
N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images - r0h1n
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html
======
Asparagirl
And since we know that SnapChat doesn't actually delete the photos people send
with it, it's probably safe to say that the NSA now also has the largest boob
and dick recognition system in the world.

~~~
RollAHardSix
You can just imagine how the conversation goes:

"Sir, he burned off half his face to resist identification."

"...Have him drop trough."

Serious note though, it's similar to how the kinect is sitting in households
across America, and I think the new one with the XBOX One can't be turned off.
A microphone and camera system right into people's living rooms.

And of course, the government now wants a database of consumers credit
information.

I try to not be a conspiracy theorist but when you hand them this much
information, it's hard to trust people to do the 'right' thing.

~~~
outside1234
Or the Nest, which is constantly sending proximity information to Google (and
the NSA).

~~~
ihsw
There will be a Nest in every Google self-driving car. I don't have any
concrete evidence of this, but it's not that far-fetched.

~~~
31reasons
Why would a car need Nest ? I am curious.

------
guelo
I have my doubts that the fully surveilled society that is being created by
the government and corporations can be turned back, I see it as only becoming
more comprehensive for the foreseeable future. We don't understand the ethical
issues that will be involved in this new society, there are surely some
benefits along with the many negatives. I envision it kind of like The Matrix
where we are all plugged into the global brain with shrinking spaces for any
kind of underground.

~~~
pdkl95
As these people keep getting away with ignoring the constitution/law, they are
being conditioned[1] to believe that nobody can/will stop them. What we've
been seeing recently is the _lack of fear_.

Usually, threat of having to defend yourself in front of a judge keeps keeps
this kind of behavior limited to smaller, often one-off events. When you have
a proper Fear of getting caught, one event where you get away with some
illegal and/or immoral behavior isn't a pattern yet, and so most people
quietly go on with their life. After a sufficient amount of conditioning, this
changes. A pattern emerges, and the idea that maybe you really can get away
with anything starts to creep in. This is a _rational decision_ on their part
(Bayes Theorem obviously applies).

Worse, there seems to be a kind of "avalanche breakdown" effect in how we see
our social position/role, due to the large amount of hysteresis[2] in how we
interpret/rationalize our own social standing. The feedback loop between these
two effects is probably why the current situation can appear to be impossible
to turn back. It certainly will be impossible if left alone and unchallenged.

The soap box hasn't worked. The ballot box is a joke (and might be rigged,
depending on who you ask). The use of the jury box is still pending in some
areas places, and has failed in others. I would _love_ to be wrong about this,
but... nothing will change until the _ammo box_ has been used to kill at least
a few.

So I guess we should start preparing for the Civil War. /sigh/

[1] e.g.: Skinner (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning)
)

[2] The ideas taken from this RSA[3] Animate, which explains the idea better
than I ever could: [http://www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-
animate-...](http://www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-animate-the-
truth-about-dishonesty)

[3] This RSA == The Royal Society, not the crypto by Rivest, Shamir and
Adleman

~~~
neurobro
Too many people are treating this technical problem like it's a political
problem. Our communications infrastructure is vulnerable to eavesdropping;
hence, eavesdropping occurs. That's not going to change unless the war you
desire involves either destroying all communications networks or upgrading
them.

~~~
pdkl95
[http://video.fosdem.org/2014/Janson/Sunday/NSA_operation_ORC...](http://video.fosdem.org/2014/Janson/Sunday/NSA_operation_ORCHESTRA_Annual_Status_Report.webm)

It _is_ a political problem. Technical solutions don't matter when the other
side has an effectively unimited budget and manpower.

I strongly recommend watching PHK's recent talk talk on that subject in the
link above. Avoiding politics by claiming this is a technical problem is
simply forfeiting any goals you may have had to the opposition without a
fight. Technical issues don't mean a damn thing against the bad end of rubber
hose cryptanalysis or the old Soviet trick of simply "disappearing" people,
and the aren't particularly useful against the current game of gag-order-
filled "National Security Letters".

 _THAT SAID_

It is _also_ a technical problem. As you say, there will always be people
interested in eavesdropping, and the tech needs to be fixed regardless. Maybe
now we can finally get some progress on that front - I've taught more people
about PubKey encryption and the Web Of Trust in the last year than the
previous two "B.S."[1] decades. There's still a huge amount of work to do,
unfortunately.

Both aspects - political and technical - are important, and we cannot afford
to neglect either.

[1] "B.S." => "Before Snowden"

------
a3n
I don't think Skynet is going to be our problem, it's going to be Spynet, when
the two to four large chunks of aligned intelligence forces (US, China,
Russia, larger Europe depending on how it goes) gradually merge and it really
becomes us (human citizens) vs them (lizard overlords).

------
dan_bk
> “We would not be doing our job if we didn’t seek ways to continuously
> improve the precision of signals intelligence activities [...]” said Vanee
> M. Vines, the agency spokeswoman.

Which leads directly to the annihilation of any form of privacy (total
surveillance), given the exponential advances that technology embodies.

If our governments really think that this is what their voters/citizens want,
then this subject should be put to a very explicit vote.

~~~
alan_cx
No.

First up, I agree 100% with the idea that this sort of thing is systematically
wiping out both freedom and the illusion of freedom. Of course we all know
that over time it will close in getting worse and worse until we become little
more than controlled cattle. However.....

Government has every right to think its what people want. Or, to put it
another way, it is not what they don't want. The mass population simply
doesn't care, since they know that it probably won't ever affect them. And if
it does, well, the mass population won't care, they'll just see it as a bit of
bad luck, happening to someone they don't know, who is not them, their family,
friend or colleague.

What I don't see anywhere, US, here in the UK, or anywhere else is any form of
_mass_ objection. When you look at the numbers, protesters/population,
petitioners/population, and so on, you'll see it is a small minority who
actually care. As a politician, I'd be concerned about the mass population and
their votes. Thats where the power is, not with a loud(ish) minority.

Im with you, I really am. I actually suffer minor anxiety symptoms as I read
and think about this stuff. It really creeps me out. But the tragic fact is,
the vast majority don't give a toss.

This will only change when majorities show signs of really caring about the
issue.

~~~
fulafel
) Government has every right to think its what people want.

What? Why? You don't justify this bold claim in any way.

~~~
rm445
Parent post is extremely clear in its meaning. You have taken half a thought,
the entirety of which is a clear argument, and demanded explanation. It
suggests either intellectual dishonesty or simple laziness in reading.

The shortest part of that statement that it would be reasonable to quote alone
is: "Government has every right to think its what people want. Or, to put it
another way, it is not what they don't want." You don't have to agree with
this at all. But it is a single self-contained idea that can be comprehended
and understood, before attempting to justify or refute it.

------
plg
CV Dazzle explores how fashion can be used as camouflage from face-detection
technology

[http://cvdazzle.com](http://cvdazzle.com)

Anonymous releases how-to instructions on fooling facial recognition (VIDEO)

[http://rt.com/usa/video-surveillance-face-
trapwire-237/](http://rt.com/usa/video-surveillance-face-trapwire-237/)

------
panarky

      The N.S.A. collects iris scans of foreigners through other means.
    

No way that ordinary snapshots have enough resolution for iris scans. What
"other means" could there be?

~~~
A_COMPUTER
The Army:

"Army Reveals Afghan Biometric ID Plan" [http://www.wired.com/2010/09/afghan-
biometric-dragnet-could-...](http://www.wired.com/2010/09/afghan-biometric-
dragnet-could-snag-millions/)

"Could Iris Scans Stop a New Iraq Insurgency?"
[http://www.wired.com/2008/08/maliki-vs-
sois/](http://www.wired.com/2008/08/maliki-vs-sois/)

And probably by infiltrating other countries' iris-scanning of undesirables
like refugees:

[http://jordantimes.com/iris-scanning-technology-
streamlines-...](http://jordantimes.com/iris-scanning-technology-streamlines-
refugee-registration-process----unhcr)

~~~
001sky
Reading these stories it seems the rationale is "lazy bureaucrats". Clearly
where this ends up is putting all poor people into a "system" which ultimate
serves the blind will of the faceless bureaucrats running it. The pretext is
that this power is used to "help" the poor, but ultimately it will be used
simple to keep the faceless people in power--come hell or high-water.Iris
scanning refugees is basically akin to iris scanning for food stamps. Truly
the banality of evil.

------
dantheman
Seems like it's more damage control than an actual expose. It's extremely
confusing, why certain quotes were included unless they were to mislead the
reader, e.g.

"It is not clear how many images the agency has acquired. The N.S.A. does not
collect facial imagery through its bulk metadata collection programs,
including that involving Americans’ domestic phone records, authorized under
Section 215 of the Patriot Act, according to Ms. Vines."

Why would a phone metadata program, which is basically call records ever be
thought to include photos?

------
pasbesoin
They insist (through actions, as opposed to any words they might use) upon
total transparency of the lives of the general public, while submitting to
practically zero transparency in their own behaviour.

This asymmetry should bother everyone who has made the effort to consider
information as power -- and to consider self-governance as necessarily based
upon an informed self.

If nothing else, one should consider the horror of a world-spanning
bureaucracy that seeks a singular, uncompartmentalized rule and control. Many
thoughts flicker through my consciousness about the limits and diversity of
human culture -- and the robustness that comes from that latter. Or, I can
think of a more "basic" quip, that Nature abhors a monoculture.

People need to think seriously about how much they can "just let someone else
deal with", and how much they need to step up and be at least partially
responsible for, themselves.

"Liberal" or "Conservative", most seem to, one way or another, reach the
conclusion that they have to take responsibility for their own affairs and
community.

What we are currently developing seems to be an antithesis to this.

------
CHY872
How is this even unusual? Google do much the same, all the time. You'd expect
the NSA to do it.

------
flurdy
"John, don't run."

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/)

------
zacinbusiness
The stated reason for this are two failed bombings. How would this facial
recognition tech have stopped those two failed bombings?

~~~
mpyne
> The N.S.A. achieved a technical breakthrough in 2010 when analysts first
> matched images collected separately in two databases — one in a huge N.S.A.
> database code-named Pinwale, and another in the government’s main terrorist
> watch list database, known as Tide — according to N.S.A. documents.

Sounds like this is the answer.

One of the difficult aspects of investigating terrorist networks through
signals intelligence would be deciphering the network itself (which is why NSA
would have been interested in phone metadata).

If you had a known list of terrorist suspects (TIDE) and could match those to
legally-intercepted video feeds or pictures (which is what I'm assuming
PINWALE is for) then you could identify the user IDs being chatted with and
then use PRISM and other approved signals interception methods to decipher
"who's who in the zoo".

With a better selectivity of who the targets would be then you could use
targeted access operations to both get better fidelity on actual plots
(instead of dumb keywords searches, actually assign analysts to get a "deep
dive" into any of the plot(s) under discussion). This would also enable you to
avoid wasting time and resources on people who are not a threat by filtering
out "where the terrorists are not".

The ideal end result: Disrupting a bombing plot before it happens. Both the
2009 and 2010 bombings were disrupted only by luck, so "clearly" the NSA
didn't have the tools they needed, which is why I warn you guys that the
argument "oh but they didn't catch Tsarnaev" doesn't end the way you think it
does. :P

\----

I know you all like to claim that counter-terrorism is just rhetoric used to
justify more sinister motives, but I've found it striking how almost every
time a leak is presented the evidence shows a bunch of NSA analysts
trumpeting... counter-terrorism.

This case is no different: "another 2011 N.S.A. document reported that a
facial recognition system was queried with a photograph of Osama bin Laden.",
"A 2011 PowerPoint showed one example when Tundra Freeze, the N.S.A.’s main
in-house facial recognition program, was asked to identify photos matching the
image of a bearded young man with dark hair.", "One N.S.A. PowerPoint
presentation from 2011, for example, displays several photographs of an
unidentified man — sometimes bearded, other times clean-shaven — in different
settings, along with more than two dozen data points about him. These include
whether he was on the _Transportation Security Administration no-fly list_ ,
his _passport and visa status_ , _known associates_ or _suspected terrorist
ties_ , and _comments made about him by informants to American intelligence
agencies_."

There's certainly an argument to be made about whether such investigative
abilities are safe for democracy, but what we've consistently not seen is a
bunch of people trying to subvert democracy, not even according to the very
documents NSA and their managers thought would be safest from ever being
publically disclosed.

~~~
humbert
> what we've consistently not seen is a bunch of people trying to subvert
> democracy, not even according to the very documents NSA and their managers
> thought would be safest from ever being publically disclosed.

In August 2013, a report by Reuters revealed that the Special Operations
Division (SOD) of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration advises DEA agents
to practice parallel construction when creating criminal cases against
Americans that are actually based on NSA warrantless surveillance. [1] The use
of illegally-obtained evidence is generally inadmissible under the Fruit of
the poisonous tree doctrine. [2]

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-
idUSBRE...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-
idUSBRE97409R20130805) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction)

~~~
mpyne
That's not an example of "subverting democracy" (though I'll admit I do find
it distasteful).

Even _that_ has rules, and the rules are on the whole followed.

Parallel construction is about finding evidence that can hold up in the court
of law, _without_ divulging classified intelligence "sources and methods" (you
know, much the very things NSA is complaining about Snowden having done).

It starts from evidence legally collected by NSA (which is why "fruit of the
poisonous tree" would not apply). The law permits the NSA to share that
legally-collected information in some cases with law enforcement.

But law enforcement can't build a case on that without burning the NSA source,
so NSA advises them on how to start a new trail that _can_ lead to a
prosecution without NSA having to close off that intelligence source.

Is it unfair? Perhaps, but then so is Google using legal tax loopholes to
avoid paying taxes. Distasteful perhaps, but legally permissible.

~~~
woah
What do you not understand about warrants?

~~~
mpyne
Well that would be hard to accurately answer by definition, I think...

------
vixin
And algorithms now work better than humans at face detection.
[https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-
blog/2c567adbf7fc](https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/2c567adbf7fc)

They don't even have to snoop.

------
munin
We could do this right now and sell it as an app
[http://www.mimisbrunnr.net/~munin/blog/apps-for-
privacy.html](http://www.mimisbrunnr.net/~munin/blog/apps-for-privacy.html)

------
cottonseed
> In addition to in-house programs, the N.S.A. relies in part on commercially
> available facial recognition technology, including from PittPatt, a small
> company owned by Google, the documents show.

~~~
jreuh
These docs are from 2011, the acquisition of PittPatt happened in July 2011:
[http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/google-acquires-facial-
reco...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/google-acquires-facial-recognition-
software-company-pittpatt/)

Any "commercially available facial recognition technology" was a pre-Google
thing, PittPatt is no more.

~~~
cottonseed
> Any "commercially available facial recognition technology" is a pre-Google
> thing, PittPatt is no more.

I see no reason to believe this. Google certainly had an obligation to honor
existing PittPatt agreements after the acquisition. And I see no reason why
they wouldn't continue working with the NSA if it was in their interest.

I am very pessimistic about bulk electronic surveillance reform. One of the
few points of leverage I can see is publicly making it clear when companies
work with the NSA, and avoid them when possible. I would include companies
that acquire companies that work with the NSA. For example, I have slowly
stopped using services of the PRISM companies, including Google.

~~~
jreuh
> Google certainly had an obligation to honor existing PittPatt agreements
> after the acquisition

[citation needed] one has to be privy to such contracts to make these
conjectures, also they're software might have been of the "off the shelf"
variety.

> One of the few points of leverage I can see is publicly making it clear when
> companies work with the NSA, and avoid them when possible. I would include
> companies that acquire companies that work with the NSA.

That's fine, but you should get the facts straight before lobbing accusations,
as for 'companies that acquire companies' point, I don't subscribe to any
guilt by association sort of animosity, this doesn't seem fair and lots of
things are more connected than you think.

My main objection is that the NYT should have used "... now owned by Google"
instead of "owned by Google" in their piece.

~~~
cottonseed
> [citation needed] one has to be privy to such contracts to make these
> conjectures, also they're software might have been of the "off the shelf"
> variety.

Fine, it's true, the contact could have said anything, including "if you are
acquired, you are released of any obligations," although I find that hard to
believe. Yes, and it could have been off the shelf with no support contact.

However, in my experience, having gone through an acquisition where the
acquired company had existing obligations, those obligations were transferred
to the acquiring company and understanding them were a large part of the due
diligence.

> but you should get the facts straight before lobbing accusations

What was my accusation? All I did was quote the article. You tried to refute
it -- claiming any interaction between PittPatt and the NSA was pre-Google --
by giving dates which were still entirely consistent with the article as
written (docs from 2011, acquisition from July of that year).

> My main objection is that the NYT should have used "... now owned by Google"
> instead of "owned by Google" in their piece.

Again, I don't see any compelling evidence you've given for contracting the
article as written. I'm going to have to go with the professional reporting on
this one.

> as for 'companies that acquire companies' point, I don't subscribe to any
> guilt by association sort of animosity, this doesn't seem fair

That's fine, think whatever you want. We disagree.

------
empressplay
... of course although the NSA can't analyse domestic US photographs
themselves, they can still mine the metadata attached to the photographs,
which can include GPS data in some cases...

------
ww520
Semi-off topic, what are some of the good algorithms to search faces with a
similarity factor? Let's say I have a database of millions of faces and I want
to go through the streaming of a video to identify all the faces showing up in
the video with a 90% similarity factor.

I assume the faces on each frame of the video are extracted to be queried
against the face database.

Would all the faces in the db loaded into memory and constructed in some data
structure for efficient query? Or some mapping to SQL's standard B+ tree index
with range searching can be done?

------
Asparagirl
Countdown until these are treated like pressure cookers...

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_glasses](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_glasses)

------
op4
heres one for the nsa...
[http://i.imgur.com/bp7bJFh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/bp7bJFh.jpg)

------
icantthinkofone
Whether this works or is right or wrong misses the point of doing it. This is
being done because bad people brought bad things into this world. None of this
was done until bad people did stuff. People forget that side of the equation.

------
walrus
You know, I don't really mind that the NSA is collecting this information.
What bothers me is that it's not being released to the public. What good are
their efforts if no one else can build off of their work?

~~~
obituary_latte
As if they care about the common good. Hilarious.

~~~
jonnybgood
For US citizens, it's an obvious yes. If you disagree, can you show me where
collecting this information has held detrimental effects on the common good of
US citizens?

~~~
keithpeter
Perhaps, over time, the increasing isolation of the US coupled with deep
distrust of future presidents by the leaders of other governments may lead to
a reduction in economic power?

Also, the impossibility of organising a broad based political movement for
change within the US in response to, say, severely worsening economic or
climatic conditions because of 'self censorship' by US citizens?

These are weak signals working over a long timescale. But those things are
important.

------
Centigonal
This is ridiculous!

Whenever some revelation about the NSA makes the news again, it sounds like
something out of _Mission Impossible_ or _Batman_. I'm beginning to think they
just hired action movie writers to design their programs.

