1y ago

Israel quietly rolled out a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip

www.theverge.com

Israel has deployed a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip, creating a database of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, The New York Times reports. The program, which was created after the October 7th attacks, uses technology from Google Photos as well as a custom tool built by the Tel Aviv-based company Corsight to identify people affiliated with Hamas.

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BrikoX @lemmy.zip

1y ago

Israel quietly rolled out a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip

www.theverge.com /2024/3/27/24114043/israel-facial-recognition-gaza-strip-corsight

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1y ago

Israel quietly rolled out a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip

www.theverge.com /2024/3/27/24114043/israel-facial-recognition-gaza-strip-corsight

World News @kbin.social

livus @kbin.social

1y ago

Israel quietly rolled out a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip

www.theverge.com /2024/3/27/24114043/israel-facial-recognition-gaza-strip-corsight

113 comments

Way easier than having them wear an armband.
- That's brutal because it's so fitting. Well played.
- So, hot take here: preface this with saying I absolutely condemn the surveillance by Israel here.
  But I think it's wrong to judge a nation by what they've gone through themselves, with an attitude of " they should know better". Just because the Holocaust happened, doesn't mean that Israel has better morales or values, or that they would never do such things themselves. Humans are humans. With the wrong people in power, horrible things happen.
  It's perfectly reasonable and necessary to argue that Israel is currently violating human right laws. We should keep doing that.
  It is not reasonable to keep pointing at the holocaust and nazi germany as a stick of " look, you became the thing you suffered under", unless in a context of learning from history. "You should know better" creates unreasonable expectations where some nations ought to have higher morales somehow.
  Edit: I ment condemn, not condone. Apologies
  
  That’s because they ought to have better morals than Nazis.
  
  So, hot take here: preface this with saying I absolutely condone the surveillance by Israel here.
  I think you mean condemn.
  It is not reasonable to keep pointing at the holocaust and nazi germany as a stick of " look, you became the thing you suffered under", unless in a context of learning from history.
  I mean when a country does Nazi things usually other countries point out that that's Nazism. It's not something unique to Israel (see: Trump's rhetoric being compared to Hitler's); it's just that Israel's philosophy shares a lot with Nazism so the similarity is pointed out a lot.
  
  We are not comparing their governing or how they structure theur legislative system we are comparing the open air camps, tight restrictions and indiscriminate murder. I think it is perfectly fair to compare them to nazis, for one there isnt many comparisons they have left themselves with - this is the company they are in now.
  I can't condone mass surveillance of a population that have been subjugated, harrassed, violently targetted, stolen from and currently going through a genocide and enforced famine. But that is just me.
  
  I absolutely condone the surveillance by Israel here.
  This seems... incongruent with the rest of your comment.
  
  If Israel can play the "criticizing the Government of Israel is the same as opposing the Jewish ethnicity" card, then we can play the "you especially should know better" card.

Israel is the type of control-heavy far-right state other dictators wish they could govern, and it's made possible by Western money and technology (I was going to name just the US but my country of Canada, among others, is not blameless either). This news also sucks because there's no way that tech is staying in Israel only. Citizens of the world better brace for convictions via AI facial recognition.
"Our computer model was able to reconstruct this image of the defendant nearly perfectly. It got the hands wrong and one eye is off-center, but otherwise that's clearly them committing the crime."
- It's true... far right dictators love this shit:
  https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/in-china-facial-recognition-public-shaming-and-control-go-hand-in-hand/
- From what I remember, AI facial recognition tech was already being used by police and agencies worldwide, like the FBI, PRC police etc, or am I misinformed? I remember something about Chinese and American facial recognition software.
  
  I had not read anything like that but a quick search pulled up this story from last September by Wired that supports your post: FBI Agents Are Using Face Recognition Without Proper Training. "Yet only 5 percent of the 200 agents with access to the technology have taken the bureau’s three-day training course on how to use it, a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) this month reveals." So it sounds like you're right, and also that they are probably inadequately trained even if they complete the whole 3-day course on how to identify people with legal ramifications.
- Facial tattoos of drop table commands. Embed computer worms into your iris. We can get insane to fuck all this shit up too. I bet theres a way to embed a computer virus on your own face.
  
  I guess I'll adjust my life goals to "hot cyberpunk partner in technological dystopia", because that sounds like some Bladerunner/Cyberpunk 2077 stuff.
  
  Attempts at adversial ai tatoo, face masks and clothing have been done before. Basically exploiting the model not having a deeper understanding of the world so you can trick it with specific visual artifacts.
  
  Which may even work with 0.001% probability of that recognized string not being screened.
  There's a difference between SQL injections on thematic web forums and the same in such a system.
  That "we can ... too" is lazy complacency. "They" will get even stronger while "we" talk like this.

It will be in Israel soon too. Netanyahu is using this genocide to cement a dictatorship by claiming it's all necessary to fight the war, but it's not really believed that he'll take his special war powers away from himself once it's over. He's already tried to destroy the judiciary. Make no mistake, genocide is not the only way he's taking pages out of Hitler's playbook.
- And thanks to the us in the states he is being well to do so. We need make it clear that we want all aid to Israel to stop. No more weapons or money.
  
  Biden is in a real bind, because he needs the pro-Israel vote too. It's a tightrope walk. I don't think he's handled it well at all, but I can see why they haven't totally cut off Israel.

While the US and the USSR scrambled for Nazi scientists post WWII for their Air and Space programs, it seems that Israel was grabbing a different kind of Nazi for consorting work.

Photoprism on default settings merged like 5 people into one because it was all trained on a predominant NA population.
Google photos has had similar results even with tuning the algorithm.
So best case they throw innocent people in jail without trial and worst case they just continue to shoot innocent people anyway.

I see that the deadline for skynet in 2029 is more realistic every day

This is all sorts of fucked up and wrong but lets face it... it's far from the worst thing happening in Gaza right now.
- True, but:
  1-It helps them find "terrorists" to blow up, and
  2-This isn't going away. Even after this "war" ends what remains of Gaza will be perpetually under surveillance (more than they already are). Even if the war ends today, Gaza just became even more of an open-air concentration camp.
  
  I would be amazed if Gaza still exists when this war is over.
  
  It doesn't work, for point 1 very well though. The tech is fine, but the way it's presented to users is that it's way more accurate than it actually is. That's marketing rather than a technical problem. Second, the tech is not as good at recognizing non-white people. It's just a fact that there are more pictures of white people to train the tech on since white people have historically had more access to photography among other reasons. And the models used to create most of the tech was built to favor facial traits that are more likely to differ in white people.
  So, the likelihood of high probability matches is much lower so the likelihood that the highest probability match that is made is actually much lower probability of it being an actual match means the bad matches bubble to the top and get accepted as real. And these kinds of uses are more interested in a "better safe than sorry" stance and they aren't sorry about killing the wrong person, only about not killing the right one. So they're perfectly as happy killing many people that are possible matches as they are one person that's the correct match.
- No, this enables that.
  
  what's wrong with hunting down terrorists?

The west is supporting Israel commit genocide in Gaza so that they will acquire better battleground tested surveillance technology.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Israel has deployed a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip, creating a database of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, The New York Times reports.
The program, which was created after the October 7th attacks, uses technology from Google Photos as well as a custom tool built by the Tel Aviv-based company Corsight to identify people affiliated with Hamas.
Corsight, which has boasted that its technology can accurately identify people even if less than 50 percent of their face is visible, used these photos to build a facial recognition tool Israeli officers could use in Gaza.
To further build out its database — and identify potential targets — the Israeli military set up checkpoints equipped with facial recognition cameras along major roads Palestinian used to flee south.
One officer told the Times that Google Photos could identify people even when only a small portion of their face was visible, making it better than other tools, including Corsight.
According to the Forbes report, Corsight’s technology was able to take images of people “whose features had been impacted by physical trauma, and find a match amongst photos sent in by concerned family members.”
The original article contains 623 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Cunts.

Facial Recognition is not ready for this level of use unless you're just looking to create chaos, lock up innocent people, and generally create more enemies. But then they currently have a torture and release program so they're familiar with that already.

Does it also measure the diameter of their heads for statistical purposes?

This wouldn't be necessary if Hamas wore uniforms.
- Hamas wouldn't be necessary if they stopped treating Palestinians like animals.
  
  A blockade exists to prevent Hamas from getting weapons. A fence exists to prevent Hamas from crossing the border and attacking Israelis. Unfortunately a fence and blockade wasn't enough to prevent this.
  Israel isn't treating the Palestinians as animals. They are treating their psychopath leaders like psychopaths. These psychopaths will perpetuate this situation to make people like you think they are necessary. But what's actually necessary is removing these psychopaths from the equation so the weak minded can understand these "strongmen" that hide underground while the civilian population is at the mercy of an army they claim to be committing genocide aren't actually strongmen at all.
  You've been lied to.

Without their consent? How could they. Of course everywhere else police use face recognition with consent, right? Right??
- Imagine if it was Apartheid South Africa, or Nazi Germany doing this. Do you see the problem now?
  
  I don't think you understood their point: this shit is done by police everywhere, and nobody's asking for consent there either. A lot of this tech gets developed by Israel and then bought by police forces across the world. Palestinians are guinea pigs for all the latest policing and surveillance tech.
  
  Or Great Britain?

The US uses facial recognition when I enter into the country. Wonder if it's the same tech.
Israel is using it to track terrorists and blow them up. Hopefully they make quick work of it. That's probably how they spotted some of the 10/7 crew they've rounded up.
- We prefer the term terrorist removal specialist.
  Either way, this is a great use of technology.
- Israel considers all Palestinians terrorists, that's part of their justification for genocide.
  Year before Oct 7 - Jewish Voice for Peace
  Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) and Summery by the International Court of Justice
  Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated
  And they deliberately target civilians.
  ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
  Compared to previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current war — which Israel has named “Operation Iron Swords,” and which began in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7 — has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”).
  Although it is unprecedented for the Israeli army to attack more than 1,000 power targets in five days, the idea of causing mass devastation to civilian areas for strategic purposes was formulated in previous military operations in Gaza, honed by the so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” from the Second Lebanon War of 2006.
  GAZA STRIP: Famine is imminent as 1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity
  Latest humanitarian food insecurity assessments – the IPC classification index which is used as a reference by aid agencies – indicate that the entire population of Gaza – 2.2 million people – face "crisis" levels of food insecurity, the OCHA spokesperson said. Of that number, around 1.17 million face "emergency" levels of food insecurity, and the plight for another 500,000 is "catastrophic"
  
  So you're also in favor of using The technology. Really helps sort out terrorists vs civilians.
  Also quoting Jewish voices for peace is kinda evidence you're not paying attention. They're more biased against Israel than Al Jazeera, and they certainly don't represent Jewish people.
  All of your sources actually turn up to be wildly biased. Makes sense, most bigots feel safer in their echo chambers. ¯(ツ)/¯

Well it makes sense. Hamas often pose as civilians to get the enemy off guard and then pull out an RPG.
Israel needs some way to be able to pull them out of a crowd. Especially if civilians are to be protected.
Anyway it's not like most western countries aren't already doing this, they just haven't told us yet. But there's an awful lot of cameras around Europe now and I'm sure they must have facial recognition tech.
And of course there's China who doesn't hide it it all.
Eventually it will be worldwide if it isn't already.
Edit: I'm not saying I endorse it, it's terrible, but my point is that they can kind of justify it with their allegation that Hamas dresses as civilians. Also that, very sadly, this is a worldwide trend which will most likely only get worse because the "elites" behind all this world system (and the genocide in Gaza) seem to be succeeding in pushing through their plans.
- I don't think anyone would risk that with GDPR.
  
  You'd be surprised. I think the governments of the world do as they wish, secretly. As long as no one finds out..... But who knows really?

Wouldn't be necessary if Hamas didn't violate the Geneva convention every chance they got.
- Displacing a population and replacing it with a different one is a violation of that convention.

Israel has a right to defend its self i think the missile atacks have to end its been going on for decades so palistine has been asking to be invaded especially after they invaded and started killing civilians kidnapped
- Israel has had a permanent occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967, maintaining an apartheid state through direct and indirect violence.
  Hamas began twenty years into an Occupation enforced with direct and systemic violence, with the goal of ending the occupation.
  What Is Hamas? - Council on Foreign Relations
  What Does Hamas Actually Want? - NY Mag
  Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
  Hamas Election - Snopes
  Hamas 1988 Charter and Revised 2017 Charter

113 comments