Facial recognition mobile app

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“Kevin Alan Tussy, speaking for Facialnetwork (who make Nametag) promises that this won’t be a privacy problem.”

Well, as long as he *promises. . . *

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“People will soon be able to login to www.NameTag.ws and choose whether or not they want their name and information displayed to others,” he said. "It’s not about invading anyone’s privacy; it’s about connecting people that want to be connected.

So, it’s really about invading everyone’s privacy, but offering an opt-out? Because those aren’t the same thing.

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Oh I’m sure there’s no possible way this can be abused. Plus, nothing protects my privacy like verifying my identity to… who are they again? Oh yeah, totally trustworthy folks who promise everything will be fine…

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This part of Terminator 2 always bothered me. That scraggly old dude is supposed to be a 99% probability body/clothing match for Arnold in his prime? I think not! Arnold would be busting out of those clothes like 1 foot worth of sausage filling in 6 inches worth of sausage casing!

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My expectation is this doesn’t stand a chance of passing Apple’s app guidelines, which means this will be an Android/Google Glass only app. Hey, how do you like that there walled garden now?

Obviously this is going to be a major step forward for our freedom to stalk, sexually harass, pry, and generally trample on others’ expectation of privacy. This has to be a Good Thing, because open!

Some of the uses I’ve thought up for this in the last ten minutes would be enough to get me on any jurisdiction’s sex offenders’ register.

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http://abstrusegoose.com/114

Life imitates art…

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It’s sad because this could be a really useful thing if they didn’t try to social-ify it - imagine if a person with failing memory due to brain injury, alzheimer’s, etc. could use google glass (or equivalent) plus facial recognition against only a non-shared, private database of names, faces, facts.

No social media anything, no global database searches, just “This is Jenny Finklestein. She is your niece. You have added a note: Jenny just graduated highschool, congratulate her.”

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“it’s about connecting people that want to be connected.”

So if this party were asked by someone who wants to be connected to connect to someone who does not want to be connected I can imagine they’d be okay with doing so if no one told the person who didn’t want to be connected. You wouldn’t want to infringe on someones desire to be connected if it’s all about connecting people that want to be connected. Fuck those other curmudgeons.

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Sounds a bit like the business model those revernge porn sites employ. Especially if they expect us to pay for the app in order to opt-out.

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And this is why I keep my online info as separated as possible from my offline info. No RL pictures, a vague profile, non-human avatar, etc. Anyone who tries using this “service” to match my face isn’t going to find much, if anything.

I could really use this because I can never remember names.
Like any names.

If anything it would make Game of Thrones easier to follow.

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On the plus side, now EVERYONE gets to be the NSA!

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That sounds dirty, sir. Now I have to take a cold shower…

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Sex offender registries? I can see that ending well. /sarcasm

I suppose this could be done today if Iphoto was faster?

If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em

It would also be great for people with prosopagnosia (difficulty in recognizing faces,) which can be quite socially debilitating. A whole world of non-embarrassment would open up.

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Uh, I still don’t like the “walled garden”. Did you know that the internet can be used to stalk women and download child porn? HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR UNCENSORED INTERNETS NOW!11!! This sort of mindless attempt to protect everyone at all costs is why shit like the great pr0n wall of Cameron exists.

I’m glad you are comfortable with Apple Corporation serving as your moral compass. Personally, I like being able to install what I want, when I want. I installed a tethering app and root commands the other day on my unlocked phone running a custom OS; somewhere out there a EULA cried itself to sleep.

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Not sure what the expected reaction is–tsk-tsk’ing disapproval? Cries to outlaw it? Boycotts? What?

The pieces are there, technology- and information- wise. Are we all supposed to pretend they’re not, or just cross our fingers and really, really hope no one puts them together in ways like this—against all human nature? Or should we make laws preventing certain combinations of freely available information and technology we don’t approve of?

If anything’s to be blamed, it’s Facebook and its ilk, for their terrible privacy controls and insatiable hunger for user info, but even that’s a “you get the bad with the (perceived) good” kind of thing and not this developer’s doing.