kashhill

kashhill, 1 month ago to random

For the last few months, I've been reporting on how data from our cars is being used in ways we might not expect.

I didn't realize it, but my own car was spying on me the entire time.

How it happened to me, and to millions of other people who drive cars made by General Motors:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/technology/general-motors-spying-driver-data-consent.html

kashhill, 2 months ago to random

My story about how telematics data from people's cars unexpectedly raised their insurance rates is on the front page today...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b00.DzhQ.GXkvg-kgWebx&smid=url-share

... and this is where it started: me lurking on car forums and seeing comments like this.

If this story doesn't convince lawmakers we need a strong federal privacy law, I'm not sure what will.

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dangillmor, 2 months ago to random

@kashhill The "Vehicle Privacy Report" in your story gave me wildly inaccurate information about my car...

kashhill, 7 months ago to random

Okay, I know a lot of people have said I should have titled the book "All Your Face Are Belong To Us."

If you are in that camp, this post is for you. Oblong Books is going to be offering specially inscribed copies of the book. I will cross out the title, replace it with the meme brain version, and autograph it.

Get that version here! https://www.oblongbooks.com/your-face-belongs-us-secretive-startups-quest-end-privacy-we-know-it-hardcover-signed-kashmir-hill

Zerowing meme edited to read All Your Face Are Belong To Us

kashhill, 7 months ago to random

Excellent story on police turning to Google to solve crimes by asking the company to tell them whose phones have been near the scene of a crime and who searched for an incriminating piece of evidence.

"In law enforcement, as in life, sometimes it’s easier to ask Google for the answer."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-09-28/google-user-data-is-police-s-top-shortcut-for-solving-crimes?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY5NTkwODQwMCwiZXhwIjoxNjk2NTEzMjAwLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTMU9HSFFUMVVNMFgwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJFNzAxNENGQzIzNTI0MzU0QTVENUY2QkREMDAxOEU3NiJ9.hQdndsctzUxy26-09-BmMVCSacJkYBdNNw1Awmb48ns

kashhill, 8 months ago to random

We're standing on the brink of a world in which facial recognition runs amok and anonymity is impossible.

@josephcox has a new banger of a story on a Taylor Swift stan account dedicated to naming (and shaming) otherwise unknown people who appear in viral TikToks: https://www.404media.co/the-end-of-privacy-is-a-taylor-swift-fan-tiktok-account-armed-with-facial-recognition-tech/

I think it's still possible to intervene before use of face search engines like this becomes fully normalized. Read my new book which gets a nice shoutout in this story! https://kashmirhill.com/book

kashhill, 8 months ago to random

Your Face Belongs To Us comes out Tuesday!

Years of research into Clearview AI and facial recognition technology in one speedy little read.

Publisher's Weekly said: "Combining vivid reportage with a chilling overview of facial recognition technology’s capabilities, this unnerves."

Here's a sneak peek and you can listen to an audio sample from the first chapter here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691288/your-face-belongs-to-us-by-kashmir-hill/

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kashhill, 8 months ago to random

A few years ago, I got a tip that seemed too outrageous to be true: A mysterious company called Clearview AI claimed it had scraped billions of photos from the public web to identify just about anyone based only on a snapshot of their face.

It led me on a fascinating reporting journey and to my book, YOUR FACE BELONGS TO US, coming out in 3 weeks! One big question is whether the average person is ready for a world in which anonymity ceases to exist.

Preorder here! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691288/your-face-belongs-to-us-by-kashmir-hill/

kashhill, 8 months ago to random

My book, Your Face Belongs To Us, comes out in three weeks! I'll be wandering the country talking about it. Here are a few of my stops, with more to come. All preorders are highly appreciated, happy to sign if you make it to one of these events! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691288/your-face-belongs-to-us-by-kashmir-hill/

kashhill, 9 months ago to random

I have another story on a false arrest as a result of police use of facial recognition technology. This time, it was a woman who was 8 months pregnant. She was charged with robbery and carjacking for a crime committed two weeks earlier by a not visibly pregnant woman. You can read the story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/technology/facial-recognition-false-arrest.html?unlocked_article_code=qsFuuNKvnjIr6VoVXR3zV4AS1_jB8oyxiT3TEwCA6NuuAlx66Co8nU8kJ07djnLtjckQ7ZtehNThM7bCtGPjbrhlj8jUjFzp8QAA9UZ7I6N7gSoaXQzdB0alh_n_I-umkZ50fXwvrTLZzuDiMTwJYuW_w6X3OXr03k0POapGP7hfwT28eVMooxl-5nIhKpXwoJeaE6CR1BEQfUxMGIJz6I4tE-T_FuxBPXyZ8_krseECL7CFezED7hPZnrnaE2aImL8fAhYLdgicSdjZmCnAWXe6V8Ng-ujP9iZrah3XBjohulZGTNjwP1tPx25poO517VCgsm2V0ZO3LYZcbRv4-dByPva8YI2Zn3KM6g&smid=url-share

Or I did a thread on the x-bird site. https://twitter.com/kashhill/status/1688163609984069632

kashhill, 10 months ago to random

I was talking to @randomwalker a while back about AI and asked him what he thought I should be reporting on. He said GPT-4 was multimodal, meaning it could accept images, and that he was surprised OpenAI hadn't yet released the ability to upload images to ChatGPT. He speculated that OpenAI had inadvertently built a face recognition machine. So obviously I reported that out: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/18/technology/openai-chatgpt-facial-recognition.html

kashhill, 10 months ago to random

This is an interesting formulation on a shift that's happened in terms of how companies/people are thinking about online data: “Previously, the thought was that you got value from data by making it open to everyone and running ads. Now, the thought is that you lock your data up, because you can extract much more value when you use it as an input to your A.I.”
From this article on the "data revolts" https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/15/technology/artificial-intelligence-models-chat-data.html

kashhill, 10 months ago to random

Y'all it is all happening so fast. Read my book. Be prepared. (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691288/your-face-belongs-to-us-by-kashmir-hill/) Woman in Portland has to look up at a facial recognition camera before she can walk into a gas station convenience store: https://www.tiktok.com/@karmifaye/video/6844038219017866501

kashhill, 1 year ago to random

This week, I got pitched by a PR guy who expressed admiration for a book I wrote. Except I didn't write the book and when I Googled the title, no one else had either. I emailed the guy back: "What did you think of the book? 😉" That led him to admit that "someone used ChatGPT" and it gave a bio for me with this invented piece of information. The guy was embarrassed but I found it fascinating. ChatGPT hasn't learned how to tell the truth but it has learned plausibility. Beware, early adopters!

kashhill, 1 year ago to random

Last year, I stalked my husband for a month using AirTags, Tiles & a GPS tracker. (Before you advise he divorce me, know that he gave me permission! He was surprised, however, that a NYT photographer secretly trailed him around the city one day.) It was incredibly hard for him to detect or find these trackers, even with his iPhone sometimes alerting him about Airtags.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/technology/airtags-gps-surveillance.html

Today, Apple & Google announced plans to deter such unwanted tracking. Impact! https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-google-partner-on-an-industry-specification-to-address-unwanted-tracking/

kashhill, 1 year ago to random

The artist revolt against AI-powered art generators is in full swing. Artists have filed a class-action lawsuit in California against Stability AI and Midjourney. They've raised money for a D.C. lobbyist. And soon they will have a technological countermeasure, a tool designed by U of Chicago computer scientists that will "cloak" art posted online so that it won't be "feeding this monster that becomes more and more like them." My latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/technology/ai-art-generator-lensa-stable-diffusion.html