Headline: Microsoft offers free new laptop if your computer can't run Windows 10!

"Will it run Linux?", getting out my pen knife......

Straight to it then. The similarity measure this researcher used has not been shown to be what humans use when they, for instance, falsely identify someone in court or mistake two people on clear video.

The similarity measure she used is designed to detect the differences between very specific and quantifiable points on the human face (interpupilary distance for instance). These landmarks are (largely) immutable over time and anyway amenable to analysis by computers scanning hi-res images.

However, these quantifiable landmarks have not been shown to be the same as the features humans use to distinguish two faces. It's not just likely, but 100% certain, that two faces which are virtually indistinguishable to humans - "my god, it's the same person!" - would be clearly distinguishable to a computer.

At least in this context, ourb cultures definition of doppleganger is up for grabs. Is it two faces so similar that they look the same to humans - a low and easily met criteria - or is it two faces so similar that a computer cannot tell them apart.

There is a real moral issue at stake here and that is what shall we let pass into general consensus regarding this new concept of facial "doppleganger"? Because if it comes be an accepted fact, thanks to this study or others like it, that dopplegangers don't exist then that has consequences. For instance, it is much more likely that false eye-witness identification will be accepted by prosecutors asnd juries and much harder to claim misidentification .

That's why I say the characterization of this study is misleading. In fact, I'll go further and say this Guardian (sorry, rag) headline downright dangerous.

Numerically, we have dopplegangers in exactly the number of people whose faces are practically indistinguishable to our own- as judged by other people. We know for a fact they exist, and they probably for exist everyone.

It's even more complex than that, since the judger is very heavily influenced by their familiarity with the race of the judged. How many Chinese of Japanese or Korean faces would the average caucausian confuse with each other even with a sincere, best effort in the best of circumstances ?

Of course, it works the other way also. One of the complaints of the father of a friend of mine who is first generation American and of Middle Eastern descent is all Americans men look exactly the same to him. It's amusing when you're the target of such confusion, like a parlor trick in reverse: "Wow, you can't do that. Are you serious? "

  When I was 16 a friend of mine from another town insisted that I looked, talked and walked EXACTLY like a friend of hers. Of course I had to meet that person and, even by my own standards, it was shockingly true. I had the thought at the time that I hoped he was well behaved or at the very least, inclined to lawfulness.

We are very easily fooled depending on the context and we are fooled even outside of any judgement compromising context:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Future direction for reaseachers could productively include:

Just how different can two faces become before humans finally pick up on the it?

How do the landmarks used in this study relate - or not- to the features humans use when recognizing faces?

How do computers fare when using only those landmarks which humans use?

There are people, maybe a lot of them, that look exactly like you. They are your "dopplegangers". It would take a computer to tell you apart. You should hope they are well-behaved.

There are even more, perhaps multitudes, that are very very very similar. It's mostly an entertaining fact, but in some contexts, someone's life and freedom may hang in the balance.

I'ts not a coincidence that ISL and Nazi Germany and North Korea and SJWs and all the goddamn petrol-dictatorships in the Middle East BAN SPEECH in JUST they way you want to.

Wake the fuck up and catch up to the 21st century. Free speech is the best known cure to abusive regimes and policies. Why do you think every time you turn around some fascist government or fascist social movement is trying to clamp their hand around somene else's mouth?

  Why do you think that is? Because their ideas about How Other People Should Live are vigorously reasoned and empirically sound that they can endure an unflinching examination by unsympathetic observers willing to level withering criticism?

Yeah, that must be it.

Spoken like a true cry-bully SJW who wants to dump the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments into the gutter.

Go start your own fucking country, asshole. You obviously don't understand this one.

Consider the hypotheticals which would be true if Tor were as secure as they say.

First, Tor would be knowingly aiding and abetting in the distribution and consumption of child pornography. They would be aware of this, but they would consider it the price you have to pay in order to keep people anonymous online.

Do you think that that is a realistic proposition?

Consider their recent actions against Jacob Applebaum.

http://jacobappelbaum.net/

This is a group of people who went after someone in full SJW witchhunt mode, which is to say it featured anonymous accusors making unsubstantiaABLE claims of a incindiary, sexual nature , a public appeal for more accusors to copycat them under the guise of "seeking more victims", and a Star Chamber style execution of the target.

And these are the exact same people who are going to aide and abet child pornographers - out of principle.

Then there's the people who are at the helm of Tor. For example, Sherri Steele (no Wikipedia entry!). Meet Sherri's husband:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"He is married to Shari Steele, former Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,[5][6] currently Executive Director of the Tor Project.[7]

Prior to Liquid Robotics, he was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Sun Microsystems Federal (a Sun Microsystems subsidiary focusing on business with government organizations). He held numerous positions during his more than 10 years at Sun, including Vice-President of Corporate Software Services, Chief Security Officer for Sun IT, and Chief Information Officer (CIO). His background has a significant military and government presence, including a stint as an oversight CIO working underneath the Department of Defense's overall CIO. Before that, he was the Chief Technical Officer and Technical Lead for the U.S. Army's personnel systems.

I am sure he/she is onboard with the whole kiddie porn thing along with his employers.

Then there's the zombie issue of Who Funds Tor- the question that just won't die. What Tor says is it doesn't matter that the government holds the all the practical purse strings (yours and my donation is not keeping the Tor lights on) , the code is the code.

But the code is not the nodes, and let's face it, to maintain the number of servers needed to p0wn the Tor network would be less than the NSA spends on erasers in a month. It would be a rounding error. Think they spent that money? Just, do you?

If the FBI and the NSA are worth a shit, they now have people planted at every level of the Tor development project, people with the clout and numbers sufficient to make hire/ fire/ burn-at-the-stake decisions. That HAD to be a goal of theirs, right? Now do you think they're competent agencies? I sure do.

The reaility is, Tor works closely with the government ot catch badguys. JUST LIKE I WOULD, JUST LIKE YOU WOULD. Think about it. The government comes and says: "kiddie porn child sex trafficking terrorists etc etc etc we need to work together we promise we'll only nab these types promise promise promise" do you cooperate? Really, do you? I sure do and I understand the importance as much as anyone whose made a determined effort to hear all sides of the privacy-security debate and basically considers both extremes to represent mortal dangers to the Republic and civilization itself.

When you're in that position of having to side with one of two possible nightmare scenarios- a George Orwellian nightmare government which can never be vanquished or a terorist organization with, say an unstoppable lethal virus or other civilization-destroying WMD and a guarantee of kiddie porn rings harming real kids, which do you choose, because you HAVE to choose ?

I'll tell you who you choose.

You choose the government because you tell yourself, not untruthfully, that even in a worse case scenario, it's still an error civilization might recover from.

You choose the government because you tell yourself its better to keep your maybe-enemies close the better to know what they're doing.

You choose the government because your career and paycheck and hope for future paychecks depends on doing so.

You chose the government because, really what evidence do you have that the government actually WANTS to create an Orwellian dystopian nightmare anyway? They're Ameircans just like you - yes they are- they have the same values, fears, hopes and nightmares (except theirs are more informed and explicit, I am sure) you do; they want the same things- yes they do- as you do for their country.

You choose the government because the religion of peace

http://www.thereligionofpeace....

has through word and through deed made it perfectly clear that, no matter the extent and nature of that hypothetical Orwellian nightmare government, they're still bucking for worse, by far.

If anyone really thinks they'd be in Tor -or any other project like Tor - and NOT have to come to that crossroads, and NOT reason in exactly that manner, and NOT make exactly the same decision, then perhaps you still have something new to learn about yourself.

  Look at the Tor project. Look at how the people who comprise that project have comported themselves. Look at who they've gone after *as the Tor project* and the way they went after them and for what, then look at the larger moral dilemma anyone involved in any project like Tor necessarily puts themselves in and what decisions those same people who went after Applebaum are likely to make in response to that moral dilemma and ask yourself, does it add up in the way they claim?

Hell no it does not.

Let's just be clear on what happened here. A library used to defend against malware itself has a zero-day which is targetable by malware. This from an industry that has decades of programming effort to doing just one thing, and attracts some of the best of the best as developers.

Just pointing this out explicitly for everyone who thinks that IoT won't wreak real physical harm, potentially on a on a scale previously unheard of and (as a consequence) programming same will be not be tightly regulated and licensed with fingerprints and code signing and background checks and everything else the national security state can think of. Because it will. Because, as this shows, you cannot stop malware no matter how hard you try.

IoT is going to end programming freedom as we know it.

And still we rush headlong into its arms.

It's more subtle and pervasive than that. We have a twit of a girl who thinks it's OK to report people shoplifting who merelyv rub her the wrong way.. she think's they're "sketchy". The only thing stopping those names and faces from being added to a list is we can rewind and see the person didn't do anything. Management won't fire her because people like her and she does her job well, plus she's pretty. But she has somehow learned that it' s OK to leverage security against people who "creep you out".

I can imagine other places aren't as circumspect. Any or all of our names and faces could be now or in the future added to a wide variety of "suspect" lists which companies trade between themselves. Being a nominee to such a list can serverly impact your ability to get a retail or really any other job.

So it's worse than you think.

This a million times.

Consider for example, systemD.

OK now tell me when you're done considering it.

When cars crash they'll both immediately go into negotiations as to relevant fault of the parties and the money will automatically be deducted from your bank account.

Seriously, we're a long way away from having these things being ubiquitous enough to impact insurance etc. They're still very much in quirks mode; there is real reason to question the ability of the neural nets to negotiate the reality of an environment filled with unpredictable weather, things and people ...completely novel multi-factor physical situations, including the fact that these cars will accelerate, brake, stop and steer on computers hardsware and software which are both vastly more hackable and complex than those that control those systems today.

The belief is that between the computer simulation and modeling, the datamining of extant accident reports, the hours of test driving and the ability for Google engineers to imagine as many weird situations as possible, they'll be able to train the neural nets to perform in a way that doesn't regularly veer into insanity-behid-the-wheel.

Since neural nets admit of no analytic proof techniques that we know of- no one can look at a trained state of a NN - the nodes, their configuration and the weights between them- and and say what it does or why- there's no proof for any given circumstance that it will act in a reaosnable manner even if it's done so the last 10,000 under circumstances which were very similar from a human's perspective.

No one knows what the world looks like to a NN if you include the all important "what should I DO" in the definition of "looks like", as your should.

    Then there's the issue with acceptance by humans who and their sly, lying ways whenever culpability or loss rears its ugly head.

We're a long way from this. A long way.

good, now websites will be forced to present a version of themselves which is still usable without JavaScript.

What did that poll say, a quarter of /. readers surf with JavaScriopt disabled by default. God knows I do.

Sad to say, at some point around 2013 it became less about what the web could do for me and more about what the web could do to me.

Bueller...
Bueller...

That's what I thought.

>>the U.S. was acting to slow that nation's supercomputing development efforts.

How'd that work out for ya?

Well, at least according to Corney, they can't do crypto for shit.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind buying a computer with one of these Chinese chips in it. Better than one backdoored up the Yin Yang by a government that can actually ruin my chances in life for having the wrong opinions....Seriously, what do I care if the Chinese government spies on me? Why, that's correct, Mr Chen, my opinions on free speech are dangerously subsersive .... to China.

Right, I will forego the use of a device which many people have come to feel is a necessary part of their personal safety and lifeline to the outside world to join thousands of others who have done the same to watch Someone Special whose security maintains an airtight envelop aorund her at all times on and off the stage.

Because Alicia Keyes.

Alicia Keyes is now the very archetype of a person who needs to stick a fork into themselves because they're done.

Do you think our government or main stream media- CNN FOX MSNBC NBC CBS ABC or any of the newspapers including the NYTimes of WSJ have said peep about the TTP? Most Americans don't even know what it is and would be outraged if they understood it. This is Congress and the WH and the government operating as nothing less than a criminal gang. This is the 1%er doing what the 1%ers do- smashing democracy, destroying the 99%s living standards for their personal private benefit.

All these trade agreements have do nothing but destroyed the econoomies of the nations who signed onto them. Mexico is now nothing more than a narco state with entire swaths of it not even nominally under the control of the Mexican goverrnment. Virtually all able bodied males between the ages of 13 and 65 are in the US illegally or otherwise desperate for work their own nation can no longer provide them. This is the reality of NAFTA.

And where are the degenerate "free market" neoliberal think-tank sponsored "scholars" and economists who promised us all in 94 that NAFTA would result in unprecedented wealth for the average Mexican and benefit the US also? The CTO Institute freaks nad the "economists" from bought-off shithole universities like Chicago ? The Dan Griswolds of the world? No doubt they're still living large off the money the think tanks, corporations and 1%ers in the MSM and (NPR too!) gave them to shovel their bullshit economics on the Americna public's head.

You don't get to be a billionaire by playing nice and providing value. You get to be a billionaire by murdering people via proxy, bulldozing millions of other people's lives off a cliff, bribery, lying and controlling Congress by offering them deep seven figure jobs after their time acting as your personal footman and bitchboy in the Senate is over.

In case you weren't aware.