16 ms·

Rite Aid deployed facial recognition systems in hundreds of U.S. stores

322 points by callwaiting 6y ago

bzb3 6y ago
Doesn't seem like a productive battle. It's only upsides for stores that roll out facial recognition. If you want this stopped you will need legislation.
- tyingq 6y ago
  I suppose it doesn't scale, but public shaming seemed to work in this case: "Last week, however, after Reuters sent its findings to the retailer, Rite Aid said it had quit using its facial recognition software." Though likely because of the higher use in low income neighborhoods than facial recognition overall.
  - bzb3 6y ago
    Facial recognition is used mostly to stop shoplifters so it's to be expected that it will be used in low income neighbourhoods mostly. It is a matter of time until it becomes widespread enough that they won't have to back down for shame.
  - BlackCherry 6y ago
    Public shaming didn't work, literally at all. The article was released literally today, and the program was ended before anyone knew about it other than reporters. And this won't deter other corporations from employing this technology. We absolutely need legislation to permanently stop this. The free market is not going to magically pop up a competing brick and mortar that doesn't spy on us and/or sell/give our data to other corporations/governments.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    If everybody rolls it out within a short window of a few years, public shaming will be impossible. If there's no non-participating business that a potential customer can choose instead, shame costs nothing. See Smart TVs.
- superkuh 6y ago
  Do you think it's justified to bring in the use of government force and coercion in a situation where no one is being injured, no one is being defrauded, and people are voluntarily going to the private property on which the events occur? It would be much more ethical to personally stop going to the store and giving them business if you object (which is a valid opinion, imo). Encouraging others to do the same, spreading news about the practice, etc, all seems good. But once you start calling for people with guns to coerce the property owners you're doing something unethical.
catalogia 6y ago
Do these systems continue to work in the mask era, or have they wasted their money? Personally I've taken to wearing masks and large sunglasses, just because I can. I suppose they could still track my gait, posture, hair style, etc.
- larrik 6y ago
  > Rite Aid said it had quit using its facial recognition software. It later said all the cameras had been turned off.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    The article doesn't make clear whether they turned the system off because it wasn't working due to masks, or simply wasn't doing what they meant it to do in the first place. > “This decision was in part based on a larger industry conversation,” the company told Reuters in a statement, adding that “other large technology companies seem to be scaling back or rethinking their efforts around facial recognition given increasing uncertainty around the technology’s utility.” Will it come back when the masks go away, or have they realized that it was never useful in the first place? (They also claim it had nothing to do with race, which is kind of farcical since it's well known these recognition systems have trouble with race. It obviously has something to do with race, even if they're choosing to ignore that issue.) In brief, my questions are these: Can these systems track the movements of people wearing masks? (I suspect they can, perhaps with some tweaking.) And assuming that these systems can provide accurate movement data through the store, does analysis of that movement data actually provide actionable suggestions of how to arrange the store that, when put to the test, actually increase sales? (I suspect the efficacy of this analysis is greatly overstated by those selling it, and stores are beginning to realize this.)
    - stronglikedan 6y ago
      Rite Aid being national (global?), and mask use being regional, I doubt the masks had much to do with the decision. Just my two cents.
quotemstr 6y ago
I have no problem with this move. One of my general principles, one I try to apply everywhere, it is: if you can perform an information processing task with your eyes and brain, you should have the freedom to program a computer to do that task. Under this principle, I have to allow public facial recognition: any functioning human can already do it, just at a smaller scale. On other words, Rite-Aid employees can already recognize your face. Deal with it. Why is my principle so important? Because the alternative conflicts with the computational enhancement of the mind, which is far more important than any illusory gains to had from banning this tech or that tech.
- sschueller 6y ago
  "Rite-Aid employees can already recognize your face" Are those same employees networked together and can remember the exact day and time you where in any of the stores and know exactly what you purchased? They have also memorised the entire FBI most wanted list and any other list of faces that may be in a "bad credit" database?
- reificator 6y ago
  > On other words, Rite-Aid employees can already recognize your face. Deal with it. However, Rite-Aid employees cannot recognize every customer's face. Scale is the difference here, and scale is what people object to.
- dogman144 6y ago
  This just conveniently blows past how the accurate processing and storage capabilities of a OS are about 5000% more capable than the eyes + brain. Refusing to see that as a problem or at least a responsibility to consider is why people are starting to hate our industry :thumbsup:
  - dogman144 6y ago
    This of course sounds dramatic. But then, people who fall into this bucket continue to build, sell, and most importantly open source some of the most dramatically societal-changing tech with zero regard for what they enable. This mindset would have open sourced the Manhattan Project if it was written in Python and used interesting storage advances, but it was safe because it was FOSS.
andialo 6y ago
After IBM, Microsoft and many others publicly declared (for marketing reasons no doubt) to stop working and delivering face recognition systems, a new competitor quickly fills the space. Color me surprised.
- Shivetya 6y ago
  Yes expected. I posted before that by trying to stop companies we work for or other well known companies from operating in this space we give up far too much opportunity to police and possibly influence the outcome. Facial Recognition is coming along with all other sorts of identification. They key to making sure these are not abuse is to get embedded into the process of making them. This way issues of privacy, accuracy, and accountability, can all be addressed. Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual. Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this
  - spaetzleesser 6y ago
    "Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this " I am very worried that there will be a lot going on behind the scenes. Public cancel culture is bad but secret cancel culture is even worse.
  - Andrex 6y ago
    > Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual. So because it's going to happen anyways, get on board or else? I'm not a follower of defeatist thinking. Large structural changes can happen, but only through persistence and focus. Saying "it's not worth it" right from the get-go is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
luma 6y ago
Technologies with similar capabilities are being rolled out en masse throughout retailers across America. I've worked with a regional grocer supporting one of these projects. There are turnkey systems from several vendors, but the general concept is similar. Cameras have full coverage of the retail floorspace from multiple angles. The systems can track an individual throughout the store, and they can observe someone pulling items off the shelf. This is used for a couple things. One, if customer pulls product A off the shelf instead of product B right next to it, the manufacturer of product B can purchase the ability to have their coupon print out at checkout to be handed to somebody who is proven to have an interest in the category. Alternately, it can be used with self-checkout systems to confirm that the shopper actually scanned product A, or to alert security to check the shopper's receipt and cart at exit. Amazon is offering this sort of technology for checkout-less stores, but similar offerings for loss-prevention and targeted marketing are online and available. It would be trivial to add face recognition to this stack, and I strongly suspect it is in fact offered if you ask for it. The use case there would be focused around the loss prevention aspect, and that's a huge financial driver for implementing these systems. Another interesting feature of this market is that the websites for the products themselves don't really advertise the full functionality of the product. You won't see the scale of the offering until you get to the in-person sales demo and slide decks. It feels like the vendors know how the technology could be perceived.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > One, if customer pulls product A off the shelf instead of product B right next to it, the manufacturer of product B can purchase the ability to have their coupon print out at checkout to be handed to somebody who is proven to have an interest in the category. What does that add over simply printing a Product B coupon whenever someone purchases Product A?
  - gruez 6y ago
    Snarky explanation: same reason why you need blockchain in a private, single writer database Charitable explanation: maybe it covers additional use cases such as you stopping to look at a product, but end up not buying it.
FpUser 6y ago
"the retailer used state-of-the-art facial recognition technology from a company with links to China and its authoritarian government." And today along with countless millions of North Americans I dialed my mom on a piece of technology that was made in China and its authoritarian Government (TM). FFS can't they stop shoving big bad China into every story. However bad it is not China's fault for US corporation being A-hole. Added for clarification: This is not to protect China, rather to point out this style of "reporting" that lately seems to have very little to do with the true reporting as it used to be.
- oxymoran 6y ago
  FFS can people stop defending China every time someone calls them authoritarian.
- nova22033 6y ago
  An internet connected camera made in China and using software from a Chinese company is a slightly bigger risk than an iPhone made in China.
acomjean 6y ago
There was a company called "stop lift" that deployed cameras on its check out lines. Looking for fraud by employees and probably self checkout. Whenever I'm in a store at the cashiers I look up and often see lots of camera domes above the register. https://www.stoplift.com/about/why-stoplift/ https://www.stoplift.com/about/why-stoplift/
- nitrogen 6y ago
  There's been a trend in self checkout to have at least two cameras directly on each machine, one in the screen pointed at your face, and one overhead on a mast pointed downward. I am not a fan.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    I've seen the playback from the camera above and I'm okay with that one. The other one targeting my face? Not so much (tho I'm less bothered, since wearing a mask).
xwdv 6y ago
Masks will probably remain socially acceptable for quite some time post-COVID. If you don’t agree with facial recognition you can just wear one.
- stinos 6y ago
  Next in line: iris scan at entry, followed by tracking you based on clothes/posture. If you don't agree: try to wear and act the same as everone else? More serious (even though I think my example isn't that far-fetched): I'm really not sure what to think of these camera and whetavere software backend slowly creeping into society. It has been predicted, definitely not everyone is ok with it, but still it just happens.
- zapdrive 6y ago
  https://apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a https://apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a
  - deelowe 6y ago
    It's no different than browser fingerprinting. "You can just use a VPN/spoof your user agent!" It's not that simple. Just like how browser fingerprinting has evolved to the point where it's virtually impossible to get around, these real world systems will follow suit. Hair color, eye color, skin color, the types of clothes your wear, your gait, height, gender, path you take through the store, car you drive, license plate, stores you frequent, heck... even where you choose to park or which door you choose to enter could all be used identify individuals/families. Keep in mind, just like with web analytics, these solutions will be provided by 3rd parties which will aggregate this data across multiple businesses.
  - originalvichy 6y ago
    Glad I have a variety of different shoe sizes to alter my gait somewhat at least. Maybe that will become a thing. My gait changes if I use hiking boots vs. bouncy runners for example.
  - AThrowAway2718 6y ago
curiousllama 6y ago
Hi, I work as a consultant around AI, and I want everyone here to know: every company with a brick-and-mortar wants to do this. The barriers are (1) tech stack, (2) use case, and (3) ethics, in that order. It's not just facial recognition in stores: it's tying face, license plate, credit card, and phone app into a single customer view; it's pricing based on your past (and current!) behavior; and it's data consortiums to tie together data across companies (ever wonder why everyone asks for your phone #? It's traditionally the primary key in the big-*ss joins). The expectation of privacy we have online is coming to the real world, make no mistake. I wish I had a call to action here but... keep yelling, I guess? I don't have a solution.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  it's pricing based on your past (and current!) behavior How will that work in a brick-and-mortar store where there is a price label on everything?
  - zapdrive 6y ago
    A digital label that shows price after looking at your face?
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Seems simpler to send coupons for specific products to specific people.
  - aroch 6y ago
    The easiest is to send e-coupons to frequent shoppers?
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Aren't there already some experimental stores where you have to scan an item with your phone in order to find out the price? If the app is linked to your identity, then you could see a different price than others based on your demographics and past purchasing behavior.
dilandau 6y ago
What companies are behind the development of these camera+software solutions? I reckon it's just a couple?
spaetzleesser 6y ago
I always wonder if they really get much value out of all this surveillance or if they just hope to get value. It seems that a lot of companies are these days are trying to hack their customers instead of treating them right. In the long run I don't this will work. I already am getting a very bad taste dealing with a lot of companies because they seem to view me, the customer, as something to extract money from instead of a customer to be respected. You notice that for example with a lot of search results where the company places stuff they want to sell in the results instead of allowing me to search for what I need. Either we are going into a very dark future or there will be massive pushback. Not sure which way it will go.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  ==I always wonder if they really get much value out of all this surveillance or if they just hope to get value.== The continued investment implies that the market has spoken: Your data has value. The largest companies in the world exist to make money and their investments exist to further that goal.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >The continued investment implies that the market has spoken: Your data has value. >Your data has value. Does it. Harbor Freight already knows it's customers are cheapskates and Whole Foods already knows it's customers barely look at the prices? Backing that up with data is nice but how much value does it really have? FOMO is a big thing at the corporate management level. A million here, a million there to run pilot programs and do partial roll-outs seems like cheap insurance against getting blindsided by something you wrote off as a fad.
    - take_a_breath 6y ago
      ==Harbor Freight already knows it's customers are cheapskates and Whole Foods already knows it's customers barely look at the prices?== If this is how you think pricing decisions are made, I don't know what to say. On the one hand, we have the lived experience of increasing surveillance and targeting, an investigative article discussing it, and long, documented history of data investments from large corporations. On the other hand, we have speculation that it's all FOMO. You don't run pilot programs and eight-year roll-outs of things you aren't taking seriously.
whoopdedo 6y ago
Sounds to me like someone sold Rite Aid a sow's purse, and is no wonder for a chain that had to go begging to its competitors to bail it out of insolvency. (They attempted then failed to merge with CVS and settled for giving more than half of their stores to Walgreens.)
Aunche 6y ago
I genuinely don't understand what the big deal is. Brick and mortar stores lose a lot lose of money in theft. Walmart alone loses $3 billion each each year. It's their private space, so it makes sense that they want to know who's going inside. The majority of shoppers are using their credit card and store rewards card anyways, so they already know who most of the paying customers are anyways.
- scottwd9 6y ago
  If facial recognition were 99.9% accurate, it would confuse someone with at least 350,000 other people in the US.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    If it's not useful, companies aren't going to pay money to use it. As Rite Aid put it, "companies seem to be scaling back or rethinking their efforts around facial recognition given increasing uncertainty around the technology’s utility."
    - timmytokyo 6y ago
      The companies don't care about a few false matches here or there. But if you're one of the people it keeps incorrectly identifying as a criminal who needs to be escorted out of the store, it will matter to you.
      - tolbish 6y ago
        The well-being of the minority vs the interests of money. I wonder how it tends to play out?
    - foobiekr 6y ago
      Companies do all sorts of insane, crazy things that waste inordinate amounts of money with very little return on investment.
    - COGlory 6y ago
jaybeeayyy 6y ago
Why do people focus so much on how the data can potentially go back to China? It just feels like a redirection to distract us from the privacy violations here in the US. I understand why it's a concern but it just seems like every article always ends up talking mostly about Chinese companies, the Chinese government, how they respond to accusations etc. instead of focusing on our government, our corporations, our security forces all using or wanting to use technology like this. Take the "Orwellian surveillance" part. We get about 2 paragraphs about how surveillance in the US is largely unregulated and whatnot and then 4 of them about China. The other sections afterwards seem like they were written to almost justify the use of surveillance in US corporations. Maybe it's all in my head but it's just something I keep noticing whenever there's writing about surveillance in the US.
- the_pwner224 6y ago
  > U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and acting chair of the U.S. Senate’s intelligence committee, told Reuters in a statement that the Rite Aid system’s potential link to China was “outrageous.” “The Chinese Communist Party’s buildup of its Orwellian surveillance state is alarming, and China’s efforts to export its surveillance state to collect data in America would be an unacceptable, serious threat,” he said. Paragraph works just as well after s/China/America/g.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    If someone s/China/America/g that statement, Mr Rubio would call them an anti-American, far-left communo-fascist who regularly wipes their ass with the constitution, and point out how George Washington personally warned him to keep an eye out for people like that.
- starkd 6y ago
  Because it's a national security threat. The real danger of a surveillance state is political/foreign actors using that information to gain advantage. It's one thing for individual's shopping habits to be exposed, it's another thing for the person's information to be used by bad actors for their own purposes.
holidayacct 6y ago
If you understood how bad the prescription drug problem was in the United States you wouldn't remotely be surprised.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  >If you understood how bad the prescription drug problem was in the United States 'Was' is the key word. The vast bulk of pill mills were shuttered a decade ago. The current prescription drug problem is the steadily increasing difficulty for people in pain to get prescription pain relief.
  - holidayacct 6y ago
    Pill mills were shuttered, but you'd be surprised at how creative people are when they need to feed their habit. There are doctors and pharmacists all over the place that are either: 1.) Being explicitly blackmailed by prescription drug addicts. 2.) Whose employment is completely dependent on prescription drugs because their patients demand prescription drugs as a quick fix for their problems. There are people who literally feed clients to those doctors because they know they are afraid to tell their patients no when they ask for prescription drugs 3.) Don't bother to find alternatives for their patients that don't involve prescription drug abuse because it is a faster method of getting their patients out of the office.
    - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      There are multiple issues to choose from here. All 3 of your points lack supporting data. For 1 & 2 specifically; Doctors receive an itemized DEA report each month for each patient who's prescribed controlled substances. The reports contain all controlled meds prescribed to that patient, from every Dr. I saw my first DEA report 20-odd years ago, so they're nothing new. Each report is a tap on the shoulder to remind Dr.s that every controlled prescription they write is being closely monitored. Patients are monitored exactly as closely as Dr.s, they just aren't informed every month. So - the volume of prescriptions inferred by #1 & #2, would immediately attract DEA attention. Both Dr and patient would be in cuffs before drug-seeking patterns had time to develop. What is entirely more likely than 1&2, is that the endless demonization of prescribing opioids - and the continual LEO threats against Dr's who prescribe meds in a way that the DEA doesn't like - is increasingly frightening Dr.s away from treating pain in an effective way. Your #3 contains a number of assertions that would be difficult-to-impossible to prove (or disprove), when strung together like that.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Reminds me of the entire city of London.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  I appreciate it when Earth's Surveillance Capital is brought up as an abject lesson.
wanna009 6y ago
Online shopping is better https://www.wannacoupons.com/ https://www.wannacoupons.com/
duaoebg 6y ago
I wonder if it’s inevitable that we will get denial of entry based facial recognition systems. It’s legally difficult to stop people from leaving the store whereas it’ll be much easier to prevent them from entering. If someone shoplifts then they get banned from the chain, or a network of chains. This would be an alternative to police involvement. Restitution could be done proportionality and privately. Of course there will be issues with it but I’m sure it could be cheaper to figure this out than the alternative loss prevention solutions.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  Shoplifts could just wear a face mask and sunglasses.
- hrhrhrd 6y ago
  I can imagine the headline now. "Rite-aid banned me because I "look like a shoplifter"".
- kstenerud 6y ago
  It will happen, and it will become a constitutional issue once it becomes ubiquitous enough. These systems will likely be networked together, building and sharing profiles on known undesirables such that they can be banned from most, if not all stores eventually. Once that happens, there will be a class of people who cannot legally buy food anymore, because to enter a store would be trespass.
- TheJoeMan 6y ago
  From a profit motivation, Rite-Aid (and everyone else) would really like everyone to give them money instead of banning them forever. So I really feel the market will sort this out, maybe a 3 strike system or temporary suspensions. Now that I think about it, we already have temporary suspensions from Walmart and the like if you get caught. How is this different than a guard just watching the CCTV all day?
- potta_coffee 6y ago
  Instead they ought to just send you an invoice for the items you borrow. If the invoice goes unpaid, it can eventually be sent to collections.
soupfordummies 6y ago
Yet another reason to wear a mask everywhere in public :P
- eunos 6y ago
  As I have commented here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23257887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23257887 Overcoming masks is a feasible challenge and will be solved with, I assume, modest efforts. Side note: I tried my Android phone face recognition while using a mask. Interestingly, as long as the nose structure can be perceived, it managed to recognize me.
mywittyname 6y ago
I hope Rite Aid and the companies providing these solutions get the shit sued out of them for racial discrimination. This is covered in the article briefly, but there's amble evidence that these systems do not work on black faces. The CEOs of these companies keep claiming the opposite and yet, misidentifications are still happening. No one is going to fix the problem until the cost of a misidentication is severe. I know that I don't want to have the cops come tear down my front door, ransack my house, and point rifles at my family all because some shitty, overpriced AI doesn't work and nobody involved in enforcement faces any consequences for being wrong. I'd prefer criminal liability for the people involved. But at least stiff civil penalties may sway the bean counters to oppose such systems.
- jjcon 6y ago
  > I hope Rite Aid and the companies providing these solutions get the shit sued out of them for racial discrimination. Technical limitations != racism If tomorrow we cured cancer for all women would you try to stop it from coming to fruition because it’s ‘sexist’? That would be ridiculous. I’m not saying I disagree with the sentiment, I’d prefer we not live in such a surveiled society but using racism as a prop in this situation is is just stupid and it does not follow.
- qwepeyote 6y ago
  When you cry, “racial discrimination”—“these systems don’t work on black people”, you have implicitly accepted that these systems would be fine if only they worked on black people as well as they work on white people. It’s the sucker half of the dialect. And you are a sucker.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    I pay with a credit card at every store and pharmacies have access to a ton of my personal health information. These aren't exactly places where you can remain anonymous. I wouldn't have an issue if these systems were near perfect, and had checks-and-balance built in such that false positives don't ruin innocent peoples' lives. That's my primary issue, is that these point the finger at innocent people, and that innocent person suffers. We have so much evidence of how terribly inaccurate these systems are that it's appalling that they are given any credibility in the legal justice system. That article alone says that their old system misidentified ten people out of ten (!!). My secondary issue is that these inaccurate systems are profoundly less accurate on PoC, a group of people already subjugated by our criminal justice system. Taken in isolation, each of these issues should be enough to prohibit their deployment and use. My suggestion for checks and balances is civil liabilities for those deploying said systems. Since I believe that Rite Aid is going to be pretty fucking diligent if they risk a $100MM lawsuit if they are wrong. I'm of the cynical mindset that the only way to get executives to consider the negative effects of their business strategies is to make it cost money, since that plays to their sociopathic tendency to make everything a dollar-cost optimization. You can sit there and call me a sucker and a racist for pointing out racial bias in our society. But that's no enough to stop me from standing up for equal rights by calling out racial bias anywhere I see it.
tomphoolery 6y ago
you'd think they would be able to actually give me the right scrip with this tech but fun fact, no.
grogenaut 6y ago
A few years back I stayed at the Nugget in downtown vegas. I hate vegas but friends wanted to watch the sweet 16 there. I was actaully somewhat happy with the nugget, it was freshly upgraded and pretty nice. Food was ok and ok priced, and the vegas main street is a better feel for me than the mega hotels. My friends paid, I paid cash, I skipped checkin and went right to the room. What flipped was my friend walked up to a blackjack table and the dealer greeted him by name. Another friend who had also checked in was greeted by the cash out teller by name. They didn't seem to know who I was. I started paying for everything in cash and was like "welp, guess I'm definitely never coming back to vegas"
lsllc 6y ago
Another reason to wear that damn mask!
cosmodisk 6y ago
I think I have to agree with some comments that it's very unlikely companies do get a lot of value from these surveillance programmes. From a side, it all sounds super advanced and promising,but in the reality it's usually more down to earth: After buying a dehumidifier from Amazon, they keep sending emails with various dehumidifier options.. Like I need 20 of them. Sainsbury's tracks my shopping via Nectar card just to give me 5p discount on the cucumbers and crisps I sometimes buy. Where's all the sophistication? With all the tracking and analytics, one would think they could better track shopper sentiment,yet thousands of tons of unsold food and other products get dumped every day. Also,just because someone is doing it, that doesn't mean it's profitable. A lot of CEOs get sold all this AI/ML hype and because they have genuine fears of being left out, they just roll with it.
wnmurphy 6y ago
Great. What's the real-world equivalent of doing 90% of your browser searches in an incognito window?
- alexashka 6y ago
  Acknowledging that you can't change what people will do and that you will be dead soon is the best incognito window I've found. It's incognito from your stupid brain patterns that want to find something to worry about incessantly. It's not that the stupid thoughts stop - you just pet them like stupid little things that they are and move on with your life.

322 points by callwaiting 6y ago

bzb3 6y ago

Doesn't seem like a productive battle. It's only upsides for stores that roll out facial recognition. If you want this stopped you will need legislation.

tyingq 6y ago
I suppose it doesn't scale, but public shaming seemed to work in this case: "Last week, however, after Reuters sent its findings to the retailer, Rite Aid said it had quit using its facial recognition software." Though likely because of the higher use in low income neighborhoods than facial recognition overall.
- bzb3 6y ago
  Facial recognition is used mostly to stop shoplifters so it's to be expected that it will be used in low income neighbourhoods mostly. It is a matter of time until it becomes widespread enough that they won't have to back down for shame.
- BlackCherry 6y ago
  Public shaming didn't work, literally at all. The article was released literally today, and the program was ended before anyone knew about it other than reporters. And this won't deter other corporations from employing this technology. We absolutely need legislation to permanently stop this. The free market is not going to magically pop up a competing brick and mortar that doesn't spy on us and/or sell/give our data to other corporations/governments.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  If everybody rolls it out within a short window of a few years, public shaming will be impossible. If there's no non-participating business that a potential customer can choose instead, shame costs nothing. See Smart TVs.
superkuh 6y ago
Do you think it's justified to bring in the use of government force and coercion in a situation where no one is being injured, no one is being defrauded, and people are voluntarily going to the private property on which the events occur? It would be much more ethical to personally stop going to the store and giving them business if you object (which is a valid opinion, imo). Encouraging others to do the same, spreading news about the practice, etc, all seems good. But once you start calling for people with guns to coerce the property owners you're doing something unethical.

catalogia 6y ago

Do these systems continue to work in the mask era, or have they wasted their money? Personally I've taken to wearing masks and large sunglasses, just because I can. I suppose they could still track my gait, posture, hair style, etc.

larrik 6y ago
> Rite Aid said it had quit using its facial recognition software. It later said all the cameras had been turned off.
- catalogia 6y ago
  The article doesn't make clear whether they turned the system off because it wasn't working due to masks, or simply wasn't doing what they meant it to do in the first place. > “This decision was in part based on a larger industry conversation,” the company told Reuters in a statement, adding that “other large technology companies seem to be scaling back or rethinking their efforts around facial recognition given increasing uncertainty around the technology’s utility.” Will it come back when the masks go away, or have they realized that it was never useful in the first place? (They also claim it had nothing to do with race, which is kind of farcical since it's well known these recognition systems have trouble with race. It obviously has something to do with race, even if they're choosing to ignore that issue.) In brief, my questions are these: Can these systems track the movements of people wearing masks? (I suspect they can, perhaps with some tweaking.) And assuming that these systems can provide accurate movement data through the store, does analysis of that movement data actually provide actionable suggestions of how to arrange the store that, when put to the test, actually increase sales? (I suspect the efficacy of this analysis is greatly overstated by those selling it, and stores are beginning to realize this.)
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    Rite Aid being national (global?), and mask use being regional, I doubt the masks had much to do with the decision. Just my two cents.

quotemstr 6y ago

I have no problem with this move. One of my general principles, one I try to apply everywhere, it is: if you can perform an information processing task with your eyes and brain, you should have the freedom to program a computer to do that task. Under this principle, I have to allow public facial recognition: any functioning human can already do it, just at a smaller scale. On other words, Rite-Aid employees can already recognize your face. Deal with it. Why is my principle so important? Because the alternative conflicts with the computational enhancement of the mind, which is far more important than any illusory gains to had from banning this tech or that tech.

sschueller 6y ago
"Rite-Aid employees can already recognize your face" Are those same employees networked together and can remember the exact day and time you where in any of the stores and know exactly what you purchased? They have also memorised the entire FBI most wanted list and any other list of faces that may be in a "bad credit" database?
reificator 6y ago
> On other words, Rite-Aid employees can already recognize your face. Deal with it. However, Rite-Aid employees cannot recognize every customer's face. Scale is the difference here, and scale is what people object to.
dogman144 6y ago
This just conveniently blows past how the accurate processing and storage capabilities of a OS are about 5000% more capable than the eyes + brain. Refusing to see that as a problem or at least a responsibility to consider is why people are starting to hate our industry :thumbsup:
- dogman144 6y ago
  This of course sounds dramatic. But then, people who fall into this bucket continue to build, sell, and most importantly open source some of the most dramatically societal-changing tech with zero regard for what they enable. This mindset would have open sourced the Manhattan Project if it was written in Python and used interesting storage advances, but it was safe because it was FOSS.

andialo 6y ago

After IBM, Microsoft and many others publicly declared (for marketing reasons no doubt) to stop working and delivering face recognition systems, a new competitor quickly fills the space. Color me surprised.

Shivetya 6y ago
Yes expected. I posted before that by trying to stop companies we work for or other well known companies from operating in this space we give up far too much opportunity to police and possibly influence the outcome. Facial Recognition is coming along with all other sorts of identification. They key to making sure these are not abuse is to get embedded into the process of making them. This way issues of privacy, accuracy, and accountability, can all be addressed. Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual. Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  "Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this " I am very worried that there will be a lot going on behind the scenes. Public cancel culture is bad but secret cancel culture is even worse.
- Andrex 6y ago
  > Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual. So because it's going to happen anyways, get on board or else? I'm not a follower of defeatist thinking. Large structural changes can happen, but only through persistence and focus. Saying "it's not worth it" right from the get-go is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

luma 6y ago

Technologies with similar capabilities are being rolled out en masse throughout retailers across America. I've worked with a regional grocer supporting one of these projects. There are turnkey systems from several vendors, but the general concept is similar. Cameras have full coverage of the retail floorspace from multiple angles. The systems can track an individual throughout the store, and they can observe someone pulling items off the shelf. This is used for a couple things. One, if customer pulls product A off the shelf instead of product B right next to it, the manufacturer of product B can purchase the ability to have their coupon print out at checkout to be handed to somebody who is proven to have an interest in the category. Alternately, it can be used with self-checkout systems to confirm that the shopper actually scanned product A, or to alert security to check the shopper's receipt and cart at exit. Amazon is offering this sort of technology for checkout-less stores, but similar offerings for loss-prevention and targeted marketing are online and available. It would be trivial to add face recognition to this stack, and I strongly suspect it is in fact offered if you ask for it. The use case there would be focused around the loss prevention aspect, and that's a huge financial driver for implementing these systems. Another interesting feature of this market is that the websites for the products themselves don't really advertise the full functionality of the product. You won't see the scale of the offering until you get to the in-person sales demo and slide decks. It feels like the vendors know how the technology could be perceived.

michaelt 6y ago
> One, if customer pulls product A off the shelf instead of product B right next to it, the manufacturer of product B can purchase the ability to have their coupon print out at checkout to be handed to somebody who is proven to have an interest in the category. What does that add over simply printing a Product B coupon whenever someone purchases Product A?
- gruez 6y ago
  Snarky explanation: same reason why you need blockchain in a private, single writer database Charitable explanation: maybe it covers additional use cases such as you stopping to look at a product, but end up not buying it.

FpUser 6y ago

"the retailer used state-of-the-art facial recognition technology from a company with links to China and its authoritarian government." And today along with countless millions of North Americans I dialed my mom on a piece of technology that was made in China and its authoritarian Government (TM). FFS can't they stop shoving big bad China into every story. However bad it is not China's fault for US corporation being A-hole. Added for clarification: This is not to protect China, rather to point out this style of "reporting" that lately seems to have very little to do with the true reporting as it used to be.

oxymoran 6y ago
FFS can people stop defending China every time someone calls them authoritarian.
nova22033 6y ago
An internet connected camera made in China and using software from a Chinese company is a slightly bigger risk than an iPhone made in China.

acomjean 6y ago

There was a company called "stop lift" that deployed cameras on its check out lines. Looking for fraud by employees and probably self checkout. Whenever I'm in a store at the cashiers I look up and often see lots of camera domes above the register. https://www.stoplift.com/about/why-stoplift/ https://www.stoplift.com/about/why-stoplift/

nitrogen 6y ago
There's been a trend in self checkout to have at least two cameras directly on each machine, one in the screen pointed at your face, and one overhead on a mast pointed downward. I am not a fan.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  I've seen the playback from the camera above and I'm okay with that one. The other one targeting my face? Not so much (tho I'm less bothered, since wearing a mask).

xwdv 6y ago

Masks will probably remain socially acceptable for quite some time post-COVID. If you don’t agree with facial recognition you can just wear one.

stinos 6y ago
Next in line: iris scan at entry, followed by tracking you based on clothes/posture. If you don't agree: try to wear and act the same as everone else? More serious (even though I think my example isn't that far-fetched): I'm really not sure what to think of these camera and whetavere software backend slowly creeping into society. It has been predicted, definitely not everyone is ok with it, but still it just happens.
zapdrive 6y ago
https://apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a https://apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a
- deelowe 6y ago
  It's no different than browser fingerprinting. "You can just use a VPN/spoof your user agent!" It's not that simple. Just like how browser fingerprinting has evolved to the point where it's virtually impossible to get around, these real world systems will follow suit. Hair color, eye color, skin color, the types of clothes your wear, your gait, height, gender, path you take through the store, car you drive, license plate, stores you frequent, heck... even where you choose to park or which door you choose to enter could all be used identify individuals/families. Keep in mind, just like with web analytics, these solutions will be provided by 3rd parties which will aggregate this data across multiple businesses.
- originalvichy 6y ago
  Glad I have a variety of different shoe sizes to alter my gait somewhat at least. Maybe that will become a thing. My gait changes if I use hiking boots vs. bouncy runners for example.
- AThrowAway2718 6y ago

curiousllama 6y ago

Hi, I work as a consultant around AI, and I want everyone here to know: every company with a brick-and-mortar wants to do this. The barriers are (1) tech stack, (2) use case, and (3) ethics, in that order. It's not just facial recognition in stores: it's tying face, license plate, credit card, and phone app into a single customer view; it's pricing based on your past (and current!) behavior; and it's data consortiums to tie together data across companies (ever wonder why everyone asks for your phone #? It's traditionally the primary key in the big-*ss joins). The expectation of privacy we have online is coming to the real world, make no mistake. I wish I had a call to action here but... keep yelling, I guess? I don't have a solution.

goatinaboat 6y ago
it's pricing based on your past (and current!) behavior How will that work in a brick-and-mortar store where there is a price label on everything?
- zapdrive 6y ago
  A digital label that shows price after looking at your face?
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Seems simpler to send coupons for specific products to specific people.
- aroch 6y ago
  The easiest is to send e-coupons to frequent shoppers?
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Aren't there already some experimental stores where you have to scan an item with your phone in order to find out the price? If the app is linked to your identity, then you could see a different price than others based on your demographics and past purchasing behavior.

dilandau 6y ago

What companies are behind the development of these camera+software solutions? I reckon it's just a couple?

spaetzleesser 6y ago

I always wonder if they really get much value out of all this surveillance or if they just hope to get value. It seems that a lot of companies are these days are trying to hack their customers instead of treating them right. In the long run I don't this will work. I already am getting a very bad taste dealing with a lot of companies because they seem to view me, the customer, as something to extract money from instead of a customer to be respected. You notice that for example with a lot of search results where the company places stuff they want to sell in the results instead of allowing me to search for what I need. Either we are going into a very dark future or there will be massive pushback. Not sure which way it will go.

take_a_breath 6y ago
==I always wonder if they really get much value out of all this surveillance or if they just hope to get value.== The continued investment implies that the market has spoken: Your data has value. The largest companies in the world exist to make money and their investments exist to further that goal.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >The continued investment implies that the market has spoken: Your data has value. >Your data has value. Does it. Harbor Freight already knows it's customers are cheapskates and Whole Foods already knows it's customers barely look at the prices? Backing that up with data is nice but how much value does it really have? FOMO is a big thing at the corporate management level. A million here, a million there to run pilot programs and do partial roll-outs seems like cheap insurance against getting blindsided by something you wrote off as a fad.
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    ==Harbor Freight already knows it's customers are cheapskates and Whole Foods already knows it's customers barely look at the prices?== If this is how you think pricing decisions are made, I don't know what to say. On the one hand, we have the lived experience of increasing surveillance and targeting, an investigative article discussing it, and long, documented history of data investments from large corporations. On the other hand, we have speculation that it's all FOMO. You don't run pilot programs and eight-year roll-outs of things you aren't taking seriously.

whoopdedo 6y ago

Sounds to me like someone sold Rite Aid a sow's purse, and is no wonder for a chain that had to go begging to its competitors to bail it out of insolvency. (They attempted then failed to merge with CVS and settled for giving more than half of their stores to Walgreens.)

Aunche 6y ago

I genuinely don't understand what the big deal is. Brick and mortar stores lose a lot lose of money in theft. Walmart alone loses $3 billion each each year. It's their private space, so it makes sense that they want to know who's going inside. The majority of shoppers are using their credit card and store rewards card anyways, so they already know who most of the paying customers are anyways.

scottwd9 6y ago
If facial recognition were 99.9% accurate, it would confuse someone with at least 350,000 other people in the US.
- Aunche 6y ago
  If it's not useful, companies aren't going to pay money to use it. As Rite Aid put it, "companies seem to be scaling back or rethinking their efforts around facial recognition given increasing uncertainty around the technology’s utility."
  - timmytokyo 6y ago
    The companies don't care about a few false matches here or there. But if you're one of the people it keeps incorrectly identifying as a criminal who needs to be escorted out of the store, it will matter to you.
    - tolbish 6y ago
      The well-being of the minority vs the interests of money. I wonder how it tends to play out?
  - foobiekr 6y ago
    Companies do all sorts of insane, crazy things that waste inordinate amounts of money with very little return on investment.
  - COGlory 6y ago

jaybeeayyy 6y ago

Why do people focus so much on how the data can potentially go back to China? It just feels like a redirection to distract us from the privacy violations here in the US. I understand why it's a concern but it just seems like every article always ends up talking mostly about Chinese companies, the Chinese government, how they respond to accusations etc. instead of focusing on our government, our corporations, our security forces all using or wanting to use technology like this. Take the "Orwellian surveillance" part. We get about 2 paragraphs about how surveillance in the US is largely unregulated and whatnot and then 4 of them about China. The other sections afterwards seem like they were written to almost justify the use of surveillance in US corporations. Maybe it's all in my head but it's just something I keep noticing whenever there's writing about surveillance in the US.

the_pwner224 6y ago
> U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and acting chair of the U.S. Senate’s intelligence committee, told Reuters in a statement that the Rite Aid system’s potential link to China was “outrageous.” “The Chinese Communist Party’s buildup of its Orwellian surveillance state is alarming, and China’s efforts to export its surveillance state to collect data in America would be an unacceptable, serious threat,” he said. Paragraph works just as well after s/China/America/g.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  If someone s/China/America/g that statement, Mr Rubio would call them an anti-American, far-left communo-fascist who regularly wipes their ass with the constitution, and point out how George Washington personally warned him to keep an eye out for people like that.
starkd 6y ago
Because it's a national security threat. The real danger of a surveillance state is political/foreign actors using that information to gain advantage. It's one thing for individual's shopping habits to be exposed, it's another thing for the person's information to be used by bad actors for their own purposes.

holidayacct 6y ago

If you understood how bad the prescription drug problem was in the United States you wouldn't remotely be surprised.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
>If you understood how bad the prescription drug problem was in the United States 'Was' is the key word. The vast bulk of pill mills were shuttered a decade ago. The current prescription drug problem is the steadily increasing difficulty for people in pain to get prescription pain relief.
- holidayacct 6y ago
  Pill mills were shuttered, but you'd be surprised at how creative people are when they need to feed their habit. There are doctors and pharmacists all over the place that are either: 1.) Being explicitly blackmailed by prescription drug addicts. 2.) Whose employment is completely dependent on prescription drugs because their patients demand prescription drugs as a quick fix for their problems. There are people who literally feed clients to those doctors because they know they are afraid to tell their patients no when they ask for prescription drugs 3.) Don't bother to find alternatives for their patients that don't involve prescription drug abuse because it is a faster method of getting their patients out of the office.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    There are multiple issues to choose from here. All 3 of your points lack supporting data. For 1 & 2 specifically; Doctors receive an itemized DEA report each month for each patient who's prescribed controlled substances. The reports contain all controlled meds prescribed to that patient, from every Dr. I saw my first DEA report 20-odd years ago, so they're nothing new. Each report is a tap on the shoulder to remind Dr.s that every controlled prescription they write is being closely monitored. Patients are monitored exactly as closely as Dr.s, they just aren't informed every month. So - the volume of prescriptions inferred by #1 & #2, would immediately attract DEA attention. Both Dr and patient would be in cuffs before drug-seeking patterns had time to develop. What is entirely more likely than 1&2, is that the endless demonization of prescribing opioids - and the continual LEO threats against Dr's who prescribe meds in a way that the DEA doesn't like - is increasingly frightening Dr.s away from treating pain in an effective way. Your #3 contains a number of assertions that would be difficult-to-impossible to prove (or disprove), when strung together like that.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Reminds me of the entire city of London.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
I appreciate it when Earth's Surveillance Capital is brought up as an abject lesson.

wanna009 6y ago

Online shopping is better https://www.wannacoupons.com/ https://www.wannacoupons.com/

duaoebg 6y ago

I wonder if it’s inevitable that we will get denial of entry based facial recognition systems. It’s legally difficult to stop people from leaving the store whereas it’ll be much easier to prevent them from entering. If someone shoplifts then they get banned from the chain, or a network of chains. This would be an alternative to police involvement. Restitution could be done proportionality and privately. Of course there will be issues with it but I’m sure it could be cheaper to figure this out than the alternative loss prevention solutions.

wasdfff 6y ago
Shoplifts could just wear a face mask and sunglasses.
hrhrhrd 6y ago
I can imagine the headline now. "Rite-aid banned me because I "look like a shoplifter"".
kstenerud 6y ago
It will happen, and it will become a constitutional issue once it becomes ubiquitous enough. These systems will likely be networked together, building and sharing profiles on known undesirables such that they can be banned from most, if not all stores eventually. Once that happens, there will be a class of people who cannot legally buy food anymore, because to enter a store would be trespass.
TheJoeMan 6y ago
From a profit motivation, Rite-Aid (and everyone else) would really like everyone to give them money instead of banning them forever. So I really feel the market will sort this out, maybe a 3 strike system or temporary suspensions. Now that I think about it, we already have temporary suspensions from Walmart and the like if you get caught. How is this different than a guard just watching the CCTV all day?
potta_coffee 6y ago
Instead they ought to just send you an invoice for the items you borrow. If the invoice goes unpaid, it can eventually be sent to collections.

soupfordummies 6y ago

Yet another reason to wear a mask everywhere in public :P

eunos 6y ago
As I have commented here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23257887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23257887 Overcoming masks is a feasible challenge and will be solved with, I assume, modest efforts. Side note: I tried my Android phone face recognition while using a mask. Interestingly, as long as the nose structure can be perceived, it managed to recognize me.

mywittyname 6y ago

I hope Rite Aid and the companies providing these solutions get the shit sued out of them for racial discrimination. This is covered in the article briefly, but there's amble evidence that these systems do not work on black faces. The CEOs of these companies keep claiming the opposite and yet, misidentifications are still happening. No one is going to fix the problem until the cost of a misidentication is severe. I know that I don't want to have the cops come tear down my front door, ransack my house, and point rifles at my family all because some shitty, overpriced AI doesn't work and nobody involved in enforcement faces any consequences for being wrong. I'd prefer criminal liability for the people involved. But at least stiff civil penalties may sway the bean counters to oppose such systems.

jjcon 6y ago
> I hope Rite Aid and the companies providing these solutions get the shit sued out of them for racial discrimination. Technical limitations != racism If tomorrow we cured cancer for all women would you try to stop it from coming to fruition because it’s ‘sexist’? That would be ridiculous. I’m not saying I disagree with the sentiment, I’d prefer we not live in such a surveiled society but using racism as a prop in this situation is is just stupid and it does not follow.
qwepeyote 6y ago
When you cry, “racial discrimination”—“these systems don’t work on black people”, you have implicitly accepted that these systems would be fine if only they worked on black people as well as they work on white people. It’s the sucker half of the dialect. And you are a sucker.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  I pay with a credit card at every store and pharmacies have access to a ton of my personal health information. These aren't exactly places where you can remain anonymous. I wouldn't have an issue if these systems were near perfect, and had checks-and-balance built in such that false positives don't ruin innocent peoples' lives. That's my primary issue, is that these point the finger at innocent people, and that innocent person suffers. We have so much evidence of how terribly inaccurate these systems are that it's appalling that they are given any credibility in the legal justice system. That article alone says that their old system misidentified ten people out of ten (!!). My secondary issue is that these inaccurate systems are profoundly less accurate on PoC, a group of people already subjugated by our criminal justice system. Taken in isolation, each of these issues should be enough to prohibit their deployment and use. My suggestion for checks and balances is civil liabilities for those deploying said systems. Since I believe that Rite Aid is going to be pretty fucking diligent if they risk a $100MM lawsuit if they are wrong. I'm of the cynical mindset that the only way to get executives to consider the negative effects of their business strategies is to make it cost money, since that plays to their sociopathic tendency to make everything a dollar-cost optimization. You can sit there and call me a sucker and a racist for pointing out racial bias in our society. But that's no enough to stop me from standing up for equal rights by calling out racial bias anywhere I see it.

tomphoolery 6y ago

you'd think they would be able to actually give me the right scrip with this tech but fun fact, no.

grogenaut 6y ago

A few years back I stayed at the Nugget in downtown vegas. I hate vegas but friends wanted to watch the sweet 16 there. I was actaully somewhat happy with the nugget, it was freshly upgraded and pretty nice. Food was ok and ok priced, and the vegas main street is a better feel for me than the mega hotels. My friends paid, I paid cash, I skipped checkin and went right to the room. What flipped was my friend walked up to a blackjack table and the dealer greeted him by name. Another friend who had also checked in was greeted by the cash out teller by name. They didn't seem to know who I was. I started paying for everything in cash and was like "welp, guess I'm definitely never coming back to vegas"

lsllc 6y ago

Another reason to wear that damn mask!

cosmodisk 6y ago

I think I have to agree with some comments that it's very unlikely companies do get a lot of value from these surveillance programmes. From a side, it all sounds super advanced and promising,but in the reality it's usually more down to earth: After buying a dehumidifier from Amazon, they keep sending emails with various dehumidifier options.. Like I need 20 of them. Sainsbury's tracks my shopping via Nectar card just to give me 5p discount on the cucumbers and crisps I sometimes buy. Where's all the sophistication? With all the tracking and analytics, one would think they could better track shopper sentiment,yet thousands of tons of unsold food and other products get dumped every day. Also,just because someone is doing it, that doesn't mean it's profitable. A lot of CEOs get sold all this AI/ML hype and because they have genuine fears of being left out, they just roll with it.

wnmurphy 6y ago

Great. What's the real-world equivalent of doing 90% of your browser searches in an incognito window?

alexashka 6y ago
Acknowledging that you can't change what people will do and that you will be dead soon is the best incognito window I've found. It's incognito from your stupid brain patterns that want to find something to worry about incessantly. It's not that the stupid thoughts stop - you just pet them like stupid little things that they are and move on with your life.