Black Hat dangers

[whitetop]

Soon it will be practicable to take someone's photo on a smartphone and within minutes know their Social Security number and a range of other private data like their personal interests, sexual preference and credit status, researchers will tell the Black Hat security conference this week.

The technique calls for linking faces of random individuals to images in databases that contain other information about them and using that information to project Social Security numbers, says Alessandro Acquisti, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who will present the research at the conference.

He says if he can arrange the logistics, he will demonstrate the technique at the show using an application on a smartphone that taps cloud-based databases and facial recognition software. He uses Social Security numbers as an example of what can be projected, but other information such as sexual orientation and credit ratings can also be inferred, he says.

The point, Acquisti says, is to show that a framework of digital surveillance that can go from a person's image to personal data exists today and will only get better as technologies improve, making privacy more scarce and making surveillance readily available to the masses. "This, I believe and fear, is the future we are walking into," he says.

He admits the method is far from foolproof, but that the individual pieces of technology are developing rapidly and could be ready for use in the real world in the foreseeable future. He is working on projections of how long it will take for the technologies involved to develop to the point of being reliable.

The team compared the Facebook images using PittPatt face-recognition software to identify other photos of the same person in another database, namely that of a popular dating service where people registered under phony names.

The software correctly identified 1 in 10 dating site members, which the researchers say is pretty good considering the experiment used just one photo -- the Facebook profile photo -- to identify the person with the known identity.

Plus, they only considered PittPatt's best guess. Had they considered the second and third best guesses, accuracy might improve as well, he says.

The second experiment photographed random college students and asked them to fill out a questionnaire. Meanwhile, the photo was compared to others in online databases to identify the students realtime and compile other photos of them.

The students checked the photos and found they were accurate about a third of the time.

The third experiment took the subjects' Facebook profiles and, from inferences made from the profiles, predicted the first five digits of their Social Security numbers and their interests and activities.

The last part is an implementation of a Social Security number-predicting algorithm Acquisti presented at Black Hat two years ago. Based on when and where a person was born, the algorithm predicts the first five digits, which are based on location. It can then guesses the remaining digits, but that could take 100 tries.

[geraldrubalcava]

love the black hat conference! xD all i can say is that if you ever attend, dont use wifi, bluetooth, or GSM.... if not you will end up on the wall of sheep lol.

[Anonamous]

... im starting to think that anonymous is doing the right thing. this is going a little bit too far. This can easily be used to steal somebody's identity and only requires a smartphone. Who doesnt have a smartphone these days (besides me :/)

[geraldrubalcava]

even if you dont have a smart phone, if your phone is GSM, (att, t-mobile) then your vulnerable as a sitting duck...

annon and lulz have there own agendas. they are like cyberpunks trying to fight the system. but the point of black hat is not to use the security holes to hack people.

the point of this conference is to just point out they security flaws some systems have...

[Anonamous]

even if you dont have a smart phone, if your phone is GSM, (att, t-mobile) then your vulnerable as a sitting duck...

annon and lulz have there own agendas. they are like cyberpunks trying to fight the system. but the point of black hat is not to use the security holes to hack people.

the point of this conference is to just point out they security flaws some systems have...

oh ok, so its basically doing what anonymous and lulz are doing but just professionally and legally lol.

[geraldrubalcava]

yup! and no.... what black hat is just proof of concept. annon and lulz do it for a explicit purpose, its like the difference between hacking and cyber-criminal.

[FOOKz™]

This is Black hat social science at it's finest. You won't get any better than this.

[geraldrubalcava]

yup! lol. i attended last year.. and boy... you cant even trust a atm machine in the convention there. lol or you will end up in the wall of sheep too :/

[1TONpete]

Face it people we are already sheep. That is all I will say about this. I have been warning people about the dangers of internet security for some time, this is just another tool to take away our privacy.

[geraldrubalcava]

yea man thats true. but when your tech savy, you have to outway the pros and the cons. you lose some of your privacy but you gain a valuable tool.

we are all sheep in deed. Because anything man made can be revered engineered by man.

[FOOKz™]

This is why i don't have a cell phone, why i don't use facebook as much as people do. Paypal for untrustworthy online transactions. Everyone listen if you ever give out personal info through the mail like taxes please follow up and contact the recipient so you know the mail did not get jacked by a crook. I am so glad i don't use my laptop in public areas lmfao i keep the wifi switch off when i walk around to save battery anyways.

Yeah guys some of these hack tools they use are free download and anybody can learn how to use them. Realistically if they are doing data mining to this kind of extent then why don't we just call them Google/Facebook employees if they has this kind of access?

[XsavioR]

This is why i don't have a cell phone, why i don't use facebook as much as people do. Paypal for untrustworthy online transactions. Everyone listen if you ever give out personal info through the mail like taxes please follow up and contact the recipient so you know the mail did not get jacked by a crook. I am so glad i don't use my laptop in public areas lmfao i keep the wifi switch off when i walk around to save battery anyways.

Yeah guys some of these hack tools they use are free download and anybody can learn how to use them. Realistically if they are doing data mining to this kind of extent then why don't we just call them Google/Facebook employees if they has this kind of access?

Fookz if you look closely on your drivers license you will notice little grey dots , if you understand how facial recognition works you will realize those dots are facial recognition dots. (This is why your not permitted to smile on passport pictures).  Its too late. you are in the system no matter what you do now. 

This is relevant because my liscense is 7 years old and has them. Vegas has had the tech for years.  So when you log into fb it logs the ip, then you come here under different alias , its all logged. Any thing you do, any time your on a camera there is potential to log it , and tie it to your DL.  Welcome to the age of accountability.

[1TONpete]

Well as of  today I deleted all my pics from FB and deactivated my account, next will be my old unused myspace. Eventually I will be limiting my internet access to IRC when I want to talk to someone and if I want to do any surfing it will be on a different IP. I am not doing anything wrong, but I am all ready part of the system and I want to remove all traces I can from the internet. I am very worried about the path we are on and I have to much at stake to risk my families well being. I used to use FB as a tool , but now everyone I know has become so diluted by Jerry Springer type drama and stupid FB games. (FB crack) I dont need it anymore. The only site i use as much as say google is this one. And sorry AM but eventually I will leave here also.

[FOOKz™]

Yep my licence is all holographic and stuff its got lines on it too that are in specific places all over my face.

Our constitutional rights of privacy are structured on how 'big internet corp' wants to use our browsing history. The government is forcing laws upon service providers to strip our anonymity for sake of security (LOL), These hackers are probably trying prove the large collection of personal data is dangerously accessible by anyone who wants it. They are also trying to prove to the gov't that its not such a good idea to strip rights even when it means doxing a few innocent people.

Compare lulzsec as a 5yr old having a hissy-fit versus a team of proffessional hackers as an adult having a nice debate. lmao

Don't post on the internet boys or you'll be sleeping with the fishes.

[XsavioR]

You should check this out
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=497

[GhoSt]

Not much point deleting things already posted, the Internet never forgets.

[PsychoticWolf]

When I do "Work" on the internet I use Tor Configured proper. A Paid Anon VPN and a Proxy. So when I do "Work" I am Hidden like a Boss.

[FOOKz™]

hook me up with a VPN?

[PsychoticWolf]

hook me up with a VPN?

I pay for my VPN Services. It took awhile to find a company that doesn't mind Fake information as long as they get paid. which isn't a problem as they take BitCoin so anonymous transactions and fake information I love it.