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Unknown Beatle

(2,672 posts)
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 08:33 PM Jun 2014

NSA Is Collecting Gazillions Of Faces From Websites

Silly gooses, you thought the NSA only wanted to capture your personal communications.

NY Times:

The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.

The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.

The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” — which translate into “tremendous untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets, the documents show.


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NSA Is Collecting Gazillions Of Faces From Websites (Original Post) Unknown Beatle Jun 2014 OP
56 recs and counting... Electric Monk Jun 2014 #1
Wear a hat, grow a beard, squint, ... JEFF9K Jun 2014 #2
Make sure that hat is made of tinfoil George II Jun 2014 #4
How special. 840high Jun 2014 #3
Is a 'gazillian' greater than a 'godzillian'? randome Jun 2014 #5
We'll, they're probably just collecting metafaces klook Jun 2014 #6
Yeah. Plus there are 97 and 1/2 levels of oversight before they can look at them. GoneFishin Jun 2014 #18
All this money, all this effort Arugula Latte Jun 2014 #7
Because tracking fictional amorphous ghosts is much more profitable than using standard police GoneFishin Jun 2014 #19
Baseball caps and dark glasses at all times. tclambert Jun 2014 #8
That's no good. They'll just arrest you on the spot for being THE UNIBOMBER. nt TrollBuster9090 Jun 2014 #13
tranlation Locrian Jun 2014 #9
Xbox can now tell what your kid looks at and what he doesn't look at. McCamy Taylor Jun 2014 #10
Facebook CIA Project Zorra Jun 2014 #11
So is Facebook. TrollBuster9090 Jun 2014 #12
Government surveillance is not democratically accountable. JDPriestly Jun 2014 #15
Digging America's grave. That's what they are doing. JDPriestly Jun 2014 #14
"like babies" marions ghost Jun 2014 #16
For some reason 9.4% of the faces are this guy. ThoughtCriminal Jun 2014 #17
 

randome

(34,845 posts)
5. Is a 'gazillian' greater than a 'godzillian'?
Mon Jun 2, 2014, 10:15 AM
Jun 2014

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)
[/center][/font][hr]

 

Arugula Latte

(50,566 posts)
7. All this money, all this effort
Mon Jun 2, 2014, 11:34 AM
Jun 2014

supposedly to "protect" us from terrorists, yet the far greater danger is posed to us all by unhinged angry home-grown white guys with guns, and they don't ever seem to do anything about that.

GoneFishin

(5,217 posts)
19. Because tracking fictional amorphous ghosts is much more profitable than using standard police
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 10:22 AM
Jun 2014

resources to stop and solve non-fictional crimes the usual way.

Plus, Booga! Booga!

Locrian

(4,522 posts)
9. tranlation
Mon Jun 2, 2014, 08:56 PM
Jun 2014

>>The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” —

The NSA looks at a lot of porn.....

McCamy Taylor

(19,240 posts)
10. Xbox can now tell what your kid looks at and what he doesn't look at.
Mon Jun 2, 2014, 10:04 PM
Jun 2014

Thanks to their new two way technology. By the time he is 18 they will know whether he is gay, straight or bi, what color hair he likes, what kind of car he likes, which party he favors, whether he is an ass man or a tit man---I'd be more afraid of Bill Gates than of the NSA.

TrollBuster9090

(5,953 posts)
12. So is Facebook.
Mon Jun 2, 2014, 10:34 PM
Jun 2014

Each is a double edged sword.

1. Private businesses collect ALL kinds of information on my, and track what I'm doing. Far more than the Government does, on average, and far more often. The flip side is that private business can't use that information to charge me with crimes.

2. Government surveillance is at least (in theory) democratically accountable, because WE get to elect the people who oversee the intel-gathering agencies. They collect less information, and at least a FEW people care whether this is appropriate or not; and have the power to do SOMETHING about it (no matter how small) if they feel it isn't. The flip side is that whatever information they still DO collect about me, they can use against me, bringing with it the power and authority of the state.

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
15. Government surveillance is not democratically accountable.
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 03:38 AM
Jun 2014

Government surveillance of law-abiding people is antithetical to democracy. The two cannot coexist. Impossible. The minute you are under surveillance you are not free.

That goes for the private surveillance too, but you can avoid private surveillance more readily. I, for instance, am not on Facebook. The loss of privacy if you are on Facebook is obvious. Same for a website like Linked In. That goes for other similar websites.

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
14. Digging America's grave. That's what they are doing.
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 03:35 AM
Jun 2014

I can't believe that President Obama wants his daughters and future grandchildren to grow up in a world in which facial recognition technology is ubiquitous. This is just one more blow to freedom.

We will all be secure but completely subservient to the authority of the state and the wealthy and the corporations. We will be like babies bound in their swaddling clothes. And we will never grow out of those tightly bound cloths.

This makes us all prisoners if the government wishes it.

Guys! This is really bad news.

marions ghost

(19,841 posts)
16. "like babies"
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 06:24 AM
Jun 2014

That's the truth.

Yes--they see themselves as the all-seeing parents, the deciders of our fate. Quite a power trip.

"You don't need to know" is their motto. A big insult to freedom and democracy, treating your fellow humans with disdain instead of respect.

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