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There was some pytorch software called "enhance", i.e. ./enhance <image> [options] and you could take an image that someone took of their unpowered tv across th

There was some pytorch software called "enhance", i.e. ./enhance <image> [options] and you could take an image that someone took of their unpowered tv across the room and pull out a high resolution image of their face from the reflection in the matte-ish surface. I used it on reddit to convince people it was unsafe to post any images of that sort. It seemed to work for about 6 months. There's magic in image enhancement, but I don't know that ridges and valleys of a fingerprint are there, yet. I don't even know that "this specific person is scared that they leaked their face in a way that is recognizable to them" even scales to "never upload anything" - it could be this sort of news is programming the population that computers can tease out identities with any and all leaked information, pictures, audio, etc. Heck, a decade and a half ago there were claims that governments could narrow a search for an audio file upload based on the deviation from 60hz on the power line noise - in an audio recording. So who knows?

absorber 6y ago
> Heck, a decade and a half ago there were claims that governments could narrow a search for an audio file upload based on the deviation from 60hz on the power line noise - in an audio recording. Wow. Any source for this?
- RisingFusion 6y ago
  I think it was referring to Electrical network frequency analysis, which is to find the time that the recording was made. It compares small changes in mains hum frequency to historic records of the changes. I am not sure how it is in the US, but the UK grid has a single frequency over the network so it wouldn't work for finding the location.
  - teruakohatu 6y ago
    The propagation of waves is very fast, but wouldn't distance from multiple large sources or sinks fluctuate the frequency just slightly based on distance?
    - torified 6y ago
      Distance doesn't change frequency, only velocity. Doppler effect.
- wiml 6y ago
  Here's a brief piece on the practice: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671
  - grugagag 6y ago
    And how about if the recording device was running on batteries such as a unplugged laptop or a smartphone?
SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
Got a link to the particular enhance software you are referring to?
schoen 6y ago
I'm curious about this photo-enhancement tool, because it's also a common joke in some circles that police procedural TV shows use "Zoom! Enhance!" when blurry photos -- or photos zoomed in until they're pixelated -- typically can't be enhanced for information-theoretic reasons. (Of course, if you can make assumptions about what the photo is of and what structure that thing would have, you can make relatively-likelihood estimates of different possibilities for the subject matter, such as different text strings in a blurry or pixelated photo of text.) So, under some assumptions this typically shouldn't be able to work. :-) edit: extensively documented at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhanceButton https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhanceButton, for example
resoluteteeth 6y ago
If you're talking about https://github.com/alexjc/neural-enhance https://github.com/alexjc/neural-enhance it's NOT "pulling out" existing details from photos. It's making up details.

absorber 6y ago

> Heck, a decade and a half ago there were claims that governments could narrow a search for an audio file upload based on the deviation from 60hz on the power line noise - in an audio recording. Wow. Any source for this?

RisingFusion 6y ago
I think it was referring to Electrical network frequency analysis, which is to find the time that the recording was made. It compares small changes in mains hum frequency to historic records of the changes. I am not sure how it is in the US, but the UK grid has a single frequency over the network so it wouldn't work for finding the location.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  The propagation of waves is very fast, but wouldn't distance from multiple large sources or sinks fluctuate the frequency just slightly based on distance?
  - torified 6y ago
    Distance doesn't change frequency, only velocity. Doppler effect.
wiml 6y ago
Here's a brief piece on the practice: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671
- grugagag 6y ago
  And how about if the recording device was running on batteries such as a unplugged laptop or a smartphone?

SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago

Got a link to the particular enhance software you are referring to?

schoen 6y ago

I'm curious about this photo-enhancement tool, because it's also a common joke in some circles that police procedural TV shows use "Zoom! Enhance!" when blurry photos -- or photos zoomed in until they're pixelated -- typically can't be enhanced for information-theoretic reasons. (Of course, if you can make assumptions about what the photo is of and what structure that thing would have, you can make relatively-likelihood estimates of different possibilities for the subject matter, such as different text strings in a blurry or pixelated photo of text.) So, under some assumptions this typically shouldn't be able to work. :-) edit: extensively documented at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhanceButton https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhanceButton, for example

resoluteteeth 6y ago

If you're talking about https://github.com/alexjc/neural-enhance https://github.com/alexjc/neural-enhance it's NOT "pulling out" existing details from photos. It's making up details.