5 ms·

Ex-NSA hacker builds AI tool to hunt hate groups’ symbols online

13 points by ohjeez 9y ago

mtgx 9y ago
As always with such technologies that are prone to abuse, I want to know what's the false positive rate?
gadders 9y ago
No mention of left-wing hate groups.
- dgllghr 9y ago
  No terrorist attacks committed by left-wing groups either.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    That's not remotely true. https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/3720 https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/37... http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-return-of-the-radicals-crisis-fuels-rise-in-left-wing-extremist-violence-a-695415.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-return-of-th... http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/14/opinions/leftist-terrorism-bergen-sterman-opinion/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/14/opinions/leftist-terrorism... https://www.thenation.com/article/remembering-left-wing-terrorism-1970s/ https://www.thenation.com/article/remembering-left-wing-terr... Of course this also depends how you define left vs right wing. "Nazi" was short for "National Socialist" after all but they are frequently (re?)defined as right wing. So I'm not sure why gadders was downvoted beyond the ambient bias on Hacker News. There is "hate" on all sides of the political spectrum. She only appears to care about very specific groups, though. No surprise it's controversial.
    - abiox 9y ago
      > "Nazi" was short for "National Socialist" after all but... north korea calls itself a democratic republic. if you consult mein kampf, hitler very much didn't like marxists, communists, socialists, etc. "In Russian Bolshevism we ought to recognize the kind of attempt which is being made by the Jew in the twentieth century to secure dominion over the world." > There is "hate" on all sides of the political spectrum. this seems like a trivially true statement. with billions of people on the planet you can likely find an someone with any given world view. > She only appears to care about very specific groups, though. ostensibly groups that are active (and probably already being watched by the fbi). that said, i get the impression this is more of a weekend tensorflow project rather than anything particularly concerning.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Of course this also depends how you define left vs right wing. "Nazi" was short for "National Socialist" after all but they are frequently (re?)defined as right wing Using “socialist” in your name doesn't mean that you have any left-wing-ness in your substantive policy, or even your public platform.
      - mindcrash 9y ago
        "We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." -- Adolf Hitler Questions?
mLuby 9y ago
Glad she made this tool public so there can be a discussion about its capabilities, which won't go away. How long before someone replaces "black sun" with "black lives matter"?
d33 9y ago
> Right now, It's a proof of concept; a concept which obviously is very controversial (which tells me I'm doing something right.) This is so obviously arrogant. How could one defend reasoning that if people find certain action controversial, it's in any way right? A controversial action just means that there's something about it that causes different opinions - it might as well be very wrong.

13 points by ohjeez 9y ago

mtgx 9y ago

As always with such technologies that are prone to abuse, I want to know what's the false positive rate?

gadders 9y ago

No mention of left-wing hate groups.

dgllghr 9y ago
No terrorist attacks committed by left-wing groups either.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  That's not remotely true. https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/3720 https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/37... http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-return-of-the-radicals-crisis-fuels-rise-in-left-wing-extremist-violence-a-695415.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-return-of-th... http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/14/opinions/leftist-terrorism-bergen-sterman-opinion/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/14/opinions/leftist-terrorism... https://www.thenation.com/article/remembering-left-wing-terrorism-1970s/ https://www.thenation.com/article/remembering-left-wing-terr... Of course this also depends how you define left vs right wing. "Nazi" was short for "National Socialist" after all but they are frequently (re?)defined as right wing. So I'm not sure why gadders was downvoted beyond the ambient bias on Hacker News. There is "hate" on all sides of the political spectrum. She only appears to care about very specific groups, though. No surprise it's controversial.
  - abiox 9y ago
    > "Nazi" was short for "National Socialist" after all but... north korea calls itself a democratic republic. if you consult mein kampf, hitler very much didn't like marxists, communists, socialists, etc. "In Russian Bolshevism we ought to recognize the kind of attempt which is being made by the Jew in the twentieth century to secure dominion over the world." > There is "hate" on all sides of the political spectrum. this seems like a trivially true statement. with billions of people on the planet you can likely find an someone with any given world view. > She only appears to care about very specific groups, though. ostensibly groups that are active (and probably already being watched by the fbi). that said, i get the impression this is more of a weekend tensorflow project rather than anything particularly concerning.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Of course this also depends how you define left vs right wing. "Nazi" was short for "National Socialist" after all but they are frequently (re?)defined as right wing Using “socialist” in your name doesn't mean that you have any left-wing-ness in your substantive policy, or even your public platform.
    - mindcrash 9y ago
      "We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." -- Adolf Hitler Questions?

mLuby 9y ago

Glad she made this tool public so there can be a discussion about its capabilities, which won't go away. How long before someone replaces "black sun" with "black lives matter"?

d33 9y ago

> Right now, It's a proof of concept; a concept which obviously is very controversial (which tells me I'm doing something right.) This is so obviously arrogant. How could one defend reasoning that if people find certain action controversial, it's in any way right? A controversial action just means that there's something about it that causes different opinions - it might as well be very wrong.