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Links for 2015-10-06

  • Marvin.ie: Order Takeaway Food Online

    new Dublin delivery service takes Bitcoin?!

    (tags: bitcoin food delivery takeaway payment ireland dublin wtf)

  • qp tries: smaller and faster than crit-bit tries

    interesting new data structure from Tony Finch. “Some simple benchmarks say qp tries have about 1/3 less memory overhead and are about 10% faster than crit-bit tries.”

    (tags: crit-bit popcount bits bitmaps tries data-structures via:fanf qp-tries crit-bit-tries hacks memory)

  • Schneier on Automatic Face Recognition and Surveillance

    When we talk about surveillance, we tend to concentrate on the problems of data collection: CCTV cameras, tagged photos, purchasing habits, our writings on sites like Facebook and Twitter. We think much less about data analysis. But effective and pervasive surveillance is just as much about analysis. It’s sustained by a combination of cheap and ubiquitous cameras, tagged photo databases, commercial databases of our actions that reveal our habits and personalities, and ­– most of all ­– fast and accurate face recognition software. Don’t expect to have access to this technology for yourself anytime soon. This is not facial recognition for all. It’s just for those who can either demand or pay for access to the required technologies ­– most importantly, the tagged photo databases. And while we can easily imagine how this might be misused in a totalitarian country, there are dangers in free societies as well. Without meaningful regulation, we’re moving into a world where governments and corporations will be able to identify people both in real time and backwards in time, remotely and in secret, without consent or recourse. Despite protests from industry, we need to regulate this budding industry. We need limitations on how our images can be collected without our knowledge or consent, and on how they can be used. The technologies aren’t going away, and we can’t uninvent these capabilities. But we can ensure that they’re used ethically and responsibly, and not just as a mechanism to increase police and corporate power over us.

    (tags: privacy regulation surveillance bruce-schneier faces face-recognition machine-learning ai cctv photos)

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