N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images

[Chef Ramsay]

By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS

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.

Full version @ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html?_r=1 aka NY Slimes.

Coming up next, mandatory DNA samples needed to log on to the internet. Welcome to 1984

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[Ron~Popeil]

I removed all photos from my face book page a long time ago. I don't believe any images of me exist in cyber space. People said i was paranoid at the time. 

[taipo]

http://vimeo.com/90828804

Prosthetic face masks:
Might be of use in the future. The applications are endless, depending of course on whether advancements to surveillance recognition systems improve beyond merely facial recognition at which point something like this would probably get you into more trouble than its worth.

[blumangroup]

The information they are collecting is public.

This is really not any different from some random person getting the same information from facebook and putting it in a database. The only difference is that it is the NSA.

They are doing something similar with public twitter accounts. They save every public twitter posting to a massive database.

[Parazyd]

I told people, selfies are NSA's way of collecting faces. That's why there are no photos of me on the Internet.

[Confessions]

I removed all photos from my face book page a long time ago. I don't believe any images of me exist in cyber space. People said i was paranoid at the time. 

Nothing is ever gone completely.

[Mikez]

Welcome to 1984

Give this infographic a read:
Right to the point...

Sorry for the big picture, I can make it smaller if it's too spammy.

[Lethn]

I told people, selfies are NSA's way of collecting faces. That's why there are no photos of me on the Internet.

Let them harvest data, the internet has shown me that these kind of systems can be fucked with in the most humorous of ways

[Parazyd]

I told people, selfies are NSA's way of collecting faces. That's why there are no photos of me on the Internet.

Let them harvest data, the internet has shown me that these kind of systems can be fucked with in the most humorous of ways

What do you have in mind?

[Lethn]

I told people, selfies are NSA's way of collecting faces. That's why there are no photos of me on the Internet.

Let them harvest data, the internet has shown me that these kind of systems can be fucked with in the most humorous of ways

What do you have in mind?

Oh I'll come up with something, if you've read any of my earlier posts my first idea was sending packets of data back and forth between encrypted websites, which would be filled with lolcats jpegs

One thing I already do on a regular basis is lie about which countries I'm in when they ask me unless I need shipping information there must be away around that, but it will at least confuse them for awhile.

[nitehawk]

thats not the ONLY thing they're collecting ..

your must've forgot about full facebook dump they had a while ago

[Lethn]

You can get around their data farming of social network sites by using stuff like Twister and VPNs.

[bitsmichel]

By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS

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.

Full version @ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html?_r=1 aka NY Slimes.

Coming up next, mandatory DNA samples needed to log on to the internet. Welcome to 1984

Their precision is pretty accurate, but still they get a lot of false positives.

I removed all photos from my face book page a long time ago. I don't believe any images of me exist in cyber space. People said i was paranoid at the time.  Cool

They still exist. NSA gets a copy of the entire Facebook data center once in a while. Even photos of 12 years ago.

[spazzdla]

We are so Fed... to many blind serfs that refuse to believe anything but what the TV says.

The matrix is the perfect analogy of this world.. perfect.  I actually have started to think that was the entire purpose of the matrix movies.

[plateex]

well, I can't say I'm surprised...
and that alone is a good testimony to what our society has already become and where it's heading...