Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://www.wired.com/story/parabon-nanolabs-dna-face-models-police-facial-recognition/

"Leaked records reveal what appears to be the first known instance of a police department attempting to use facial recognition on a face generated from crime-scene DNA. It likely won’t be the last."

"Parabon’s methods have not been peer-reviewed, and scientists are skeptical about how feasible predicting face shape even is."

"“Daisy chaining unreliable or imprecise black-box tools together is simply going to produce unreliable results,” she says."

"In a controversial 2017 decision, the department published the predicted face in an attempt to solicit tips from the public. Then, in 2020, one of the detectives did something civil liberties experts say is even more problematic—and a violation of Parabon NanoLabs’ terms of service: He asked to have the rendering run through facial recognition software."

"For facial recognition experts and privacy advocates, the East Bay detective’s request, while dystopian, was also entirely predictable. It emphasizes the ways that, without oversight, law enforcement is able to mix and match technologies in unintended ways, using untested algorithms to single out suspects based on unknowable criteria."

"“It’s really just junk science to consider something like this,” Jennifer Lynch, general counsel at civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells WIRED. Running facial recognition with unreliable inputs, like an algorithmically generated face, is more likely to misidentify a suspect than provide law enforcement with a useful lead, she argues. “There’s no real evidence that Parabon can accurately produce a face in the first place,” Lynch says. “It’s very dangerous, because it puts people at risk of being a suspect for a crime they didn’t commit.”"

#privacy #FaceRecognition

https://web.archive.org/web/20230918132013/https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2023-ws-225-risks-and-opportunities-of-a-new-un-cybercrime-treaty

"UN member states, via a specifically established open-ended Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Committee (AHC), are currently in the process of elaborating a new UN cybercrime treaty."

"In addition, there are concerns that a new convention could, inter alia, (a) undermine multistakeholder Internet governance in favour of greater state control, (b) undermine democratic freedoms by criminalizing certain kinds of speech and political content online, (c) threaten national security by directly regulating industry; and (d) weaken cybersecurity best practices and threaten security researchers."

#IGF 2023 panel.

It also implicates #privacy. Should have been mentioned there.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230918132050/https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2023-ws-149-vod-regulation-fair-contribution-local-content

Here's one #IGF 2023 panel where ISPs basically wanted to be paid twice, once by their customers, and again, by video streaming sites like Netflix. #NetNeutrality

They also wanted sites like Netflix to subsidize local content (although, I wonder how good they really are at this without imposing their own values).

"We need to accelerate to achieve the SDGs" is utterly nonsensical language and not an excuse for totalitarianism. Looking at you, U.N. Bureaucrats.

I honestly don't really care what vague aspirations someone came up with at some summit ten years ago. Or whatever. It's simply not an excuse.

That was also where Kadokawa came up with a dozen or so "SDGs" which they reckon might vaguely intersect with their agenda, as if that is supposed to make the idea any better.

Apparently, the Fifth Circuit has ruled that Texas' book ban law is likely unconstitutional.

Apparently, a lawmaker in Oklahoma has introduced a literal porn ban, so I suppose he is done being subtle with "age verification".

https://qoto.org/@olives/111516011246609826 As the Spanish guy makes a barely relevant assertion (still an assertion) about minors viewing porn, I'll drop down a porn science post.

The arguments which crop up are just really bad though. They either take it as a given that "porn is bad", go on tangents about unrelated crimes, perhaps, go on a rant about how they hate one particular company (unrelated to viewing porn though), or appeal to something vague, nebulous, and probably irrelevant.

"fearmongering about how teenagers are overwhelmingly accessing online porn"

See, there is this thing called puberty...

#canada #privacy

He doesn't seem to be particularly honest or direct about what it is that he wants "age verification" of adult content to accomplish.

He just keeps talking about unrelated things in a spooky tone.

Someone seems upset that I criticized this guy (I suppose it's just a rando tone policing, but you know what, I'll comment on him). So, I'm gonna do it again. I have several issues with this guy.

1) He wades onto news sites to offer up his hot takes, despite having little apparent understanding of the subject. He also doesn't appear to learn. He usually presents himself as possessing some sort of expertise but his points are extremely elementary and otherwise relies on insinuation.

2) He implicitly conflates issues that are fundamentally different from each other (and one doesn't seem to be an issue?). For instance, "age verification" for viewing adult content is not going to stop criminals approaching someone one-on-one to trick them. This is less pronounced in this particular article. He still can't help throwing it in.

3) Even among those cases, it appears the criminals have been convicted.

4) We've seen him before. He is very "this site is bad" *talks about some other unrelated phenomena*