
Obsessed fan finds Japanese idol's home by zooming in on her eyes - sohkamyung
https://www.asiaone.com/asia/obsessed-fan-finds-japanese-idols-home-zooming-her-eyes
======
chippy
[https://www3.nhk.or.jp/shutoken-
news/20191008/1000037432.htm...](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/shutoken-
news/20191008/1000037432.html) appears to be the original source

including a much better quote about the tech relevance:

"Because the performance of smartphone cameras has improved and the image
quality has become very fine, privacy information has leaked out in a
completely unexpected manner. ... "Users need to be well aware that there is
always a risk of privacy leaks, and new measures are required on the software
side, such as the option of degrading image quality."

~~~
comboy
Friendly tip if you are uploading any photo made by you to some untrusted site
(works on linux and macos):

    
    
          exiftool -all="" filename.jpg
    

Because oftentimes you don't need to look at the picture to figure out the
location.

~~~
codedokode
Why don't browsers do this? Firefox should implement this (warn about
geolocation and suggest either remove it or fake it).

~~~
mschuster91
If I were to use a website and a browser were to manipulate the data without
this being clearly announced, I'd be pissed beyond belief.

Besides, this also introduces a security vulnerability - image metadata
parsers are complex and there are regularly bugs found in them.

~~~
lonelappde
That argument could be used to prove that Firefox should have no features, and
it's rebutting something not stated in the parent comment.

------
Crinus
> Sato admitted to the attack after he was arrested on Sept 17 and revealed
> that he was a huge fan of Matsuoka.

I always find it weird when self-proclaimed "fans" harm the people they are
supposedly fans of.

~~~
chongli
Fan is an abbreviation for fanatic which is a much more appropriate label for
this sort of behaviour. Having said that, I’d like to step back for a moment
and look at our broader culture.

Few people talk about it but it’s actually extremely weird to have celebrities
at all. It’s a cultural and economic phenomenon that works to hijack our
tendency to form relationships and identify with people we find attractive. It
takes a mechanism that’s supposed to help us bond with our family members and
leverages it for profit. The fact that some people can’t handle this gets
overlooked. All blame is placed on the individual, allowing the rest of us to
absolve ourselves of guilt and responsibility.

~~~
ep103
eh, I used to think this too, but time spent studying anarchism (hey, its
intellectually interesting) has left me with the conclusion that its a natural
human tendency in any social system. Simply put: no matter the idea or society
involved (even if the idea is anti-hierarchy, anti-status like anarchism), it
is easier to remember the idea if there is a face you can put to the name. Put
into practice, that means that most cultural, ideological, social or matters
of importance will end up having at least one person associated with them.
Those people, in turn, then become celebrities by virtue of the fact that lost
of people then associate the idea or phenomenon with the person. Advertising
and propaganda then catapult that into the phenomenon we have today of
celebrities, but that's ultimately just making 100x more potent what would
otherwise be an unavoidable (and I saw unavoidable because even anarchist
communities can't get away from it) aspect of how humans interpret and
remember things about the world.

Put another way, I think this is a similar side of the coin to the fact that
most people tend to (consciously or not) put together lists of: "X knows about
this better than me, and I trust X, and don't have time to devote to learning
about this topic, therefore if I ever need to know more about this topic I can
call X" for almost every aspect of our lives.

Note: I have no source here, this is just personally derived observation. A
real study on this would be quite interesting. Though I'm sure when we
discussed its results, we would do so by discussing the scientist's name and
reputation.

~~~
MS90
_" X knows about this better than me, and I trust X, and don't have time to
devote to learning about this topic, therefore if I ever need to know more
about this topic I can call X"_

"We've got Ja Rule on the phone, let's see what Ja's thoughts are on this
tragedy."

------
number6
Remember when we laught at this when it was on CSI? Enhance!

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
Except it doesn't need to be "enhanved"; it's all already there xD

(But yes, I thought the same thing when I read the headline)

------
eej2ya1K
Slightly related, but I once ran an imageboard for friends and set up a hook
to output the EXIF geolocation of uploaded photos to a private IRC channel.

It was surprising to see how often something would show up! Even when
uploading photos straight from a phone through the browser.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
There's a lot of things that strip the info now before it goes to server.
Photo apps themselves, image boards etc.

Far bigger leaker is MS Office or pdf metadata. Heck, they even catches that
famous serial killer who took creepy pictures of himself in women underwear
because eventually he started sending files, not regular letters, to police
taunting them.

Edit: BTK was this sick man's nickname. Busted by having his church's computer
metadata in files to police
[https://www.bizarrepedia.com/btk/](https://www.bizarrepedia.com/btk/)

~~~
icpmacdo
WARNING about the crime scene photos of the serial killers murders in that
link. Would have preferred to have not seen them right before bed.

------
Schoolmeister
That's odd. When you scroll past the article the URL is rewritten to just
[https://www.asiaone.com](https://www.asiaone.com). I wonder what would be the
benefit of that.

~~~
lonelappde
Because then you aren't on the article anymore.

~~~
ubercow13
It’s an annoying trend, I have also noticed it on other sites. You finish the
article or viewing the image or whatever, scroll a bit past the end or flick
to the bottom to check you aren’t missing anything, and then try to copy the
URL and get some other page you never visited.

~~~
beerandt
I tried to find info on this behavior with no luck- does it have a name?

------
rjzzleep
I find this whole idol culture extremely odd.

Interestingly enough it seems like a lot of people never actually have sex
(granted the following article is about japan, but they're not that
different). So it almost seems like these extreme stalkers wouldn't actually
become physically active, although that doesn't really make it any better.

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/asia/japan-fertility-intl-
hnk...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/asia/japan-fertility-intl-hnk-
scli/index.html)

~~~
Iv
The idol culture is extremely unhealthy. This is objectification turned to 11.
They get a pass in the US because it seems so distant and Japan is "odd and
cool" but it is actually really creepy.

~~~
coldtea
> _This is objectification turned to 11._

Fans like those stars for their whole package (myth, personality, songs,
artistic expression, style, etc) not e.g. just for their body (which is
usually implied by objectification).

It's also not much different than our pop idols, especially of yore (up until
the 00s or so, before several other occupations, such as games, social media,
web surfing, selfies, and tons of higher quality TV and movies) basically
replaced pop music as the major obsession of western kids.

There have been idols attacked (and even murdered) plenty of times in good ole
US.

~~~
dfxm12
Further reading seems to show they are different from pop idols of the west,
both in fan culture[0] and how much control a talent agency has over the
idols' personal life, including forcing idols to remain single so as to seem
attainable by their fan base, which "may cause fans to be unable to
distinguish between fantasy and real-life" [1].

0 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_idol#Fan_culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_idol#Fan_culture)
1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_idol#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_idol#Criticism)

~~~
coldtea
That was commonplace in the west for musicians and actors with a mass young
fan base -- they often were forced by management to be single, or appear
single, hide their relationships etc, not to disappoint the fans of the
opposite sex. And of course actors/singers/etc who were gay/lesbian/bi/etc
were forced to hide it for marketing reasons.

~~~
Iv
And we grew out of it. Japan did not. I wish we stopped giving Japan a pass
for the things it does wrong. In terms of gender equality, minorities
inclusiveness, gay rights, it lags far behind.

~~~
coldtea
> _I wish we stopped giving Japan a pass for the things it does wrong._

I also wish people stop considering their country's morals and current
fashions as the yardstick to measure the whole world...

(Especially if they don't have such a great, past or present, track record
even by their own standards, to begin with).

Who are you to give or give not Japan "a free pass"? Who said Japan needs a
pass from outsiders?

To quote Feyman:

"The next morning the young woman taking care of our room fixes the bath,
which was right in our room. Sometime later she returns with a tray to deliver
breakfast. I'm partly dressed. She turns to me and says, politely, "Ohayo,
gozai masu," which means, "Good morning."

Pais is just coming out of the bath, sopping wet and completely nude. She
turns to him and with equal composure says, "Ohayo, gozai masu ," and puts the
tray down for us.

Pais looks at me and says, "God, are we uncivilized!"

We realized that in America if the maid was delivering breakfast and the guy's
standing there, stark naked, there would be little screams and a big fuss. But
in Japan they were completely used to it, and we felt that they were much more
advanced and civilized about those things than we were."

------
krapp
It's apparently possible[0] to retrieve fingerprints from a mobile phone photo
of someone's hand, which might wind up being a problem for Asians making the
ubiquitous peace-sign[1]. I guess they could always just turn it around,
though ;)

And of course copying keys from cellphone photos is old hat to the point that
it's actually an app, and people have been getting doxxed through the EXIF
data on images they upload for years.

[0][https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/lifting_a_fin...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/lifting_a_finge.html)

[1][https://www.asiaone.com/digital/chinas-peace-sign-selfie-
tak...](https://www.asiaone.com/digital/chinas-peace-sign-selfie-takers-
warned-cybersecurity-threat)

------
RenRav
Someone should build a phone app that removes eyeball reflections and exif
data.

I have a feeling that, when people take selfies, they are using other apps and
not their camera app itself.

~~~
autoexec
in terms of exif data I'd agree, but I don't think most people have to worry
about someone figuring out where they are from eyeball reflections. This guy
was lucky enough to get a clear reflection, but luckier still that what was
captured was meaningful enough to give him a specific location.

------
burntoutfire
"Enhance."

~~~
marci
Now, how long before this* isn't a parody anymore?

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbCWYm7B_B4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbCWYm7B_B4) (Enhance, Enhance, Enhance | NTSF:SD:SUV | Adult Swim)

------
billpg
Someone actually built the "Enhance" process used by TV police forensics?

------
ourcat
Suddenly, all those odd-looking 'cartoony face' apps begin to make sense..

[edit] This might sound like a glib response (thanks down-voter). But I'm
serious.

Apps could easily be created to thwart this.

------
rjsw
Looks like a hog to me ... [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks)

------
krzat
Camera apps should offer a feature to erase reflections somehow, without
making eyes blurry.

~~~
ekianjo
Or just make picture low res when you share them widely on certain networks.

~~~
newnewpdro
It would save so much wasted bandwidth if smartphones actually guided users
through a workflow of resizing and compressing photos before they leave the
phone or hell even when first saving them locally.

Instead everyone's sending many-megabyte barely-compressed highres JPEGs I
presume since cameras have always defaulted to saving the highest quality
images with the expectation that you'd post process them before distributing.
That and I imagine it's desirable to not have to burn battery power on
compressing photos, and maybe at&t and friends kickback some $$ to make the
default flow burn more bandwidth. Many people pay for metered data and receive
giant photos from friends w/unlimited bandwidth and zero fucks given.

~~~
londons_explore
WhatsApp and Facebook messenger resize to ~1Megapixel any image sent.

~~~
airstrike
Instagram definitely compresses images too

------
avatarbl
Did I see a future detective ?

------
sien
Enhance 224176

Enhance, Stop

Move in, Stop

Pull out, Track right, Stop

Center in, Pull back, Stop

Track 45 right, Stop

Center and Stop

Enhance 34 to 36

Pan right and pull back, Stop

Enhance 34 to 46

Pull back, Wait a minute, Go right, Stop

Enhance 5719

Track 45 left, Stop

Enhance 15 to 23

Give me a hard copy right there.

~~~
carrozo
Not sure why this isn’t the top comment.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Because it doesn't contribute to the conversation?

------
eej2ya1K
"Something weird and crazy happened in this country of 125 million people"

This is "Florida Man" type clickbait and doesn't belong on Hacker News in my
opinion.

~~~
theon144
I thought it was HN-worthy because of the privacy implications.

~~~
eej2ya1K
Actually, that's fair and makes complete sense. My bad. It's just sad to see
it devolve into yet another "Japan is crazy" party :(

The privacy implications are, I agree, interesting...

~~~
johnisgood
No worries, there are other submissions on HN where it is the exact opposite:
"Japan is the best!".

------
golemotron
Does this level of resolution make undetectable deep fakes less likely?

------
stevefan1999
Another case of stan...why are these people so fanatic about someone?

------
magic_beans
Only on HN does an article about a woman being attacked and sexually assaulted
devolve into conversation about technical minutia.

~~~
GhostVII
Isn't that the point of HN? Everyone agrees that it was terrible that it
happened, so repeating it isn't very productive or interesting

~~~
jameslk
Yes, just like how all the articles about China currently plastering the
homepage aren't devolving into outrage laden diatribes. Same goes for articles
about global warming, Facebook and RMS. HN is above politics and even emotion
itself!... unless it involves subjects that upset the ingroup.

