Topic: OAP FaceApp

[Skidder.]

So... pretty simple really? 

(Mods - sorry if it has been discussed anywhere else)

[stoa]

Haven't done it. Not necessarily because I have privacy/security concerns but I just can't be arsed.

[Graeme]

It's just an app to make yourself look old, nothing more. So it uploads a copy of said photo to their cloud storage. So? I'd imagine the majority of similar apps do exactly the same. What possible purpose could an app developer have with a photo of what I might (but probably won't) look like when I'm an OAP.

[Snail]

It's all fun and games until you go to watch a footy stream and see your grid on one of those dodgy "enlarge your penis" ads.

[CraigDS]

It's all fun and games until you go to watch a footy stream and see your grid on one of those dodgy "enlarge your penis" ads.

At least it gives me a good excuse as to why it’s being used.

[Skidder.]

It's all fun and games until you go to watch a footy stream in 2054 and see your grid on one of those dodgy "enlarge your penis" ads.

[Skidder.]

It's just an app to make yourself look old, nothing more. So it uploads a copy of said photo to their cloud storage. So? I'd imagine the majority of similar apps do exactly the same. What possible purpose could an app developer have with a photo of what I might (but probably won't) look like when I'm an OAP.

So you've installed and used the app yourself?

I don't think people are so much worried about what could happen to the OAP photo... I think what folk are paranoid about it what happens with your pre-AI'd photo. 

[Graeme]

No I haven’t. What is the app developer going to do with my photo? What’s the worst that could happen?

[sms1986]

This is what FaceApp have said about the pictures, whether you believe them or not is up to you -

In a statement, FaceApp said that “99 percent of users don’t log in; therefore, we don’t have access to any data that could identify a person,” and added that they “don’t sell or share any user data with any third parties.”

FaceApp said most of their photo editing is done off of a user’s device in remove servers, and the image that is uploaded must be selected by the user. Additionally, most photos are held on remote servers for approximately 48 hours before being deleted, the statement read.

“We accept requests from users for removing all their data from our servers,” FaceApp’s statement said. “Our support team is currently overloaded, but these requests have our priority.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/photo-editor-faceapp-goes-viral-again-prompting-security-concerns.html

[Skidder.]

No I haven’t. What is the app developer going to do with my photo? What’s the worst that could happen?

Judging by the T+C's, anything.

That's possibly more unnerving than people taking photographs of their kids to do it, who don't have informed consent...  Just so Facebook friends and laugh and compare them other members of their family. I'm sure it's all just a bit of harmless family fun... but so were the Cambridge Analytica quizzes, as well as many other fun and free stuff the internet more or less anonymously provides us.

Furthermore, I don't think it is what app devs could 'do' with your photo, I think that a portion of the paranoia/fear stems from what AI could do with your photo.

This is what FaceApp have said about the pictures, whether you believe them or not is up to you -

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/photo-editor-faceapp-goes-viral-again-prompting-security-concerns.html

Erm yeah, looks like a generic techbabble copy and paste statement really. Two days is a very long time to be fair for a picture that takes one minute to render. The fact that they are inundated with data requests tells you a lot about how paranoid/suspect people are once they've used it.

You don't get a free ride in life and that hardly stops with the internet.

[rob1966]

Yep, heres mine

[McrRed]

I am already in the future

[JC the Messiah]

Facebook's T&Cs are worse than Faceapp's.

[Skidder.]

Facebook's T&Cs are worse than Faceapp's.

If Facebook go against those TC's, they're in shit, and someone will be held accountable either in a court of law or in a public inquiry.

Try getting the Russian government to extradite a Russian national if:

A) There is a breach in privacy laws.
B) The shit hits the fan.
C) And that it is proven that the AI does stem from Moscow.

All the paranoia could literally be the mechanics of the tech industry waging a war of consumerganda and stoking up paranoia. However, it wouldn't be the first time that #challenges have been dressed up as a bit of fun, when in reality, the real reasons are less than obvious.

That Mannequin challenge was dodgy as fuck and I can't actually believe people fell for that one. Stand still in a video for as long as you can? Seriously? Google have said it is used to train AI to guess movement or some shit, which is obviously bollocks. However, the TCs of that challenge specifically stated that it could be used anytime, anywhere, in the future for research purposes. And that's Google...

So, yeah... what's the harm in companies taking all of your biometric data, as well as your likeness, for future use? You're not going to be around, so you or your family won't make any money out of it, but someone somewhere will be making billions. TO what end? Who knows? It's the future right?

These apps, privacy and whatnot are perfect analogies for how knee-jerk and gullible people have become since the start of all this duplicitous shit.

And again, as for those Terms and Conditions - I wouldn't believe a single word of it.

[Snail]

Worth mentioning that they own both the aged photo and the original photo.

[Skidder.]

What about the other 10 million possible facial combinations/edits that it could potentially spawn in the 48 hours it is on their servers?

Mark my words, and if I'm wrong I'll be the first to wrap tin foil around my bonce... but it'll be 3-D photos or video next.

Fuck that though for a plate of chips.

[CraigDS]

I mean if you’re gonna worry that much about your face being out there you may as well walk around in a balaclava given the amount of CCTV about.

[Skidder.]

I mean if you’re gonna worry that much about your face being out there you may as well walk around in a balaclava given the amount of CCTV about.

That's different. We accept a certain level of surveillance for the betterment of our society. If our government and their contractors are doing their jobs right, only the people who are doing something wrong should be worried. I know, actively, that if I go into town, there's CCTV everywhere and if I was to commit a crime, I'd be caught.

Again, like a line out of a famous privacy-related film. I expect a certain degree of loss of liberty given the levels of street crime, etc... etc..

But this is very, very different on many levels. Suggesting people should cover up their faces in public if they do not want their face to be used by a seemingly private entity without their permission is really funny (no, honest).

[Crosby Nick]

It's all fun and games until you go to watch a footy stream and see your grid on one of those dodgy "enlarge your penis" ads.

I thought you looked familiar.

[hixxstar]

as with all apps.... you give them permission to access all your contacts, camera, microphone, txts, pics... etc   i never use them myself. 

[Skidder.]

as with all apps.... you give them permission to access all your contacts, camera, microphone, txts, pics... etc   i never use them myself. 

Indeed we do, but not all apps are created equally for the same intents and purposes.

This is, after all, the same app that was changing people's ethnicities a few years back. Furthermore, the fact that it stores both pictures is in itself, a bit odd.

The big thing here is that it is wrapped in the 'AI' mystery... A very good way of getting around the question of "Why not create a self-serving app like SnapChat or any of the other masking programmes where the big data is handled locally? You could make a mint off of the adverts alone..."

I don't think it is of any coincidence that there was a story recently about an A.I that literally spouts randomly generated faces.

I wonder where the baselines came from for this?


 

[rob1966]

That's different. We accept a certain level of surveillance for the betterment of our society. If our government and their contractors are doing their jobs right, only the people who are doing something wrong should be worried. I know, actively, that if I go into town, there's CCTV everywhere and if I was to commit a crime, I'd be caught.

Again, like a line out of a famous privacy-related film. I expect a certain degree of loss of liberty given the levels of street crime, etc... etc..

But this is very, very different on many levels. Suggesting people should cover up their faces in public if they do not want their face to be used by a seemingly private entity without their permission is really funny (no, honest).

Most Facebook users don't know what privacy is. Type a random name into the search box on facebook, pick someone and within 5 minutes you have pictures of their family, children, friends, you know where they went to school, where they work, their likes and what car they drive.

Jemima looked stunning in the black dress slit up to her waist, her cat Taluhla didn't look bothered, her sister is fit and her mate has a not too great pair of fake tits.

[Crosby Nick]

Jemima looked stunning in the black dress slit up to her waist, her cat Taluhla didn't look bothered, her sister is fit and her mate has a not too great pair of fake tits.

I really don’t think they should have rebooted Beatrix Potter for the modern age.

[Skidder.]

Most Facebook users don't know what privacy is. Type a random name into the search box on facebook, pick someone and within 5 minutes you have pictures of their family, children, friends, you know where they went to school, where they work, their likes and what car they drive.

Jemima looked stunning in the black dress slit up to her waist, her cat Taluhla didn't look bothered, her sister is fit and her mate has a not too great pair of fake tits.

And this is probably at the heart of it - Facebook. There are folk who just get paid to sit there all day on Facebook writing shit for campaigns. I always wonder if half of these user comments that you see on big media Facebook are actually real folk or spambots/walkers. All of the 'positive AND negative' reviews you see all over the show, as well as political campaigns and whatnot.

This reeks of ID farming and to me is only one of two things - the media creating another shitstorm against a developing Russian company; or it is exactly what the media have been alluding to for a number of years with regards to digital political campaigning.

I mean, to those who have used it, does the app have adverts?

[CraigDS]

That's different. We accept a certain level of surveillance for the betterment of our society. If our government and their contractors are doing their jobs right, only the people who are doing something wrong should be worried. I know, actively, that if I go into town, there's CCTV everywhere and if I was to commit a crime, I'd be caught.

Again, like a line out of a famous privacy-related film. I expect a certain degree of loss of liberty given the levels of street crime, etc... etc..

But this is very, very different on many levels. Suggesting people should cover up their faces in public if they do not want their face to be used by a seemingly private entity without their permission is really funny (no, honest).

My point is more that every privately owned shop you go into, venue you visit, etc. will record & store images and videos of your face, of you moving, of you still and could do absolutely anything they wanted with them if they had those intentions.

Just like this (and other) apps.

[Skidder.]

My point is more that every privately owned shop you go into, venue you visit, etc. will record & store images and videos of your face, of you moving, of you still and could do absolutely anything they wanted with them if they had those intentions.

Just like this (and other) apps.

I don't deny that but if memory serves, we have a Digital Economy Act which more or less gives us ancillary rights. They can only be stored for a certain period of time and used within the boundaries of the law. If someone flots those rights and publishes or uses your images for private or monetary gain (or most any other reason), they'd be held accountable and probably prosecuted.

But the suspect thing here is the timelines.

1. American releases facial recognition in order to tackle fake/copy profiles and 'catfishing' (let's say).
2. Said company (the biggest and most powerful digital entity in the world) is locked in controversy over possible offshore political campaign tampering (and all that stuff that everyone more or less knows about...)
3. (rumoured) Russian company (whose overlords are accused of doing exactly that in #2) creates an app to change your facial characteristics which goes viral for the second time.

It's farcical to think every application and/or vendor/developer team follow the same set of global rules and regulations.

If anything comes dodgy about this, you can bet your bottom Ruble that there'll be a fallguy, everything will be blamed on him (or her), a lot of data will mysteriously dissapear and millions of people will be left asking questions whilst the present company (FaceApp) is liquidated with any assets possibly returned via a third-party.

But this isn't some noncebox in a CCTV security room filming customers for lurid purposes without their knowledge - it's said to be AI, which can't really be held accountable for its actions. It's just another layer of technoshite to sift through and argue over whilst anyone in a position of authority will play the blame game.

[Upinsmoke]

Every other tom dick and harry have your picture anyway.


I dont give a shit. I granted them permission to my camera that's it. You think that's worse than what GCHQ do.

[Skidder.]

Every other tom dick and harry have your picture anyway.


I dont give a shit. I granted them permission to my camera that's it. You think that's worse than what GCHQ do.

As I said above, you expect a level of societal interference from government organisations. They're rancid, aye, and GCHQ is dodgy as fuck, but if 'they' (Tom, dick... etc) do have pictures of myself everywhere, at least I know that I didn't hand them over willy nilly because of the next big '#challenge'.

I very rarely use Facebook nowadays and practically all of my photographs have been deleted, I literally only use it for music and film and to keep in touch with old friends. I've noticed a smaller proportion of targeted ads after uninstalling and deleting most identifiable information, oh and Whatsapp.

But if you've used it, I do have a couple of questions:

Does it have ads?
Can you do it with other people's photographs?

[rob1966]

As I said above, you expect a level of societal interference from government organisations. They're rancid, aye, and GCHQ is dodgy as fuck, but if 'they' (Tom, dick... etc) do have pictures of myself everywhere, at least I know that I didn't hand them over willy nilly because of the next big '#challenge'.

I very rarely use Facebook nowadays and practically all of my photographs have been deleted, I literally only use it for music and film and to keep in touch with old friends. I've noticed a smaller proportion of targeted ads after uninstalling both deleting most identifiable information, and Whatsapp.

But if you've used it, I do have a couple of questions:

Does it have ads?
Can you do it with other people's photographs?

I can't answer your questions about it as I won't install apps like that, as I fully expect them to harvest as much data from me as they can.

[Skidder.]

I can't answer your questions about it as I won't install apps like that, as I fully expect them to harvest as much data from me as they can.

These are two very pertinent question though Rob, wouldn't you agree?

Where is the motivation? If it doesn't have ads (I'm not sure), how is this even functioning?

And B, is the application tied into your own personal digital identifier, allowing you to only do yourself?

I saw shitloads of posts from Sky, BBC, ECHO, etc... all doing famous people using stock photographs. I wouldn't be surprised if they're deleted in the coming months as whilst I'm sure there are legal standpoints on this front, the released statement mentions nothing about this apps ability to perform the function on any given photograph. Again, I don't know... there isn't much to look at on Google, just people's pictures.

If that doesn't raise alarm bells, I don't know what will. I know I've been picking on nonces and perverts in this thread a bit... But I'm imaging that this would be just one of the tools that a predatory sex offender would love to have in their box of tricks.

It's the future man, and it's happening right now.

[CraigDS]

It offers you basic filters for free, with the option to pay to get premium filters to edit pics more.

[CraigDS]

If the celeb pics have no copyright and are royalty free then putting it through this app is no different to me hand drawing a pair of glasses and funny beard on the pic and posting it only.

[Skidder.]

It offers you basic filters for free, with the option to pay to get premium filters to edit pics more.

So, I assume the OAPorn mask is free in that case?

And yes, I get the loose laws of copyright... But I remember one particular article (I forget whose, there's so many) used shutterstock photographs with the watermark - I'm not sure the legality of that, but...

If I have a picture, public domain or not, and I didn't have informed consent to its usage (assuming this app it dodgy), I would really be unhappy around this time now seeing all the negative press over it.

Still think they'll get tugged for it eventually.

[CraigDS]

Yeah the old one is free.

Shutterstock stuff, even with the watermark, are not royalty free. Their whole business is selling the rights to their images.

If the image is out there for free use then it can normally be edited and used in most circumstances (beyond obscene things).

[Skidder.]

Yeah the old one is free.

Shutterstock stuff, even with the watermark, are not royalty free. Their whole business is selling the rights to their images.

If the image is out there for free use then it can normally be edited and used in most circumstances (beyond obscene things).

As a budding filmmaker, I should know this already (and kind of do for audio usage), but from a legal perspective I've always been flakey with copyright laws in this kind of usage. PRS is a totally different beast of course, but there are crossovers.

Regardless of all of that however, there may not be a legal standpoint, but there's definitely a moral question to be posed there given recent reports. I think my core feeling with this is that it is the media propagating this yet again, after CA and the 'Race Changer' (made by the same company).

A congresswoman has apparently asked the FBI to investigate and I genuinely think that this will become the next CA (from a media perspective) in months/years to come.

History will have the final say on this, and if it is an innocuous bit of fun... I'll gladly don a tin foil hat and go and upload a photograph. But this is still dodgy as fuck and gives me porophobic(?) sensations.

[CraigDS]

There have been apps that have done this for years.

Was one which made you old, bald or fat years ago as did it with my nephew when he was about 9 (he’s 14 tomorrow).

Think the fact it’s a Russian based company which has got some people wary.

[CHOPPER]

There have been apps that have done this for years.

Was one which made you old, bald or fat years ago as did it with my nephew when he was about 9 (he’s 14 tomorrow).

Think the fact it’s a Russian based company which has got some people wary.

The LifeAppensApp

[Skidder.]

There have been apps that have done this for years.

Was one which made you old, bald or fat years ago as did it with my nephew when he was about 9 (he’s 14 tomorrow).

Think the fact it’s a Russian based company which has got some people wary.

I know there has, and I'm quite possibly knee-jerking myself and a part of an elaborate ploy to discredit Russian technological companies. I'm very contemplative on this myself, and I'd hope the tongue-in-cheek poll would go a way to set that tone.

But I don't know how many of them claimed to be using internal/localised A.I to guess what you'd look like in x years. Plus, that was five years ago!

That's an epoch in technological terms. But if it is Russiaphobia at-play, then we're closer to a full-on trade/tech war than any of us know. Which is equally as worrying if I'm honest...

Either way, when I was a teenager studying IT in Kirkby, computer programmes and applications used to thrill the shit out of me and every once so often, something came out, or a game (Half Life)... Something came out, sometimes monthly, which truly wooed the geeks. Now it's nearly every day!

But remember screensavers? In particular, The Matrix screensavers that apparently, Russian tech companies flooded the market with because it was hot shit around that time.

Remember the Russian screensavers which had the same treatment? Tech-bubbles claiming that Russian-made screensavers were stealing your CPU cycles and could overheat your PC to the point of breaking? Apparently the GRU were building a supercomputer using nodes to construct a worldwide network of spies and ghosts.

Oh, but then, NASA's folding@home came down the pipeline a year or so later and folk willingly downloaded programmes to use their spare cycles to cure cancer or something? It was high-jinx techwankery and for some reason, I feel that this may just another one of those instances. Russia does something that wows the world, the US/UK responds with agit-prop... nick the idea, deploy it themselves.

So it could very well be just that. Yet, as always, I'd wager there's more to this than first meets the eye.

[ChaChaMooMoo]

There have been apps that have done this for years.

Was one which made you old, bald or fat years ago as did it with my nephew when he was about 9 (he’s 14 tomorrow).

Think the fact it’s a Russian based company which has got some people wary.

Absolutely. Snapchat is another one. Unless we are talking about the same thing.

They had filters that scanned every cm of your face and gave you peripherals like funky glasses, cat ears, big lips, Jamaican hair, anime eyes etc as an overlay. Snapchat said they didnt save the user data as well. But then again, how long does it really take to create an encrypted copy of what the camera sees and delete the "photo" data whilst saving the "encrypted" data at a remote Siberian server?

Just because its a Russian company, people are suddenly wary.

[Skidder.]

Absolutely. Snapchat is another one. Unless we are talking about the same thing.

They had filters that scanned every cm of your face and gave you peripherals like funky glasses, cat ears, big lips, Jamaican hair, anime eyes etc as an overlay. Snapchat said they didnt save the user data as well. But then again, how long does it really take to create an encrypted copy of what the camera sees and delete the "photo" data whilst saving the "encrypted" data at a remote Siberian server?

Just because its a Russian company, people are suddenly wary.

Russia is just like every other country and has been a silent powerhouse in the information era. Think of a lot of the internet virus' that went around the early days, where did the bulk of them come from? Russia's population dwarves many other countries and I don't know... didn't they have this thing called state sponsored surveillance for over 50+ years?

I stated myself that this may be a mitigating factor and will be first to admit it (as I did above).

It seems that virus creation and malware peddling has evolved.

I totally understand the paranoia and think that people who aren't suspicious of this (as many other apps too) are the ones who are crazy.

To repeat  I think people are forgetting that Snapchat, Instagram, etc... they have fully established companies who can be held accountable; generally, people can rationalise, argue the opposite until the cows come home. But that isn't a good comparison at all... It's a social media tool with an already established userbase.

I could go on, but I'd doubt it'd be read, acknowledged or even taken into account. Snapchat is Snapchat. I don't use it myself, but have done and I understand why people would be 'Okay, well, it's a bit like Snapchat, so... it's gotta be okay, right?' - but it isn't Snapchat - it's a totally different app governed by a different company, written by a different team, presumably for different reasons.