
Encrypt Your Face: Signal Messenger - jayp1418
https://signal.org/blog/encrypt-your-face/
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stevenjohns
Signal does weird stuff sometimes. For a while it has been bugging me to add a
last name with the only options are either to add one or to “remind me later.”
And they of course never forget to remind you again and again, week in and
week out. Until I eventually succumb and add one I guess?

Not sure what their angle is.

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vonseel
It is a strange move for a company that takes user data and privacy so
seriously to require last name in their user model. I've been using Telegram
sometimes with friends and also found it weird how incredibly difficult it is
to find where to enter a username in the app to add someone, instead of their
phone number. I thought it was supposed to be a super secure messenger,
shouldn't secure go hand-in-hand with anonymity? It doesn't have to, but it
can be.

~~~
KMnO4
Though Telegram has E2EE chats, they are not enabled by default. I wouldn’t
consider it super secure.

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mc32
They should mention if these are just face obfuscating bandanas or whether
they provide SARS-CoV2 protection—which it seems they might not.

I don’t think people are short of face coverings but they might be short on
“Covid” masks. That would be more useful.

~~~
robotbikes
I mean essentially unless a mask is one of the medically or industrially
certified N95 and their ilk (which people are still discouraged from using due
to shortages) I'd say it is hard to really quantify that one type of mask is
better than another. Any covering that prevents you from spitting on people
around you on accident should serve the purpose that health experts are
recommending masks for. So I suspect this mask would serve both a public
health and privacy protecting purpose.

~~~
mc32
They should state what it is. I think the CDC has approved some kinds of cloth
masks (less effective but somewhat helpful)

They should state whether these meet the requirements and not give people the
opportunity to reach misleading conclusions.

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obilgic
I just saw an article that the AI is capable of identifying the person with
98% accuracy even with the face mask covering till eyes.

It was one of the protestors throwing something to the cop car recently, and
they were able to identify her.

Trying to find the article

~~~
arkadiyt
Even with a covered face, agencies are deploying "gait recognition", which
fingerprints you based on the way you walk. Here's an article about China
doing it but I'm sure the US is as well:
[https://apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a](https://apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a)

~~~
obilgic
also, its funny to me that how, most non-technical people share and complain
about all the technological things china uses to detect and identify, and then
don't even think that U.S. might have similar or even better tools.

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dang
"Blur Tools for Signal"
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414556))
was a huge thread the other day. How close is this?

~~~
sbuccini
In that post they mentioned they would be distributing face masks; this is the
blog post announcing that initiative.

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trhway
The first thing China did back then was to order mask obscured face
recognition upgrade. Pretty sure US has it too. So much for the "encrypt"
part. Hope Sygnal puts more meaning into "encryption" when it comes to message
encryption :)

