Evade Face Recognition Camera. ‘Privacy Visor’

Cameras are used to read faces to recognize  and identify people.

 

While this has an important role to play in Security, there is this aspect of Privacy being intruded upon.

 

Japan has developed a Visor which confuses the Software used in the camera and makes it useless.

 

What would the security agencies do to counter this?

 

Story:

Privacy Visor

 

A pair of glasses dubbed a “privacy visor” has been developed to thwart hidden cameras using facial-recognition software.

The prototype spectacles have been designed by scientists at Tokyo’s National Institute of Informatics.

The glasses are equipped with a near-infrared light source, which confuses the software without affecting vision.

Law enforcers, shops and social networks are increasingly using facial-recognition software.

Prof Isao Echizen said: “As a result of developments in facial recognition technology in Google images, Facebook et cetera and the popularisation of portable terminals that append photos with photographic information [geotags]… essential measures for preventing the invasion of privacy caused by photographs taken in secret and unintentional capture in camera images is now required.”

The near-infrared light “appends noise to photographed images without affecting human visibility,” he said.

Shop mannequins

Prof Echizen said the glasses, which connect to a pocket power supply, would be reasonably priced, but there are some simpler alternatives.

Heavy make-up or a mask will also work, as will tilting your head at a 15-degree angle, which fools the software into thinking you do not have a face, according to an online guide produced by hacktivist group Anonymous.

In September, following a review by Ireland’s data protection commissioner, Facebook suspended its facial-recognition tool that suggested when users in Europe could be tagged in photographs.

In November, it emerged some shop mannequins were collecting data on shoppers using facial-recognition software.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21143017

 

 

Facebook Delivers Messages To Wrong People- Security?

In yet another case of beach of Security,Facebook seems to be delivering messages to  people from whom you want this to bekept secret.

 

 

 

At least be careful in future of what you share.

Dear Facebook (Photo credit: JAMES ANTHONY CAMPBELL)

 

 

University of Texas students Taylor McCormick and Bobbi Duncan came out to the world via Facebook, but not in ways they ever intended.

 

 

The Wall Street Journal examined how Facebook changed the lives of two gay college students, when a classmate added them to a public group for other gay choir singers at the school an action that was shared on the students’ news feeds

 

In another case Bobbi Duncan desperately wanted her father not to know she is lesbian, but Facebook told him anyway. Soon, she learned that another choir member, Taylor McCormick, had been outed the very same way, upsetting his world as well.

 

 

The two University of Texas in Austin students had been careful to keep their parents from finding about about their lifestyles. However, when they were added to a Facebook discussion group for Queer Chorus, a choir group on campus, a notification popped up and informed all of their friends.

 

 

“In the era of social networks like Facebook and Google Inc.‘s Google+, companies that catalog people’s activities for a profit routinely share, store and broadcast everyday details of people’s lives. This creates a challenge for individuals navigating the personal-data economy how to keep anything private in an era when it is difficult to predict where your information will end up.“ The Wall Street Journal mention.

 

http://thehackernews.com/2012/10/facebook-privacy-flaw-exposed-two.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheHackersNews+%28The+Hackers+News+-+Daily+Cyber+News+Updates%29&_m=3n.009a.13.ih0aof437b.cj#sthash.QjXZRW0c.dpuf

 

Found on The Door-I Know What you are Talking-Image.

I used to go out of station  for three days in a week.

I was mentioning to my wife ans son that they should ensure that they be careful in what they do and speak as our Home was in the heart of a commercial area.

Funny Note on the door.

My son replied that people are busy with their own affairs to pay attention to others’ affairs.

Once when I returned from my sojourn the small shop keeper opposite to our House asked me ‘Sir, I have sen you three days before,You should have returned yesterday night.Was the work heavy?

I informed this to my  wife and son though People  are busy with their Lives, they are also interested in what others do for it is a part of their/our Lives’

To confirm this I just saw a Picture in Imgur which is profound, though it sounds Funny!

 

Know Your Trackers Online.

Screenshot of collusion visualisation.

Despite your knowing them and installing software to block them these trackers still follow you.

” Mozilla introducedCollusion, an add-on for the Firefox browser that shows you how companies are tracking you as you surf the Web. A cool visual demonstration of the software illustrates all the links that form as you crisscross just a few popular sites online, including IMDB, the New York Times and the Huffington Post. The software shows the connections between sites you visit and third-party tracking and advertising networks such as Doubleclick and Scorecard Research. It makes plain the invisible web that has been woven through the Web.

The software was created as a protoype by Atul Varma, who explained in a blog postthat he “didn’t know a lot about tracking myself, so I whipped up a Firefox add-on called Collusion to help me visualize it better,” he wrote. “The results were a littleunsettling.”

Collusion will help you understand how you’re being tracked online, but it won’t stop it from happening. For that, you can disable “third-party” cookies on your browser and install other add-ons such as TrackerBlock. A number of internet giants have alsoannounced support for a “do not track” button, though that option may not become available until the end of the year.”

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/02/28/how-to-tell-whos-tracking-you-online/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook

“The PrivacyChoice Chrome extension opts you out permanently from behavioral ad targeting by over 150 companies. While this does not block tracking, in many cases (but not all) these companies will refrain from collecting information from your computer when the opt-out is in place.”

http://www.privacychoice.org/trackerblock/chrome

Does this include Google Chrome?

Related articles

• Collusion Addon For Firefox Will Show You Who Tracking You Online (techfleece.com)

Friends are ‘unfriended’ in Facebook.

The study conducted by Pew internet reveals that more friends are being ‘deleted’ in Facebook, 63%., a belated recognition that they have befriended people whom they hardly knew.

This could be due to instances coming alight with the ‘friends’ being mostly stalkers and pose a threat.

Another reason could be that the flooding of unwanted messages cluttering the page.

The misuse of Facebook seems to have resulted in fewer people making available their Profile Public-20%.

Women tend to untag their photos at 67%.

A welcome sign .

“

There are certain things in life that aren’t meant to be shared,” the Oakland resident said. “If I want to ask about an apartment in New York, I don’t want 1,500 people knowing I’m traveling to New York.”

“Where do we as individuals draw the line?” Watanabe said. “It’s an interesting question and people are starting to ask themselves that.”

About 63 percent of social network users now say they have deleted people from their friends list, an increase from 56 percent in 2009, according to a report from the Pew Research Center of Washington.

Restricted sharing

Also, 58 percent of users set their main profiles to be seen only by a private group of friends or relatives, while 19 percent choose at least some level of privacy settings to control what certain friends can view, the center’s Internet & American Life Project found. Only 20 percent make their profiles completely public.

And the portion of people who have untagged themselves from photos on social-networking sites – predominantly Facebook, but also including Twitter and other services – rose to 37 percent, from 30 percent in 2009.

“Women tend to have stronger feelings regarding who has access to their personal information,” said Mary Madden, a Pew senior research specialist.

The report said 67 percent of women restrict access to friends only, compared with 48 percent of men, possibly because of concerns about online predators and other safety issues. Only 14 percent of women choose to make their profiles completely public, compared with 26 percent of men.

On the other hand, men are nearly twice as likely as women (15 to 8 percent) to regret something they posted on Facebook.

The Pew report, based on interviews with 2,277 adults from April 26 to May 22, 2011, was released coincidentally at the end of a week when online privacy became a major topic in tech”
 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/24/BUH11NC6HA.DTL#ixzz1nuhx5LeU