GuzzyBone Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 Hello everyone. I am new here and this is my first post so please forgive me for making it a criticism, but before I post anything else I thought I should get this out of the way and at the very least bring it to the attention of the webmaster of the FreeDomainRadio message board.I registered on this site to engage in critical discussion and analysis of various philosophical, social, and other subjects like the kinds discussed on FreeDomainRadio, but as I was registering I felt I had to morally compromise my values and sacrifice an ethical principle to gain access to participating in the conversation of this message board.Specifically what I am talking about is ReCaptcha, which is a little box that is used by various online services to determine whether the subscriber is a human or merely an AdBot. However ReCaptcha is specifically using photos of street address numbers taken from people's private residences (like on their mailbox or by their front door) and then using user-fed content to database and determine the address numbers of these residences. In other words, they make US build their spy grid database for them, without having to pay anyone at all. Not only do I find this unethical, but also an extremely disturbing trend that is followed with little resistance or questioning. My understanding is that this is being done by Google, using Google Streetview images.Can I prove my accusation? No. But I think the pictures of people's houses speak for themselves.I have tried to fool these things numerous times by plugging in a wrong number, so that I can bypass compromising my values, but I have had little luck doing this (it only worked once). This is likely because it determines the correct number based on the majority of other user-fed answers to the ReCaptcha.I really hope FDR sees the ill intent of this system of bot-catching and changes to something that doesn't involve enabling such a breach of privacy and exploitation of general ignorance to what people are getting involved with. 4 2
J. D. Stembal Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 I never really thought about Captchas in this light before. I simply thought that they were annoying as all get out. Thank you for the insights. I prefer the audio ones that recite a string of letters and numbers, but this would be an obvious problem for the deaf.
shirgall Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Yes, for some time captchas have been used to verify machine learning (as has efforts like Amazon Turk). It doesn't have to be for a sinister purpose, but for the most part when machines get better at recognizing street addresses and license plates, it can be used for good things or bad things.
GuzzyBone Posted June 10, 2015 Author Posted June 10, 2015 The public display of photographs of private residences to catalog and database private homes without consent, by using customers as your free work force. 4 ethical principles violated, customer exploitation, moral compromise, deceit (as many are largely ignorant of what they are participating in), and personal privacy. 1
wdiaz03 Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 I have a stupid question. What is the benefit of having humans verify a house number that a computer already knows? What I mean is that the USPS already knows the location of all the addresses in the country. Private homes are ALREADY cataloged. I don't understand what is the gain here or what the concern is . 1
GuzzyBone Posted June 11, 2015 Author Posted June 11, 2015 While it's true that the illusion of privacy is mostly that, an illusion... this doesn't change that Personal Information (Name, Phone Number, Address, Zip Code) is one of the most highly-traded and valuable commodities right now.When a sweepstakes is giving away a car, you trade your personal information for the value of potentially winning the car. The company running the sweepstakes inevitably ends up making far more money off of your information than the value of the car.So,A. Yes, your information is already out there.B. Not all businesses and government offices have it.C. But, they really want it, and are often willing to pay for it.Junk mail can be staggering and make owning a mailbox quite an awful experience. Targeted advertising can make someone feel violated and watched.The collection of information and assigning of personal attributes to your personal information, is a very large rising industry and we have only begun to consider the ethical implications of this practice.The cheapest way to collect this information is to have people give it to you voluntarily (without them realizing they are essentially handing their info to a government or advertising agency). In other words, using deceit to exploit customers into giving up a valuable commodity for free.The reason Re-Captcha knows the house numbers already is because it is user-fed and it cross checks your answer with other user-input.
shirgall Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 What is the benefit of having humans verify a house number that a computer already knows? The ReCAPTCHA and Amazon Turk gambits were to improve machine learning and interpretation of less-than-optimal images of letters and numbers, not verification of addresses.
wdiaz03 Posted June 13, 2015 Posted June 13, 2015 The ReCAPTCHA and Amazon Turk gambits were to improve machine learning and interpretation of less-than-optimal images of letters and numbers, not verification of addresses. This I can understand, but not what the OP is talking about. Thanks for the clarification,
ribuck Posted June 13, 2015 Posted June 13, 2015 (LOL, anyone notice the performative contradiction of GuzzyBone posting a photo of a house number on FDR while complaining about FDR posting photos of house numbers?) Everything that is free has a price. In this case, the price to use ReCatpcha is much less than the price for FDR staff to block spam registrations some other way. Google uses the data to fine-tune their character recogniation algorithms, but also presumably to directly enhance their mapping database. That way, if you use the "free" Google Maps navigation service to go to 1234 Smith Street, there is a high probability that you will end up in the correct place. This is not a bad thing. The photos are of private houses, but they're taken from the street so I don't see a problem here. House-owners deliberately put a number on their building to help people identify it, so they've implicitly given consent. If they don't want to do this, they can remove their number and give descriptive directions to their house instead of a street address (e.g. "turn right at the fire station and it's the third house on the left; the one without a number"). Any branch of the USG that wants house numbers has them already (USPS, public utilities, police, planning departments, etc). ReCaptcha is no use to the government at all. Now let me tell you why I don't use ReCaptcha on my own websites (Instead, I generate random-word captchas on my server). ReCaptcha also acts as a tracking beacon. Google can get the same type of information that they would get from, say, a website with a Google Analytics link (website, referrer, browser signature, operating system, etc). I don't know whether Google uses this information. It would not be unethical for them to do so, but it would be discourteous and anti-social.
john cena Posted June 21, 2015 Posted June 21, 2015 Hello all! (My first post) Very informative post. I have been trying to warn people about this for a long time.. Not only do you hate entering the captchas but you're also a slave.. While it does have a LOT of value for a site like this and is certainly needed, I think another solution would be possible. It's one thing to do what ReCaptcha does, but to hide it is another. What about 2-3 IQ test type questions displayed to register? Not to test IQ but to merely register the user as a thinking person. Interestingly, anonymous took on captcha a while back and this is actually how I found out about it: (Pardon the pejorative but its not being used as an insult but rather used in hope that if enough people misued the system it would go under. https://www.google.com/search?q=operation+renigger&safe=off&es_sm=93&biw=1680&bih=949&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=fy6GVd6UHcOtyASNrbGwDg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#imgrc=j2k7T4hI_qXDyM%253A%3BoC_KUvlc5hp0OM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fstatic.fjcdn.com%252Fpictures%252FOperation%252Brenigger%252Boriginally%252Bfrom%252B4chan%252Byou%252Bmay%252Bhave%252Bseen%252Bthis_13f73e_3563808.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.funnyjunk.com%252Fchannel%252F4chan%252FOperation%252Brenigger%252FBTeMGOG%252F%3B780%3B695
ribuck Posted June 21, 2015 Posted June 21, 2015 I think "Correctly spell Stefan's last name" would keep the spambots out.
st434u Posted June 21, 2015 Posted June 21, 2015 I've seen captchas where the images are digitally generated by the server, and are perfectly readable to the human eye, but not to bots.
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