Point, Click, Stalk?

By Robin Sax and Guest Contributor Melissa Alonzo Kriz

Ever pass by a building or landmark, wonder what it is, and wish you could find out right on the spot? Now you can -- with the click of your phone's camera and the launch of "Goggles," a new image-recognition technology that instantly provides pictures and information based on a single photo. The beta (still in testing) application was developed by Google to run on the Android operating system, also developed by Google for mobile devices.

This remarkable visual search technology soon will be expanded to allow a user to take a mobile-phone picture of an item (work of art, book, plant, etc.), then instantly search for similar images and information about the object on the Internet. As our technological capabilities increase exponentially, we might all say this was inevitable. We might be comfortable with how we'll use the new programs for fun and for good. 

But a pause is necessary.

Imagine you are at the gym or the grocery store, and a creep sidles up and manages to take a picture of you with his cell phone. Within seconds, using this image-recognition technology, he would have access to your photos on Facebook and find your name, where you work and live, and any other information about you that exists in cyberspace. That's a scary prospect. 

Take it one step further: What happens when predator aims his camera at a child on the playground? The predator would have access to similar images of the child on the web; they could lead to the child's name, school and possibly home address.

Goggles is currently limited to letting users find and learn about inanimate objects. However, technologies (including a yet-unreleased component of Goggles itself) already exist that use similar methods to crawl the web looking for images containing facial characteristics of people. The photos could be culled from your employer's public website, online community newsletters, schools' and universities' sites, Facebook and other social-networking sites, and any other public area on the web where your photo may reside (even without your knowledge).

Google has taken some heat for privacy concerns on some of its services, so for now it is holding off from releasing the facial-recognition aspect of Goggles. However, other software developers are already delivering mobile and web applications containing facial-recognition technology. Just look at your iPhoto if you are a Mac user.

The Swedish company The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) is currently testing a product called Recognizr. The TAT product allows a user to snap a photo of anyone in public, select the "recognize" button, and then receive photos and information about that person from social networking sites. TAT does have privacy policies; they offer an opt-in provision (or permission) from the subject of the photo in order for Recognizr to work. 

But TAT doesn't plan to offer its service directly to consumers. Instead, it will make the technology available to mobile-phone makers and phone-service provides so they can develop their own applications.These companies may or may not choose to follow TAT's privacy standards.

Face.com, an Israeli company, also has developed several products that include facial-recognition technology. Developers will be able to use and expand upon its services. One Face.com product, CelebrityFinder, uses facial recognition technology to pull all photos (and lookalikes) of a celebrity from Twitter feeds. Face.com is in the process of enhancing the face detection function to include profile poses. Face.com privacy policies say the use of its product may not violate user privacy, and that users must inform their subjects that they've been tagged and provide them the ability to remove those tags. I feel safe already.

The bottom line is that the facial recognition technology is already here. We live in a "point, click, and stalk" world. So how can we protect ourselves, and our families, from stalkers who'll use this technology to their criminal advantage? It is unlikely we can pass an enforceable law making it a crime to take a non-celebrity's photo in public, even if the photo taken is of a child.

Perhaps federal legislation could be aimed at the technology companies and mobile phone carriers? We could demand strong, mandatory privacy policies for the facial-recognition software from Face.com, TAT, and other developers as a pre-condition of sale or use. While this type of legislation wouldn't guarantee protection from illicit use of this potentially creepy technology, it would assist in increasing consumer awareness. Most of all, we must hold those who develop, host, and use the technology accountable so we can prevent the next wave of cyber-stalking before it begins.

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October: Cybersecurity Awareness Month

by Robin Sax

Did you know October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month? Although it's intended to teach Internet users about reporting and avoiding crime, I'd never heard about until recently -- and I live in the world of Internet crime and safety! This is actually the sixth year the Department of Homeland Security has marked Cybersecurity Awareness. They put on events and have lots of information on how to stay safe on the Internet. See http://dhs.gov/ for more details. The information on their site is important to review (for those of us who use the Internet – just a few billion of us), and not many of those billion people know where to get the resources or knowledge to implement Internet safety.

For example, do you know where to file a complaint about a crime that involved the Internet? If you answered law enforcement or the FBI, you get partial credit. The actual answer is much more complicated, an entire protocol for where and how to report crimes related to the ever-growing World Wide Web.

To determine some of the federal investigative law enforcement agencies that may be appropriate for reporting certain kinds of Internet crime, please refer to the following table:

As you can see, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) noted quite a lot on this chart. So what is the IC3? I bet you didn’t even know that it existed. In their own words, The Internet Crime Complaint Center “is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). IC3’s mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cybercrime. The IC3 gives the victims of cybercrime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, and local level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes.”

IC3 seems to give an appearance of some sort of coordinated effort between agencies - at least in the reporting of Internet crime. That is a good thing. But what about before the crime occurs – is there a coordinated effort to prevent the crime. In other words, if someone is reporting a crime it means that most likely someone was already victimized. Is after the fact reporting enough? OR do we need to figure out how to police the Web prior to victimization?

The Internet is the largest city in the world. It literally has portals and accessibility to everyone—adults, children, young, old, thieves, pervs, predators, and hundreds of millions of others. While there may be individual rules and regulations for specific sites, or in specific countries, there is very little “law of the land” -- other than the concept of what is illegal in real life is illegal online as well.

There are many Internet crimes that are readily known due to effective media, astute educators - who take the time to bring information to their school communities, successful public relations campaigns, or from the unfortunate victimization of people we hear about or even our own family and friends.

Most people have heard of -or use- social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and My Space and also know some online lingo (such as LOL, TTYS, etc.). Many people have heard of concepts such as texting, tweeting, sexting, and cyber-bullying. But there are literally of hundreds of aspects of the Internet that we don’t know about…and we may never know about. There is an underground to the Internet, and it can be very scary.

So what do we do? Bury our heads? Pretend it is not happening? Just complain about it? How about we learn about what we don’t know. Staying current with technology is a must our world today. Figuring out what things are worthy of fear and what things are not can save us from a lot of anxiety. It is critical that we keep our knowledge current about Internet “threats” and can be prepared to face them.

And even though I am going to give you some simple steps you take today to be safer on the Internet, the best way to even know what we are worried about is to peruse, search, and click through the Internet. You can't fear something that you don't know about. Don't simply trust the hype, check it out for yourself. For example, many parents fear "Facebook" but I happen to think that Facebook is among the safer social networking sites out there. They actually have a protocol for dealing with hate crimes, pervs, and bullies. They have security and privacy measures and work diligently to address the issues as the site grows. Is every social networking site that way? No way!! And our social networking sites the only place where trouble lurks? No way. There are websites, ad-sites, instant messaging services, and many more avenues where trouble can surface.

So what's the answer? Know what you don't know. I know it seems daunting and time consuming and it can be. But don't let it!!! Chip away with a places, click through, check it out, and if you need help ASK!!! Want to know what your kids are doing online and can't bear checking yourself? There are sources and resources for help. But if nothing else, keep these tips in mind:

For Your Computer

• Make sure that you have anti-virus software and firewalls installed, properly configured, and up-to-date. New threats are discovered every day, and keeping your software updated is one of the easier ways to protect yourself from an attack. Set your computer to automatically update for you.
• Update your operating system and critical program software. Software updates offer the latest protection against malicious activities. Turn on automatic updating if that feature is available.
• Back up key files. If you have important files stored on your computer, copy them onto a removable disc and store it in a safe place.

For Yourself (Habits To Adopt)

• If you get deceptive spam, including email “phishing” for your information (that means a scam site that is looking for you to input your personal information for the purpose of stealing it), forward it immediately to spam@uce.gov. Be sure to include the full Internet header of the email. Also forward the email to the company, bank, or organization that is impersonated in the phishing email.
• Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect your personal information.
• If your computer gets hacked or infected by a virus immediately unplug the phone or cable line from your machine. Then scan your entire computer with fully updated anti-virus software, and update your firewall.
• If a scammer takes advantage of you through an Internet auction, when you're shopping online, or in any other way, report it to the Federal Trade Commission, at ftc.gov.

For Your Friends, Family, Colleagues

• Use regular communications in your business (newsletters, e-mail alerts, etc.) and in your home (conversations with your partner and children) to increase awareness on Internet safety issues.
• Set up household and workplace rules on issues such as updating software processes, protecting personal information, securing your wireless network, software downloads, spyware, email attachments.
• Make your preferences clear to your friends regarding email “Forwards” and suspicious attachments.

For more tips, visit: http://http//www.staysafeonline.org/top-tips

Bottom line: educate yourself, be smart, be safe online! Treat the online community like a city street – walk where there are lights, don’t travel in a back ally, keep your senses alert, don’t trust strangers, etc. A small amount of preparation will go a long way in protecting yourself and your family!

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