February 2020 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Re: [nexa] Ingegnere cieco inventa un bastone che usa Google Maps per aiutare i non vedenti

by Giacomo Tesio

On 19/02/2020, don Luca Peyron <dluca.universitari(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Qualche buona notizia è sempre un toccasana, buona giornata Interpretazione molto discutibile, don Luca. Ci sono così tante cose che possono andare storte da un punto di vista tecnico che non saprei da dove cominciare. Ma la peggiore è la normalizzazione dell'abbandono del disabile. Qualche anno fa, parlando alla Bicocca, David Orban decantava le lodi del progresso esponenziale delle AI, grazie alle quali (fra l'altro) Facebook era in grado di descrivere ai non vedenti il contenuto di una foto. Al tempo feci notare come prima di questa fantastica innovazione tecnologica, il non-vedente avrebbe dovuto affidarsi ad un amico che gli descrivesse la foto stessa. Grazie a Facebook, invece, il non vedente poteva isolarsi meglio. O meglio, spostare la fiducia dall'amico a Facebook. E la dipendenza. Al contempo l'amico può dedicarsi ad altro: produrre e consumare (i prodotti che Facebook gli propone, ovviamente) Giacomo

Feb. 19, 2020

Re: [nexa] Did the early internet activists blow it?

by Giovanni Biscuolo

Masera Anna <Anna.MASERA(a)lastampa.it> writes: > https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/three-decades-internet-freedom-activis… grazie per l'interessante articolo --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- I no longer argue primarily that the explosion of freedom of expression and diverse voices, facilitated by the internet, is simply a burden we dutifully have to bear. Now, more than I ever did 30 years ago, I argue that it’s the solution. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- uh, meno male... mi stavo preoccupando Godwin è un'autorità nel settore, tuttavia sono abbastanza stupefatto che non faccia _minimamente_ cenno a quali sono i problemi *architetturali* [1] di Internet che rendono possibile il controllo totale (compresa la censura) di quello che viene trasmesso, come Echelon e le rivelazioni di Snowden (nell'articolo ignorate) hanno ampiamente dimostrato sull'etica della censura mi avvalgo della facoltà di non rispondere, faccio solo notare che un modo diverso di implementare le relazioni sociali in forma digitale *potrebbe* esistere: https://secushare.org/society cordiali saluti, Giovanni [...] [1] https://secushare.org/broken-internet -- Giovanni Biscuolo Xelera IT Infrastructures

Feb. 19, 2020

Ingegnere cieco inventa un bastone che usa Google Maps per aiutare i non vedenti

by don Luca Peyron

Qualche buona notizia è sempre un toccasana, buona giornata dl https://www.positizie.it/2020/01/16/ingegnere-cieco-inventa-un-bastone-che-… _________________________ www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

Feb. 19, 2020

Did the early internet activists blow it?

by Masera Anna

https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/three-decades-internet-freedom-activis… ________________________________ Il presente messaggio (inclusi gli allegati) contiene informazioni riservate esclusivamente al destinatario/ai destinatari indicato/i nel messaggio, ed è protetto dalla legge. La diffusione, distribuzione e/o la copia del contenuto del presente messaggio da parte di qualsiasi soggetto diverso dal destinatario è severamente vietata ai sensi dell’art. 616 c.p. e delle vigenti normative in materia di protezione dei dati personali. Se non siete i destinatari del presente messaggio, vi preghiamo di distruggerlo e di darcene immediata comunicazione inviando un messaggio di ritorno all’indirizzo e-mail del mittente. This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended only for the recipient(s) named above, and is protected by law. Any disclosure, distribution and/or copying of this message by any subject different from the named recipient(s) is strictly prohibited according to art. 616 c.p. and to the applicable data protection laws. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and inform us immediately about the deletion by sending a message to the sender’s e-mail address. ________________________________

Feb. 19, 2020

Facial recognition technology is the new rogues’ gallery.

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Facial Recognition Technology Is the New Rogues’ Gallery The 21st-century debate over privacy and suspicion looks a lot like one from the late 1800s and early 1900s. By MATTHEW GUARIGLIA FEB 17, 20205:45 AM https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/rogues-gallery-facial-recognition-tech… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Feb. 19, 2020

Re: [nexa] Facial recognition technology is the new rogues’ gallery.

by Alberto Cammozzo

"Ti conosco mascherina": se non porti la mascherina sei riconosciuto e segnalato, e comunque sei riconosciuto anche se la porti... <https://www.abacusnews.com/china-tech-city/facial-recognition-companies-upd…> Facial recognition companies update tech to contend with masks during coronavirus outbreak A Beijing-based facial recognition company says it can screen your employees even when they’re wearing a mask. (Picture: EPA-EFE) Chinese facial recognition companies are sharpening their algorithms to recognize people donning face masks to protect themselves from the coronavirus outbreak. The most recent example comes from FaceGo, a Beijing-based company that creates attendance software for workplaces based on scanning employees’ faces. And now the company says you can enter your office by scanning your face even with a mask on. Other tech companies are coming up with their own novel solutions for life in China during the outbreak. Baidu said last week that it created the first free open-source face scan software to identify people who aren’t wearing protective masks. This means it can send an alert if someone enters an office or a public space without a mask. And Megvii introduced an AI remote fever detection system that locates a person’s forehead and takes their temperature. It does not, however, help them verify people’s identities, the company said. Authorities in China have advised wearing masks to stop the spread of the Covid-19 disease that has taken more than 1,700 lives. This may have slowed down the country’s widespread surveillance network: Masks can reduce facial recognition accuracy to as low as 30%, according to some experts. But it also presents an unusual conundrum for those used to processing payments and unlocking their phones with just a glance. On 18/02/2020 13:24, Stefano Quintarelli wrote: > abbiamo abolito gli innocenti > esistono i sospetti ed i colpevoli. > > > > On 18/02/2020 13:04, Alberto Cammozzo wrote: >> Riconoscimento facciale e "bertillonage": interessante prospettiva >> storica. >> >> <https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/rogues-gallery-facial-recognition-tech…> >> >> >> >> Fueled by explosive reporting, foreign totalitarian regimes, and a >> lifetime of dystopian sci-fi, the movement to ban the government’s use >> of face recognition technology is growing. As of now, seven cities >> across the country—San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley in California, >> and Brookline, Somerville, Northampton, and Cambridge in >> Massachusetts—have banned the government use of face recognition. The >> entire state of California also passed a three-year moratorium on the >> use of face recognition on police body cameras. Part of the opposition >> stems from the fact that many don’t want police to have the ability to >> track movement around a city or learn the identities of protesters. But >> it’s also related to people’s unwillingness to be regarded with >> perpetual suspicion. Inclusion in a face recognition database means your >> face is always part of a lineup, and every time grainy surveillance >> footage surfaces of a robbery or assault, the suspect’s face is being >> compared with your own. And as a result of many states sharing driver’s >> license photos with the FBI, or private companies like Clearview A.I. >> harvesting billions of pictures off social media, this searching could >> happen from anywhere in the country. This doesn’t just mean there’s a >> small possibility that you could be mistaken for the suspect—it also >> means that your government doesn’t trust you. >> >> The government has always sought a way to file away and compare the >> faces of the guilty, but until very recently the technology only allowed >> for it to occur in a much more rudimentary way. Before there was the >> fingerprint, or even the police file, there was the rogues’ gallery, >> which you could find in most U.S. police departments. The gallery was a >> large wall or cabinet filled with photographs of alleged criminals that >> could be used as a way of identifying repeat offenders and coordinating >> surveillance, and as an example for witnesses. Police often scrawled on >> the back of the photographs a basic biographical sketch of the suspect, >> including known aliases and previous arrests. In many larger cities >> during the 1890s and early 1900s, the booking and photographing of an >> arrested person was also accompanied by the taking of Bertillon >> measurements. Developed in France, the system involved taking at least >> five specific bodily measurements including head length, foot length, >> and length of the middle finger. This data could be easily filed away >> and cross-referenced in case a suspect changed his appearance >> drastically. As cumbersome as this technology was, its use in the early >> 20th century posed the same ethical questions about guilt, innocence, >> and the nature of governance that we continue to grapple with on an >> exponentially larger scale. >> >> Suspicion is a circular process. To police departments of the early 20th >> century, a person was suspicious because his photograph hung in the >> rogues’ gallery, and people whom officers deemed suspicious got their >> picture taken and hung in the rogues’ gallery. This meant that a person, >> arrested on suspicion once, had the possibility of being arrested again >> and again by virtue of his initial arrest. Similarly, today a single >> encounter with the government that involves a photograph—whether for a >> driver’s license or a mug shot—has the chance to beget more. >> “Nobody is going to employ a young man or a young woman whose picture >> adorns the rogues’ gallery.” >> >> And also like today, there were those who opposed the vicious cycle of >> suspicion and arrest that biometric surveillance brought about. In 1899, >> the arrest of a known cheater and chronic gambler, Jacob “Doc” Owens, >> set in motion a debate over one of the 21st century’s most pressing >> issues regarding technology and privacy. On the night of May 10, 1899, >> Owens was arrested on suspicion after he was accused of fleecing >> passengers of a trans-Atlantic ocean liner at cards. At the station, he >> was photographed, and his measurements were taken and retained by the >> New York City Police Department. Owens was let go because there was no >> warrant out for his arrest and no reason to keep him—but his photograph >> remained. >> >> Owens took objection to the fact that his face and measurements would >> continually be used by the NYPD—compared again and again against the >> descriptions and faces of murderers and arsonists and thieves. The >> continual retention of his biometric information was, according to his >> lawyers, a “great injury to his honor and reputation, causing him severe >> mental pain and anguish. … [H]is constitutional rights are being >> absolutely disregarded.” His outrage reflected that of many people at >> the time who felt that the growing technological advancements within the >> police department threatened to create a society without an assumption >> of innocence or the ability to be reformed after an indiscretion. Owens’ >> was one of many similar cases that peppered newspapers across the >> country. As new ways of organizing police departments, and new >> technologies, spread and proliferated across the United States (and the >> world) many cities grappled with the possibilities of police >> surveillance simultaneously. >> >> As one columnist in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who covered the story wrote, >> “Once a photograph is hung in the gallery there is no removing it. A >> policy of that kind is utterly indefensible. It is a cruel injustice and >> a constant bar to reform. Youthful indiscretion is put on the same plane >> as murder. It provides no loophole through which the victim may escape >> the dire results of criminal publicity. Nobody is going to employ a >> young man or a young woman whose picture adorns the rogues’ gallery.” >> Simply put, once people were found guilty, or even deemed suspicious, >> they would remain that way forever. >> >> After three months, the chief justice of the New York Supreme Court >> refused to grant “Doc” Owens his injunction to take the photograph down. >> Future challenges to this policy turned out to be more successful. But >> whether a person had success in getting his mug shot taken down—a >> stand-in for whether the government found you capable of redemption—had >> more to do with race and status than with the nature of the infraction. >> Some cases, however, demonstrated the type of person able to liberate >> themselves from constant gaze of police. >> >> In 1909, another case brought the question again to the fore. George B. >> Duffy was from a higher socioeconomic status than Owens. When he was 19 >> years old, he was arrested in New York on suspicion of being connected >> with a robbery—with the official charge later listed as “obstructing the >> street.” Duffy was acquitted, and almost immediately his father began a >> campaign to get his son’s photograph taken down off the rogues’ gallery. >> His case went better than Owens’. “The object of putting someone in the >> rogues’ gallery,” a reporter at the Brooklyn Eagle wrote during the >> case, “is to have the police force familiarized with his personal >> appearance, name, and residence, in order to watch and hunt him as one >> who has settled on a life of crime.” To many, Duffy was not that kind of >> person. >> >> Duffy’s parents, employers, neighbors, and family pastor all rallied to >> his cause. Newspapers as far away as San Francisco covered the story and >> reported on the injustice of a respectable white young adult being >> subjected to unfair police surveillance. When the police commissioner >> fought public opinion by refusing to take down the photograph and >> destroy Duffy’s measurements, the mayor intervened. Over the fate of a >> 19-year-old’s reputation, a veteran police commissioner was eventually >> asked to resign. >> >> Police found the ability to erase a criminal record or hide a potential >> criminal from the view of police troubling. To them, and to citizens >> concerned with crime, everyone who had gotten far enough to be >> photographed by police deserved a life under the scrutiny of the public >> and surveillance of the state. Their fear of criminals run amok was >> compounded that same year by the introduction of the bill into the New >> York State Assembly that would outlaw the photographing, measuring, or >> fingerprinting of an arrestee until after he had been convicted of a >> crime. >> >> “There were continual outbreaks of protest against this photographing of >> criminals, caused by arrested persons who did not feel that their >> portraits should be made,” wrote NYPD Commissioner Theodore Bingham, who >> had been ousted as a result of the Duffy controversy. >> >> After one of these, a splendidly worded bill introduced in the >> State >> Senate, which forbade the taking of any portraits by the police until >> after conviction. … The only trouble with it was that, if it had passed, >> the Police Department would have had no pictures of criminals at all, >> for the simple reason that all criminals pass out of the custody of the >> police, not merely upon conviction, but from the very first moment they >> are arraigned. >> >> A number of police detectives testified that the bill would make cities >> unsafe and that its support within the Senate was propped up by “rich >> rogues” who want police to forget their faces so that they could >> continue their wrongdoing. >> >> Ultimately, the bill was defeated. One of the more compelling arguments >> against it came from the ability of the department to share its >> information. Testifying before the New York Senate, Deputy NYPD >> Commissioner Arthur Woods talked about the value of hoarding biometric >> information, including photographs, by relaying the story of four >> English pickpockets caught in Grand Central Terminal. Their information >> was sent to London, where the London police confirmed their identities >> and sent a copy of their existing criminal records back to New York. >> >> Technology may have changed, but the moral dilemmas over the guiding >> principles behind state surveillance have not. In 1909, the NYPD’s files >> were not accessible instantaneously, and the limited archives of a >> police department didn’t have the capacity to accumulate faces of >> millions of people. These technological advances have meant that the >> moral quandary of the rogues’ gallery is a supersize version of what it >> once was. While people no longer laugh and sneer at people whose faces >> hang in the police station, they can be denied jobs or passports because >> of misreadings or misunderstandings buried in hoarded data. It is the >> continuation of this mentality that led police to subject a large >> percentage of black men in Los Angeles to constant harassment when, for >> instance, wearing a sports jersey got them entered permanently into the >> LAPD’s gang database. To be constantly read as suspicious, one need not >> have been arrested and acquitted, but simply to have sat for a >> photograph in the DMV or wear a jersey in public. >> >> As one 1909 letter to the editor of the Atlanta Constitution read, “The >> penology of the future will make just as adequate and intelligent >> provisions,” when navigating the “perplexing juncture” of suspicion, >> identification, and surveillance. But we have not. In fact, the criminal >> justice system of the 21st century has only succeeded in making >> suspicion more ubiquitous. Independent of the usual arguments activists >> make when advocating for governmental bans on the use of face >> recognition—that it’s unreliable or that it misidentifies people—is the >> fundamental and historical truth that face recognition means we are all >> constantly under suspicion. We’re all in the rogues’ gallery now. >> _______________________________________________ >> nexa mailing list >> nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it >> https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa >> >

Feb. 18, 2020

Re: [nexa] Facial recognition technology is the new rogues’ gallery.

by Stefano Quintarelli

abbiamo abolito gli innocenti esistono i sospetti ed i colpevoli. On 18/02/2020 13:04, Alberto Cammozzo wrote: > Riconoscimento facciale e "bertillonage": interessante prospettiva storica. > > <https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/rogues-gallery-facial-recognition-tech…> > > > Fueled by explosive reporting, foreign totalitarian regimes, and a > lifetime of dystopian sci-fi, the movement to ban the government’s use > of face recognition technology is growing. As of now, seven cities > across the country—San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley in California, > and Brookline, Somerville, Northampton, and Cambridge in > Massachusetts—have banned the government use of face recognition. The > entire state of California also passed a three-year moratorium on the > use of face recognition on police body cameras. Part of the opposition > stems from the fact that many don’t want police to have the ability to > track movement around a city or learn the identities of protesters. But > it’s also related to people’s unwillingness to be regarded with > perpetual suspicion. Inclusion in a face recognition database means your > face is always part of a lineup, and every time grainy surveillance > footage surfaces of a robbery or assault, the suspect’s face is being > compared with your own. And as a result of many states sharing driver’s > license photos with the FBI, or private companies like Clearview A.I. > harvesting billions of pictures off social media, this searching could > happen from anywhere in the country. This doesn’t just mean there’s a > small possibility that you could be mistaken for the suspect—it also > means that your government doesn’t trust you. > > The government has always sought a way to file away and compare the > faces of the guilty, but until very recently the technology only allowed > for it to occur in a much more rudimentary way. Before there was the > fingerprint, or even the police file, there was the rogues’ gallery, > which you could find in most U.S. police departments. The gallery was a > large wall or cabinet filled with photographs of alleged criminals that > could be used as a way of identifying repeat offenders and coordinating > surveillance, and as an example for witnesses. Police often scrawled on > the back of the photographs a basic biographical sketch of the suspect, > including known aliases and previous arrests. In many larger cities > during the 1890s and early 1900s, the booking and photographing of an > arrested person was also accompanied by the taking of Bertillon > measurements. Developed in France, the system involved taking at least > five specific bodily measurements including head length, foot length, > and length of the middle finger. This data could be easily filed away > and cross-referenced in case a suspect changed his appearance > drastically. As cumbersome as this technology was, its use in the early > 20th century posed the same ethical questions about guilt, innocence, > and the nature of governance that we continue to grapple with on an > exponentially larger scale. > > Suspicion is a circular process. To police departments of the early 20th > century, a person was suspicious because his photograph hung in the > rogues’ gallery, and people whom officers deemed suspicious got their > picture taken and hung in the rogues’ gallery. This meant that a person, > arrested on suspicion once, had the possibility of being arrested again > and again by virtue of his initial arrest. Similarly, today a single > encounter with the government that involves a photograph—whether for a > driver’s license or a mug shot—has the chance to beget more. > “Nobody is going to employ a young man or a young woman whose picture > adorns the rogues’ gallery.” > > And also like today, there were those who opposed the vicious cycle of > suspicion and arrest that biometric surveillance brought about. In 1899, > the arrest of a known cheater and chronic gambler, Jacob “Doc” Owens, > set in motion a debate over one of the 21st century’s most pressing > issues regarding technology and privacy. On the night of May 10, 1899, > Owens was arrested on suspicion after he was accused of fleecing > passengers of a trans-Atlantic ocean liner at cards. At the station, he > was photographed, and his measurements were taken and retained by the > New York City Police Department. Owens was let go because there was no > warrant out for his arrest and no reason to keep him—but his photograph > remained. > > Owens took objection to the fact that his face and measurements would > continually be used by the NYPD—compared again and again against the > descriptions and faces of murderers and arsonists and thieves. The > continual retention of his biometric information was, according to his > lawyers, a “great injury to his honor and reputation, causing him severe > mental pain and anguish. … [H]is constitutional rights are being > absolutely disregarded.” His outrage reflected that of many people at > the time who felt that the growing technological advancements within the > police department threatened to create a society without an assumption > of innocence or the ability to be reformed after an indiscretion. Owens’ > was one of many similar cases that peppered newspapers across the > country. As new ways of organizing police departments, and new > technologies, spread and proliferated across the United States (and the > world) many cities grappled with the possibilities of police > surveillance simultaneously. > > As one columnist in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who covered the story wrote, > “Once a photograph is hung in the gallery there is no removing it. A > policy of that kind is utterly indefensible. It is a cruel injustice and > a constant bar to reform. Youthful indiscretion is put on the same plane > as murder. It provides no loophole through which the victim may escape > the dire results of criminal publicity. Nobody is going to employ a > young man or a young woman whose picture adorns the rogues’ gallery.” > Simply put, once people were found guilty, or even deemed suspicious, > they would remain that way forever. > > After three months, the chief justice of the New York Supreme Court > refused to grant “Doc” Owens his injunction to take the photograph down. > Future challenges to this policy turned out to be more successful. But > whether a person had success in getting his mug shot taken down—a > stand-in for whether the government found you capable of redemption—had > more to do with race and status than with the nature of the infraction. > Some cases, however, demonstrated the type of person able to liberate > themselves from constant gaze of police. > > In 1909, another case brought the question again to the fore. George B. > Duffy was from a higher socioeconomic status than Owens. When he was 19 > years old, he was arrested in New York on suspicion of being connected > with a robbery—with the official charge later listed as “obstructing the > street.” Duffy was acquitted, and almost immediately his father began a > campaign to get his son’s photograph taken down off the rogues’ gallery. > His case went better than Owens’. “The object of putting someone in the > rogues’ gallery,” a reporter at the Brooklyn Eagle wrote during the > case, “is to have the police force familiarized with his personal > appearance, name, and residence, in order to watch and hunt him as one > who has settled on a life of crime.” To many, Duffy was not that kind of > person. > > Duffy’s parents, employers, neighbors, and family pastor all rallied to > his cause. Newspapers as far away as San Francisco covered the story and > reported on the injustice of a respectable white young adult being > subjected to unfair police surveillance. When the police commissioner > fought public opinion by refusing to take down the photograph and > destroy Duffy’s measurements, the mayor intervened. Over the fate of a > 19-year-old’s reputation, a veteran police commissioner was eventually > asked to resign. > > Police found the ability to erase a criminal record or hide a potential > criminal from the view of police troubling. To them, and to citizens > concerned with crime, everyone who had gotten far enough to be > photographed by police deserved a life under the scrutiny of the public > and surveillance of the state. Their fear of criminals run amok was > compounded that same year by the introduction of the bill into the New > York State Assembly that would outlaw the photographing, measuring, or > fingerprinting of an arrestee until after he had been convicted of a crime. > > “There were continual outbreaks of protest against this photographing of > criminals, caused by arrested persons who did not feel that their > portraits should be made,” wrote NYPD Commissioner Theodore Bingham, who > had been ousted as a result of the Duffy controversy. > > After one of these, a splendidly worded bill introduced in the State > Senate, which forbade the taking of any portraits by the police until > after conviction. … The only trouble with it was that, if it had passed, > the Police Department would have had no pictures of criminals at all, > for the simple reason that all criminals pass out of the custody of the > police, not merely upon conviction, but from the very first moment they > are arraigned. > > A number of police detectives testified that the bill would make cities > unsafe and that its support within the Senate was propped up by “rich > rogues” who want police to forget their faces so that they could > continue their wrongdoing. > > Ultimately, the bill was defeated. One of the more compelling arguments > against it came from the ability of the department to share its > information. Testifying before the New York Senate, Deputy NYPD > Commissioner Arthur Woods talked about the value of hoarding biometric > information, including photographs, by relaying the story of four > English pickpockets caught in Grand Central Terminal. Their information > was sent to London, where the London police confirmed their identities > and sent a copy of their existing criminal records back to New York. > > Technology may have changed, but the moral dilemmas over the guiding > principles behind state surveillance have not. In 1909, the NYPD’s files > were not accessible instantaneously, and the limited archives of a > police department didn’t have the capacity to accumulate faces of > millions of people. These technological advances have meant that the > moral quandary of the rogues’ gallery is a supersize version of what it > once was. While people no longer laugh and sneer at people whose faces > hang in the police station, they can be denied jobs or passports because > of misreadings or misunderstandings buried in hoarded data. It is the > continuation of this mentality that led police to subject a large > percentage of black men in Los Angeles to constant harassment when, for > instance, wearing a sports jersey got them entered permanently into the > LAPD’s gang database. To be constantly read as suspicious, one need not > have been arrested and acquitted, but simply to have sat for a > photograph in the DMV or wear a jersey in public. > > As one 1909 letter to the editor of the Atlanta Constitution read, “The > penology of the future will make just as adequate and intelligent > provisions,” when navigating the “perplexing juncture” of suspicion, > identification, and surveillance. But we have not. In fact, the criminal > justice system of the 21st century has only succeeded in making > suspicion more ubiquitous. Independent of the usual arguments activists > make when advocating for governmental bans on the use of face > recognition—that it’s unreliable or that it misidentifies people—is the > fundamental and historical truth that face recognition means we are all > constantly under suspicion. We’re all in the rogues’ gallery now. > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa > -- reserve your meeting with me at https://cal.quintarelli.it

Feb. 18, 2020

Facial recognition technology is the new rogues’ gallery.

by Alberto Cammozzo

Riconoscimento facciale e "bertillonage": interessante prospettiva storica. <https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/rogues-gallery-facial-recognition-tech…> Fueled by explosive reporting, foreign totalitarian regimes, and a lifetime of dystopian sci-fi, the movement to ban the government’s use of face recognition technology is growing. As of now, seven cities across the country—San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley in California, and Brookline, Somerville, Northampton, and Cambridge in Massachusetts—have banned the government use of face recognition. The entire state of California also passed a three-year moratorium on the use of face recognition on police body cameras. Part of the opposition stems from the fact that many don’t want police to have the ability to track movement around a city or learn the identities of protesters. But it’s also related to people’s unwillingness to be regarded with perpetual suspicion. Inclusion in a face recognition database means your face is always part of a lineup, and every time grainy surveillance footage surfaces of a robbery or assault, the suspect’s face is being compared with your own. And as a result of many states sharing driver’s license photos with the FBI, or private companies like Clearview A.I. harvesting billions of pictures off social media, this searching could happen from anywhere in the country. This doesn’t just mean there’s a small possibility that you could be mistaken for the suspect—it also means that your government doesn’t trust you. The government has always sought a way to file away and compare the faces of the guilty, but until very recently the technology only allowed for it to occur in a much more rudimentary way. Before there was the fingerprint, or even the police file, there was the rogues’ gallery, which you could find in most U.S. police departments. The gallery was a large wall or cabinet filled with photographs of alleged criminals that could be used as a way of identifying repeat offenders and coordinating surveillance, and as an example for witnesses. Police often scrawled on the back of the photographs a basic biographical sketch of the suspect, including known aliases and previous arrests. In many larger cities during the 1890s and early 1900s, the booking and photographing of an arrested person was also accompanied by the taking of Bertillon measurements. Developed in France, the system involved taking at least five specific bodily measurements including head length, foot length, and length of the middle finger. This data could be easily filed away and cross-referenced in case a suspect changed his appearance drastically. As cumbersome as this technology was, its use in the early 20th century posed the same ethical questions about guilt, innocence, and the nature of governance that we continue to grapple with on an exponentially larger scale. Suspicion is a circular process. To police departments of the early 20th century, a person was suspicious because his photograph hung in the rogues’ gallery, and people whom officers deemed suspicious got their picture taken and hung in the rogues’ gallery. This meant that a person, arrested on suspicion once, had the possibility of being arrested again and again by virtue of his initial arrest. Similarly, today a single encounter with the government that involves a photograph—whether for a driver’s license or a mug shot—has the chance to beget more. “Nobody is going to employ a young man or a young woman whose picture adorns the rogues’ gallery.” And also like today, there were those who opposed the vicious cycle of suspicion and arrest that biometric surveillance brought about. In 1899, the arrest of a known cheater and chronic gambler, Jacob “Doc” Owens, set in motion a debate over one of the 21st century’s most pressing issues regarding technology and privacy. On the night of May 10, 1899, Owens was arrested on suspicion after he was accused of fleecing passengers of a trans-Atlantic ocean liner at cards. At the station, he was photographed, and his measurements were taken and retained by the New York City Police Department. Owens was let go because there was no warrant out for his arrest and no reason to keep him—but his photograph remained. Owens took objection to the fact that his face and measurements would continually be used by the NYPD—compared again and again against the descriptions and faces of murderers and arsonists and thieves. The continual retention of his biometric information was, according to his lawyers, a “great injury to his honor and reputation, causing him severe mental pain and anguish. … [H]is constitutional rights are being absolutely disregarded.” His outrage reflected that of many people at the time who felt that the growing technological advancements within the police department threatened to create a society without an assumption of innocence or the ability to be reformed after an indiscretion. Owens’ was one of many similar cases that peppered newspapers across the country. As new ways of organizing police departments, and new technologies, spread and proliferated across the United States (and the world) many cities grappled with the possibilities of police surveillance simultaneously. As one columnist in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who covered the story wrote, “Once a photograph is hung in the gallery there is no removing it. A policy of that kind is utterly indefensible. It is a cruel injustice and a constant bar to reform. Youthful indiscretion is put on the same plane as murder. It provides no loophole through which the victim may escape the dire results of criminal publicity. Nobody is going to employ a young man or a young woman whose picture adorns the rogues’ gallery.” Simply put, once people were found guilty, or even deemed suspicious, they would remain that way forever. After three months, the chief justice of the New York Supreme Court refused to grant “Doc” Owens his injunction to take the photograph down. Future challenges to this policy turned out to be more successful. But whether a person had success in getting his mug shot taken down—a stand-in for whether the government found you capable of redemption—had more to do with race and status than with the nature of the infraction. Some cases, however, demonstrated the type of person able to liberate themselves from constant gaze of police. In 1909, another case brought the question again to the fore. George B. Duffy was from a higher socioeconomic status than Owens. When he was 19 years old, he was arrested in New York on suspicion of being connected with a robbery—with the official charge later listed as “obstructing the street.” Duffy was acquitted, and almost immediately his father began a campaign to get his son’s photograph taken down off the rogues’ gallery. His case went better than Owens’. “The object of putting someone in the rogues’ gallery,” a reporter at the Brooklyn Eagle wrote during the case, “is to have the police force familiarized with his personal appearance, name, and residence, in order to watch and hunt him as one who has settled on a life of crime.” To many, Duffy was not that kind of person. Duffy’s parents, employers, neighbors, and family pastor all rallied to his cause. Newspapers as far away as San Francisco covered the story and reported on the injustice of a respectable white young adult being subjected to unfair police surveillance. When the police commissioner fought public opinion by refusing to take down the photograph and destroy Duffy’s measurements, the mayor intervened. Over the fate of a 19-year-old’s reputation, a veteran police commissioner was eventually asked to resign. Police found the ability to erase a criminal record or hide a potential criminal from the view of police troubling. To them, and to citizens concerned with crime, everyone who had gotten far enough to be photographed by police deserved a life under the scrutiny of the public and surveillance of the state. Their fear of criminals run amok was compounded that same year by the introduction of the bill into the New York State Assembly that would outlaw the photographing, measuring, or fingerprinting of an arrestee until after he had been convicted of a crime. “There were continual outbreaks of protest against this photographing of criminals, caused by arrested persons who did not feel that their portraits should be made,” wrote NYPD Commissioner Theodore Bingham, who had been ousted as a result of the Duffy controversy. After one of these, a splendidly worded bill introduced in the State Senate, which forbade the taking of any portraits by the police until after conviction. … The only trouble with it was that, if it had passed, the Police Department would have had no pictures of criminals at all, for the simple reason that all criminals pass out of the custody of the police, not merely upon conviction, but from the very first moment they are arraigned. A number of police detectives testified that the bill would make cities unsafe and that its support within the Senate was propped up by “rich rogues” who want police to forget their faces so that they could continue their wrongdoing. Ultimately, the bill was defeated. One of the more compelling arguments against it came from the ability of the department to share its information. Testifying before the New York Senate, Deputy NYPD Commissioner Arthur Woods talked about the value of hoarding biometric information, including photographs, by relaying the story of four English pickpockets caught in Grand Central Terminal. Their information was sent to London, where the London police confirmed their identities and sent a copy of their existing criminal records back to New York. Technology may have changed, but the moral dilemmas over the guiding principles behind state surveillance have not. In 1909, the NYPD’s files were not accessible instantaneously, and the limited archives of a police department didn’t have the capacity to accumulate faces of millions of people. These technological advances have meant that the moral quandary of the rogues’ gallery is a supersize version of what it once was. While people no longer laugh and sneer at people whose faces hang in the police station, they can be denied jobs or passports because of misreadings or misunderstandings buried in hoarded data. It is the continuation of this mentality that led police to subject a large percentage of black men in Los Angeles to constant harassment when, for instance, wearing a sports jersey got them entered permanently into the LAPD’s gang database. To be constantly read as suspicious, one need not have been arrested and acquitted, but simply to have sat for a photograph in the DMV or wear a jersey in public. As one 1909 letter to the editor of the Atlanta Constitution read, “The penology of the future will make just as adequate and intelligent provisions,” when navigating the “perplexing juncture” of suspicion, identification, and surveillance. But we have not. In fact, the criminal justice system of the 21st century has only succeeded in making suspicion more ubiquitous. Independent of the usual arguments activists make when advocating for governmental bans on the use of face recognition—that it’s unreliable or that it misidentifies people—is the fundamental and historical truth that face recognition means we are all constantly under suspicion. We’re all in the rogues’ gallery now.

Feb. 18, 2020

Silicon Valley Heads to Europe, Nervous About New Rules - The New York Times

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Silicon Valley Heads to Europe, Nervous About New Rules Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai have journeyed to Brussels as the European Union drafts regulation for A.I. and the digital economy. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/technology/europe-new-AI-tech-regulation… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Feb. 18, 2020

Re: [nexa] Welfare surveillance system violates human rights, Dutch court rules | Technology | The Guardian

by Giacomo Tesio

Ciao Cristina, grazie delle splendide domande. On 15/02/2020, Cristina Iuli <cristina.iuli(a)uniupo.it> wrote: >> solo sistemi basati su algoritmi pubblici, consultabili (e quindi >> contestabili) forniscono adeguate garanzie costituzionali; solo il >> software libero garantisce che l'implementazione sia confrontabile con >> l'algoritmo :-) > > ma non sono sicura di comprenderne fino in fondo le implicazioni. Per un > non addetto ai lavori, per una persona che non ha le assai specifiche e > costose competenze matematiche o informatiche necessarie a valutare il > rapporto tra gli algoritmi e loro messa in opera in programmi di gestione > delle popolazioni, che cosa significa, davvero, questa affermazione? Immagina di non sapere leggere, scrivere e contare. Immagina che la stessa cosa valga per la maggioranza della popolazione. Immagina che valga anche per i politici, i giudici, gli avvocati. Un bel giorno una casta di persone che sanno leggere, scrivere e contare iniziano a vendere i loro servizi a tutti, dallo Stato al pescivendolo. Questa è la situazione attuale dell'Informatica. La barriera di ingresso a questa casta non è determinata da conoscenze segrete. La casta adotta RELIGIOSAMENTE strumenti assolutamente primitivi e inutilmente complicati per rendere enormemente frustrante la vita dei propri membri, così da far apparire la propria materia "specialistica e complicata" e ridurre automaticamente la diffusione della conoscenza stessa. > Significa che in un sistema di pubblicità degli algoritmi, il controllo > incrociato (ma invisibile ai più) da parte di addetti ai lavori opera come > effettivo organismo di controllo sul rapporto tra algoritmo,sua > implementazione, e suo significato politico? Assolutamente no. Nel 2016 https://www.businessinsider.com/npm-left-pad-controversy-explained-2016-3?I… Nel 2018 https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/26/npm_repo_bitcoin_stealer/ Non c'è alcun controllo incrociato da parte degli addetti ai lavori. La maggior parte dei membri della casta non legge nemmeno il codice che usa. E GUAI a leggerlo! Non sarai mica un hacker! ;-) > O significa che vanno creati > organismi di addetti ai lavori che possano dare sufficienti garanzie sul > modo in cui gli algoritmi vengono creati e utilizzati? Non voglio sembrarti pedante, ma gli "algoritmi" esistono solo nella mente di chi li conosce. Sono "informazioni", idee comunicabili ad altri esseri umani attraverso un linguaggio. Un algoritmo non è diverso da un numero. E' astratto, intangibile e perfetto. E utile SOLO a comunicare e ragionare. Il _software_ invece esiste nella realtà e rappresenta una serie di algoritmi. Viene scritto da esseri umani FALLIBILI e ne riproduce sistematicamente gli errori. Visto lo stadio embrionale dell'informatica moderna, direi che nessuna organizzazione di addetti ai lavori potrebbe fornire alcuna garanzia socialmente UTILE su un software. Al massimo un organizzazione del genere, se fornita di budget superiori a quelli di coloro che realizzano un software, potrebbe verificare che questo corrisponde alle specifiche dichiarate dai programmatori in alcune condizioni (build riproducibili, sorgenti disponibili, etc...) e (con un po' di fortuna) evidenziarne alcuni errori in situazioni inaspettate. > Significa che nella società digitale e del controllo, il controllo critico > che i cittadini (e le istituzioni che essi eleggono) dovrebbero poter > esercitare sulle politiche pubbliche, sia a livello decisionale che > amministrativo, deve essere delegato per default a chi ha le capacità > tecniche di esercitarlo? Questo è quello che di fatto sta avvenendo. Non te ne accorgi ancora perché è un processo invisibile a chi non ha le competenze per parteciparvi. L'alternativa sarebbe insegnare A TUTTI a leggere, scrivere e contare. ;-) Ma è impossibile! E se lo dice il Faraone, voglio dire... questione chiusa! > E se è così, quali sono le conseguenze di questa > condizione sui sistemi democratici e sull'idea stessa di democrazia? Democrazia? :-D In una democrazia la Scuola è più importante del Parlamento. Perché il popolo è più importante di coloro che elegge. > E in assenza della possibilità di conoscere, comprendere e valutare il > significato degli algoritmi e del loro uso, cosa dovrebbe convincere i > cittadini a fidarsi delle procedure, delle istituzioni, e del controllo > degli esperti? Niente. Assolutamente niente. E non sto esagerando, purtroppo. Giacomo

Feb. 18, 2020