10 AM | 20 Aug

Facial Recognition Imagery Used at a Music Festival [#geekgirl]

[Image Credit: noisey.vice.com]

[Image Credit: noisey.vice.com]

[From this article at noisey.vice.com] ‘Slides provided to me by the Dig‘s Chris Faraone show how the system was meant to work, with the software capable of distinguishing people by such characteristics as baldness, eyeglasses, skin tone, torso texture, and beards which, considering this was an indie rock concert may have overloaded their servers. The data would then be transmitted to a hub, where city representatives, Boston Police, and IBM support staff could watch in real time, all while simultaneously monitoring social media key words related to the event. The purpose, ostensibly, was being able to pick up on suspicious activity as it was happening, for example “alerting when a person loiters near a doorway as they would if trying to gain entrance,” the slides explain, or alerting of “attempts to climb perimeter barricade,” or an “abandoned object near barricade.”

These seem like worthwhile things to be on the lookout for, but among the capabilities was one that seems particularly egregious and questionably necessary: “Face Capture of every person who approaches the door.”’

11 AM | 06 Aug

“Abbott says Australians’ web browsing history to be retained…” [#geekgirl]

[From this ZDNet article] “Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said web browsing history for each and every Australian resident would be required to be retained by telecommunications companies under new data retention legislation expected to be entered into parliament later this year.

Yesterday the prime minister and Attorney-General George Brandis said that in principle approval had been given by Cabinet for Brandis to develop a framework to require telecommunications companies to retain customer data for up to two years.”

08 AM | 18 Oct

#PRISOM: “This is [a] most ambitious work…” [#geekgirl]

Play #PRISOM Now!

Play #PRISOM Now!

“Thanks to #PRISOM, I am now successfully indoctrinated and prepared for the total loss of my civil and personal rights and a life of continual subservience. Seriously, this took a bit of navigation…but the payoff is definitely worth it. The environment is easy to get into, especially with the supporting audio, and once I got into the hang of what I was supposed to do, and where to find the test stations, all went smoothly. I was actually entranced by the whole experience, and felt that I just HAD to get to the end. This is [a] most ambitious work…with a piece that delivers a political message within the framework of a game that is actually no game at all – it’s the serious business of where do we all go from here. Nice work. I hope this converts some minds. It should do.” – Alan Bigelow