The Honest Courtesan

We deserve to know who is shooting us in the face even when they have their badge covered up.  –  Kyle McDonald

Pyrrhic Victory (#1275)

The very first prosocial application of facial recognition technology I’ve seen:

A new site, FuckLAPD.com, is using public records and facial recognition technology to allow anyone to identify [LAPD cops] they have a picture of.  The tool, made by artist Kyle McDonald, is designed to help people identify cops who may otherwise try to conceal their identity, such as covering their badge or serial number…The tool allows users to upload an image…to search over 9,000 LAPD headshots obtained via public record requests…image processing happens on the device, and no photos or data are transmitted or saved on the site…“This data has been provided in response to either public records requests or public records lawsuits…[so] fucklapd.com is not scraping any data”…Clicking “view profile” under the result[s sends users] to the Watch the Watchers site by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition…In 2018 McDonald made another tool called ICEspy which…does much the same thing as FuckLAPD.com…That tool originally used a Microsoft API, b[ut] Microsoft [censored] it…[so] McDonald…recently relaunched the tool to run locally on devices…

I Spy (#1533)

The writer of this article is one of those fools who thinks anything involving gadgets is laudable:

[Trump] He[nchman] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants [to force] everyone to wear a smartwatch, fitness tracker, or other [medical surveillance device] as part of his…agenda [to ban vaccines].  “My vision is every American is [subject to my surveillance] within four years,” he [bloviated, absurdly characterizing government surveillance as]… “people taking control over their own health”…[and further explaining that he wants every meal to become a bean-counting ordeal.  Fascist]…companies stand to benefit from a government-backed [demand] for Americans to buy their products, and Kennedy plans to soon [waste tens of millions in] “one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history to encourage Americans to use wearables”…Kennedy [also] plans to use [the] data…[to] track…and [persecute]…autis[tic people]…

Welcome to the Future (#1540)

I’m fine with this as long as it’s only tech companies harming each other:

As Scale AI seeks to reassure customers that their data is secure following [Facebook]’s $14.3 billion investment, leaked files and the startup’s own contractors indicate it has some serious security holes.  Scale AI routinely uses public Google Docs to track work for high-profile customers like Google, [Facebook], and [Twitter], leaving…training documents labeled “confidential” accessible to anyone with the link…the…method [is] efficient for its vast army of at least 240,000 contractors and presents clear cybersecurity and confidentiality risks…sensitive details about…[those] contractors [were also exposed], including their private email addresses and whether they were suspected of “cheating”…There’s no indication that [the company has yet] suffered a breach because of this….[but] such practices…leave the company and its clients vulnerable to various kinds of hacks, such as hackers impersonating contractors or uploading malware into accessible files…

Property of the State (#1545) 

How long will Western society allow cops and prosecutors to terrorize traumatized women?

…Women have faced pregnancy criminalization for decades, especially under drug laws…Pregnancy Justice has tracked more than 1,800 pregnancy-related arrests and detentions between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2022, when the decision was overturned.  But in the first year after Dobbs, Pregnancy Justice documented 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions, the most they’d found in a single year since they started this research.  And 22 cases involved…miscarriages, [mostly] in states with bans, like Idaho, but also in states with more liberal abortion policies…Alabama prosecutes more pregnant [women] than any other state…[especially] in Etowah County, wh[ere politicians and cops routinely abuse]…a 2006 chemical endangerment law intended to protect children from meth labs…[because] these cases are…more about emotion than science…serious charges are often dropped or reduced [due to lack of evidence], but by then, many of the harms of incarceration have already taken hold…[including bond fees,] reputationally damaging news headlines, [state abduction] of their other children, [and loss of] housing and employment…

Torture Chamber (#1546)

This will continue until the evil US immigration policy is reformed:

…911 calls from 10 of the nation’s largest…migra[nt dungeons] found that serious medical incidents are rising [in most] of the [cages]…at least 60 percent of the c[age stack]s…had reported serious pregnancy complications, suicide attempts, [and rapes].  Since January, these 10 [dungeons] have collectively placed nearly 400 emergency calls…50…involved…cardiac episodes, 26…seizures…17…head injuries…seven…suicide attempts…[and] six [rapes by screws.  But]…experts [say] the true number of medical emergencies is far higher…[because] many serious incidents [are ignored by staff, who prefer to yell “Stop faking!” at their victims instead of helping them]…Even among those that did [deign to call for] outside help, a third of all the calls had vague or nonexistent descriptions, with details often [censored] by authorities…

Creepy Coppers (ROTW #21)

Your “leaders” call this “correction”, but you don’t have to:

A [typical and representative Kansas screw named]…Brice Berk…[has been] arrest[ed for making]…and distribut[ing] child pornography…after a [report from] the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children…

Welcome to the Future (#1548)

Another of the many reasons not to play with chatbots:

…For years, OpenAI gave users the option to delete their conversations with ChatGPT, rather than let their personal queries linger on corporate servers.  Now, they can’t.  A badly misguided court order in a copyright lawsuit requires OpenAI to store all consumer ChatGPT conversations indefinitely—even if a user tries to delete them…ChatGPT’s 300+ million users submit over 1 billion messages to its chatbots per day, often for personal purposes…reveal[ing] personal details that, in aggregate, create a comprehensive portrait of a person’s entire life…Putting users in control of their data is a fundamental piece of privacy protection.  Nineteen states, the European Union, and numerous other countries already protect the right to delete under their privacy laws.  These rules exist for good reasons: retained data can be sold or given away, breached by hackers, disclosed to [rooting cops], or even used to manipulate a user’s choices through online behavioral advertising…The court granted the order based on [the authoritarian assumption] that users who delete their data are probably copyright infringers looking to “cover their tracks”…

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