N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces from Web Images

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
This is from the “Relax, the NSA has your back and is here to protect you in spite of yourself” file. The NSA has been collecting millions of images by intercept every day for facial recognition from email, social media, video conferences, and just about every other source imaginable. Another day, another revelation.

It is not clear how many people around the world, and how many Americans, might have been caught up in the effort. Neither federal privacy laws nor the nation’s surveillance laws provide specific protections for facial images.
Click to expand...
 
I am really starting to think that Snowden's terms of release of these documents was "you will be required to release one new story a week for x years because like Julian Assange, I am afraid of disappearing into obscurity too."

Also, is this even a story that surprises anyone? Police look through facial recognition databases and have for decades.
 
Staples said:
I am really starting to think that Snowden's terms of release of these documents was "you will be required to release one new story a week for x years because like Julian Assange, I am afraid of disappearing into obscurity too."

Also, is this even a story that surprises anyone? Police look through facial recognition databases and have for decades.
Click to expand...

But those databases and photo albums were AFAIK limited to mug shots taken during a police booking (you don't have a right to refuse)...or maybe a DMV photo (Not much of a "choice" but still).

Not even in Law and Order episodes did you see the cops looking through their database of facebook vacation photos trying to find a match.
 
A spy agency, trying to develop databases correlating names to photos. Water, wet, etc.

More non-revelations incoming soon.
 
I am starting to wonder if google didn't start buying a multitude of different companies to protect its ass after the patriot act was passed. Contracting work out to the government does have its perks.
 
I assumed this was being done from the first leaks. Google and Facebook have already been doing this anyways. You upload a photo and it can assign names (of people not even friended) to them with pretty high accuracy. You just need one other data link as an outside confirmation (such as sharing high school, hometown, similar friends).
 
Snowden kinda reminds me of Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984 Hes a myth or legend created by BB himself probably by the Inner Party members just to see which sides the outer party members chose.
 
I have zero problem with them doing this with general web stuff. It would be just like any other search engine. When it gets me is when they go into email, private transmissions, and other places where your privacy is expected.
 
Staples said:
I am really starting to think that Snowden's terms of release of these documents was "you will be required to release one new story a week for x years because like Julian Assange, I am afraid of disappearing into obscurity too."
Click to expand...

Possible, or he figures he'd have more impact if it was drawn out. If all news was dumped instantly, then people would be really shocked and then they'd go back to their normal lives and forget before even mid terms for elections.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I have zero problem with them doing this with general web stuff. It would be just like any other search engine. When it gets me is when they go into email, private transmissions, and other places where your privacy is expected.
Click to expand...

Where do you draw the line?

I upload a photo to Imgur. No privacy flags set. Fair game?

I upload a photo to my personal Dropbox account and mark it private. Fair game?

I take a photo on my cellphone and it gets "backed up" to Google's servers via G+....not shared or public. Fair game?

I upload a photo to a server of a forum website that you otherwise need membership access to view. Fair game?


It is less of a legal nightmare just to not mine it in the first place. Especially given the rather dubious worthwhileness that I see of the project...and unless it is anything other than a smashingly important program in terms of results, it is yet another example of a wasteful spending program that ought to be cut.
 
MN Scout said:
I wonder how many people look nearly identical to me?
Click to expand...

You might be surprised -- not related to the NSA, but my buddy's g/f was in her martial arts class, and she snapped a pic of this guy... she was freaking out because it looked EXACTLY like me. Face/hair (or lack thereof), the only difference was this guy was pretty pumped and built. I'm no fatty but I could use some time with weights.

It really was freaky looking at this pic of a guy who looked just like me but wasn't, also kinda gave me some motivation to get all built and chiseled. lol
 
Parmenides said:
Possible, or he figures he'd have more impact if it was drawn out. If all news was dumped instantly, then people would be really shocked and then they'd go back to their normal lives and forget before even mid terms for elections.
Click to expand...

By releasing it in chunks it's also giving them a chance to lie on public record not that anything is actually being done about the purgery at the congressional hearings. Hopefully it's swaying some peoples opinion on if this is ok when they feel the need to lie to elected officials about what they are doing. Not that it even matters since elected officials are nothing more then corporate pawns for the highest bidder. It's a good time to be an American!
 
Edward%20Snowden.jpg
 
Skripka said:
Where do you draw the line?
Click to expand...

Google or Bing images. Did they cross the line? They scour the internet for images, some are on private forums.

If I can use Bing to find it, why can't the NSA do the same thing?

Now, indexing your private server, bypassing your security? Too far.

The line is drawn between public access and private, -secure- access. If they need to break security, then it's too far. I see no issue with them making a search engine for public sites and images. I can do that, and it would be completely legal. That's as far as I'd say they could go... They've obviously went way past that. But, they made it legal... You know, national security and all that... :rolleyes: Gotta keep the country safe from them preppers and damn Libertarians. :D
 
Ur_Mom said:
I have zero problem with them doing this with general web stuff. It would be just like any other search engine. When it gets me is when they go into email, private transmissions, and other places where your privacy is expected.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I don't understand why someone would feel otherwise. Should the intelligence community just shut its eyes and plug its ears to all information?
 
Staples said:
I am really starting to think that Snowden's terms of release of these documents was "you will be required to release one new story a week for x years because like Julian Assange, I am afraid of disappearing into obscurity too."

Also, is this even a story that surprises anyone? Police look through facial recognition databases and have for decades.
Click to expand...

The reporters decide what to release and what not to release. By all accounts, they've got enough documents to publish for years. And I can't speak for you, but I didn't think they were looking through my emails or my FB page (which has nothing globally visible other than the timeline photo, which I'm not in).

I'm not sure that all that they released should have been (e.g. the spying on Merkel probably shouldn't have been published).
 
Sounds pretty cool but maybe that is because I like the movie Minority Report
 
Coldblackice said:
Agreed. I don't understand why someone would feel otherwise. Should the intelligence community just shut its eyes and plug its ears to all information?
Click to expand...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 put in place a set of procedures that intelligence agencies needed to follow for any domestic surveillence. It narrowly limited intelligence gathering except in certain cases.

Since then, Bush and Obama have hugely expanded these programs, to the point that no electronic communication in this country is not scrutinized. And we're supposed to believe that this is done soley for national security, and there is no possibility that this information will be used to target political opposition or used by law enforcement in violation of civil rights.

:rolleyes:
 
Ur_Mom;
I have zero problem with them doing this with general web stuff. It would be just like any other search engine. When it gets me is when they go into email, private transmissions, and other places where your privacy is expected.
Click to expand...

Then you should be able to sleep just fine tonight.

From the article;
Because the agency considers images a form of communications content, the N.S.A. would be required to get court approval for imagery of Americans collected through its surveillance programs, just as it must to read their emails or eavesdrop on their phone conversations, according to an N.S.A. spokeswoman. Cross-border communications in which an American might be emailing or texting an image to someone targeted by the agency overseas could be excepted.
Click to expand...

The only reason anyone would see this as a problem is if they refuse to believe that the NSA does get a warrant when targeting a US Person. That's really what it comes down to, either they do, or they don't. You have to make up your own mind.
 
They already have a picture of us.. its called a license.
Click to expand...

And they have this;
http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=node/2406

The system has since been upgraded to DOD ABIS version 1.0, which stores facial images, palm prints and iris patterns in addition to fingerprints. Version 1.0 also includes a more advanced algorithm that uses a combination of partial matches from multiple biometric sources—
Click to expand...

They were collecting biometrics including photos of pretty much everyone they could in Iraq and Afghanistan while I was over there. It's been going on for years and I am sure they have expanded collection elsewhere. It's from these people that they are searching for matches from data collected from places like this article suggests. So a hadji in Iraq is arrested making bombs. They grab his biometrics and photo data. Now they look for him everywhere.
 
By Skripka;
Especially given the rather dubious worthwhileness that I see of the project..
Click to expand...

And this, like so many other similar statements from so many others, is where you are wrong. As noted above, for the last ten years they have been capturing biometrics on known bad guys, associates and family of known bad guys, etc. They are checked at airports and other entry points into the US. Many other instances exist where their facial and other biometrics are checked in order to get a handle on these people before they can get into or start any trouble here.

And by this article it looks like they are searching many online information sights for matches with known bad guys to see if they are up to something. You may think it doesn't work, I know it does and there is nothing dubious about it.
 
Anonymity on the interwebs is an illusion. Dont like it? Too bad thats life. Learn to live off the grid and hide in the forest.
 
"WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s it may contain unfixed security issues,"
 
hardware_failure said:
Anonymity on the interwebs is an illusion. Dont like it? Too bad thats life. Learn to live off the grid and hide in the forest.
Click to expand...

Illusion? It's a public network with your data going over open data lines. Anonymous from Joe Blow, but not from any corporate or government entity. I don't think too many people think the internet is too anonymous, really. Not anymore. Especially when you download a movie, and you get an email saying to knock it off with your personal information attached.
 
By Ur_Mom;
I don't think too many people think the internet is too anonymous, really. Not anymore. Especially when you download a movie, and you get an email saying to knock it off with your personal information attached.
Click to expand...

Agreed, like when someone asks you how much a decent monitor costs and you go to Newegg to kick out a good buy recommendation for them. Then you go to some other website and the adds on the right side of this other website's page has Sales Offers for exactly the same model monitor you were just looking at.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I have zero problem with them doing this with general web stuff. It would be just like any other search engine. When it gets me is when they go into email, private transmissions, and other places where your privacy is expected.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that. When some dumb computer bug assigns your pic to someone on a terrorist watch list, you may find travelling around the world (or where you live presently) problematic. Just sayin ...
 
amddragonpc said:
I don't know about that. When some dumb computer bug assigns your pic to someone on a terrorist watch list, you may find travelling around the world (or where you live presently) problematic. Just sayin ...
Click to expand...

True, but the actual gathering of data isn't the issue when it's something that anyone could do legally, including you or I. Once we break the security of a server, we're breaking the law.

The way they use that data, though, can be questionable. It's like someone mentioned before. Google searching sites and data when you use their services (or Facebook). They were fine until they started using those images in ads and things that say you approve of or use (when you don't).
 
lcpiper said:
And this, like so many other similar statements from so many others, is where you are wrong. As noted above, for the last ten years they have been capturing biometrics on known bad guys, associates and family of known bad guys, etc. They are checked at airports and other entry points into the US. Many other instances exist where their facial and other biometrics are checked in order to get a handle on these people before they can get into or start any trouble here.

And by this article it looks like they are searching many online information sights for matches with known bad guys to see if they are up to something. You may think it doesn't work, I know it does and there is nothing dubious about it.
Click to expand...

Bad guys... lol

YOU and your fucking employers are the bad guys. Fucking murderers.

Ban me, I am done.
 
Once we break the security of a server, we're breaking the law.
Click to expand...

The reports that claim the NSA this didn't claim they did it to US Systems, they just conveniently leave it up to us to fill in that blank. Hell, even if the reporter says they did it to Google, they may have, but was it Google in the US, or Google systems in China. The reporter was conveniently mum to the particulars.
 
Bad guys... lol

YOU and your fucking employers are the bad guys. Fucking murderers.

Ban me, I am done.
Click to expand...

Don't ban him, I am not done with him yet.

So convenient for you dgz to think you have no responsibility in all this.

So simple for you to think you have no stake in all of it, no benefit, no connection.

But if you are an Adult US Citizen who can vote, then you did have something to do with it. Either you voted for these presidents and help make it all happen, or you voted against and failed to convince enough others in order to stop it. Or, you did nothing at all and by your failure to exercise your voting rights abdicated your fate to others. No matter which way you slice it, every simple American Citizen who can vote has an effect and carries some responsibility for what is happening as well as for what isn't happening.

You still have your own cross to bare just like the rest of us. Refusing to accept it is no relief from the burden, it's just denial.
 
lcpiper said:
But if you are an Adult US Citizen who can vote, then you did have something to do with it. Either you voted for these presidents and help make it all happen, or you voted against and failed to convince enough others in order to stop it. Or, you did nothing at all and by your failure to exercise your voting rights abdicated your fate to others. No matter which way you slice it, every simple American Citizen who can vote has an effect and carries some responsibility for what is happening as well as for what isn't happening.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he should have moved to a swing state so his vote would matter. :eek:
 
Who cares man,

Just cut someones face off and wear it like a mask problem solved.
 
pigster said:
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 put in place a set of procedures that intelligence agencies needed to follow for any domestic surveillence. It narrowly limited intelligence gathering except in certain cases.

Since then, Bush and Obama have hugely expanded these programs, to the point that no electronic communication in this country is not scrutinized. And we're supposed to believe that this is done soley for national security, and there is no possibility that this information will be used to target political opposition or used by law enforcement in violation of civil rights.

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Ultimately, the only thing that matters is that it could be used in that manner and without any oversight. The FISA court is largely a rubber stamp court, but apparently the NSA can't wait for the stamp to hit the paper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top