7 ms·

How normal people deployed facial recognition on Capitol Hill protesters

jlkuester7 6y ago
It seems like we may have already passed the tipping point on this technology such that (barring some heavy-handed legislation) it is probably going to became ubiquitous. Implementations such as real-time on the street recognition embedded in Google Glass style hardware or even just constant tracking in stores for targeted advertising are basically already possible (and perhaps already deployed).
- prepend 6y ago
  I’m not even sure how you would legislate it since it’s so cheap and easy to use. I remember the first time seeing tineye.com and thinking how cool it was and that’s when I stopped posting photos of myself publicly. It was only a matter of time until CS freshmen courses have people building reverse image searches. I think that the damage can be reduced by passing laws disallowing law enforcement and prosecutors from acquiring evidence through facial recognition search dragnets. That and enforcing anti-dox TOS violations even when people are using it against jerks like the capitol rioters.
ulucs 6y ago
Oh cool, random innocent people will be getting harassed due to failings of a random software used by people with no accountability. 'cause that's what the good guys do.
IAmWorried 6y ago
My guess is that between the increased awareness of health risks due to COVID and the rise of scary dystopian facial recognition technology, masks are probably here to stay in the United States (at least the coastal areas).
- moron4hire 6y ago
  Once the pandemic is over, local ordinances banning masks in public spaces will go back into effect.
  - leephillips 6y ago
    Along with the usual religious privilege exemptions.
cwalters 6y ago
It seems to me that vigilantes use this technology, not "normal people". Most normal people still have ethical concerns about tracking others, even in exceptional circumstances like this one.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  Listen, it's not like these people burned and looted small businesses like acceptable rioters. They scared politicians!
  - _benedict 6y ago
    Even if looting had been considered "acceptable" (which, broadly, it was not): Scared (for their safety) politicians is a societal failure mode. It should be more urgent and pressing than almost anything else.
    - stronglikedan 6y ago
      > Scared (for their safety) politicians is a societal failure mode. When the government fears the people, it's an institutional failure mode, just like allowing people burn and loot small business with near-impunity, which, broadly, it was.
      - mschuster91 6y ago
        > When the government fears the people, it's an institutional failure mode Governments and politicians should always fear the people. Not in terms of violence (although I do understand why BLM felt the need to resort to violence, given that police has undeniably committed grave acts of violence specifically against people of color for generations), but at the very least they should always fear not being re-elected so that they have an incentive to work for the people. If the people don't hold their politicians accountable and keep voting only because of the party letter (and not voting in primaries...), the end result is Qanon believers like Greene in Congress.
JasonFruit 6y ago
I'm not happy about any tool that increases the ability of online mobs to direct their momentary rage at individuals, even if those individuals have done stupid things. There's no check on a mob, online or otherwise, nobody in a position to impose restraint: once it's in motion, it goes until its momentum is exhausted. I don't have a solution to this problem; I philosophically don't agree with legislation to prevent publicly available facial recognition, because I think it's maybe even worse to have a government monopoly on it, but I realize we can't rely on people's good judgment and self-restraint. Maybe we have an awkward time until we develop a mature perspective on this technology.
- sschueller 6y ago
  We do have some solutions to this Problem. In Switzerland it is illegal to do this as it violates a persons privacy[1]. The law does need to be adjusted to make it more clear however. [1] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/automatische-gesichtserkennung-so-einfach-ist-es-eine-ueberwachungsmaschine-zu-bauen https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/automatische-gesichtserkennu...
  - emteycz 6y ago
    It's also illegal to storm the Capitol
- bsenftner 6y ago
  An aspect completely missed: human racial blindness. I write FR software, I am lead dev on a leading FR system. The biggest issue I see is a complete disregard for the responsibilities held by the operator of FR software. The operator of FR software has a huge responsibility, and #1 is the ability to distinguish between individuals of an ethnicity other than their own. A simple screening for this ability would be to present a series of photographs of near age siblings and cousins from a range of ethnic demographics. If a person cannot distinguish with absolute accuracy between the photos, they should not be the operator of FR software being used for any life situation altering analysis. The FR operator's job is to be the final verification for the FR software; if they cannot do this task, they should not be the operator. A secondary requirement for any FR software operator is the recognition of the simple fact that the individual being search may not be in the FR database, and any results presented are just similar appearances, and not the search target. These issues are common sense, but common sense is not common anymore.
kwhitefoot 6y ago
'Normal people'? That's a bit of a stretch.
credit_guy 6y ago
I for one support the use of face recognition and otherwise enhanced surveillance by law enforcement. The alternative that we are seeing here, of private surveillance is so much worse. From time to time there's a discussion on HN about the "Nothing to Hide Argument" (e.g [1],[2],[3]). On this topic, I feel there's close to a unanimous position on HN that the "nothing to hide argument" is wrong. People mention counterexamples like "are you ok with cameras in your bathroom", "can you share your bank account password with me". They are all strawmen. The way I see it is: if law enforcement identifies all the perpetrators of the Capitol attack and brings them to justice, that's a good thing. I was not there. I don't live in fear that one day the law enforcement will use some facebook photo of mine to send me to prison, because I don't engage in criminal behavior. But if someone with my likeness was there, and a mob of redditors mistake that person to me, yes, that's something that I can be afraid of. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25416123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25416123 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957864 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25417117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25417117
- jowsie 6y ago
  > I was not there. I don't live in fear that one day the law enforcement will use some facebook photo of mine to send me to prison, because I don't engage in criminal behavior. You have almost certainly committed some minor crime at some point. Mass surveillance and facial recog tech means they can just bank that for later use if for any not-criminal reason the powers that be decide you need to go away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
- syberspace 6y ago
  >But if someone with my likeness was there, and a mob of redditors mistake that person to me, yes, that's something that I can be afraid of. who says this can't happen with law enforcement surveillance?
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    It can, but with law enforcement there is due process. I can tell them I was in a different place, I can bring witnesses, they can check the logs of my IPhone, etc. With the mob, there are no checks and balances.
fasteddie31003 6y ago
Good thing no one used facial recognition during the Minneapolis riots that just would have been a violation of civil liberties. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZaOGehK6k&ab_channel=UnicornRiot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZaOGehK6k&ab_channel=Unico...
EvilEy3 6y ago
Borderline insane people and facial recognition technology, what could go wrong?
mzs 6y ago
The pimeyes site is how the beer image was found to solve the “Find Satoshi” PerplexCity puzzle too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585080
heliodor 6y ago
Tried my own face on the pimeyes website that was mentioned in the article. Very low quality results. It feels like they are using the least performant algorithm possible.
DataWorker 6y ago
I’m more interested in why. Internet vigilantism isn’t a surprise, but when it’s done to defend the establishment against populism it seems wholly unprecedented.
asfdsdfsdfsd 6y ago
Does anyone else find it absolutely hilarious how scared everyone vaguely left of center was about surveillance, tracking, and facial recognition, and then all they had to do to make these things "good" was invent a narrative about how the plucky rebel alliance of "normal people" used these forbidden techniques to defeat the evil bad guys? I am physically in hysterics at this, did these anti-surveillance people ever actually believe any of that crap? Was all that libertarian bullshit ever only ever possible in the absence of a sufficiently strong "bad guy"?
nudpiedo 6y ago
> It looked like a closed case of justice by algorithm Or a closed case of a mob wanting to see blood rather than letting the justice and authorities do their work. Which reminds me to the reason why the inquisition was originally invented: to prevent neighbours mobbing or directly killing their other neighbours after falsely accusations of whatever blasphemy, and it was indeed a regulated process which released (originally) most of its accused free and ended up being a protection for minorities and socially disadvantaged people in the middle age societies (still being the jugging topic inmoral for nowadays standards, but still a large improvement for the middle age people and their lack of social security).

It seems like we may have already passed the tipping point on this technology such that (barring some heavy-handed legislation) it is probably going to became ubiquitous. Implementations such as real-time on the street recognition embedded in Google Glass style hardware or even just constant tracking in stores for targeted advertising are basically already possible (and perhaps already deployed).

prepend 6y ago
I’m not even sure how you would legislate it since it’s so cheap and easy to use. I remember the first time seeing tineye.com and thinking how cool it was and that’s when I stopped posting photos of myself publicly. It was only a matter of time until CS freshmen courses have people building reverse image searches. I think that the damage can be reduced by passing laws disallowing law enforcement and prosecutors from acquiring evidence through facial recognition search dragnets. That and enforcing anti-dox TOS violations even when people are using it against jerks like the capitol rioters.

ulucs 6y ago

Oh cool, random innocent people will be getting harassed due to failings of a random software used by people with no accountability. 'cause that's what the good guys do.

IAmWorried 6y ago

My guess is that between the increased awareness of health risks due to COVID and the rise of scary dystopian facial recognition technology, masks are probably here to stay in the United States (at least the coastal areas).

moron4hire 6y ago
Once the pandemic is over, local ordinances banning masks in public spaces will go back into effect.
- leephillips 6y ago
  Along with the usual religious privilege exemptions.

cwalters 6y ago

It seems to me that vigilantes use this technology, not "normal people". Most normal people still have ethical concerns about tracking others, even in exceptional circumstances like this one.

jaywalk 6y ago
Listen, it's not like these people burned and looted small businesses like acceptable rioters. They scared politicians!
- _benedict 6y ago
  Even if looting had been considered "acceptable" (which, broadly, it was not): Scared (for their safety) politicians is a societal failure mode. It should be more urgent and pressing than almost anything else.
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    > Scared (for their safety) politicians is a societal failure mode. When the government fears the people, it's an institutional failure mode, just like allowing people burn and loot small business with near-impunity, which, broadly, it was.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > When the government fears the people, it's an institutional failure mode Governments and politicians should always fear the people. Not in terms of violence (although I do understand why BLM felt the need to resort to violence, given that police has undeniably committed grave acts of violence specifically against people of color for generations), but at the very least they should always fear not being re-elected so that they have an incentive to work for the people. If the people don't hold their politicians accountable and keep voting only because of the party letter (and not voting in primaries...), the end result is Qanon believers like Greene in Congress.

JasonFruit 6y ago

I'm not happy about any tool that increases the ability of online mobs to direct their momentary rage at individuals, even if those individuals have done stupid things. There's no check on a mob, online or otherwise, nobody in a position to impose restraint: once it's in motion, it goes until its momentum is exhausted. I don't have a solution to this problem; I philosophically don't agree with legislation to prevent publicly available facial recognition, because I think it's maybe even worse to have a government monopoly on it, but I realize we can't rely on people's good judgment and self-restraint. Maybe we have an awkward time until we develop a mature perspective on this technology.

sschueller 6y ago
We do have some solutions to this Problem. In Switzerland it is illegal to do this as it violates a persons privacy[1]. The law does need to be adjusted to make it more clear however. [1] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/automatische-gesichtserkennung-so-einfach-ist-es-eine-ueberwachungsmaschine-zu-bauen https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/automatische-gesichtserkennu...
- emteycz 6y ago
  It's also illegal to storm the Capitol
bsenftner 6y ago
An aspect completely missed: human racial blindness. I write FR software, I am lead dev on a leading FR system. The biggest issue I see is a complete disregard for the responsibilities held by the operator of FR software. The operator of FR software has a huge responsibility, and #1 is the ability to distinguish between individuals of an ethnicity other than their own. A simple screening for this ability would be to present a series of photographs of near age siblings and cousins from a range of ethnic demographics. If a person cannot distinguish with absolute accuracy between the photos, they should not be the operator of FR software being used for any life situation altering analysis. The FR operator's job is to be the final verification for the FR software; if they cannot do this task, they should not be the operator. A secondary requirement for any FR software operator is the recognition of the simple fact that the individual being search may not be in the FR database, and any results presented are just similar appearances, and not the search target. These issues are common sense, but common sense is not common anymore.

kwhitefoot 6y ago

'Normal people'? That's a bit of a stretch.

credit_guy 6y ago

I for one support the use of face recognition and otherwise enhanced surveillance by law enforcement. The alternative that we are seeing here, of private surveillance is so much worse. From time to time there's a discussion on HN about the "Nothing to Hide Argument" (e.g [1],[2],[3]). On this topic, I feel there's close to a unanimous position on HN that the "nothing to hide argument" is wrong. People mention counterexamples like "are you ok with cameras in your bathroom", "can you share your bank account password with me". They are all strawmen. The way I see it is: if law enforcement identifies all the perpetrators of the Capitol attack and brings them to justice, that's a good thing. I was not there. I don't live in fear that one day the law enforcement will use some facebook photo of mine to send me to prison, because I don't engage in criminal behavior. But if someone with my likeness was there, and a mob of redditors mistake that person to me, yes, that's something that I can be afraid of. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25416123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25416123 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4957864 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25417117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25417117

jowsie 6y ago
> I was not there. I don't live in fear that one day the law enforcement will use some facebook photo of mine to send me to prison, because I don't engage in criminal behavior. You have almost certainly committed some minor crime at some point. Mass surveillance and facial recog tech means they can just bank that for later use if for any not-criminal reason the powers that be decide you need to go away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
syberspace 6y ago
>But if someone with my likeness was there, and a mob of redditors mistake that person to me, yes, that's something that I can be afraid of. who says this can't happen with law enforcement surveillance?
- credit_guy 6y ago
  It can, but with law enforcement there is due process. I can tell them I was in a different place, I can bring witnesses, they can check the logs of my IPhone, etc. With the mob, there are no checks and balances.

fasteddie31003 6y ago

Good thing no one used facial recognition during the Minneapolis riots that just would have been a violation of civil liberties. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZaOGehK6k&ab_channel=UnicornRiot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZaOGehK6k&ab_channel=Unico...

EvilEy3 6y ago

Borderline insane people and facial recognition technology, what could go wrong?

mzs 6y ago

The pimeyes site is how the beer image was found to solve the “Find Satoshi” PerplexCity puzzle too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585080

heliodor 6y ago

Tried my own face on the pimeyes website that was mentioned in the article. Very low quality results. It feels like they are using the least performant algorithm possible.

DataWorker 6y ago

I’m more interested in why. Internet vigilantism isn’t a surprise, but when it’s done to defend the establishment against populism it seems wholly unprecedented.

asfdsdfsdfsd 6y ago

Does anyone else find it absolutely hilarious how scared everyone vaguely left of center was about surveillance, tracking, and facial recognition, and then all they had to do to make these things "good" was invent a narrative about how the plucky rebel alliance of "normal people" used these forbidden techniques to defeat the evil bad guys? I am physically in hysterics at this, did these anti-surveillance people ever actually believe any of that crap? Was all that libertarian bullshit ever only ever possible in the absence of a sufficiently strong "bad guy"?

nudpiedo 6y ago

> It looked like a closed case of justice by algorithm Or a closed case of a mob wanting to see blood rather than letting the justice and authorities do their work. Which reminds me to the reason why the inquisition was originally invented: to prevent neighbours mobbing or directly killing their other neighbours after falsely accusations of whatever blasphemy, and it was indeed a regulated process which released (originally) most of its accused free and ended up being a protection for minorities and socially disadvantaged people in the middle age societies (still being the jugging topic inmoral for nowadays standards, but still a large improvement for the middle age people and their lack of social security).