term.
azernik 10y ago
I've watched these techniques develop over the last several years over on /r/syriancivilwar. The good talent has left (often scooped up by intelligence services or private companies), but at its height the forum users were mapping the rates of offensives by geolocating propagandistic combat footage, falsifying Russian claims of fighting ISIS by pinpointing rebel positions hit on airstrikes, and assembling shockingly detailed summaries of the flow of weapons between factions.

by mabbo 10y ago

R_haterade 10y ago

The best free tool here by far is the weaponized autism, as they call it. Hundreds or thousands of bored, reasonably intelligent people united toward a common cause. And they're the sort of people who wind up on /pol/, so generally they're of a sort that develops an obsessive interest in some (or many) esoteric topic(s). To your speculation here: > What's this look like in 10 more years, when facial/vocal recog software is just as easy, when drones are somehow even cheaper and smarter, when 5 new technologies we hadn't considered exist, when there's even more people reaching out to each other to find common causes? I would state that the singularity has already reached us. The next steps will simply be better organization and better interconnects between computing nodes. (people)

R_haterade 10y ago
Should also state that the relatively democratic, even anarchic nature of 4chan posting is the single best mirror of my own thought processes I've encountered in my time on the internet. (Maybe a little less porn gets posted in my brain, but you get the picture.) While it has its flaws, I think it's really a great way to mimic some sort of collective consciousness.
rbanffy 10y ago
For some values of "intelligent". "Capable" would possibly be a better term.

azernik 10y ago

I've watched these techniques develop over the last several years over on /r/syriancivilwar. The good talent has left (often scooped up by intelligence services or private companies), but at its height the forum users were mapping the rates of offensives by geolocating propagandistic combat footage, falsifying Russian claims of fighting ISIS by pinpointing rebel positions hit on airstrikes, and assembling shockingly detailed summaries of the flow of weapons between factions.