tfj @tfj@writing.exchange

This is Just to Say

They have not yet fixed
the furnace
that is in
my basement

Forgive me
I am so cranky
so bitter
and so cold

@tfj

> only applicable to Facebook (so far)

* (so far as we know)

and therein lies the issue: Facebook is at best trying not to be evil and failing.

most corps don't actually even pretend to care, if they're not big

they have the tech, although perhaps not as refined -- and told nobody.

That's what we need to worry about, IMO -- the secret privacy violations that cannot possibly be traced in any way.

We're going into a strange new world where privacy isn't really possible -- and that's going to have implications well beyond immediate and obvious repercussions for crimes, or even in social contexts.

I don't know how we should get ready for it, but I hope we find a way.

I really, really do.

<3

It won't stop. There is no point at which it will somehow stop becoming more prevalent.

So what to do?

Glad you're asking -- I am! -- but I have no idea. I can only say that humanity's going to be different than it has ever been before, and there's potential for it to go good places -- maybe we'll start accepting other people's exposed issues because ours are exposed too, possibly.

I hope so. :\

Imagine for a moment the face-identifying thing that Facebook does, only with hands. Then try to imagine identifying your friends from their hands.

This is what I mean.

This is a watershed moment in a way, IMO -- because we do not 'recognize' people by hands, just like we don't recognize them by fingerprints. Yet, those visible hands COULD end up used like facerec algos are.

That's disturbing as fuck.

So why does it matter to you?

As the kids like to say these days: "Who's gonna CONTROL it?"

Well, that's the thing.

Can you honestly tell me it's not a little weird to imagine that forensic reverse-engineering can identify you from IMAGES OF YOUR HAND?!

Seriously, people already talk about keeping their faces out of pictures and such, but nobody's worried about hands. Yet they're very identifiable.

So I was reading this:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/sue-black-forensics-hand-markings-paedophiles-rapists

I'll save you the look, unless you're interested in the guts -- it's hand recognition, in short.

Yes: The same general techniques applicable to facerec are being applied to hands to find hand-specific identification techniques.

I say 'being applied', and really what I mean is 'was applied'. This is a working, court-evidence-level analysis toolset already.

@tfj

Facebook's a hellscape, end of, IMO. But hell is other people, and other people built Facebook.

This is a bigger problem than the fact Facebook exists and is doing what it's doing, currently. This is, arguably, one of the biggest problems humanity's going to have to solve to prevent destruction of what little civilization exists currently.

But any privacy at all may require gloves in the future -- because your vein patterns, your fingernails, and a half dozen unusual little scars make your hand unlike any other ever, to the absolutely unavoidable sight of machine learning.

Even now, Facebook has algorithms that identify people WITHOUT facial information, but with high certainty (83% ident rate, IIRC, based on body type and clothing alone).

encrypt your memes so the government can't steal them 👌

Museums are beautiful, wonderful places and we need more of them.

if anybody ever pops into your notifications and says something like "you just wanna call everyone nazis/you don't actually know what nazis are"

immediately check their timeline because i'm sure you already know what kinda person they are