General Category > Blog
Terrorism, web sites, games and privacy (anonymity)
ratty redemption [RIP]:
well that's all very reassuring.
kat:
Oops. Looks like Kinect can ascertain a bit more than was being initially admitted when you stand in front of it (for good and bad).
[EDIT 18th Nov] after watching the video in full, it doesn't do what is being suggested by the Daily Mail and other outlets; it turns out to be an unfortunately combination of circumstance - the video author possibly going 'commando' and the way the Kinect devices is interpreting the play of light and shadow as that cloth attributed to that particular area folds and changes shape. Had Kinect actually been able to "see through clothing" the same effect would be seen in other areas, the knees and thighs for example, which are typically equally close to clothing's surface.
It's wise then not to get to caught up in the sensationalist aspects presented by these types of headlines, certainly not for the sake of completely dismissing the broader issues presented - that is the accuracy with which 'he' (the author), and the environment within which he conducted the test, is represented by the system. It's so well defined in fact that, yes indeed, Kinect (and ergo anyone with access to it or the data it's collecting) can discern the difference between anyone within range of one. And quite easily it would appear.
Original Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaOlUa57BWs
ratty redemption [RIP]:
he he, and the tech is impressive, i'll give them that.
kat:
Wired has an interesting article on how the Internet has now "weaponised" by the might of the Military Industrial Complex. What this means is that due to the way the NSA, GCHQ and other Government spy agencies around the world have access, they can 'inject' and/or 'intercept' standard http requests with relative ease. This is generally because the Internet to a large extent is based on 'trust' so barring the use of channels that are actually encrypted (https for example), much of the data used to deliver the content of a website to you sits out in the open for anyone with an appropriate level of access to see, a problem exacerbated by the legal terms we sign up to when using Social media or any new 'Cloud' based service (as users we contractually agree to allow our material to be stored and retained without question, and that it can be used however the other party sees fit - this is one of the reasons news media outlets can grab an image from Facebook and plaster it all over the web; users specifically agree to allow that). When reading articles and news concerning the "NSA Spygrid", the sad fact is, the Internet is its backbone.
kat:
It's a shame that information like this isn't news unless it's reported by the New York Times or Washington post. In the meantime anyone that's ever raised the concerns has been summarily dismissed as "conspiracy nuts" by the very same papers. And they wonder why people are starting to regard them as simply reinforcing their self-imposed status as information and 'news' gatekeepers (incidentally they won't be apologising any time soon to those 'nuts' that have been reporting on things like this for years).
* FBI can secretly turn on laptop cameras without the indicator light
* FBI’s search for ‘Mo,’ suspect in bomb threats, highlights use of malware for surveillanceIf the guy being tracked in the above was computer illiterate enough not to recognise malware delivered directly by mail then one has to question the necessity of sending the package in the first place when cross-referencing IP data would do the job just as well (given how illiterate the chap may have been)... which then gets into the realms of 'enabling', just how far are the security services willing to go in order to catch a suspect?
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