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Comment: Re:Lots of false positives here (Score 1) 205

by cffrost (#44036343) Attached to: State Photo-ID Databases Mined By Police

[Facial recognition software] will probably NEVER achieve the reliability standard of a fingerprint, let alone DNA.

Fingerprint matching has no "reliability standard" to speak of, and is likely far less reliable than you may have been led to believe.

Actually, its far more reliable than you have been led to believe.

Whereas I gave you the benefit of the doubt, (and provided a source to support my position,) you've somehow definitively assessed the reliability of fingerprinting, and conclusively determined that I've been misled. As such, I provide the following sources discussing the poor reliability of fingerprinting (in chronological order, 2001-2013) so that others can steer clear and avoid being misled like I was:

Fingerprinting's Reliability Draws Growing Court Challenges
Will Fingerprinting Stand Up in Court?
Investigation: Forensic evidence in the dock
The Real Crime: 1,000 Errors in Fingerprint Matching Every Year
Study questions reliability of fingerprint evidence
Forensic Tools: What’s Reliable and What’s Not-So-Scientific
Deeper into forensic bias
Fingerprint [Validity]

Its just that the numbering system was only intended to allow a computer sort of likely
candidates for manual inspection, but because manual inspection takes some time
and training, some jurisdictions will go just by the numeric analysis, and further
they will accept fewer and fewer actual features to match, especially when partial
prints are all they have.

It's "just that," hm? Sounds legit — though I fail to see how this demonstrates that fingerprinting is "far more reliable than [I've]have been led to believe."

Defense lawyers delight in bringing in their own fingerprint expert and showing up
the state, especially when its as easy as showing the jury two full sets of
prints. Things become very obvious very quickly.

What has this got to do with the reliability of fingerprinting? You wanna know what I'd delight in, is you providing some evidence that supports your claim that fingerprinting is far more reliable I've been led to believe.

Comment: Re:This is what I have to consider (Score 2) 205

by cffrost (#44034015) Attached to: State Photo-ID Databases Mined By Police

Now this is what I have to consider if I want to apply for a driver's license? Choosing between the privilege of travelling and being a false positive in some FBI chase?

Travel is a right not a "privilege," governments' opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. Those propaganda posters in your local DMV are just that — propaganda. Free travel included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but considering how much weight even the Constitution has in this country, I don't expect the situation to change for the better.

Comment: Re:Lots of false positives here (Score 2) 205

by cffrost (#44033847) Attached to: State Photo-ID Databases Mined By Police

[Facial recognition software] will probably NEVER achieve the reliability standard of a fingerprint, let alone DNA.

Fingerprint matching has no "reliability standard" to speak of, and is likely far less reliable than you may have been led to believe.

Please see PBS's Frontline: The Real CSI for an overview of some of the terrible shit that happened (and is still happening) thanks for forensic "science" — to quote from Twelve Monkeys, "Science ain't an exact science with these clowns." I've provided links to the aforementioned documentary below:

https://video.pbs.org/video/2223977258
http://kickass.to/pbs-frontline-the-real-csi-2012-480p-hdtv-x264-karma-t6324747.html

Comment: Re:EFF Resources and Personal Defense (Score 1) 332

by cffrost (#44030255) Attached to: Snowden NSA Claims Partially Confirmed, Says Rep. Jerrold Nadler

Thanks for that important tip.

I've been using Safe-Mail (on account of Hushmail's three-week inactive account deletion); so far I haven't been disappointed. Yes, it's run from USA's best pal Israel, but as far as I'm aware, Israel isn't shy about asserting sovereignty (though by no means would I count on that to keep a web-mail account private). I've been unable to find a private/secure web-mail provider located in a place with chilly US relations — Safe-Mail is the best I've come up with so far.

Comment: EFF Resources and Personal Defense (Score 2) 332

by cffrost (#44023691) Attached to: Snowden NSA Claims Partially Confirmed, Says Rep. Jerrold Nadler

EFF Action: Demand Answers Now! [Direct e-mail form to contact POTUS and your senators+House rep]:
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9260
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9297 [Form for non-US citizens; directed at implicated corporations]

The links below are to resources of the personal-privacy type, as opposed to the those intended to help bring about change:

EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project [Guide to surveillance-avoidance tools and techniques for individuals]:
https://ssd.eff.org/

EFF's HTTPS Everywhere [Chrome/FF plug-in enforces HTTPS on compatible sites using rule-list (hundreds included)]:
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

https-finder: Plug-in for HTTPS Everywhere users; auto-detects sites' HTTPS support and adds them to rule-list:
https://code.google.com/p/https-finder/

Privacy-oriented search engines:
https://duckduckgo.com/ [Only search engine on EFF's Organizational Member list]
https://ixquick.com/ [Provides HTTPS proxy through which search results may be accessed]

Privacy/security-oriented free web-mail providers:
https://www.safe-mail.net/
https://www.hushmail.com/

+ - Photographer Builds an Amazing DIY Digital Camera Stabilizer->

Submitted by Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth writes "Videographer Tom Antos developed an advanced DIY camera stabilizer which can hold almost any DSLR or mirrorless camera steady for video photography. Although this surly isn’t as sophisticated (and super expensive) as the professional MVI M10 handheld 3-axis digital stabilized camera gimbal, its still quite impressive especially when you consider it only cost a few hundred dollars rather then tens of thousands — that is if you feel like building it yourself."
Link to Original Source

+ - Transgendered Folks Encounter Document/Database ID Hassles

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Most of us hear the equivalent of 'let me bring up your record' several times a week or month when dealing with businesses and government agencies; sometimes there's a problem, but clerks are accustomed to dealing with changes in street address, phone numbers, company affiliation, and even personal names (after marriage). But what about gender? Transgendered folks are encountering embarrassing moments when they have to explain that their gender has changed from 'M' to 'F' or vice versa. While there are many issues involved in discrimination against transgendered individuals, I have to confess that the first thing that came to my mind was the impact on database design and maintenance."

Comment: Re:Better security might help (Score 1) 176

by cffrost (#44016381) Attached to: Confirmed: CBS News Reporter's Computer Compromised

I agree with you; I support immediate public disclosure as well.

The reasons I wrote what I did last night were that a) I didn't want to sidetrack the discussion into one about immediate versus "responsible disclosure" in general, and b) I wanted to make a point that might persuade those in support of "responsible disclosure" that Microsoft has shown that it doesn't deserve whatever benefits it may receive from the practice, since they've been colluding with a known hacker organization that's been violating our constitutional rights for years.

Further, in my view the software industry (as a whole) has shown that it doesn't genuinely support "responsible disclosure," what with all the cases we've heard about in which white-hats have been thanked with prosecution, intimidation, academic expulsion, etcetera, for trying to "do the right thing." Thus, I support immediate disclosure not as a form of (unjust) collective punishment against software vendors, but as an act of self-preservation, while acting to inform the greatest number of potential victims so that they may take defensive action (as you pointed out).

+ - The Government's FISA Requests Shell Game Scam->

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes "In the latest chapter of the federal government's "we don't trust the American people to tie their own shoelaces" saga, we saw two major Internet firms ostensibly release new information yesterday about key national security (e.g. FISA) user data requests that they receive, but in reality the government has forced them to play the old "three card monte" scam on us all.

You know the con? It's a classic version of the notorious "shell game" (only performed in this case with three slightly bent playing cards) where we're tricked into losing bets — through diversion — into believing a card is in one place, when it's actually somewhere else. This ripoff has its roots in antiquity.

Here's how the federal government version works."

Link to Original Source

When I left you, I was but the pupil. Now, I am the master. - Darth Vader

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