[580] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] "The FBI Shouldn't Play with Google Images!"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Sat Jan 16 23:34:58 2010
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:09:58 -0800
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"The FBI Shouldn't Play with Google Images!"
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000669.html
Greetings.
This one's from the "Fun with Photoshop and Google Images Department":
There's a funky old 1972 movie called "Children Shouldn't Play with
Dead Things" ( http://bit.ly/5dNXG9 ) -- but we might want to headline
a new embarrassment for the FBI by the somewhat similar title: "The
FBI Shouldn't Play with Google Images!"
Actually, the situation would be even more funny if it weren't
potentially so serious. On Friday, to considerable fanfare and media
attention, the U.S. State Department released a "digitally enhanced
and aged" image of Osama bin Laden, complete with a reminder of the
$25-million reward for his capture or obliteration ( http://bit.ly/6mBHBj ).
Just one problem. It didn't take long for a top Spanish lawyer and
Member of Parliament to notice that the new image representing the
world's most wanted man was ... uh ... strikingly similar to his own
face. Cough, choke, spit out the coffee onto the newspaper! Ouch.
Now comes the really good part. The FBI originally had claimed that
it aged terror suspect photos using "cutting edge" technology. But
after Gaspar Llamazares (who turns out to be a critic of the U.S. "war
on terror") expressed concerns about sharing much of his face with
someone carrying such a massive bounty, the FBI admitted to using a
somewhat different procedure in this case.
It turns out that they lifted a photo of Llamazares from an old
campaign poster found on Google Images, then simply cut and pasted his
hair, jaw line, and forehead onto bin Laden's face ( http://bit.ly/77iMEO ).
The State Department has now pulled that photo down from their wanted
terrorists Web Site.
As you can imagine, Llamazares is most definitely not amused.
But it could have been worse. The FBI might have used images of Conan
O'Brien and Jay Leno to update bin Laden's visage.
Now that's scary.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
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